One of the bandits laughed when he saw his friend returning on Morlana’s magnificent mount. He galloped out to meet him with an eerie triumphant cry.
As the two comrades raced toward one another, the one riding out began to slow but the rider coming in did not. With a graceful sweep, a long straight sword appeared in the returning rider’s hand, and he pivoted to the other rider’s right and slashed down through his skull as if it were a slab of rotten mutton.
Flavia screamed for the first time since she was a child.
Dark red was the head-cloth of this new bandit, not black, one side now tied across his face and revealing only his eyes.
“Haritat!” Flavia yelled in near disbelief.
The chieftain charged down the slope toward the center of the camp.
People scattered everywhere, and the camels’ guttural wails of protest shot across the desert.
The three remaining bandits bolted from the ring of tents to give themselves space to maneuver.
Flavia ran into the open, but with only her dagger she could do nothing. Still lightheaded, she dropped to one knee and stared in horror at the terrible and hopeless combat.
The three thieves fanned out and galloped off to meet the doomed madman who dared face them all.
One robber’s mount was swifter than the other two, and he pulled away from his friends to cut down the dark invader.
Haritat dashed straight at him.
“No!” Flavia shrieked at what seemed to be the chieftain’s suicide.
At the instant the thief was upon him, Haritat turned sharply on Morlana’s nimble mount, and in a moment he had shot behind the reckless bandit.
The robber pulled violently to the right, and his horse slid and tumbled into the sand as if it had been speared. The rider fell beneath it. Thrashing in terror, the horse scrambled to its feet and bolted away. The half-crushed bandit gagged and choked on blood and struggled to his knees, but Haritat’s blade sliced down into his face and ended the horror.
Haritat spun his horse as swiftly as if man and animal were a single being, and now they faced the other two attacking horsemen.
Stunned, the bandits veered, one left and one right, reassessing their tactics against an enemy who had lost his mind.
Suddenly all three riders paused, their snorting horses forming a triangle with Haritat at the top.
The bandit leader, several hundred feet beyond Flavia and to the right, snapped his head toward her. She was the perfect hostage, kneeling as she was in the open, almost daring him. But then he turned away.
Flavia gazed at him in wonder. Brutal thief though he might have been, this man was a warrior, still half-noble in his infamy.
Flavia stood up and tried to push her way past the bewildered camels so she could see, slapping them and yelling to get them out of her way. Four ran off in confusion straight toward the three men locked in a struggle to the death.
The eyes of Haritat swept the field, and then he shouted a word of command to his horse and they streaked off to his right, away from the bandit chief and toward the other robber.
The thief seemed stunned, rigid with fear. Probably he had never been challenged by another armed horseman in his life. In an instant, though, he found his muscles but lost his nerve. He turned and bolted.
Straight toward Flavia he raced. Some of the terrified camels were still bawling in front of her, but the thief was blind to them and to everything but flight. The camels struggled to avoid a collision as they hurried like dazed children out of his path.
Haritat closed with his enemy.
The robber looked over his right shoulder at his relentless pursuer. Then the thief swung to the left, which put Haritat’s weapon hand too far away. The desert chieftain dropped his knotted reins onto the horse’s neck as casually as if he were on a morning trot, and his sword flew from his right hand to his left as the black Arabian tore up the ground. Abreast of the bandit at last, Haritat slashed sideways into his foe. The bandit’s right arm fell away like a chopped branch but Haritat’s sword sank even more deeply, halfway into the robber’s chest. The bandit plummeted from his horse like a lost soul.
Haritat swung to the north, away from the bandit leader, and then quickly turned east, back toward the fort.
Flavia stared in confusion as Haritat raced up the gentle slope and away.
The bandit leader’s horse labored valiantly up the grade in pursuit, but the robber was big and his mount was slow and the distance widened. Soon his animal was winded and failing. In a moment, Haritat would be gone and as safe as he could ever hope to be.
A whirlwind of dust spiraled up around Haritat, and Flavia flinched as she saw it. For an instant there was nothing to see but a great golden cloud, and then, like a launched arrow, the black horse shot back out of the vast vortex of spinning sand swept up by Haritat’s pivot. Straight down the grade he charged, the sun now to his rear and the slope falling away before him.
Flavia almost choked as she sucked in air. Before her, two mounted swordsmen hurtled toward each other in a combat without quarter.
The bandit loomed massive and frightening in his saddle as he churned up the slope, but flying toward him was an unstoppable gale.
Morlana’s black horse, slick with sweat, glistened like a polished jewel. But this gem was alive, crackling with fire as it thundered down the hill.
Disdaining his reins, Haritat gripped his sword with both hands above his head as he held his seat with only his legs. Like a rippling wave, Haritat’s lean and elegant body flowed gracefully in endless and rolling communion with his horse. Many were those who told tales of Haritat, and what he was to each man differed from all others. But Flavia was certain that whatever he was to any and all, he was unquestionably the finest horseman on the face of the earth.
Racing down the incline, Haritat kept to the robber’s left to avoid the hand that held the sword. Yet this bandit was wise to the ways of mounted war. He veered to his own left to intersect with Haritat and still slash with his right.
