E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “But—”

  “Mount up!” he commanded and she obeyed.

  He tramped along holding the stirrup leather.

  And that afternoon toward sunset as they halted to rest he looked at his boots. The soles were gone.

  “See! The darvish is right! Timur of the race of Genghis Khan is barefooted. This thing had to be. And now that I cannot go any lower I must go higher and the Power is with God!”

  She was no longer worried by his seeming madness in walking while a woman rode. “You lied to me, you knew what happened on that knoll, as well as I did!”

  They were coming near to a well, or to where one should be. The sun’s level rays bent into their backs so that their shadows reached long and dark ahead of them.

  Then he saw the horsemen riding into the glare. “How many?” he asked Olajai, very calmly.

  “Ten—twelve—fifteen—too many, Timur, and you’ve been walking.”

  “Who are they—what are they?”

  “Turkomans,” she answered.

  “I was afraid of that.”

  The Governor of Kivac’s force had been largely Turkoman.

  Olajai said, lightly, “We can’t use horse tails again. We haven’t enough horses.”

  She started to slide out of the saddle, so that he could mount up. He said, “Not yet. The glare keeps them from seeing that there are two of us.”

  When they reached the well, and its thin cover of scrawny trees, he made the horse turn, so that it screened the next move. Olajai slid from the saddle. He took his lariat and secured it to a root which reached from the wall of the well.

  “It’s dry. The water is in the other hole. Get down and stay down. You’re near enough now to get to the river afoot.”

  Then he mounted up, drew his sword, and rode at them, shouting his challenge. He had no more arrows. The riders had fanned out to envelop the oasis, so as to block the escape of any other travelers who might be there. Every sign pointed to being cut down and robbed of his arms, his horse gear, the jewels of his belt and scabbard; so he shouted, “Timur, the Man of Kesh, Timur, the son of Tragai!”

  A man cried an answer. The archers lowered their bows. That one man rode forward and dismounted.

  “Timur Bek! Welcome, and the blessing of Allah, and the Peace of Allah upon you! We heard that you had gone this way, and we came to meet you.”

  So Olajai came from the pit. Timur gave her bracelets to Hadji Mehemmed, the Turkoman raider with whom he had ridden once, some years previous. And Hadji Mehemmed gave them horses, and an escort of ten men. Olajai said, that night, “This proves it—the horse-tails are still with you.”

  CHAPTER V

  “Spread the Good Word”

  At Bokar-Zendin, Timur left Olajai with friends, for being north of the Jihun again, he risked recognition, ambush, betrayal, which he would not have Olajai share. “More than that,” he said, “if you went, I’d be recognized just that much sooner.”

  “Women’s chatter? Well, men haven’t done too well by you!”

  Timur chuckled amiably at that painfully just quip. “Shireen, wherever we were guests, and we couldn’t always refuse hospitality without making ourselves even more conspicuous, there’d be women looking at you. They’d guess, and much sooner than any men would, looking at us.”

  “Mmmm…yes, of course.”

  Now that the blame had been passed to superior feminine perception, Olajai felt better about it all. So the Lord of Kesh sneaked thieflike across the lands of his ancestors, not even daring to enter his own estate, for this choice territory was packed with Kipchaks.

  A lone archer limped through the market place. Timur, being afoot, had the best possible disguise, yet the risk was deadly enough, since men of Bikijek’s clique came in from Samarkand every day.

  One by one, he cornered retainers who had ridden with his late father, Émir Tragai. These had to look twice before they could believe that this haggard footman was Timur Bek. Each one said. “Lord Timur, we thought that you had quit us. We were glad when we heard that you’d left Samarkand with a troop on your heels. Then we knew that you were with us in heart, and in the end, you would come back and wipe them out.”

  “What with?”

  “We join whatever army you raise.”

  Close-mouthed, weather-beaten men listened to him and then spread the word. When he left Kesh, Temouka Kutchin rode after him with twenty horsemen ready for the field.

