Flame Winds (3 page)

He was only a few inches deep into the roof when he heard a sword beat out its brazen alarm upon a soldier’s shield. His head whipped up, but he could not see that it was himself that had been spotted. Undoubtedly one of the prowling thieves whom he sought. Wan Tengri nodded to himself in satisfaction. What did these enchantments matter, when a man could boast of a brain like Prester John’s? He took this early success for a good omen. Yes, surely, he was commissioned to convert the heathen—and take a nice profit for himself, of course. He rose to his full height and strode to the edge of the roof.

Against the shadows of the opposite wall, a twisted small man flitted like a shadow. His clothing was brown rags, and it took keen eyes to see him. More like an animal of the hills than a human being, he seemed, with his scuttling manner of flight and his quick, furtive legs. Three guards were pounding in his wake. The alarm was being beaten on a dozen shields and, through the brazen clamor, Wan Tengri caught the shouts of fresh guards coming at fast time from the streets of the city. Others were streaming out of the guardhouse itself. In the dark, a bow twanged with a bitter, harsh note and an arrow flitted across the open square. The fleeing man went down, bounced up again. But his pace was slowed.

Wan Tengri deliberately unslung the bow of laminated horn which had been his parting gift from the Mongols. “To me, comrade!” he shouted coolly. “To me! I will succor you!”

Guards’ white faces twisted toward him and, behind on the wall, he heard the sentry’s hoarse shout. Wan Tengri pivoted easily, and the notched, steel-tipped arrow, feathered with horse hair in the Mongol fashion, pulled back until it touched his ear. The bowstring’s twang, beside that other fainter note, was like the roar of a wounded lion amid the yap of jackals. The arrow was a flitting dark streak in the dim night, scarcely lifting from a straight line in its flight. The man on the wall screamed. His arms clawed against the blue sky and he curved backward out of sight.

“A nice dive, friend,” Wan Tengri whispered.

The air fluttered with the whispering of fast-sped arrows. Attention was diverted from the wounded thief against the walls to this stouter challenge from the roof, but Wan Tengri was at the task he loved next to the swift flicker of sword steel. He was never still for an instant. Arrows formed a constant stream from his powerful bow, and each twang of the gut brought its echoing scream from the earth below. His constant movement disturbed their answering fire, and laughter bubbled from his lips; laughter and the mockery of his insults.

“Enchant me, fools,” he called, “or there will not be a man alive in the morning. Bring forth your wizards. What, not proof against a bit of stick and steel, an arrow driven by the insignificant horn of the auroch and a bit of lion gut? What, have the wizards drunk up your manhood?”

A group of guards formed under the protection of the wall, marched out with their shields locked in a solid roof above them, and from its cover archers flung their swift-sped arrows up at the dreadful figure poised on the roof.

“Well done,” Wan Tengri cheered them on. “It might work against another man! How can you fight the Tengri, the devil-wind of the high heavens?”

The horn bow arched more strongly as he put his back into a gigantic pull at the string. The released gut roared and the arrow rang the brazen shields like a drum—like a broken drum. The leader of the shield band fell with the arrow through his skull and the formation was broken. How the arrows leaped now from Wan Tengri’s bow! He heard a faint step beside him, whirled with the arrow notched and saw a wizened small face leering up into his.

“You called me, comrade,” the man whispered hoarsely. “I came!”

The whisper of the arrows died out of the air. There was the thud of running feet as the guards took cover and Wan Tengri smiled down upon the twisted figure of the thief in brown rags. The man’s back was hunched and one arm swung limply at his side, but the eyes glistened in the dark and there was knowledge and courage, too, in that hideous small face. Wan Tengri held out his right hand and made a curious figure with his twisted fingers.

“We hang together,” he chuckled.

“Not while thy bow is strung, comrade!” the thief answered. “So you are one of us? Come. This is a sorry place for the brotherhood.” He turned and scuttled away along the roofs of the warehouses, and Wan Tengri, after a regretful glance toward the court, deserted save for the arrow-tufted bodies of the slain, followed the thief he had come to find. So his conquest of Turgohl was begun! With this small fiend and his fellows behind him, he would soon enslave these wizards and their wealth!

“It seems to me, comrade,” rumbled Wan Tengri, “that a horn bow and a good fir arrow has a certain magic of its own. It seems to me, we should find a way to improve this sorry lot of the brotherhood.”

“Speak not so loud, comrade,” his crippled guide whispered fearfully. “The flame wind has ears!”

“Then we’ll tweak them.” Wan Tengri threw back his head and laughed. “Or perhaps we’ll clip them a bit. Now I fancy a slit and an overcut—”

“In the name of the Tengri, friend, quiet!”

