Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  Now Yarak understood. All the time this girl had been thinking of her nest, her izba. She was making it ready for the man, so he would not sit with empty hands on the doorstep, watching people walking by along the road, eyeing other girls.

  Praska laughed happily. "Look for your wealth, uncle. Didn't you say you had wealth? Now you can settle down at a cottage of your own."

  The soldiers looked at him curiously. Yarak considered with bent head. When he had had wealth, matters had not gone well with him.

  "No, girl," he said, "that's well enough for a woman. But what did you tell me in the moonlight? This Tamerlane settled down with his wealth, and straight away he died, so they put him in a tomb. And these gold finders outside, they retired during the war, and what happened to them? It's a dangerous thing to do, and that's God's truth."

  With a nod, he left the searchers, taking with him only one bottle of brandy and one of vodka. And even for these, he gave the soldiers payment in foreign bank notes.

  He went out to his saddle horse, to the road that led toward the west, where battles were still being fought.

  Wolf-Hounds of the Steppe

  Chapter I Pulling Up His Stakes

  'Twas early evening on the steppe, and the level rays of the setting sun gilded the cartwheel which hung on a pole in front of the abode of Paul Ostalim, blacksmith. The cartwheel indicated to passers-by on the highway the presence of a smithy in the gully shaded by willows. Like all the other hamlets of the steppe in southern Russia, Ostalim's cottage was in a ravine. This was for two reasons: first, the brooklet in the gully; second, protection from the bands of marauders who made the steppe a battleground in the last quarter of the sixteenth century.

  The sun also revealed the tall figure of Ostalim leaning against the pole where he could command a view of the highway. Bareheaded the smith was, with brown curls falling to his powerful shoulders, his arms crossed over the sheepskin svitza which covered his broad chest. Unlike most of his brother Cossacks, he was plainly dressed in baggy trousers supported by a broad leather belt, and heavy brown boots blackened by his trade. With one foot he was caressing the back of a borzoi, one of his splendid pair of wolfhounds which served as companions in the lonely hamlet, and a smile twitched at his black mustache, and shone in his brown eyes as the dog gave a sigh of contentment.

  The next instant master and dog were keenly alert, for sounds heralding the approach of travelers echoed along the road. Without moving from his place by the pole, Ostalim's gaze searched the approaching dust cloud and identified it as harmless. For he saw a tarataika, or carriage, of a wealthy man drawn by two shaggy ponies, accompanied by two Cossacks on horseback, and in it was seated a woman.

  In a moment the carriage had come to a halt before the smithy, and one of the mounted Cossacks was whirling his horse in a dashing fashion before the eyes of the woman. This rider attracted Ostalim's gaze by the splendor of his attire, which consisted of red leather boots, a red cloak held by a flowered belt, a black sheepskin hat, and a saber of Turkish design in a gold-chased scabbard. Jewels glittered at the Cossack's throat and on his fingers, which the smith observed to be overslender for much use of the sword.

  "Hey, smith!" called he of the finery. "My horse has cast a shoe. Busy yourself with getting ready another, and you would have a gold piece instead of a lash across that broad back of yours."

  Ostalim liked neither the other's words nor the covert look that the rider shot at the occupant of the carriage, as if to call attention to his elegant manners. Little was visible of the girl except a bright, smiling face, and a pair of dark eyes shaded on either side by two long ringlets, for she was wrapped in a long cloak and hood. But her dress and the carriage proclaimed that she was the daughter of some patrician, and Ostalim thought to himself that she was not one to endure lightly the overbearing manner of her escort.

  "In truth," he said mildly, "I am no shoer of horses, honorable sir, but a maker of swords and spears and such-like. Wherefore, you will see that it is not possible for me to minister to your need. It is not far, however, to the sloboda Ruvno, where you may find a proper blacksmith."

  The brows of the Cossack addressed knitted together, and he drew his horse nearer to Ostalim.

  "I see that you are a surly rascal," he growled, "and will have the scourge instead of the gold piece. Shoe my horse for me or you sleep tonight on broken bones."

  "Hold that lively tongue of yours, Stepan Vertivitch!" broke in his companion, a powerful Cossack with a good-humored, red face, who measured many feet about the belt. "Do you not see that the smith speaks truth? There are several goodly swords within his shop, not to mention a pistol or two."

