Swords From the Desert

by Harold Lamb

  " Vai -we follow him."

  The eyes of the Kurd dwelt on the striped cloth that covered my head, and it was clear that he wished to roll it and add it to his store of plundered girdles.

  "And I, Sharm Beg?" I asked. "What will thy master do with me?"

  "Y'Allah! Am I a sorcerer, that I should know? Thou art too old to bring any price as a slave."

  Doubtless the Kurd thought that I had lived too long. Among his people there were sorcerers and perhaps a few priests, but no physicians. He came closer to look up at my sword, which was better than his own, and to pull moodily at his loose underlip.

  "Knowest thou the way across the dry lands?" I asked.

  "Aye."

  "How many days?"

  Sharm Beg withdrew his thoughts reluctantly from the matter of swords, and began to count on his greasy fingers, muttering to himself.

  "Seven-eight days to the higher ground and the path that runs east to Ind."

  "And if the water be bad in the wells-"

  "Inshallah-it may rain."

  "And if not?"

  The Kurd frowned and cursed me.

  "Thou art a fool and the son of a dishonored one! Mirakhon Pasha will find his way through-aye, the very ghosts of this place will aid him. Did he not shout to them and demand a blessing?"

  Even the Kurds feared Mirakhon Pasha. That night we found the well to be deep-ten lance lengths-and the pasha gave orders to tie the leather water sack to a long rope, and the other end of the rope to the saddle horn of a strong horse. Then he showed his men how to drive two wooden stakes into the ground, so that the rope could travel over the crossed stakes when the horse was led away from the well. The dripping sack was drawn up to the stakes.

  This the pasha did to keep his men from lowering too many water skins and wasting the water and quarreling among themselves-because the well was small and filled slowly once it had been emptied. Farash Agha stood over the well, giving water first to the nobles of the pasha's following, then to the officers of the Red Hats, and then to the men, in turn. But not all the skins were filled when we mounted and set out again.

  Some of the slaves on poor horses began to lag, but the pasha would not delay the march for them. Indeed, he could not nor would he suffer them to ride the pack camels. At the sixth camp several of the slaves did not appear at all, but Mirakhon Pasha heeded them not.

  Eh, we were deep in the bed of the dry lands. And still the sky remained clear and cloudless. On either hand, red ridges of rock lined the way, rising from the gray earth. Beyond the rocks, haze lay like a veil. Above the haze on the left hand stretched the dark purple line of hills.

  Under the bright sun the caravan gleamed in many colors, through drifting dust-the crimson turban and silver-adorned harness of the cavalry, the cloth-of-gold and silver of the Irani nobles, the jewel-studded weapons, the pearl-sewn saddles.

  But at night, under the half-moon, all were shadows. The men moved in silence, the feet of the camels thumping in a dull cadence like the pulsing of blood through the veins. It was in the seventh night that I heard Radha's song.

  God knows why she sang thus. Hidden behind the carpets on the white camel, she could not be seen. Her voice, low and clear, rose and fell. No one knew the words.

  At first the rhythm of the song bespoke grieving-but it was not the high ululation of women who mourn. It had in it both sadness and reproach. Then the song changed, and rose more swiftly.

  And this, beyond any doubt, was a chant of battle. Aye, it shrilled with the whine of steel and clash of cymbals, and through it ran the mutterings of drums. Every man in the caravan listened, wondering.

  "It is not good," grumbled Sharm Be-, who had come up to hear the better. "It hath the sound of sorcery."

  But it amused Mirakhon Pasha, who vowed aloud that when he reached the dwellings of men, he would have her sing again. And the Irani nobles made jests concerning caged nightingales.

  And that night the Kurds who were leading us lost the trail. We were passing over a part of the plain where the soil was streaked with white salt and strewn with rocks. Mirakhon Pasha halted the caravan while the tribesmen scattered to search for the track. They were gone for the time it takes to cook and eat meat, and they came back by ones and twos, some saying one thing, some another. In truth, the trail was lost.

  By now the moon was down in the mist-a red ball hanging over the edge of the plain. For two hours, until the rising of the sun, there would be darkness. And the men, weary of stumbling over the boulders that lay on every hand, gathered in groups and talked angrily.