  They took the trail for Badakshan. The story of his desperate fight against Tekil of Kivac had spread, and one chieftain after another joined him. There was Bahram Jalair, and a distant cousin, Saddik Barlas; Kazanchi Hassan with a hundred horse came seeking him. Mir Sayfuddin, whom he had not seen since the disaster in the desert, had meanwhile raised seventy picked men. Another kinsman, Koja Barlas, had a like party. Then came Shir Bahram, and Ulum Kuli with two hundred horse, Mamut Keli with as many footmen.

  Timur’s disaster and his barefooted march across the desert recruited more men more easily than any success had ever done.

  Even the Kipchak Horde helped him: for with Bikijek’s nobles now leading raiding parties over all the Jagatai territory, captain after captain fled to join Timur.

  When he met Mir Hussein and they reviewed their combined forces, Timur said, “Now that the enemy has taught them that too much freedom is no freedom at all, they’ve stopped being kings.”

  Spies came, saying that the Kipchak raids were becoming more severe. Worse yet, Togluc Khan had sent some 20,000 of the Golden Horde to the north, to reinforce his son, Elias Koja.

  “We’re not ready. What we have is good, by Allah, but not enough. Time is against us,” Hussein said.

  “Time is the toy of Allah,” Timur retorted. “He does with it what pleases Him.”

  “It pleased Him to have most of us wiped out facing odds of ten to one,” Hussein pointed out, realistically.

  And these men would follow Timur only as long as they willed, and no longer. Even Genghis Khan, more nearly an absolute lord than any man who had ever ruled men, had ruled only by the will of his captains: Asiatic democracy, masquerading as a despotism.

  So Timur’s frown deepened, and even more when he heard that Kesh was heavily garrisoned. Worst of all, spies said that Olajai, finally leaving Bokar-Zendan to him and her brother, had been recognized and trapped; she was a captive in Kesh, a hostage for his good behavior.

  Timur asked the messenger, “Who else has heard this?”

  “No one, tura, save yourself and Mir Hussein.”

  “I’ll take your head,” Timur solemnly swore, “I’ll skin you and stuff your hide with straw if a word of it leaks out in camp. Is that clear?”

  “Aywah, tura.”

  He gave the man a handful of golden dinars, and dismissed him.

  Then, to Hussein: “I’ve got to get her out of there.”

  “I take refuge with Allah! My own sister, but can you risk a good little army against a walled city, just for a woman? Timur, that’s not sense. Your men’ll think you’re crazy, wasting them on a woman.”

  Timur smiled. “That’s something I’m not telling them.”

  “Allah! But what?”

  “Listen.”

  The drums sounded assembly, and the trumpets brayed. Timur spoke from the saddle: “O Men! Friends of my father and my uncle, a saint came to me in a dream last night. Allah has promised us our city. Even though we had green boughs instead of lances, our faith would make us win.

  “The Presence of Genghis Khan came into the desert, and our enemies ran.

  “And if we take Kesh, every captain from Badakshan to Kandahar will join us to share in our next glory. When they join, who will stop us?”

  He sold them as they stood there. And not even on the march, the hard forced marc
h on Kesh, did a man of them wonder what Timur would do for siege engines.

  “They’re drunk,” Hussein said. “Drunk and not from wine. How did you do it?”

  “I don’t know. It came to me.”

  “Well, if we do capture Kesh,” Hussein countered, “they’ll besiege us, and have you ever seen a Mongol or Turk who was any good, locked up behind walls?”

  Timur laughed triumphantly. “Hai! Out of your own mouth, brother! The very truth that’s going to make Kesh open up in no time. Go and spread the word! Keep them with a dream in their eyes!”

  They rode so fast that there was no news of their coming.

  Bivouac: and at dawn, far off, rose the gray walls of Kesh, high above the orchards.

  “Now get busy,” Timur said to his captains. “Cut off green boughs. Divide into four columns.” He saw their faces change at this insane suggestion, but he gave them no chance to object. “Let each column mark the time, and do it in this wise—”

  They listened, they grinned, their slanted eyes widened, and then they howled and drew their swords to hew limbs from the forest.

