The well stood in the middle of the enclosure, in a comparatively exposed area, as seen from above. Olga saw men approaching it with canteens in their hands, and the Arabs, with sardonic enjoyment, refrained from firing at them. They reached the well, and then the girl saw the change that came over them. It ran through their band like an electric shock. The men along the walls reacted by firing wildly. A furious yelling rose, edged with hysteria, and men began to run madly about the enclosure. Some toppled, hit by shots dropping from the ridges.
“What are they doing?” Olga started to her knees, and was instantly jerked down again by Gordon. The Turks were running into the hut. If she had been watching Gordon she would have sensed the meaning of it, for his dark face grew suddenly grim.
“They’re dragging the women out!” she exclaimed. “I see Osman waving his saber. What? Oh, God! They’re butchering the women!”
Above the crackle of shots rose terrible shrieks and the sickening chack of savagely driven blows. Olga turned sick and hid her face. Osman had realized the trap into which he had been driven, and his reaction was that of a mad dog. Recognizing defeat in the blocked well, facing the ruin of his crazy ambitions by thirst and Bedouin bullets, he was taking this vengeance on the whole Arab race.
On all sides the Arabs rose howling, driven to frenzy by the sight of that slaughter. That these women were of another tribe made no difference. A stern chivalry was the foundation of their society, just as it was among the frontiersmen of early America. There was no sentimentalism about it. It was real and vital as life itself.
The Rualla went berserk when they saw women of their race falling under the swords of the Turks. A wild yell shattered the brazen sky, and recklessly breaking cover, the Arabs pelted down the slopes, howling like fiends. Gordon could not check them, nor could Mitkhal. Their shouts fell on deaf ears. The walls vomited smoke and flame as withering volleys raked the oncoming hordes. Dozens fell, but enough were left to reach the wall and sweep over it in a wave that neither lead nor steel could halt.
And Gordon was among them. When he saw he could not stop the storm he joined it. Mitkhal was not far behind him, cursing his men as he ran. The shaykh had no stomach for this kind of fighting, but his leadership was at stake. No man who hung back in this charge would ever be able to command the Rualla again.
Gordon was among the first to reach the wall, leaping over the writhing bodies of half a dozen Arabs. He had not blazed away wildly as he ran like the Bedouins, to reach the wall with an empty gun. He held his fire until the flame spurts from the barrier were almost burning his face, and then emptied his rifle in a point-blank fusillade that left a bloody gap where there had been a line of fierce dark faces an instant before. Before the gap could be closed he had swarmed over and in, and the Rualla poured after him.
As his feet hit the ground a rush of men knocked him against the wall and a blade, thrusting for his life, broke against the rocks. He drove his shortened butt into a snarling face, splintering teeth and bones, and the next instant a surge of his own men over the wall cleared a space about him. He threw away his broken rifle and drew his pistol.
The Turks had been forced back from the wall in a dozen places now, and men were fighting all over the sangar. No quarter was asked—none given. The pitiful headless bodies sprawled before the bloodstained hut had turned the Bedouins into hot-eyed demons. The guns were empty now, all but Gordon’s automatic. The yells had died down to grunts, punctuated by death-howls. Above these sounds rose the chopping impact of flailing blades, the crunch of fiercely driven rifle butts. So grimly had the Bedouins suffered in that brainless rush, that now they were outnumbered, and the Turks fought with the fury of desperation.
It was Gordon’s automatic, perhaps, that tipped the balance. He emptied it without haste and without hesitation, and at that range he could not miss. He was aware of a dark shadow forever behind him, and turned once to see black Hassan following him, smiting methodically right and left with a heavy scimitar already dripping crimson. Even in the fury of strife, Gordon grinned. The literal-minded Soudanese was obeying his instructions to keep at El Borak’s heels. As long as the battle hung in doubt, he was Gordon’s protector—ready to become his executioner the instant the tide turned in their favor.
“Faithful servant,” called Gordon sardonically. “Have care lest these Turks cheat you of my head!”
