by Wilbur Smith
Dorian shrugged. ‘Death makes his own choices. He brooks no argument from us.’
‘Hold them here for the rest of the day and the night,’ al-Malik said. ‘That will give me time to reach Muhaid and rally the Awamir. I will come back for you with an army.’
‘As my lord commands,’ said Dorian, but the Prince saw the battle lust in his green eyes, and it made him uneasy.
‘Al-Salil,’ he said firmly, and gripped Dorian’s shoulder to reinforce the words, ‘I cannot tell how long it will take for me to return with the men of the Awamir. Hold them here until dawn tomorrow, no longer than that. Then run to join me as fast as Ibrisam will carry you. You are my talisman, and I cannot afford to lose you.’
‘Lord, you must leave at once. Every moment is precious.’
They went back together to the camels and Dorian gave swift orders, dividing the men into two groups: those who would stay to hold the pass and those who would ride with the Prince. They shared out what remained of the water and food, a fourth part for the Prince and the remainder for Dorian’s party.
‘We will leave all of our muskets with you, the five barrels of black powder and the bags of lead shot,’ the Prince told Dorian.
‘We will put it to good employment,’ Dorian promised.
Within minutes it was done and the Prince and Batula mounted at the head of the departing party. The Prince looked down from the saddle at Dorian. ‘Allah be your shield, my son,’ he said.
‘Go with God, my father,’ Dorian replied.
‘That is the first time you have called me that.’
‘It is the first time I have felt it to be true.’
‘You do me honour,’ said al-Malik gravely, and touched his camel’s neck with the riding wand. Dorian watched them wind away down the narrow passage between the high rock walls and disappear around the first turn. Then he put all else from his mind except the coming battle. He strode back to the entrance to survey the plain and the cliffs with a soldier’s eye. He considered the height of the sun. It was only a little past noon. It was going to be a long day and an even longer night.
He picked out the weak spots in his defence which the enemy would exploit, and made his plans as to how he would counter each move they made. First they will try a direct assault, straight up the slope, he decided, as he looked at them massing below him on the edge of the plain. He went among his men, laughing and bantering with them, moving them into the best defensive positions among the rocks, making certain that each had full powder flasks and shot bags.
He had not finished setting out the last of his pickets before he heard a distant blast of a horn from the bottom of the slope, followed immediately by the beat of war drums and a swelling shout from the first wave of attackers, who rushed forward and started up the slope.
‘Steady!’ Dorian called to his men. ‘Hold your fire, brothers of the warrior blood.’ He slapped the shoulder of a man with long dark locks of tangled hair spilling over his shoulders and they grinned into each other’s face. ‘The first shot will be the sweetest, Ahmed. Make it tell.’
He went on down the line. ‘Wait until they are staring down your barrel, Hassan.’
‘I want a clean kill from you with your first bullet, Mustapha.’
‘Let them get so close that even you cannot miss, Salim.’
Though he laughed and joked he was watching the attackers come up the slope. These were Turks, heavier men than the birdlike Arabs of the desert, with long moustaches and round bronze helmets with nosepieces, and gilets of chain armour over their robes of striped wool. Heavy gear for the desert, Dorian thought as they toiled up the ramp of loose sand, the first wild rush slowly becoming a laboured climb. Dorian walked out onto the lip of the slope as if to welcome them, and stood with his hands on his hips grinning down at them. Not only did he want to inspire his men by his example, he also wanted to make certain that none could disobey his order and open fire while he was standing in front of them.
One of the Turks below paused and threw up his musket. His face was shiny with sweat and his hands shook with the effort of the climb. Dorian steeled himself, and the Turk fired. The ball hissed past Dorian’s head and the wind flipped a lock of his red-gold hair across his cheek and lips. ‘Is that the best you goat-lovers can do?’ He laughed down at them. ‘Come up here. Come and taste the hospitality of the Saar.’
His taunts gave the leaders fresh wind, and they broke into a clumsy, lurching run up the last few yards of the ramp. Dorian stepped back into the ranks of his own men. ‘Ready now, brethren,’ he said quietly, and cocked the hammer of his jezail.