  "Then why does the lying dog hang a cart wheel before his door?" snarled Vertivitch. "Are we to sit here and quarrel while the light fails and Mirovna Cherevaty longs to join her father before the feast at Ruvno tonight?"

  "Mirovna Cherevaty may go to her father," replied the stout Cossack, who seemed to enjoy his companion's bad temper, "while you sit here and quarrel, Stepan Vertivitch, for I am a good enough man to take her to the feast."

  Vertivitch's reply was to free the stout whip that he carried at his side and raise it over the smith's shoulder. Ostalim made no movement beyond a narrowing of the eyes, but the two borzoi rose to their feet with a menacing growl.

  At once the voice of the girl broke the tense silence. "Put up your whip, Stepan Vertivitch," she called in a clear voice. "You will not shoe your horse any quicker with a scourge. As for you, smith, what is your name?"

  "Paul Ostalim, Lady," replied that individual calmly.

  "Ostalim?" Her brow wrinkled in perplexity. "I have heard the name before surely. Indeed I am in great distress, honorable sir, because we are already late upon our journey. I have come from friends in Kiev with Stepan Vertivitch to a feast tonight at the house of my father, ataman of Ruvno, and the horse of the Cossack delays us, having fallen lame with no shoe. Cannot you shoe the horse, so that we may proceed?"

  She leaned forward from the carriage as she spoke, and Ostalim met the eager appeal of her eyes with his steadfast scrutiny.

  "Be quiet, fools!" he muttered to the dogs, and added: "It is not well that the daughter of Ataman Cherevaty be kept from her home at nightfall because of an ill-shod horse. I have some skill at shoeing my own horse, and I might make shift to remedy the trouble for the lady, as she asks it. But let there be no more talk of whips."

  It was the work of only a few minutes for the smith to shoe Vertiv-itch's steed, which he did calmly without heeding the gibes that the dandy cast upon his own plain attire. When the work was done he arose with his tools, and would have withdrawn into the cottage when the other stopped him.

  "Here's for your trouble, smith," he cried, throwing a gold coin on the ground, "and thank the lady for saving you from the hiding you deserve." With which he spurred off down the road, his red coat fluttering gayly, his seat in the saddle as sure as that of a Tartar. Ostalim dropped his tools, and his hand flew to his side, where no sword hung.

  As the carriage followed the rider, Ostalim caught sight of a pretty face turned toward him, the hood thrown back, revealing a mass of black curls. "Come to the feast tonight, Paul Ostalim," he heard, "and say that Mirovna Cherevaty bids you, if any ask."

  "Aye, come, smith," echoed the fat Cossack good-naturedly; "there will be rare corn brandy flowing."

  Carriage and riders alike were hidden in the dust cloud along the road, but Paul Ostalim remained standing, looking after them for a long time. His mind was filled with wonder, the sight of a laughing, dark-eyed face turned back to him, of dainty white teeth, and a little hand that waved him at the same time a farewell and an invitation. Rare was the sight to the smith, and he found that his heart was pounding against his coat.

  A sigh escaped him; then he straightened with sudden determination, picked up his tools, and entered the shop. He went to the pallet that served as his bed, and drew from under the clothes a long, curved sword with a jeweled hil
t. Paul Ostalim had not been to the university at Kiev and he could not read, yet he knew by heart the words chased on the scabbard in silver. "The sword of Koshevoi Ataman Dmitri Ostalim," he said to himself as his finger traced out the words and he patted the curving scabbard with reverence.

  Then fastening the sword to his belt, he filled his tobacco pouch, selected two of the best Turkish pistols from the group in the shop, and took up his sheepskin hat. At the door of the cottage, he paused long enough to draw the heavy post from the ground with a single heave of his powerful shoulders and hurl it into the bushes. This done, he entered the stable, untethered his horse, and with a last look at the hamlet where he had lived for the twenty-two years of his lonely life, set out on the road to Ru-vno. At his heels trotted the two borzoi.

  As the rider vanished around a bend in the road, the sun dipped out of sight, and the silence of night, broken only by a light wind that stirred the grass, fell upon the steppe.