  Timur with a picked handful emerged from the woods, and raced down into the plain, and toward the fields. He had all the musicians: and all were sounding off brazen trumpets and saddle drums and ear-slashing cymbals. Musicians on horse, musicians on camel back, and a picked troop of lancers: they moved at the pace of a polo game. Kipchak guards came from Kesh to welcome what they believed to be fellow invaders.

  “Swords out!”

  Though not caught entirely off guard, they might as well have been. They were cut down, and their horses galloped wildly home with empty saddles: and Timur resumed his bold race.

  By now the gates of Kesh were closed. When Timur reined in, his archers shadowed him with a curtain of arrows. He demanded, “Surrender at once, and we’ll let you march out alive.”

  A man in heavy Khorassan mail risked his head. Timur’s archers ceased firing. The garrison commander came up to the parapet. The man was puzzled: a hundred horse seemed hardly the right force to take a walled town.

  “You’re crazy!” he raged. “Or drunk. Who are you?”

  “Timur Bek, and what are you doing in my town?”

  The bold challenge took the commander aback. “I am Daulat Ali, and I hold this in the name of Elias Koja, Khan of Samarkand, Son of Togluk Khan.”

  “You can become wealthy and famous by taking my head,” Timur reminded him. “Bikijek wants it badly.”

  Daulat Ali was no drill ground soldier; Bikijek didn’t send that kind out to hold a town. Yet he was worried. There must be a sizable army on the way, and there had been no warning.

  Timur went on. “March your garrison out. One hour’s delay, and I’ll have the head of every fifth man, taken by count, with no regard to rank.”

  “You can’t take a town with that handful!” Daulat Ali retorted.

  “Only Allah knows what is in my hand! Trifle a bit longer, and not one of you leaves alive. Quick, man! You’re up on the wall. Look around. Do you want a siege, or do you think you’d like to try a sortie?”

  On the four horizons, great columns of dust rose. Each was drawing toward Kesh. Citizens were now on the walls, some of Timur’s own people. They began to yell, “Allah! Armies from Khorassan! Armies from Kabul!”

  Rioting broke out within the town. Timur grinned when he heard the shouting. “I won’t have to take your heads, they’ll tend to that before I can save you fellows!”

  Heaving water jugs and roofing tiles from housetops may annoy soldiers, but such civilian resistance rarely gets far. That was what worried Daulat Ali. Timur must have promised his people four armies, or they’d never be crazy enough to stone Kipchak hardcases.

  Timur could now see the dust columns from the ground level. “If you move fast enough you’ll have a chance to warn the apprentice king.”

  Turning the garrison loose, instead of taking them prisoner or cutting them down would give Elias Koja and Bikijek a nasty shock. Only a strong army could afford such a gesture of contempt. And Daulat Ali, already shaken, signaled to his trumpeters; they sounded recall.

  The disarmed garrison filed out, and rapidly enough not to see that they had surrendered to dust clouds raised by horsemen dragging green branches.

  And when Timur found Olajai, he said, “Home again, shireen, but only Allah knows how long we’ll stay.”

  CHAPTER VI

  King-Maker

  By the time his spies had caught up with him, Timur realized that though he would quickly have to abandon Kesh he had at least succeeded in more than a personal enterprise: his daring capture of the city was bringing hundreds of one-time doubters to his standard.

  And then Timur learned that Elias Koja’s army, strongly reinforced by his father’s troops, had moved out of Samarkand. They were going toward the Jihun, to make a clean sweep of the Jagatai lands and possibly to invade Khorassan.

  So Timur and his newly won recruits got out of Kesh before Elias Koja’s general, Bikijek, could learn that green branches had swept his garrison out of town.

  Timur won the bridge with a few hours to spare. Then from the Khorassan side, he saw touman after touman of Kipchak troops, each 10,000 strong. The apprentice king’s father was out for conquest. “Brother,” Mir Hussein said, “our army will scatter like dust, once we start running. They’ll forget that trick at Kesh.”