A line of Turks came shoulder to shoulder over the lip. Their faces were flushed darkly, bathed in sweat, as they staggered on to the levelled jezails of the Saar. Most had discarded their own muskets during the climb. Now they brandished their scimitars and, with a hoarse yell, threw themselves on the defenders.
‘Now!’ shouted Dorian, and the Saar fired together, twenty muskets in a single prolonged blast of gunsmoke and ball. It swept through the line of Turks. Dorian saw his own shot punch a gap in the yellow teeth of a burly, moustached Turk in front of him. The man’s head snapped back. Blood and brain tissue burst out of the back of his skull and the sword flew from his hand. He fell back into the man who teetered on the crest of the slope behind him, throwing him off-balance so that they fell together and rolled down the sand ramp, knocking down another three men who were climbing up it, sending them all to the bottom.
‘Take the blade to them now,’ Dorian called, and they sprang out from behind the rocks and charged into the milling throng of Turks on the ledge. That murderous charge drove the Ottomans back, stumbling over their own dead, and over the edge of the ramp. The ledge was cleared, and the Saar met the men who were still struggling up towards them. They had the advantage of height, and the Turks were almost exhausted by the time they came within sword-play.
The struggle was swiftly over, and the attackers broken, dead and wounded. Those who had not been hurt slipped and slithered back down, ignoring the angry shouts of their captains, running over them and carrying them away in the rout.
The Saar danced on the ledge, beards and robes swirling, hurling taunts and obscene insults after the enemy. Dorian saw at a glance that he had not lost a single man, either killed or wounded, while at least a dozen Turkish corpses were half buried in the fine sand of the dune below. ‘That was only the first course of the banquet.’ He controlled his own jubilation. No more than a hundred Turks had come at them in that rash charge. ‘They won’t try that again.’
He strode among his men, shouting to them to reload the muskets, but it took him some time to get them under control again. ‘I want ten men up in the cliffs.’ He picked them out by name, and sent them climbing up the rock walls to where they could observe the whole front of the hills and any move the enemy made. He guessed that they would now send men to climb the sand dunes on each side of the mouth of the pass, out of musket range of Dorian’s men, then they would regroup on the ledge and close in from both sides. Combined with another frontal attack, this would be more difficult to resist.
Dorian knew that his men must eventually be driven back into the gut of the pass, and it was there in the narrow passage that they would be forced to make their final stand. Relying on the men he had posted high in the cliffs to give warning of the next attack, he took six men into the pass to select the best defensive position.
It was almost three years since he had last travelled this way, but he remembered that there was a narrow place where the rock pinched in. When he found it again the gap was barely wide enough for a loaded camel to pass through. Beyond it was a rockfall, and at his orders the six Saar laid aside their weapons and used the loose rock from the fall to fortify the gap, building a sangar across it, behind which they could shelter.
The camels were couched deeper in the pass beyond the next twist of the passage and Dorian went to check that they were saddled and ready for a quick escape when the e
nemy broke through the sangar. Ibrisam groaned with love when she saw him, and he caressed her head before he left her to go back to the mouth of the pass.
The men he had sent to climb the rock walls were in position above him, and the others were spread out along the ledge. They were loading the extra muskets that the Prince had left with them, and setting these close at hand. That would give them an extra shot when the fighting was heavy.
Dorian squatted on the ledge and looked down upon the enemy. Even though the sun was high now and the heat becoming fierce, the white salt flats swarmed with activity. Troops of mounted men were still coming up to swell the ranks of the enemy, and Turkish officers were riding back and forth along the foot of the sand dunes, studying the lie of the land. Their helmets and weapons sparkled, and the white dust hung in a shimmering curtain over them.