  Chapter II At the Feast of Cherevaty

  There was a reason for the feast that night at the house of Ataman Chere-vaty. As ataman, or captain of a Cossack regiment, he was going to lead the young Cossacks of the Ruvno district to the siech the next morning. Hence the feast was a farewell to the village on the part of Cherevaty and the striplings, among the latter Stepan Vertivitch and his stout companion in arms, Rashov.

  For the siech was none other than the Zaporogian Siech, or war encampment of the Cossacks on the Dnieper islands, where they faced the hostile Tartars across the water. To go to the siech was the dream of every young man who could swing a sword or ride a horse, for there manly honor was to be won and the fighting for which the Cossacks longed.

  Not that the Ukraine was actually at war. Constant fighting ruled along the borders; battles with Turk, Pole, and Tartar who threatened the three sides of southern Russia with fire and pillage and cared little whether their governments were at peace or not. In truth, the Ukraine was the war border of Russia, the white kingdom, and the sieches were the outposts of the Ukraine.

  Little wonder, then, that the business of the Cossacks of Ruvno, who were within a day's march of the Dnieper, was fighting. Were they not the darlings of Tsar Ivan Grozny, the august ruler who bore the surname "the terrible" on the lips of his enemies?

  To Cherevaty the evening was doubly festive for the reason that it welcomed home Mirovna from Kiev, with the Cossack Vertivitch, who was to be Cherevaty's right-hand man in the Ruvno kuren, or encampment. Cherevaty was kindly disposed toward the young student from Kiev, because the elder Vertivitch had been his comrade in arms, and he was more than anxious for Stepan to win the renown at the siech without which it is not considered fitting for any Cossack to marry.

  Hence it was that late in the evening he nudged Rashov with his elbow and pointed to the corner where the young Cossack and his daughter were seated. To make his meaning quite clear, the big warrior took pains to lay his finger alongside his nose and to wink several times.

  "Ho!" exclaimed Rashov in reply, filling the cup of corn brandy which had been upset by the ataman's nudge. "So that's the chimney the devil is flying down! Nevertheless, I have seen not one but many courtings, and to my mind they were two-handed affairs, while Stepan seems to be carrying on his battle single-handed."

  "That is nothing, Rashov," returned the warrior, stroking his long black mustache. "Devil take it, would you have the girl lead in the attack? No, Mirovna has learned true maiden manners at Kiev, and she is but feigning coldness to bring the Cossack more fully to her feet. The match pleases me, for no man who is not warrior born and proved shall wed Mirovna."

  "That is true, honorable sir," admitted Rashov, draining his cup, "for I have heard you swear it upon a holy cross before witnesses. Still, to my thinking Mirovna is a girl who will do the deciding for herself. In truth, there is no woman within a hundred versts of Ruvno to compare with her."

  A second time Cherevaty nudged his companion and pointed across the room. On the long bench that ran around the room he had spied a stranger. "Who is that Cossack, Rashov?" he asked in surprise. "The one in the brown coat with the dusty boots; he came in only a moment ago."

  Rashov glanced in the direction that the other indicated and laughed. "A smith he is, come on the bidding of Mirovna, to whom he rendered a service on the road."

  "Ha!" exclaimed Cherevaty, and strode over to Ostalim, for the hospitality of a Cossack is as open-handed as his enmity. "How like you the brandy, honorable sir?" he asked. "And it warms you not enough, sit on the stove for a while."

  This invitation was a mark of consideration, for the great stove that occupied a recess in the back of the cottage was covered with planks which often offered a resting place to the large limbs of the Ruvno Ataman. Os-talim flushed as he felt the gaze of those in the room bent upon him. He had slipped in only a brief while ago after a long hard ride, and the splendor of the large room, with its painted walls, the whips and rare weapons on the window ledges, and the many goblets of elegant workmanship, booty from the Anatolian coast, awed him not a little.

  He had early spied out Mirovna and Stepan, and his brow darkened momentarily, clearing when his gaze wandered over the throng of warlike Cossacks, already booted and garbed for the departure of the morrow and in high glee. This was the fellowship he longed to join.