  I made my camel kneel and sat against him to sleep, because there was no good in moving about, and no hope of finding the trail until day. Listening to the hubbub, I heard Farash Agha reproaching Sharm Beg:

  "Thou dog! To blunder on the threshold of the hills."

  The answer was a snarl and a curse. Farash Agha had all the insolence of the Iranis, and indeed Sharm Beg had not been with the advance.

  "The light is bad," muttered the tribesman. "We will do well to wait here."

  "The caravan of the shah is not a thief's cavalcade. Find the way."

  "Allah! Have I the eyes of a gravebird, to see what is not to be seen?"

  Others began to quarrel, and there was a sudden movement of feet and grating of steel.

  "I tell thee, only the offspring of three dogs-"

  The quarreling ceased as suddenly as it had arisen. A horse trotted up, and I heard the voice of Mirakhon Pasha, in a rage.

  "0 ye of small wit! 0 swine of the dungheap! I will stake out the one who strikes with a weapon."

  The men drew away in little groups and in a moment I heard Mirakhon Pasha ordering the camelmen to see that their beasts were bound together. I had thought he would order them to wait in their places until dawn. The delay would mean a hard march in the heat of the morrow and, if we were far off the route, hardship and suffering. But to search farther in this darkness was no less than madness.

  Still, the pasha ordered the caravan forward, saying that he would lead them. All around me the soldiers mounted and closed in, and the camels roared and squealed in protest. Mirakhon Pasha went off to the left hand, in utter darkness.

  For an hour we stumbled over boulders. I could tell by looking at the polar star that Mirakhon Pasha was keeping a fairly straight course, and it seemed to me that the rocks were becoming fewer. The earth looked whiter, though the light was no stronger. I dismounted from the camel and led it, being weary of its lurching and sliding. Most of the sipahis were leading their horses, but the Kurds, on their shaggy ponies, seemed to be able to keep the saddle.

  I felt dry rushes about my knees, and at the same time the air became chill. Mist, rising around us, hid the stars. It came into my mind to slip to one side and wait until the last of the caravan had passed, and thus ride free of the pasha and his men. Indeed, I could have done so, yet it was written otherwise.

  The ground beneath me no longer had the feeling of clay or sand. At times it shook and sank strangely and the camels renewed their complaining. I reached down and brushed my fingers against the ground, putting them to my tongue. The taste was bitter salt.

  "Yah Allah!" cried a voice in advance of me.

  Then a horse screamed and plunged, with a sound as of mud quaking.

  "The salt marshes!" Men repeated the words in terror, and the fright of the horses was no less. I remembered then that the merchants in Bandar Abbasi had said that at this end of the Desht-i-Lut there were swamps filled with rushes, where salt water, lying stagnant underground, had moistened the clay until it became as deadly as a quicksand. I sat down where I was, to wait and listen.

  Yet Mirakhon Pasha would not halt. Again he gave command to go forward, and Farash Agha with his sipahis drove the camelmen along. I was pushed and thrust into the line, and I no longer wished to turn aside, because of the stagnant swamps. It was strange to feel the riders edging in and pressing close to the leaders. Where others had gone, they would be safe. />
  The air grew damper and more than once I saw white fire glow from the ground. The light seemed at times to be in balls that rested on the ground, and at times to ripple and glide about like snakes. There were Kurds in back of me-judging by the smell of wet wool and leather-and they groaned aloud when these lights appeared.

  They were afraid of devils, and most afraid that they would be separated from their fellows. But the camel train, led by Mirakhon Pasha, seemed to find good footing. The light no longer shone from the ground, and the sky behind us became paler. The mist turned gray, and I made out that we were climbing out of the rushes and the salt swamps, upon firm clay.

  Did Mirakhon Pasha see his way in the darkness, or did his good fortune alone lead him in safety past the swamps? I do not know. The Kurds behind me said that the ghosts of the Desht-i-Lut guided him.

  On the horizon a broad, red streak glowed and changed to orange and yellow, and soon we could see that we were walking among sandy hillocks. We were so thankful to be out of the swamps that we no longer thought of the road, or of the need of reaching water.