Suddenly there was an even more agitated movement among the troops directly below where Dorian sat, and a horn sounded a fanfare. A small party was approaching, the outriders carrying banners of green and scarlet, the colours of the Sublime Porte. There could be little doubt that this was the command party of the enemy force. As they drew closer, Dorian studied them with interest. He picked out two figures in the centre of the group who, judging by their splendid dress and the rich caparisons of their camels, were high-ranking officers. One was a Turk, for he carried the round bronze shield and wore the helmet with steel nosepiece. The Ottoman general, Dorian decided, and turned his attention to the second man, an Arab. Even at this distance there was something vaguely familiar about him, and Dorian stirred uneasily. He was swaddled in fine woollen robes, but Dorian could see he was a big man. The band of his headdress was of gold filigree and the scabbard of the curved dagger on his waist shone with the same lustrous metal. There were even gold sandals on his feet. The man was a dandy. Damn me, but I know him. Dorian’s sense of recognition grew stronger, and he racked his memory to try to put a name to him.
The command party drew up at the foot of the dunes, well out of musket shot of Dorian’s men on the ledge, and the Turkish commander lifted a telescope to his eye and peered up at the mouth of the pass. He completed a leisurely survey of the cliff face, then lowered the glass and spoke to his officers, who were grouped obsequiously behind him. Immediately they wheeled away, and began to give orders to the squadrons of waiting troops.
There was another burst of activity. They were doing exactly what Dorian had anticipated: within a short while hundreds of heavily armed men were climbing the slope on both sides of the mouth of the pass. They were keeping well out of musket shot of the little group of defenders, but Dorian knew that when they reached the ledge they would creep in, then try to rush the entrance to the pass.
‘Al-Salil! The dung-eating Turks are coming up to us again.’ Dorian’s lookouts on the cliffs above called their observations down to him. From their vantage-points they could see more than he, and they warned him when the first of the enemy reached the ledge and began to move along it towards the centre.
‘Shoot any who come within range,’ Dorian shouted back, and immediately a fusillade of musket shots echoed along the cliffs. The Saar were firing down upon the ledge, and the Turks were returning their fire. Occasionally there came a scream as a man was hit, but the shouts from the lookouts warned that the enemy were gradually working into a position from which they could launch their first assault on the mouth of the pass.
Even though he was distracted by action all around him, Dorian kept watching the gold-bedecked Arab who rode beside the Turkish general. At last a train of baggage camels came up from the rear, and from these were offloaded a painted leather tent. Twenty men unrolled it, set it up on the white plain and spread rugs and cushions in its shade. The Turkish general dismounted and went to take his place on the rugs. The Arab dandy couched his camel also, and clambered down awkwardly from the saddle. He followed the Turk to the tent, and now Dorian could see the breadth of his shoulders and the swell of his belly under the woollen robe. He had not taken more than a few paces when Dorian noticed the limp: he was favouring his right foot. It was enough to jolt his memory. He remembered their fight on the steps of the old tomb in the garden of the zenana at Lamu, and the fall that had broken that foot.
‘Zayn!’ he whispered. ‘Zayn al-Din!’ It was his old enemy from childhood days, now costumed like a prince of Oman and riding at the head of an army.
Dorian felt all the old hatred and antagonism return in full flood. Zayn was the enemy once again. But what is he doing here, hunting his own father? Dorian puzzled. Does he know that I am here also?
He tried to make sense out of this strange, unlooked-for circumstance. Zayn had been at the court of Muscat for so long that he would have been caught up in the convoluted maelstrom of royal intrigue, probably trained and encouraged by his uncle the Caliph. Unless Zayn had changed greatly from the boy Dorian had known, he would have taken readily to the conspiracies of the court. It was clear that he had become another pawn of the Sublime Porte. Perhaps he was at the centre of the capitulation of Oman to the Ottoman.
‘You traitorous swine,’ Dorian muttered, staring down at him with loathing. ‘You would sell your country and your people, even your own father. What was the price? What reward have the Porte offered you, Zayn? The throne itself, as their puppet in Muscat?’
Zayn al-Din took his seat beside the Turkish general in the shade of the tent fly, and a slave placed a cup in his hand. He sipped from it, and Dorian saw that he had grown a thin, straggling beard but that his cheeks were smooth and plump. He stared up directly at Dorian, who pulled off the headdress and shook out his shining gold curls. The cup slipped from Zayn’s fingers as he recognized him.