Hassan grinned, speechless. Suddenly blood burst from his thick lips and he buckled at the knees. Somewhere in that rush down the hill his black body had stopped a bullet. As he struggled on all fours a Turk ran in from the side and brained him with a rifle-butt. Gordon killed the Turk with his last bullet. He felt no grudge against Hassan. The man had been a good soldier, and had obeyed orders given him.
The sangar was a shambles. The men on their feet were less than those on the ground, and all were streaming blood. The white wolf standard had been torn from its staff and lay trampled under vengeful feet. Gordon bent, picked up a saber and looked about for Osman. He saw Mitkhal, running toward the horse-pen, and then he yelled a warning, for he saw Osman.
The man broke away from a group of struggling figures and ran for the pen. He tore away the ropes and the horses, frantic from the noise and smell of blood, stampeded into the sangar, knocking men down and trampling them. As they thundered past, Osman, with a magnificent display of agility, caught a handful of flying mane and leaped on the back of the racing steed.
Mitkhal ran toward him, yelling furiously, and snapping a pistol at him. The shaykh, in the confusion of the fighting, did not seem to be aware that the gun was empty, for he pulled the trigger again and again as he stood in the path of the oncoming rider. Only at the last moment did he realize his peril and leap back. Even so, he would have sprung clear had not his sandal heel caught in a dead man’s abba.
Mitkhal stumbled, avoided the lashing hoofs, but not the down-flailing saber in Osman’s hand. A wild cry went up from the Rualla as Mitkhal fell, his turban suddenly crimson. The next instant Osman was out of the gate and riding like the wind—straight up the hillside to where he saw the slim figure of the girl to whom he now attributed his overthrow.
Olga had come out from behind the rocks and was standing in stunned horror watching the fight below. Now she awoke suddenly to her own peril at the sight of the madman charging up the slope. She drew the pistol Gordon had taken from him and opened fire. She was not a very good shot. Three bullets missed, the fourth killed the horse, and then the gun jammed. Gordon was running up the slope as the Apaches of his native Southwest run, and behind him streamed a swarm of Rualla. There was not a loaded gun in the whole horde.
Osman took a shocking fall when his horse turned a somersault under him, but rose, bruised and bloody, with Gordon still some distance away. But the Turk had to play hide-and-seek for a few moments among the rocks with his prey before he was able to grasp her hair and twist her screaming to her knees, and then he paused an instant to enjoy her despair and terror. That pause was his undoing.
As he lifted his saber to strike off her head, steel clanged loud on steel. A numbing shock ran through his arm, and his blade was knocked from his hand. His weapon rang on the hot flints. He whirled to face the blazing slits that were El Borak’s eyes. The muscles stood out in cords and ridges on Gordon’s sun burnt forearm in the intensity of his passion.
“Pick it up, you filthy dog,” he said between his teeth.
Osman hesitated, stooped, caught up the saber and slashed at Gordon’s legs without straightening. Gordon leaped back, then sprang in again the instant his toes touched the earth. His return was as paraly- zingly quick as the death-leap of a wolf. It caught Osman off balance, his sword extended. Gordon’s blade hissed as it cut the air, slicing through flesh, gritting through bone.
The Turk’s head toppled from the severed neck and fell at Gordon’s feet, the headless body collapsing in a heap. With an excess spasm of hate, Gordon kicked the head savagely down the slope.
“Oh!” Olga turne
d away and hid her face. But the girl knew that Osman deserved any fate that could have overtaken him. Presently she was aware of Gordon’s hand resting lightly on her shoulder and she looked up, ashamed of her weakness. The sun was just dipping below the western ridges. Musa came limping up the slope, bloodstained but radiant.
“The dogs are all dead, effendi!” he cried, industriously shaking a plundered watch, in an effort to make it run. “Such of our warriors as still live are faint from strife, and many sorely wounded. There is none to command now but thou.”
“Sometimes problems settle themselves,” mused Gordon. “But at a ghastly price. If the Rualla hadn’t made that rush, which was the death of Hassan and Mitkhal—oh, well, such things are in the hands of Allah, as the Arabs say. A hundred better men than I have died today, but by the decree of some blind Fate, I live.”
Gordon looked down on the wounded men. He turned to Musa.