  But when the sun struck upon our backs, we mounted into the saddle and looked on all sides. We were drawing nearer the mountains, and presently one of the Kurds cried out-

  "Water!"

  The horsemen trotted forward and the officers hastened to approach Mirakhon Pasha and praise him. For, below us, there lay a long pool of blue water in a sandy hollow. Before the sun was spear high we had reached the hollow, and the camels were kneeling while the slaves hastened to put up the pasha's tent and the shelters for the officers and Radha. I went down with Sharm Beg to fill my goatskin at the pool, and I saw him kneel suddenly and dip up water in his hand.

  He drank a little and spat it out.

  The water was bitter salt.

  Sharm Beg vowed by God that he would not be the one to bear Mirakhon Pasha the word that the water was bad. He lifted his goatskin, shook it, and glared at me. Then, with one accord, we both walked to the highest knoll behind the camp, to look about us.

  Eh, it was a strange place to which we had come. Here and there in the hollows were blue pools like the one we had left. To the east lay the long depression of the swamps, gray and green. All around us glittered and sparkled the white salt crust, save where red rocks reared up and cast black shadows.

  The very air tasted of salt, and though the sun still hung low over the plain, heat rose from the earth and beat down from the sky. I remem bered, then, that the merchants of Bandar Abbasi had warned me of this sea of salt, this dry sea.

  By now the slaves had discovered the secret of the pool, and down below in the camp many figures moved about the striped silk pavilions. Only the white tent of Radha remained unopened, watched over by the blacks. The sipahis posted as guard over the forty camel loads that held the emperor's gifts gathered in little groups. Mirakhon Pasha did not appear at all. The heat down in the gully must have been great, and he remained with the nobles in the pavilions.

  "They have wine," said one of the Kurds who came up to us.

  All the tribesmen climbed the height to escape the thrice-heated air of the hollow. Sharm Beg and their chieftain sat in the shadow of a large rock, and the others curled up near them, to sleep. I drank up the last of the warm and ill-tasting water in my sack, because by evening thirst would grow upon these marauders and, though they would not ask water of me, they would then take whatever remained with me. Nevertheless, I chose to stay with the Kurds rather than join the Iranis, who knew no better than to drink up wine in such a place, and heat their blood to torment.

  I could hear the Kurds talking among themselves, and at times, when one spoke in the Irani tongue, I understood that they were weighing the worth of the treasure in the forty camel loads. They knew that Mirakhon Pasha was lost in the dry lands.

  "The camels will go well enough for two days," observed Sharm Beg, "but the horses are good for little more."

  At such a time, when the road is lost and the men are restless and uncertain, each follower begins to think what he himself may have to do. And the thoughts of all the Kurds were upon the shah's treasure. Some said they knew beyond doubt that the camel loads held many pieces of gold-inlaid mail, and rolls of silk of Cathay, sewn with pearls and sapphires. Others vowed they had seen solid rock turquoise among the gifts, and weapons of Damascus work.

  "The jackals looked up at the eagle's nest!"

  Sharm Beg mocked the speakers, meaning that they hungered for what they could not seize. Loot is ever in the thoughts of the Kurds. They looked like vultures, sitting thus on their haunches, staring down at the weary men and the gaunt horses in the pasha's camp. But greater than their desire for loot was their fear of Mirakhon Pasha.

  I wondered what I would do in the place of this lord of Iran. The horses could not be used before sunset. If water and grazing were not found the next day, they would be at the end of their strength.

  To save all his men the pasha must leave his loads-all his loads-here by the pool, and mount his people on the camels. And which way would he go?

  It seemed to me that the caravan route from which we had wandered lay back of us, beyond the salt marshes, to the east. So thought the Kurds. Could he lead the camels back, across that treacherous ground, in the darkness? The well might be far.

  I slept, and did not rouse until the sun was near the hills in the west. The Kurds were muttering again, and below me resounded a tumult of flutes and kettledrums. It came from the pavilions of the Iranis, and I wondered if madness had come upon the followers of the pasha, until I remembered the buffoons and minstrels.

