Warriors of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  “Ho, Afghan, give place to the Mongol!”

  Crying his war shout, the warrior spurred his horse into the struggling groups before him, hewing mightily with his sword, and was lost to view among the enemy.

  And Abdul Dost, fighting doggedly, drew back to his own camp in the Afghan village. Here his men gathered together the whole of their remaining strength, and, with women and boys in the ranks, resisted the advance of the Rajputs, refusing to retreat farther and determined to die if need be upon the field.

  The mansabdar remained with his men, who were soon surrounded in the village by the forces under Raja Man Singh.

  Thus the intrigue of Alacha and the strategy of Paluwan Khan had overcome the Afghans. To drive home the victory, Raja Man Singh prepared to administer the last blow, sure of himself and the strength at his command.

  “What care I for new foes?” he laughed when warned of the appearance of a Mongol among the Afghans. “The field is in our hands, and the spirit heroes, nay, the gods themselves, could not drive our army back from its conquest.”

  XIII

  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  As Khlit brought the last of his men through the lower passes of the Hindu Kush, after sunrise of the day of the battle, above the plain of Badakshan and overlooking the winding course of the Oxus, they rode through a flurry of snow and hail and passed from under storm clouds.

  For the last day and night the Horde had not halted to rest or to sleep. Those who still had extra horses rode these until they dropped, saving the better ones as best they might. Under Khlit's driving the Tatars had made the journey of a hundred miles over the ravines in twenty-four hours. Now at the place where Berang waited, Khlit commanded that they dismount and kill such spare horses as remained in order that they might eat.

  From the broad valley underfoot came the rumble of cannon and the dull murmur that told the veteran warriors a battle was on, although they could see nothing of the field itself, being deep in the pine forest at the headwaters of the Oxus.

  Berang, however, had climbed a tree farther down the valley and had made out much of the conflict, especially what had taken place by the river which ran directly down from the pass, being but a slender stream at that point.

  “We must hasten,” he growled to Khlit, “for good sword strokes are dealt yonder, and it is my thought that the Afghans ride to defeat, for their ranks are broken.”

  “The men must eat,” Khlit answered, and the Tatars stretched themselves on the ground under the pines, while some kindled fires.

  The faces of all were blackened by exposure and lined with fatigue. The bleared eyes were dull, and the thick-set, powerful bodies swayed as they moved afoot, for they had lived in the saddle during the greater part of a week, and the cessation of continued motion bewildered them.

  Yet they chuckled, staring at each other and their leader. They had come over the passes where Genghis Khan had been before them, and they were looking down upon India.

  Some scooped up handfuls of the snow for themselves, but carefully led their shaggy beasts—the steppe ponies, possessed of the iron-like endurance of their masters—to the streams that ran into the Oxus to drink.

  Khlit leaned upon his saddle-peak, his brown face the color of the saddle itself, his sheepskin coat bound close to his body. While Berang talked, he listened intently.

  Savagely he shook his head, hearing of the first assault of the Afghans and their repulse. He knew the strength of the Mogul's army, and its manner of fighting.

  “We are late, late,” he murmured. “Would I could see Abdul Dost. Ha, Berang, tell me the lie of the land.”

  The khan sought out Chan, and the minstrel, who knew the plain of Badakshan like a book, described it to the Cossack, who memorized every detail with painstaking care, glancing the while at his men, who ate wolfishly by the fires, and, having eaten, fell instantly into sleep.

  “Talikan!” broke in Khlit. “The rearmost village—there be captives therein? The spare horse-herds of the Rajputs?”

  “I have heard talk of Afghan prisoners laboring there, my lord,” responded the boy, then looked up brightly. “We also have a captive my lord—a noblewoman—and she may be made to tell you what you would know.”

  At the Cossack's impatient nod he hurried back among the trees and presently appeared with Tala, leading the horse whereon sat the veiled Nur-Jahan.

  The Persian held herself proudly erect, gazing mutely at the masses of uncouth warriors moving hither and thither among their horses. She was very pale, and her dark eyes were bright. Khlit barely glanced at her, not recognizing the empress-to-be in the lone woman dressed in the woolen robes of a commoner.

