Warriors of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  “What manner of women be these?”

  “Slaves.”

  “Then, Pir Kasim, have you paid the full value of their slavery?”

  The merchant was too surprised to respond quickly. He had not thought that Khlit was interested in the caravan. Before he could answer Khlit turned on him, his teeth gleaming through his gray mustache and his eyes hard.

  “Can you say, Pir Kasim, that you are less a thief than those who follow—”

  He scowled moodily and struck his fist on the saddlepeak so that the black pony jumped. “Yasmi has a foreboding, Pir Kasim. Nay, I know naught of omens. But take care lest the evil fortune she has foretold comes to pass.”

  With that he spurred on to the head of the caravan, leaving the merchant sunk in thought. Pir Kasim dropped back until he was abreast of Nasir Beg.

  “The wretched Yasmi has been using her tongue upon Khlit,” he whispered. “The Cossack waxes insolent, Nasir Beg.

  “What think you? If he rides to Yarkand he may breed evil for us. Yet we need him to deal with the Muslims.”

  “When the hour comes I shall strike the Cossack. Then the name of Khlit will be no more than the writing on sand when the wind has passed over.”

  Pir Kasim nodded shrewdly.

  “Bethink you, Nasir Beg. There will be much confusion when we ride upon the Muslims. Perhaps it is written that Khlit should die by the hand of the unbelievers.

  “If not—” he measured his words slowly “it may even then come to pass. A blow in the back—Khlit wears no armor—or an arrow at the base of the brain. The Cossack is a foolhardy dog—he will be in the front of the fight, eh, Nasir Beg?”

  The Arab's eyes gleamed.

  “Bismillah! I have a mind to his black horse and the curved sword. Yet—I have heard tales of Khlit. A price should be paid for such a deed—a good price. The blue diamond of the rani.”

  Pir Kasim squealed angrily.

  “Nay, by the beard of the Prophet!”

  He considered a moment, glancing sidewise at his companion.

  “Yet I am generous, Nasir Beg. Methinks there is a thing other than jewels you have a mind to. If Khlit dies at the Darband you shall have—Yasmi.”

  “So be it,” agreed the Arab.

  There was a good reason why Pir Kasim had not seen Abdul Dost near at hand for some time. The Afghan was not there to be seen.

  From the night at the Srinaggar tavern Abdul Dost had pressed the pursuit closely. He had soon ascertained that Pir Kasim had taken the Sindh caravan route. He had traced the merchant through the village where the caravan had been stoned, and was close upon them when Pir Kasim turned aside by the Zodjila Pass.

  This move had checked the Afghans. They soon discovered that Pir Kasim had not continued along the Sindh, but it was the better part of a day before Abdul Dost, chafing under the delay, learned from a shepherd that the caravan had been seen ascending the Zodjila.

  When they came into view of those they sought, the caravan was threading the path along the cliff. Abdul Dost, despite his impatience, was too experienced a soldier to venture to attack in such a location. He ordered his men to fall back and keep Pir Kasim in view.

  Until the day when Khlit had sat Mustafa on the cliff ledge. Then Abdul Dost went back a space along the trail to a ravine which led to the gorge below and to the broken body of a woman. Down the ravine they had led their horses, and throughout that night they rode quietly along the valley bed until they had passed the caravan, which was encamped on the mountainside above.

  At dawn Abdul Dost halted only long enough to water his horses. Then, munching their graincakes and dates as they rode, they struck through the pine forest that would lead—as one of the soldiers informed him—to the trail Pir Kasim was taking, ahead of the Darband Pass.

  “Then will we ride back,” explained Abdul Dost grimly, “and come upon them at the ford in the Darband.”

  But to do this he was forced to cross the stream below the pass, and at that season it was swollen with the melted snows from the heights above. The two men halted, staring at the rush of water and marking the rocks underneath.

  “Those who pass here say it cannot be crossed, save at the Darband ford,” they told the mansabdar.

  Abdul Dost glanced up at the sun which was slanting through the pines and smiled.

  “Then,” he laughed, “it will be told how the Darband stream has been crossed.”

  He did not laugh as he forced his horse into the stream and saw how the beast drifted down with the current. The two men hesitated, then plunged in after him. The bad footing and the strength of the current soon forced the horses to swim.