  Eh, the wind made itself felt at last-the south wind that is like the breath of Jehannum, burning the skin and torturing the eyes. It swept among the tents, billowing the pavilions and raising a haze of dust. And the flutes and pipes made a mad kind of music for this dance of the wind.

  "Look!" cried Sharm Beg, thrusting his foot into my ribs.

  I rose, gripping my sword, but did not draw it. Among fifty foemen, what avails it to draw a weapon? Sharm Beg had reason in a later day to remember that he put his foot upon me. He was looking up at the sky, and I saw that heavy cloud banks had hidden the line of the western hills-clouds that moved up from the south, and soon hid the red ball of the sun.

  The sky darkened and the Kurds hurried down to the camp to saddle their horses. They knew as I did that the heat and the scorching wind and the blackness meant the coming of rain.

  The pavilions were being taken down, and the Baluchis struggled with the camels' loads, while the kettle drums whirred and the pipes shrieked. Surely the wine was in the blood of some of those Iranis.

  Farash Agha stood at the stirrup of Mirakhon Pasha, who waited until the sipahis were in the saddle, and the camels roped up. He waited for no more, but gathered up his reins and trotted off. Nay, he did not turn back to seek the trail. He circled the pool and led the way toward the distant hills.

  In a moment I understood why he had done this. The rain that was coming might not reach this part of the plain. But the storm would surely break down the slopes of the mountains, and there on firmer ground we would find the watercourses filled, or at least enough water in the hollows to keep us alive. It might be the next day before we reached it, and the wounded and the badly mounted slaves must needs taste what was in store for them, yet the caravan and the warriors would be out of the dry lands.

  Thus did the pasha, being guided by no devils. Sharm Beg swore that he must have a talsmin on his breast, that such luck should follow him; the sipahis said in whispers that he had summoned up the storm by that mad music. But I have often thought that the invisible hand upon the pasha's rein led him toward those hills, and to that which he found there.

  What need to tell of long hours of uncertainty? Upon the afternoon of the next day we found water. We had climbed into the foothills, where creepers grew over giant rocks and a scum of sage covered the earth. The storm never reached us, but the clouds covered the mountains ahead of u
s, and muddy water flowed down the gully that we ascended.

  Now the wind whistled and roared over us and chilled our veins. The air grew colder. We gave the horses a little water and went on, having relieved our thirst. In a single day the aspect of the land had changed. The dry lands lay far below us, like a great gray sea. Before sunset we climbed out upon a high plateau, where the earth was damp and the brushwood and tamarisk thick.

  Aye, more than that. We soon saw pomegranate and slender apricot trees ranged in rows and cattle grazing on the slope above us.

  "By ," cried Sharm Beg. "There is a village."

  It was only a little village-twoscore wicker huts, a granary, and cattle sheds. It lay under the sheer wall of a cliff, by a stream that rushed and roared down a depression in the cliff, over a series of little falls. But it was a village of hill men, and as pleasant in our eyes as a green oasis. Nay, it had a citadel and a master, as we soon saw.

  Above the huts and the tilled land rose a mass of rock and rubble from the cliff, and on the summit of this outcropping a wall had been built. Within the wall stood a white building and from it reared a tower, almost touching-so it seemed-the dark granite of the cliff.

  "We have never seen this place before," said the Kurds. "And its name we know not."

  The rain had washed the dust from the air. It was then the hour of sunsinking, and the sky above the hills shone with a fierce and ruddy light, so that we could see everything clearly-the spray rising from the waterfall, the white walls of the castle and the dozen horsemen who picked their way down the ramp of rock and cantered toward us.

  Mirakhon Pasha with his officers and twenty sipahis moved to the head of our column and there halted, while every eye fastened upon the leader of the oncoming riders. His black charger moved with the grace of a racing breed, clean and slender of limb, well-groomed of coat.

  The master of the black horse did not rein in when his followers halted, but cantered within spear's length of Mirakhon Pasha, whom he singled out instantly. Nor did he dismount to address the lord of Iran.

  "0 ye wayfarers," he cried. "What caravan is this?"