  “How many Afghan prisoners are in Talikan?” he barked. “How many guards?”

  “I know not.”

  Something in her voice caused the old warrior to look at her sharply.

  “Ha, woman, fail not to speak!”

  “I know not.”

  “You have seen the numbers of the Mogul's army—what numbers?”

  “As many as the head leaves underfoot, or the stones in the riverbed.”

  At this Berang muttered an oath and drew sword. He stepped to Nur-Jahan's side and grasped her hair in a mighty hand.

  “Speak or die.”

  The form of the woman stiffened and her eyelids fluttered. She lowered her eyes, keeping silence.

  “What name bears she?” Khlit turned to Chan.

  “Lord, we know not. Because of her, Berang, your man, slew Alacha. I heard her say that she was called the Light of the World; but that surely was madness.”

  “Lord,” Tala put in, bending her dark head, “I know not if it be madness, for this princess is of Isphahan, and she said to me in the Mogul camp that she would contrive peace between Afghan and Mogul. Then Alacha had her carried away. Not once but many times she spoke as Nur-Jahan, and great is her pride.”

  The keen eye of the Afghan girl had read much truth in the unveiled features of Nur-Jahan. Khlit reined his horse forward until his shaggy head was close to the eyes of the captive woman.

  “Speak, witless one,” he growled. “Tell the numbers that Raja Man Singh holds as reserve. Where lie they? In Talikan? With the prisoners?”

  When the Persian remained silent he snatched the veil from her head, and muttered in his beard.

  “Aye, you are Nur-Jahan. Once I carried you safely from Khoten to Kashmir, to your lord, the Mogul. And now, forgetting that, he has put a price upon my head. Speak, for here it matters not whether you be Nur-Jahan or slave.”

  The woman shook her head mutely. But now Tala and Chan pressed forward, eyes agleam.

  “O Kha Khan, know you the prize that you hold? Threaten her with the torture; send word to Raja Man Singh that Nur-Jahan will suffer for the wrongs of Badakshan—”

  “Little Afghan—” Khlit spoke impatiently—“said you not that the Light of the World sought to bring about peace between your people and the Mogul—and failed? How may she succeed now, when the battle is on? The ameers will have no thought for a woman. They follow their own path—” he nodded toward the plain below—“and twice ten thousand warriors are deaf to words.”

  “Then,” cried Berang and others of the khans, “let her suffer until she voices the tidings you would know.”

  He bent back the fair head of the captive with a twist of his wrist, and the others muttered hoarse approval. Khlit glanced once searchingly into the strained face of the Persian and caught Berang's arm, thrusting it aside.

  “She is Nur-Jahan, and she will not speak. Brothers, khans, are ye dotards and fools to wage war upon the body of one woman?”

  He looked from man to man, his gray eyes hard under the shaggy brows.

  They scowled at each other and fingered their weapons.

  “Content you, Kha Khan,” they barked. “We follow where you lead. Take us therefore to this horde of India—minions of the false prince sired by the great Genghis
.”

  Khlit glanced briefly a last time at Nur-Jahan.

  “Ha, woman of the Mogul, you shall bear the tidings to your lord. Say that the Tatars yield you back to him—unharmed. Tell him of the Mongol swoop, and the events that come to pass this day.”

  So speaking, he gave Nur-Jahan into the care of Chagan, the mighty sword-bearer, bidding Chan also ride with her until she should be given over safely into the care of some Mogul noble. This done, he looked hastily at the sun, noting likewise that the tumult on the plain below seemed to have died out somewhat— for Abdul Dost had drawn back from his first charge, and ordered the kettledrums sounded for assembly.

  Throughout the forest in the gorge, swarthy Tatars sprang up, cursing stiffened limbs, and mounted. The khans lifted their standards and rode forward, striking aside those in their way, until they reached Khlit's side.

  The Cossack signed for them to follow and led the way forward for some distance until the gorge fell away and a wide stream appeared at their feet. Berang pointed out the hillock whence he had observed the opening of the battle, and on this spot Khlit faced his khans.