  Three men and two horses crossed the stream. The third beast floundered in the current with a broken leg until its rider drew his knife and ended its pain; then this man swam ashore, holding to the tail of another horse. Abdul Dost waited, for the two remaining mounts were badly winded.

  Before noon he was again in his saddle. The dismounted warrior girded his tunic about his loins and ran, clinging to the stirrup of his comrade. For Abdul Dost had said they must hasten if they would reach the Darband in time.

  “Eh, my children,” smiled Abdul Dost, “I have sworn an oath. Shall I not keep my word?”

  “We are your men, Lord of Badakshan,” spoke up one, “and our swords are yours that your word may be kept. We will pray that our strength be increased.”

  So they spurred forward. But the sun was high when they neared the caravan track beyond the Darband Pass.

  V

  Only for the space of a moment can a warrior say, “I am the slayer and he the slain."

  He hears the joy cries of the women at his wedding feast, and his dull ears harken to the lamentations at his deathbed. Always the voices of the women cry out. Nay, are they not the handmaidens of Life and Death?

  Kashmiri proverb

  The sun filled the Darband Pass with a red light—red because it was reflected from an expanse of sandstone that made the bed of the pass level as the court of a palace.

  High in the Himalayas was the Darband Pass, walled by slopes of brown sand that were in turn surmounted by crumbling brown cliffs, beyond which glittered the blue expanse of the glaciers that filled the ravines descending from the rock peaks.

  No grass grew in the Darband Pass; nor did pine trees fringe the sand slopes. The only life was that of the kites and rooks who circled overhead, following the course of the caravan. In and about the Darband was the great silence of the heights, broken only at the farther end where the stream rushed down through the rocks.

  The ford at this point was shallow; the opposite side, strewn with sandstone ledges and gullies, was steep. Pir Kasim marked this with a satisfied eye. He urged the women and the laden beasts hastily over the stream.

  Mustafa, sensing the need of haste so that they should be in their hiding places before the pursuers appeared, cried angrily at the women, striking one with his hand when her horse delayed in the stream to snatch a mouthful of water.

  “Get you hence, wanton,” he commanded, and did not see the glint of hatred intensified by terror in the Hindu's eyes.

  Yasmi he did not strike, contenting himself with a mocking whisper.

  “Tale-bearer and infidel, soon you will have a new lord and then you will feel the hand of Mustafa.”

  She passed by in silence—unusual for her—and glanced back at Khlit. Her eyes met the glance of the Cossack and he nodded as if approvingly. Whereupon she urged her horse up the steep slope.

  Here were the sandstone gullies, a honeycomb of fissures and grotesque summits of the weather-worn stone. Yasmi fancied that each ledge bore upon it the semblance of a face—some leering evilly, some grinning. Some resembled animals.

  It was as if the gigantic creatures of a long dead race had here been frozen into immobility. They stood watching the passing of the beasts and men of the caravans—so Yasmi fancied.

  But Pir Kasim was well content. In the sandstone gullies were hiding places apl
enty. The merchant disposed of the caravan swiftly and with much shrewdness.

  On the top of the rise he placed the horses and donkeys in a ravine, the steep sides of which afforded exit at only one point. He commanded the women to remain here and at the entrance to the gully posted a caravaneer armed with a bow as guard.

  Pir Kasim cared to take no chances with Khlit, so he had selected the place with care—a depression into which the sun shone fully, where the guard could watch both women and horses without moving.

  “Because, Nasir Beg,” he whispered to the Arab, “it is said the Cossack is like an evil magician with the black horse between his legs. Aye, like to a conjurer who can summon the powers of darkness, and the horse his djinnee. But here he will be afoot among the rocks.”

  Not less craftily did the merchant arrange his men. He chose the rocks just where the trail rose to the summit of the slope by the riverbank. Here they were a scant fifty paces from the horses—which were of course out of sight—and even less from the edge of the stream. They could see down the length of the Darband and watch their enemies as the latter rode up to the ford—as Pir Kasim believed they must do.

  “Then, Khlit,” he smiled, rubbing his hands together, “a volley of arrows—a shot from Nasir Beg's Turkish pistol—and all is done. Save the slaying of the wounded. It is a good plan.”

  “Aye,” admitted Khlit.