Flavia was unable to breathe. With Haritat scorning his reins, there seemed to be no way to avoid a horrific collision with the bandit’s horse or the bandit’s blade.
Suddenly Haritat shifted his weight and the black horse stopped. At least twenty feet they slid down the slope, but the magnificent steed retained its footing.
The bandit flew on by, his sword instantly useless as his own horse carried him beyond his enemy.
Still steering with only his legs, Haritat swung around to his right and closed on the robber from behind and to the left.
The bandit’s mount struggled on the grade, but the young horse behind him tore up the ground and soon raced alongside the fading animal.
With a mighty slash, Haritat sheared the left side of the bandit’s skull from his body, and the chunk of bloody bone and brain flew off into the sand as the husk of the killer fell dead to the earth.
Haritat wheeled about and scanned all directions. Then he sheathed his sword and trotted back to Flavia.
She stared at him in awe.
He slid from the saddle. Covered with dust, he pulled the side of the red head-cloth down from his face and smiled the smile for which so many yearned but so few were blessed to see.
Flavia stepped shakily toward him. “Morlana . . . .” she managed to whisper.
“The Golden One is well.”
Flavia slumped against his chest and wept.
“He’s an Idumaean,” Matthias said, kneeling next to the corpse and examining the face and clothes. He fingered the tip of the arrow protruding from the back of his neck. “Odd . . . .”
Rufio dropped to one knee beside Matthias and then looked questioningly at Haritat.
“This thief was dead before I saw him,” Haritat said to Rufio. “He was chasing Morlana when he was shot down by someone here.”
“Who could have done it?” Rufio asked.
“I saw no one,” Haritat said. “His horse followed Morlana’s mount, as running hors
es will. When she reached me, she shouted to me what had happened and I told her to give me her horse. She took the thief’s animal to ride back to the fort to get you and your men.”
A rank of ten mounted Roman and Judaean soldiers had lined up off to the side.
Rufio glanced at Flavia and Morlana. Flavia stood behind Morlana with her arms wrapped around the little girl.
Rufio pulled the arrow straight out the back of the robber’s neck and wiped it on the dead man’s head-cloth. Then he rose to his feet and looked at Haritat. “What I owe you is beyond comprehension.”
Haritat was impassive.
“Everything I own is yours,” Rufio said. “You have only to ask.”
“My entire life has been swords and horses,” the chieftain said. “I think Haritat should share his wealth with you.”
And then the two men smiled slowly into each other’s eyes.
44
EITHER FINISH IT OR DO NOT ATTEMPT IT.
ROMAN SAYING
Rufio sat astride his horse near the training ground where Valerius was conducting sword drills in the early morning light. The clever optio had mixed Matthias’s men with the Romans so the Jews could learn not only by instruction but by example.
They were progressing quickly, but was that not always the way with Jews? Yet there was so little time. Rufio had no idea what he was going to do with them. Foot soldiers would be lost sheep against the Parthian bowmen. His own men, tested and hardened in a savage battle, had the confidence and mettle to leap into the saddle and be trained by Bellator in the ways of fighting on horseback. But these poor Judaean tyros were too green for that. Their other skills were likewise rudimentary and untried. Certainly by an inspiration from Victoria, Rufio had brought Flavia along, but the Judaeans would have considered it a vile effrontery to be taught archery by a woman, and they would have none of it.
So they seemed prepared for nothing except to be offered as a pauper’s sacrifice to a malignant god.
Rufio clicked to his horse and trotted off to the gyrus.
A camel was tethered at either side of the entrance, and three more camels were tied around the outside of the gyrus where they could be smelled by the horses but not seen.
Rufio peered between the gate and the wall and saw Haritat himself working one of the horses with the searing concentration of a Greek geometer. While Rufio waited, two of Haritat’s sons walked up with another pair of mounts. Finally, Haritat was satisfied with the chestnut gelding and rested him.
Rufio opened the gate and rode into the gyrus and handed Haritat a water flask.
The Nabataean nodded.
“Would you be willing to help Bellator with the men and leave the horses to your sons? The old stallion doesn’t have the stamina he once had.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you.”
“When you train your men, do you handle them gently or harshly?”
Rufio smiled. “Firmly. They don’t learn well with coddling—though they might argue otherwise.”
“I will work with them.”
“My men will profit from a different perspective.”
He seemed puzzled by that term. “A word not known to me.”
“The angle from which one views things. A Roman cavalryman isn’t the same as a desert horseman.”
“I see.”
Haritat spoke briefly to his sons, and then he and Rufio rode away together.
When they reached the arena, Rufio saw that only Arrianus was there putting the men through their maneuvers.
“The decurion is resting,” Arrianus shouted before Rufio could ask. “The heat was affecting him.”
Rufio watched his troopers riding the rail of the arena with their arms extended out from their sides and their eyes closed. And why not? Many a horseman in combat had lost his reins and been blinded by the dust of battle.
“You have trained some confident men,” Haritat said.
“They were good soldiers before they ever knew me.”