  “Then we won’t run.”

  “We can’t face 60,000 Kipchaks, not when Bikijek leads them.”

  Olajai came from behind the red carpet which, hanging from its long fringes, separated her quarters from the reception room of the pavilion. “Remember the horse tails, Timur!” she cut in.

  Hussein turned on his sister. “You little fool, how long will Allah’s patience last! Bluffing Bikijek is not quite the same as scaring a blockhead out of Kesh!”

  Timur scowled. “I’ve got an army. One retreat, and they’ll go back to their sheep.”

  “Yes, and just one bout with the Golden Horde, and they’ll be minced mutton. You can’t keep on recruiting on the strength of glorious defeats like the one at Kivak!”

  “The horse tails,” Olajai repeated. “The Presence!”

  Timur rose. “We can hold the bridge for a day.”

  So he went to dispose his six thousand against ten times as many.

  From sunrise to sunset, troop after troop of Kipchaks charged the bridgehead, taking their toll, but going down before the stubborn defense. Timur and Eltchi Bahadur plied mace and sword; and the sight and sound of them steadied the little army. Yet when the sun sank, they were tired and battered: wearied from the very cutting down of successive waves.

  That night, spies swam the Jihun. In speech and dress and face, they matched the enemy; and they could mix freely, grumbling about the stiff resistance, and muttering about Timur’s reserves, spread out, well behind the Jihun. And they muttered about the fall of Kesh.…

  Meanwhile, Timur was moving. He left only five hundred to hold the bridge: which picked men could do, for another day. The others divided, half going upstream, half downstream, well beyond hearing of the enemy, to risk the dangerous fords.

  Bikijek could have made a similar attempt, but with his overwhelming force, it seemed far more sensible to hammer for another day, and drive through the troops who held the bridge.

  Finally, there was the rumor of Timur’s reserves; Bikijek was too good a general to risk being cut up in such fashion. Once he learned—

  But Bikijek had no chance to learn.

  Timur’s losses by drowning were smaller than they could have been, had he and his captains not known every foot of the treacherous fords. Time and again, he went back, each time with a fresh horse, to lead the next detachment over. And on the final trip, he listened to a spy just returne
d: “Togluk Khan is dead! His son was about to go home when there was news of us.”

  Timur turned to Hussein, who commanded the final party.

  “Allah is with us! There is a fear in Elias Koja. When he should go to Kipchak to receive the allegiance of his father’s lords, and take the old man’s throne, he stays here. The raid on Kesh has shaken him!”

  Timur led his hazaras into the hills well behind the Kipchak camp. He spread them far apart. “Make fires,” he commanded. “Many fires. As of many bivouacked toumans.”

  That night, he looked down on the fires of Bikijek’s six toumans. And that night, Bikijek looked backward and upward at fires which suggested a force at least equal to his own: and a force which had slipped up between him, and Samarkand, and the long trail to Kipchak.

  At dawn, with all his men carefully under cover in the woods at the foot of the slope, Timur watched Bikijek’s scouts patrolling the river. The Kipchaks were worried; they had not resumed the attack on the bridgehead. Fires behind them at night; and now they found hoof prints at the dangerous fords. As they saw it, Timur, with far more army than anyone had credited him with having, had held the bridge in order to make a night crossing to cut off their retreat, and so drive them into the river.

  Bikijek’s troops were soon in motion. First, they were going to withdraw; second, they were going to make the best disposition after what they considered a thorough outmaneuvering.

  Then came Timur’s charge: not from the distant line of the past night’s campfires, but from the forest at the foot of the hills. Either too early, or too late, it could not have succeeded, despite the advantage of surprise; but Timur’s lightning slash was timed to the second. He caught the Kipchaks when they were neither set for defense, nor fully committed to withdrawal.

  Some tried to rush the bridge. Other hazaras fled along the bank. Those who tried to re-form and fight it out were blocked by disorganized units. And Timur’s troops picked the heart of the opposition: Bikijek’s touman, and the force led by Tokatmur.