  He indicated the course of the stream, widening to a small, shallow river down by the battlefield to the South, and pointed to the distance on the right, where some five miles away miniature groups of men moved slowly about the plain and the smoke of burning huts rose into the air. Faintly they could make out the dark line that was the Mogul's front, against the river bank.

  “There we must be with utmost speed, brothers, khans,” he said quietly. “How?”

  “Let us ride to the Afghan horde,” muttered Berang. “They be sore-pressed. Aye, what else?”

  Khlit looked at him impassively.

  “We be but one against five of the Mogul's men. Our Horde is thinned by death in the passes. Already you have said the Afghans are beaten back, having men to three times our number. By joining the Afghans we would swell their number—true—but avail nothing more.”

  “Let us then ride forward alone against the Mogul,” bellowed an old Tatar, his thin, white mustache hanging to his naked chest, blackened by the sun. “Aye, to slay mightily, as is fitting—” “Then would we be but one against five, and five that are facing us, ready for an onset—”

  “The flank, then,” cried another, pointing to the right.

  “There the ground is too rough for horses.”

  Khlit lifted his hand.

  “Hear me, brothers, khans. A way there is to double our numbers and to charge over fair ground and to strike where we are not looked for. We will ride in the tulughma, the Mongol swoop.” “Ho, that is good hearing,” nodded the khans, their fierce eyes gleaming. “Aye, that is good.”

  “By inspiring fear, brothers, khans, we will make greater our numbers. And we will be feared when we strike where no foe is looked for.”

  Khlit still held them with his eyes.

  “Yet by so doing we will cut ourselves off from escape—verily, there will be no hope if we fail. Mightily will we slay, yet death will follow us fast. Will you come with me?”

  As one man the Tatars made answer.

  “Lead, by Natagai's blood—lead. By the hide of the gods, lead us on, Kha Khan. We be wearied of talk.”

  Just a little Khlit smiled under his mustache, glancing calmly at the ring of faces. It was a moment of pride for the old warrior. Three thousand men and more had followed him over half a thousand miles of mountain land, enduring the while hardships that no army of India, Russia, Persia or China would have faced. He had done what the ameers of the Mogul, as Chan had related, had said that no man could do—and what the Afghans had feared could not be done. And now, without sight of friend or foe, the survivors of these men would follow him blindly into what seemed to him to be certain death for the most part, if not for all.

  Then it was that Khlit sent the warrior—him of the bare shoulders and white hair—headlong to Abdul Dost, bearing the command to draw back from the battle to where the Afghan forces would be safe and leave the field to the Tatars.

  Thus Khlit hoped to make good his promise to Abdul Dost. He was under no illusions as to what his own fate might be.

  “Yet,” he muttered to himself as he led the van of his riders across the stream to the farther bank, opposite the plain of battle, and turned swiftly to the South down a shallow valley pointed out by Chan, “when my sword is broken and my men are wearied or slain, the army of Jahangir will be an army no more.”

  In the scattered hamlets along the left bank of the river, the villagers, old men, and the women and children who had been staring across the shallow bosom of the Oxus—the watchers turned in amazement, perceiving that dark masses of horsemen rode down the valley behind them to the South. They heard a steady thunder of hoofs, and saw harsh faces and the glint of steel through clouds of dust.

  “Ai!” they cried. “The tales of the hillmen were true. Verily there are spirits of the heights afoot.”

  Being frightened and superstitious, they thought this—having seen no men like the Tatars.

  The Horde passed steadily athwart the battle lines on the farther side of the Oxus, and children in the fields, bending in the midday prayer wherein they besought aid for the Afghans, stared round-eyed as the riders trampled through wheat fields burned by Alacha's men, and behind thickets of willows, cypress and tamarisk that screened them from observation by the Mogul's forces.

  Chan, called forward by Khlit, served as guide. Here and there they encountered the skirmishing parties flung out across the river by Paluwan Khan, and engulfed them. It was ever the way of the Horde to strike so swiftly that no news of their coming reached ahead.