Haritat trotted over to the gate. “When you are ready for the next group,” he said to Arrianus, “I will take these men to the parade ground.”
Arrianus looked to his centurion, and Rufio nodded.
“We will rescue them from the security of the rail,” Haritat said. “And then we will teach them to fly.”
Morlana came riding up and brought her mount as close to Rufio’s side as possible without disturbing his horse.
“Around to the left,” Rufio said.
She obeyed, and now the low morning sun hit Rufio, and she could rest in his shadow.
“I believe,” Haritat said with the second surprising smile of the morning, “that the Golden One draws from the centurion something more than shade.”
Arrianus had finished with his current group of sixteen riders, and they began filing out of the arena.
“Do your men know their right lead from their left?” Haritat asked Rufio. “And how to cue their horse for the lead they want?”
“Yes.”
Haritat signaled to the troopers and led them at a trot toward the open parade ground. Rufio and Morlana brought up the rear.
Haritat had the soldiers form a single rank at one edge of the area, and then he trotted off toward the middle of the ground.
“We have a saying,” Haritat began in that voice scratched and scored by the churned up sands of a hundred combats. “The breeze that blow’s between a horse’s ears is the wind of Paradise. No other of Dushara’s creatures will sweep you so swiftly from the grasp of death—or so bravely toward it if you so will it. When friends become weak or cowardly or vile, he alone remains. Never will he betray you, abandon you. For a puddle of water and a handful of dry grass and a caress on the brow, he’ll carry you across flaming rock to the ends of the earth. He has a heart of sweet myrrh—and hoofs of steel. Thank your gods for it.” For a few moments he just gazed at the men while they absorbed that. “Any fool can blunder into battle, and any coward can flee the test. But a man who can strike a blow with force and skill and then retire with speed and grace—that is a man worth fearing. And a horseman worth being.” He paused as that penetrated. “Not yet will you work with swords. That will come later. Today you master the most vital skill of all—how to retire from a fallen foe and leave the field or ride to the aid of a comrade.”
Rufio watched Haritat closely. He exuded a threatening, half-visible power, like waves of heat rippling off the desert sands.
“Anyone can jerk his reins and hurt his horse and stumble away from an enemy. And fall and be cut like a lamb. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” several of the men shouted.
“Instead you will not stagger off but flow away like a drop of oil sliding along a blade. We have little time, so master this or die.”
Haritat rode off until he was about a hundred and fifty feet from the rank of riders. He trotted his horse several times in a tight circle and then came back.
“That ring of hoof prints is your goal. You will . . .” He looked across at Rufio. “Your word for the three-beat gallop?”
“Canter,” Rufio said.
“You will canter to that spot and stop. Do not use your reins to stop. Shift your weight back in your saddle and use a voice command. Then just walk off to right or left to make space for the next rider in line. Keep your sword hand resting on your thigh. Is everyone right-handed? Good. Begin.”
They did as he instructed, and every horse but one stopped on a voice command.
“Excellent. Reassemble your rank.”
They rode back and lined up again.
“Now for the horseman’s art.”
Rufio smiled as Haritat paused to increase expectation. He certainly had the master’s touch.
“What you will learn now has many names. Some call it the Scythian Spin. Your friends beyond the Tigris insist it is the Parthian Pivot. The name matters not. This time you will roll back to the left. Now—you will canter again to that spot and stop. Pause for an instant to le
t him bring his hind legs up and get his balance back. If you do not pause briefly, he might just try to scurry off. Not good and not safe. Raise your left hand very slightly and move the reins to the left. Do it just until you can see your horse’s left eye—no farther! Imagine you are caressing the cheek of a beautiful woman. Bend your wrist a bit if you have to tighten the left rein. Do not pull your right rein across your horse’s neck. If you do, you make him drop his shoulder. If he does that, he will not roll straight back but will make a big sweeping turn—and crash into the rider next to you. If he stumbles and falls in battle, the next day you are sweeping the streets of Hell.”
Haritat paused and folded his hands across his saddle.
“Simple? Good. At the same time, begin to look to the left. Your horse will see you and feel you. Now he is certain where you want him to go. Your horse will go where you look. Look the wrong way and he will go the wrong way. Shift your weight onto your own left hip. This will cause your horse to shift his weight to his left hind leg, which is what you want for this turn. Move your left leg away from him. With your right heel tap him on the side slightly toward the front. You want his forequarters to pivot, but you need his hindquarters to be tent stakes driven into the ground. Do not kick him—tap him lightly. Pretend you are simply trying to awaken your lover. Again—stop, reins, look, tap, tap, tap. Clear?”
“Clear!” Rufio shouted across the parade ground.
“Now lift your left rein slightly, straighten him out, and push your hands a tiny bit forward toward his ears to give him some slack. If you do not do that, he might hit the bit as he canters off and then refuse to canter the next time you ask. Now ride away. Since the pivot is to the left, take the left lead. Always remember that riding off from a stop is more difficult for the horse than from a walk. So focus your mind. And focus his.” Haritat picked up his reins, and the horse cantered away as if he had read his rider’s mind.
Horses on the Storm Page 27