  “And you—” Pir Kasim's keen eyes were fastened on the Cossack's girdle—“where are your pistols? Eh—there were two fine weapons that you are wont to wear—”

  “I have them not today,” explained Khlit indifferently. “The sword, the curved sword, is the better weapon.”

  “Good!”

  Pir Kasim had reason to be satisfied. Without his pistols Khlit would be an easy victim, he reasoned. The Cossack wore no armor, not even a quilted surcoat. Even if he should suspect treachery and try to defend himself he would be one against six—and Nasir Beg and the caravaneers had shirts of Damascus mail.

  Pir Kasim was shrewd enough to perceive that Khlit was distrustful of him. The Cossack's words of the day before had served to put the merchant on his guard. He counted on the fact that Khlit would be stirred by the attack on their pursuers and would be taken unawares.

  “If not,” he confided to Nasir Beg, “he will be afoot, and crafty though he be at swordplay, my two men have orders to strike him down with their arrows. What avails a sword against arrows? Nay, he was a fool to put aside the Turkish pistols!”

  “Even thus,” suggested Nasir Beg, “it would be well to find those two weapons and take them in your hand.”

  Pir Kasim scurried off to ransack the saddlebags of Khlit's horse, leaving the Cossack surrounded by his men. His hasty search was unsuccessful, yet it gave him opportunity to see that all was well by the horses.

  The women sat muffled in their robes at the feet of the guard— Yasmi among them, as Pir Kasim was careful to note. The horses were tethered securely. The caravaneer stood at the break in the sandstone ridge, which was the only entrance to the gully.

  Fearful lest his enemies appear while he was absent, Pir Kasim ran back to the ambush over the riverbank. Khlit had not moved.

  The Cossack sat idly on a rock where he was concealed from view from the ford, Nasir Beg within arm's reach on one side, the Arab's hand near the pistol in his belt. Mustafa leaned nearby, holding a sharp knife.

  Within five paces of the three the caravaneers kept watch over the ford, their bows strung and their quivers ready to hand. Pir Kasim, like the eunuch, was armed with a knife. The merchant chuckled silently.

  “Akh,” he muttered in his beard, “the dolt! The tall fool of the steppe! The fox that is blind! The wolf that has seen many fights, who is heedless of peril thereby! Akh, another hour, and the three who follow will lie dead in the ford and Khlit will be overmastered. Then—I shall repeat the namaz gar—the evening prayer. For Allah favors me this day.”

  He surveyed the scene again before joining Nasir Beg. So well had he planned that a thrill of self-satisfaction chased up his bent spine. After all, Pir Kasim was an artist in his way—a master of treachery.

  “Another hour, my lord,” he smiled at Khlit, “and the way to Yarkand will be clear. Their rich gold will be ours from the women.”

  “Aye,” said Khlit.

  Pir Kasim nodded, thinking that Yasmi had foretold truly when she said that she had beheld evil omens. He watched Khlit contentedly.

  The Cossack was stroking his bare blade back and forth over his boot top, and polishing the shining steel with his neckcloth. He was fingering the chasing in the blade with evident pride, his long legs sprawled before him, his sheepskin hat well to the back of his gray head.

  And at this hour the sun was near its highest point.

  Then Yasmi began her song.

  It came clearly down to the waiting men. It echoed melodiously among the rocks of the Darband. And it was echoed back from the farther side of the ford—each word distinct:

  Oh, where is the falcon’s nest. . . .

  1

  Reincarnation. If she should die twice again in this manner—so the Hindu doctrine maintained—it would complete the five deaths which would win blessed immortality.

  Save in the wind . . .

  The song swelled forth with the full power of the girl's throat. And it seemed to mock the men, as if Yasmi sang with the lilt of laughter. At the same time there was a murmur as if the women were stirring.

  “Bismillah!” swore Pir Kasim. “Has the caravaneer taken leave of his wits that he lets Yasmi sing? Mustafa, go you and choke the song in the vixen's throat! Fail not, for there must be silence at the ford.”

  The eunuch needed no second bidding. Clutching his dagger, he stole off up to the gully where the women were.

  Pir Kasim scowled at Khlit, wondering if the Cossack had had a hand in the girl's singing. Yasmi, he reflected suspiciously, might have intended to warn their pursuers of the ambush.