Dorian waved gaily at him. Zayn made no reply, but seemed to crouch a little lower, hunching down like a bloated toad. At that moment there was a sudden heavy burst of firing along the cliffs on the right, and Dorian turned away to bolster the defence on that side of the pass.
‘Beware, al-Salil,’ one of the lookouts called. ‘They are coming!’
‘How many?’ Dorian shouted back, and dropped behind the rock with Ahmed.
‘Many!’ came the reply. ‘Too many.’
On this side, the cliffs formed a jagged buttress that turned back upon itself so that they could not see more than twenty paces along the open ledge, but they could hear the voices of the men beyond the corner of the cliff and their footsteps as they pressed forward, the clatter of a bronze shield on rock, the creak of leather thongs on breastplate and scabbard belt.
‘Steady!’ Dorian called softly to his men. ‘Wait for them. Let them come close.’
Suddenly, a rank of Turks charged around the corner of the cliff, straight at them. The ledge was only wide enough for three at a time, but others pressed close behind them, right on their heels.
‘Allah akbar!’ they howled. ‘God is great!’
There was a tall pock-marked man in the front rank, with a steel Saracen helmet on his head, chain-mail covering his torso and a double-bladed battleaxe in his hands. He jumped out ahead of his comrades and singled out Dorian, locking eyes with him and charging straight at him with the axe held in both hands above his head.
He was an arm’s length away. The muzzle of the long jezail almost touched his face as Dorian fired. The ball hit the Turk in the throat, and he dropped to his knees clutching the wound. A severed artery pumped out blood between his fingers in thick glutinous jets, and he fell forward on his face.
Dorian dropped the empty musket and snatched up the loaded one that lay at hand and cocked the hammer. Another man jumped over the dying Turk and Dorian shot him in the chest. He went down kicking and twitching on the rock ledge.
Dorian threw down the empty musket and drew his sword. He stepped forward to block the ledge. Ahmed was on his right and Salim on the left, their shoulders touching. The enemy came at them in a mob, three at a time but with others close behind, ready to step into the gaps left by the men who fell. Dorian loved the feel of a good
blade in his hand. This weapon he held now had been a parting gift from the Prince when he had sailed from Lamu. It was of Damascus steel, limber as a willow wand and sharp as the tooth of a serpent.
He killed the first man who came at him cleanly, lunging under the rim of his helmet into his dark eye, skewering the eyeball like a sheep’s kidney on a kebab, and sending the steel on into his brain. Recovering swiftly, Dorian disengaged the blade and let his victim drop. Then the others rushed forward behind their bronze shields, and there was no longer space nor pause for fine sword-play. Shoulder to shoulder in the pack and surge, they hacked and stabbed and shouted, swaying back and forth and side to side, across the narrow ledge.
The warning cry from the Saar lookouts in the cliff face was almost drowned by the shouting, the clatter of steel on steel, the trampling and shoving.
‘On the left side and the front!’
Dorian heard it, and cut down another man before he jumped back from the fight, letting Mustapha, who was behind him, move up into his place in the line.
He looked about him and saw that, while he had been fighting on the right, the Turks had launched a series of attacks at every other point. Five of his men were fighting desperately to hold the far side of the entrance, where the enemy were pressing forward along the ledge. At the same time two hundred Turks were coming directly up the sand slope to their front. In the few moments that it took him to make this appraisal, two of his men were killed. Salim had half his head cut away by the swing of an axe blade and Mustapha took a sword thrust through the lungs and dropped to his knees belching bright gouts of blood.
Dorian knew he could not afford these losses, and the Turks coming up the slope had almost reached the ledge. The men he had placed in the cliffs had not waited for his order but were scrambling down to join the fighting. He was grateful when they jumped the last ten feet onto the rock beside him. By now both his flanks were buckling under the pressure, and at any moment a wave of the enemy would come roaring over the front of the ledge.