  To the ataman's greeting he replied respectfully, for Cherevaty's face was familiar to him. "The brandy warms my heart, honorable sir," he said lightly. "Tomorrow there will be no drinking for this distinguished company, for I hear that you will set out for the siech to reinforce the Ruvno kuren. Are many going?"

  "A fair lot," replied the ataman; "about threescore young men—sixty-two in all."

  "Sixty-three, rather," declared Ostalim boldly, although his heart was beating painfully. "I would like to join the Ruvno kuren, and go with you to the siech on the morrow. It was for that I came here at your daughter's bidding. With the Tartars pressing against us on the Dnieper another sword will be welcome, without doubt."

  Cherevaty frowned. It was one thing to welcome this stranger to his house, but to take him to the siech with his chosen band was a horse of another color. He knew nothing of the Cossack, whose attire was certainly not that of a warrior.

  While he was debating the matter, Stepan, who had been watching him from the others side of the room, stepped to his side and said loudly: "It is fitting that you should be warned against this fellow who tries to enter the society of proven Cossacks. He is no other than a smith, who shoes horses by the highway, and the sword that he carries is probably one of his stock. As to his clothes, you can see for yourself that they indicate no rank. Why should such a stranger come with the men from Ruvno?"

  Ostalim placed his two hands on the table and smiled across it at Vertiv-itch. "The Cossack has made a mistake if he thinks that I am begging to accompany him to the siech. I claim a place in the kuren of Ataman Che-revaty by right of rank, for my father was a famous leader. As for a red coat and tasseled boots, the first Tartar I meet will supply me with those."

  "Then prove your father's rank, smith," returned the other, "and we will know how much truth there is in your words."

  "Aye, smith," agreed Cherevaty thoughtfully, "that is the way to decide the matter. What claim have you to high Cossack rank?"

  Ostalim's hand went to his sword; then he hesitated. "To tell my father's name and rank would avail nothing," he said shortly, looking at Stepan; "and you like not my company. My father was known by his deeds. I claim no rank other than that I shall win for myself. On these terms do I ride with you to the siech or not?"

  "If you go," retorted Vertivitch, "I shall not be in the company."

  Several of the others in the crowd who had come from Kiev at the same time as Stepan murmured agreement to what the student said. Hearing this, the ataman raised his hand as if to render his decision, when Os-talim forestalled him.

  "I shall not force my company upon the Cossacks of Ruvno," he said in a clear voice. "Rather than make it
needful for Ataman Cherevaty to decide one way or the other, I withdraw my offer."

  "Doubtless," sneered Vertivitch, who was pleased with his victory, "you wish to return to your anvil and cottage, where there is less danger of meeting with the Tartars. There you will be able to get gold coins for mending the swords of braver men who know how to use them."

  "That I stand ready to use my saber," cried Ostalim, "I shall prove to you without further delay, to the satisfaction of every one here. Come, man, let's see the light of your blade!" With which he drew his own curved saber and laid it on the table, the jeweled hilt tightly gripped in his scarred hand.

  As Vertivitch hesitated, the ataman stepped between them. "Are you children," he growled, "to quarrel over going to the siech when our enemies, the Tartars, are at the banks of the river? Your squabbles must be settled another time. As for you, smith, unless you can show us good reason for joining our company on the morrow, go back to your shop."

  "My goal," said Ostalim, replacing his weapon, "is the camp, and since I am forbidden your company, I shall go alone and join another kuren that is readier to greet a brother in arms."

  "By the devil's carcass," cried a hearty voice, "I like the way this rooster crows! Perchance there will be more fighting with a bird of this sort than with Stepan Vertivitch. You shall not go alone, Paul Ostalim, for I will come with you."

  The giant Cossack clapped the other cordially on the back. Ostalim was grateful for the offer of company on his trip, but he was not allowed time to express it, for the big Rashov hurried him from the room to the stable, in order, as he said, to get a nap in the hay before starting.

  The good intention of the two friends, however, was not to be carried out at once; instead, there was a further scene of leave-taking. Rashov was arranging some straw into a suitable bed by the side of his horse, admiring Ostalim's dogs the while, when he held up his hand for silence and chuckled. "By the sound of it" he whispered, "our friend Stepan is not content with his farewell at the hands of the beauty, Mirovna."