“We must load the wounded on camels,” he said, “and take them to the camp at the Walls where there’s water and shade. Come.”
As they started down the slope, he said to Olga:
“I’ll have to stay with them till they’re settled at the Walls, then I must start for the coast. Some of the Rualla will be able to ride, though, and you need have no fear of them. They’ll escort you to the nearest Turkish outpost.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“Then I’m not your prisoner?”
He laughed.
“I think you can help Feisal more by carrying out your original instructions of supplying misleading information to the Turks! I don’t blame you for not confiding even in me. You have my deepest admiration, for you’re playing the most dangerous game a woman can.”
“Oh!” She felt a sudden warm flood of relief and gladness that he should know she was not really an enemy. Musa was well out of earshot. “I might have known you were high enough in Feisal’s councils to know that I really am—”
“Gloria Willoughby, the cleverest, most daring secret agent the British government employs,” he murmured. The girl impulsively placed her slender fingers in his, and hand in hand they went down the slope together.
EVERY MAN A KING, by E. Hoffmann Price
CHAPTER I
“Do you have to go? At this hour?” Olajai turned from her mirror, but did not leave off unfastening the red velvet hood whose twinkling pendants trailed past her cheeks, and to her shoulders. “Couldn’t it wait till tomorrow?”
Timur frowned, which made it all the more certain that the King Maker’s granddaughter had not married him for his looks. He snatched a shirt of link mail from a hook, and as he worked it down over his broad shoulders, he grumbled, “One of Bikijek’s pets, and he’s got the king’s seal. Either be a good dog, or run out and join your brother at Saghej Well!”
Olajai said, wistfully, as she wiped off the last bit of dead-white makeup, “And I thought it’d be lovely, living in Samarkand.”
Olajai was shapely of body, and exquisite of face; the Turki heritage, showing in the peach blow tinge of her cheeks, gave features whose every line was sharp and clean and delicate in its drawing. This was Timur’s first and only wife, and thus far, he was glad that there were no others.
Though not quite twenty-seven, he looked older, for mountain blizzards and desert blasts had weathered his flat face. Wind blown sand and storm driven sleet had set the Mongol slant of his eyes in a permanent squint; and for all the blue Zaytuni silk tunic he put on over his shirt of linked mail, and his gold embroidery boots, and plumed pork pie hat, he seemed out of place in a palace.
“I’ll get away as soon as I can,” he promised, and limped out.
Bow legged, and never built for walking, he was further handicapped by an ankle which had stopped a well-aimed arrow. In the tiled reception room, he said to the waiting official, “Something important going on?”
The square-rigged Kipchak did not answer; he merely tapped the big four-cornered seal. In the court, a sleepy groom held his horse, and Timur’s.
They skirted the plaza of splendid Samarkand. The bitter clear moon brought out the blue of tile-fronted palaces, and the golden crests of tall minarets. Samarkand, the jewel of the Jagatai Empire, was now the prize of the Kipchak Horde who had overrun the land: and Timur was weary of serving invaders. But for luck, and a friend at Elias Koja’s court, he might be an exile, like Olajai’s brother, Mir Hussein. Yet, though his position as administrator of affairs gave plenty of enemies and little satisfaction, it at least enabled him to stand between Bikijek’s rapacious clique of nobles, and his own conquered neighbors.
Timur trailed the official, instead of riding boot to boot. There was more than just the matter of rank involved. Then, wary ever since that first strange warning, he noted the stirring in the shadows of the archway to the left. Here the street was narrow; here he and his guide faced a cold, white moon.
A bowstring twanged, the strident note of a horseman’s bow. Timur ducked. His sword was half unsheathed when the arrow thumped home, nailing the Kipchak squarely in the throat. The fellow made a choking sound, and lurched from the saddle.
Timur wheeled, chin in, and crouching low, so that there was hardly a vulnerable spot exposed. The Ferghana stallion stretched out in a great bound; hooves struck fire. When things happened too fast for thought, Timur Bek was driven by the instinct to close in, to cut down.
Then a man came out, barefoot, and bearded. “Go home, Timur Bek. There was no other way to warn you.”