  But Khlit sat passively gazing at his feet and stroking his weapon. Perhaps a trace of a smile twitched at his gray mustache.

  Presently Yasmi's voice faltered in the midst of a word. Silence followed, broken by a faint murmur of voices in their rear. Pir Kasim peered across the ford and noted with satisfaction that the three riders were not yet in view.

  “Mustafa has stilled the songbird,” he whispered to Nasir Beg, “and doubtless bound and gagged her as she deserved—”

  He broke off in sheer surprise. Yasmi had resumed her song at the point where she had ceased. Even louder than before, the girl's voice floated down from the rocks above them.

  “By the ninety-nine holy names of Allah!” swore the Arab. “Will you let the wanton betray our abiding place?”

  Khlit alone of the men at the ford seemed not surprised at the song of Yasmi. He pulled his sheepskin hat over one ear and glanced up solemnly at the sun.

  Pir Kasim fidgeted in an agony of impatience. Their enemies, he knew, might even then be within hearing.

  Yasmi must be silenced. He looked once more across the ford, and at Khlit basking his tall frame in the sun; then he stole off to the rear toward the women.

  Nasir Beg looked after him, scowling. What had become of Mustafa and the guard, that they let Yasmi sing? He did not understand.

  There was something uncanny in the note of the song. And Yasmi—“The Muslim girl is an evil enchantress,” he growled to Khlit. “Bismillah! She has laid a spell with her song on the caravaneer and Mustafa.”

  Khlit responded quietly, leaning closer to the Arab.

  “Aye, a spell, Nasir Beg. A spell of steel and powder. Yasmi has one of my brace of Turkish pistols. The mate to the weapon is in the hand of a Hindu woman—the same Mustafa struck in the ford.”

  “Ha!”

  Nasir Beg looked up keenly and rose to his feet.

  “A potent spell, Nasir Beg. Doubtless it has rendered the car-avaneer and the dog of a eunuch powerless, each in turn, while the women bound them. And—d
oubtless—Pir Kasim has come under the spell. Did not Yasmi sing that he might hear?”

  The two caravaneers gaped. Nasir Beg fingered his weapon. Khlit had neither moved nor looked at him.

  “Pistols have their use, Nasir Beg,” he mused calmly. “Aye, Yasmi uses them boldly. But for my hand, Nasir Beg—the curved sword.”

  He drew the cloth along the shining blade carefully. The three men watched him as if fascinated.

  “The sword, Nasir Beg,” said Khlit, “that you covet—with the black pony—after you had slain the Cossack who is called the Curved Saber. Aye, so Yasmi told me, and her ears are keen to hear—”

  Nasir Beg caught at the pistol in his belt. Then, just in time, he snatched out his sword instead.

  Khlit had struck without rising from his seat. Leaning toward the Arab, his long arm flew out. Though Nasir Beg partly parried the blow a crimson cut showed above the man's brow where Khlit's sword had touched—no more than touched—the skin.

  And even as the wound in the Arab's forehead was the weakness that seized upon his heart. A crafty and experienced swordsman, Nasir Beg fought best when the odds were in his favor. Now, in the eyes that burned into his from under gray brows, he read— death.

  So he gave back swiftly, parrying desperately. And as he gave back Khlit was upon him, the curved saber slashing at his throat above the armor.

  “So, Nasir Beg,” Khlit growled softly, “you coveted the sword? Nay, have it then. So the girl Yasmi was to be your slave? Nay, the steel is your reward, for treachery, Nasir Beg.”

  And Khlit's weapon flashed before his eyes. Nasir Beg cursed, giving ground again. Then, feeling the blood stream down into his eyes, the fear that had clutched at his heart overmastered him.

  “Let fly, dolts!” he screamed to the staring caravaneers. “An arrow in his back—”

  The cry ended in a grunt which changed to a gasp that shrilled and broke midway. Khlit had smitten down the Arab's guard and poised his sword for the death stroke. An arrow whizzed and tore through the Cossack's boot below the knee.

  Khlit shifted his weight silently to the other foot, placing himself so that the Arab was between him and the archers, feinted at Nasir Beg's head and struck him savagely across the knees. The Arab staggered, cursing. The next instant he threw his arms wide, his skull split between the eyes nearly to the chin.