  They heard the distant roar of conflict as Abdul Dost flung his men forward in the noon charge, before Khlit's messenger could find him in the affray.

  Khlit looked up somewhat anxiously at this. But his lean face was tranquil. He smelled once more the smoke of battle, heard the impact of charging ranks. A great peace held his mind, and he smiled.

  His thoughts went back to the steppes, to the Ukraine and Tartary, where he had gone forward like this, but at the head of shouting Cossacks against the Turk and the Pole. Like this he had passed down the bank of the Volga, the Dneiper—aye, and the Kerulon, in the homeland of the Tatars.

  He wondered how the old chiefs of Cossackdom had fared during the years after he had left the war encampments. He would have liked to see their faces again, hear their oaths and see the glitter of their swords. Yet he knew his old companions were dead.

  So likewise had the elder khans of Tartary passed from his life, Chepe Buga and the others—their souls loosed from their bodies in the swift tide of battle.

  Only Abdul Dost remained.

  Khlit's life had been long and full. He had chosen the open plains and the hard fortunes of war instead of the peace of cities and the honors of the courts. No comfort had he won out of life, nor had he gained anything to serve him except his sword. He had seen the coming of a new era, of wide-flung empires and far-venturing ships, and his friends had been the last of a warrior race—in Cossackdom and Tartary . . .

  “Kha Khan—” Chan broke into his thoughts—“we come to the ford that leads to Talikan.”

  “Lift high the yak-tail standard,” shouted Khlit, rising in his stirrups. “Sound the nacars—Berang, take the Torgots across the river; Chagan, abide with me; brothers, khans, assemble your men into the clans and let each one look to me for orders. Draw your swords, brothers, khans.”

  In silence, until they gained midway across the stream, the Torgot clan rode. Debouching from twin clumps of willows, they were not noticed at first by the Mogul's forces holding the village, who had heard that the Afghans were driven back. And even when espied the Tatars were at first taken for some fresh body of imperial cavalry.

  Not until the strange aspect of Berang's men was noted did the scattered troops in Talikan take alarm. By then the Tatars were riding through the streets.

  Without difficulty they drove the ill-armed
and unprepared detachments in Talikan before them, striking down all who bore arms. The tide of the Horde swept across the river, trampled down the riverbank bazaars, sending the wondering inhabitants scurrying indoors.

  So suddenly had they appeared that rumors began to fly toward the rearmost lines of the ameers.

  “Demons out of purgatory have sprung from the ground. . . Men came out of the river and laid waste Talikan . . . They are like to wild beasts and no man may face them.”

  Thus the message came to Paluwan Khan, sitting his elephant in the midst of his scattered foot soldiery, and to Raja Man Singh, who pressed the attack on all sides against the Afghan camp where Abdul Dost had rallied his men.

  At Talikan Khlit remounted half his followers from the spare horses of the Rajputs. Seeking out the Afghan prisoners and scattering their guards, he ordered them to mount the horses discarded by the Tatars and to arm themselves from weapons cast upon the ground by fugitives and from the stores of the ameers. The village itself he fired, and a giant column of smoke soon rose against the sky, causing the imperial forces on the field of battle to glance back and wonder.

  Reforming his clans at the remount camp of the Rajputs, now emptied of guards, Khlit gave his men only scant breathing space before leading them forward.

  This time he altered his column into a fan-shaped formation, the standard in the center. Before advancing he summoned a Rajput noble, wounded, who had been spared by Berang. Pointing out the still figure of Nur-Jahan, he bade the man escort her out of the conflict.

  “Take her to Jahangir, Raja,” he said grimly. “Say to the World-Gripper that his empress has a braver heart than he—and is more faithful to a friend.”

  He did not even watch the noble take the bridle of Nur-Jahan's horse and lead it back through the village, stumbling onward in mute amazement. Yet his words were afterward to prove true. Nur-Jahan was the heart and the brains Jahangir's reign.

  And now came youths and old men running from houses here and there, crying:

  “Allah be praised! Aid is come for the Afghans. We will go with the Tatar Horde.”