The face was in shadow, but Timur recognized the voice and the figure. “Good shooting, for a scholar! Why?”
“Allah will enlighten you. Also, the man you were following won’t be able to tell anyone you’ve been enlightened.”
“What is this, Kaboul?”
“If all is well with your family, then this is a mistake. And the peace upon you.”
Kaboul the Darvish turned into the shadows of the archway. On the ground, Timur saw a horseman’s bow, but neither quiver nor arrows.
“One man, one arrow.”
And now Kaboul was going back to his cubicle to write a Persian quatrain, or an ode in Turki!
Timur, retracing his course, held his horse to a walk, for in spite of the menace which threatened Olajai he could not risk the sound of galloping. When he finally reached the wicket which gave entrance to the rear court of his house, he hitched himself up and stood in the saddle. Then, catching the crown of the wall, he swung himself to the top, and dropped to the grass inside. His first move was to unbolt the little gate, and lead his horse in, for he dreaded the helplessness of being afoot.
His felt boots made no sound. As he hurried past the servants’ quarters and down a hallway, he heard voices, in front: a challenge as of a drowsy porter, then brusque answer, and a scuffle which ended in a groan.
There was time. He hurried back, mounted up, and again felt complete. He nudged the stallion with his boot, and stroked the sleek neck, wheedling the bewildered beast into the tiled passageway.
A woman cried out, more in wrath and indignation than in fright. “Father of pigs! Get out of here or I will have you skinned alive.”
“That’s her, Olajai Turcan Aga!”
“Come down, khanoum; we won’t hurt you.”
“So you do know that this is Timur’s house. You know, and come in?”
They laughed at the threat. “And we know where Timur is.”
That was when the lame rider’s scowl became a grin. “Come down, Olajai!” he called. “We’re leaving town!”
The deep-chested hail made the men at arms whirl about. They had curved swords, they had maces; they wore peaked helmets, and armor of overlapping plates sewed on leather, but they were afoot, and they were surprised.
The stallion snorted. He quivered, then leaped as Timur’s legs tightened. The heavy blade licked out, finding the gap between neck-guard and hauberk. As the stroke bit home, Timur traversed, so that the wall covered his left. He swayed in the saddle; a spike-headed “morning
star” ripped his tunic, exposing the link mail beneath, and then his blade flickered, slashing the man’s forehead.
Blood blinded; that one was out of action.
“Come down; we’re riding!” Timur shouted.
Some were scrambling now to get to the front court and their waiting horses; several tried to close in with swords. Blades clanged. Timur hewed down, slicing off plates of armor.
Olajai snatched a tall Chinese vase from the landing and heaved it at the head of the rearmost. While his helmet saved him from a smashed skull, the impact dropped him in his tracks. She dashed down the stairs and plucked the fellow’s helmet from his head.
“Put it on!” she cried, crowding up on Timur’s left.
“Grab a horse!” he answered, and booted the stallion after the handful who had raced for their mounts.
And when his horse got firm footing on the hard-packed earth, Timur charged with effect.
Olajai followed. She was not dressed for riding, but the ripping of her gown took care of that. And she picked a good mount.
Two of the raiders galloped across the square. Two others fled afoot. Timur snatched the bow whose case hung from the saddle of Olajai’s horse. As he strung it, she passed him an arrow.
The hindmost of the footmen pitched on his face.
Timur grinned. “Good bow. Now keep behind me; there’ll be the devil to pay at the gate.”
* * * *
There was, but it did not last long.
Guardsmen were turning out. The two surviving horsemen had attended to that. But the moon was bright, and Timur’s bowstring twanged, once, twice, thrice: the deadly Turki arrows, released at a dead run, cleared a path. Then a whirl of steel, and the fugitives went pelting down one of the lanes which threaded the orchard girdle of Samarkand.
CHAPTER II
THE BEGGAR
Once a bend in the lane furnished momentary cover, Timur pulled up. “Get Eltchi Bahadur and as many others as you can, and ride direct for Saghej Well. I’ll keep the Kipchaks off your heels, and I’ll meet you later.”
The Adventure Megapack: 25 Classic Adventure Stories Page 4