Wan Tengri shook his great head and laughed again, and the pale-red light he had seen before bloomed overhead.

“Stand still, slave,” came the whisper of that disembodied voice. “Stand still and wait your masters!”

Wan Tengri’s teeth glistened amid his fiery beard, and he drew his bow taut, sent an arrow hurtling up into the heart of the floating light.

“That for your whispering flame wind!” he rumbled. “Come, thou good thief, we’ll get on.”

He turned his head toward the spot where the small twisted figure had stood and it was gone! With an oath, he threw himself toward the place—and pitched forward on his face. He thrust up violently from the roof and stared down in amazement at his feet. It was the fault of his feet. He had ordered them to move and they had not. He swore violently and reached down to tug at his flexed and motionless legs—and still the feet would not heed his order. By Ahriman, they had sunk deep into the roof!

“Wait for your masters!” sighed the wind.

Tengri’s eyes were strained wide with rage, and they caught the fiery glisten of that pale, dying light. He struck his quiver with a fierce hand. A mere half score of arrows remained. His sword—it whined from the scabbard and quivered in his waiting hand.

“Enchanted,” Wan Tengri whispered. “Ha! These wizards have more power than I thought. Come, wizards! Come, devils! We will see who is the master, thou and thy sorceries or—Prester John!”

III

THERE was no answer to his challenge, only the sighing of the flame wind and the distant shouts of the rallying guard. Night laid its concealing shadows everywhere, and yonder the tower with its golden crest of flame burned like a jewel against the sky. Wan Tengri felt hatred rise within him. He strained all his strength against the grip of the roof upon his feet and could not move them. Savagely, he struck his sword against the obdurate earth. It rang like a temple gong, but the surface was scarcely dented.

Wan Tengri forced himself to coolness. Courage did well enough, but when his ten arrows were sped the guard could stand at a distance and turn him into a porcupine.

“But, you fool,” he muttered, “the points will be turned inward, and that will do you no good, thou bag of devil-wind.”

His eyes quested about him. He could touch the city wall with out-stretched sword point. A dozen feet above his head, the brazen spikes that were its crest caught glints of light from the stars. No help that way. Wan Tengri stared down bitterly at his imprisoned feet. He was averse to losing those good members. They had served him well over countless leagues. Better death than stumping about on his ankle bones. Deliberately, he prodded at the tough earth of the roof. Immediately around his feet it had the hardness of weathered oak, but a cubit away it was softer. With frantic haste, Wan Tengri wielded the hard-tempered steel of his scimitar, gouging out the block that incased his feet. The shouts of the guards had faded into order, and the echo of a sharp command came to his ears. They had reformed then, and were coming to the attack. By Ahriman, he had been wrong to call these guards cowardly. Man to man, they could fight! It was only magic and the unexplained sorcery of the wizards of Kasimer that turned their bones to water.

Wan Tengri set his teeth on a groan. The earth yielded so slowly to his gouging sword point! He fought for the saving humor that always buoyed him up. He was a great deal like a man upon a tree limb, and hacking it off close to the trunk. When he had dug his hole deep enough, he would fall through into the warehouse of the wizards. Grimly, he forced his lips to curve in a smile. If he were lucky, he would find more arrows beneath him, and the great war bow would sing its bellowing song again. If he were lucky—

The regular tread of the marching guard came to his ears again, and he gave a quick glance about him as he labored. How would they come at him? Some ladder that led to the roof? Well, his arrows would hold them in check for a while. And afterward? Sweat stood out on his forehead, stung his eyes. He dashed a felten sleeve across them and labored on. He had a shallow ditch cut all about him. How thick was the roof? Too thick, by all the devils. As thick as his own skull. Why had he let his swollen pride goad him into flinging challenge against that unknown power? The glimmer of the flame tower seemed to mock him. There, the march of the men was stationary now! There came the rasp of an order. They were mounting the roof!

Frantically, Wan Tengri looked about him. It was not death that harassed him, but the thought of defeat. He who had never bowed his head before any victor, had never had to hold up a pleading thumb to the fickle mobs of Alexandria. Christos! They might not kill him! He might be enslaved by their enchantments and become a witless drudge in the fields, under the lash of the slave masters! His eyes reached up despairingly to the crest of the wall where the spear points glistened. Easy enough to loop one of them with the lariat he had learned to use among the Mongols, which was wrapped now about his waist. But what was the use of that? He could not pull his feet off. He could not—Abruptly, laughter pumped from his lungs. His hands feverishly unwound the lariat.

“Wait, fools!” he called to the guards, and he made it a whisper like the dying whisper of the flame wind. It carried well through the quiet night. “Wait, fools. Do you think your wizards have power? I am a greater wizard. Twice tonight I have broken their enchantments like a chain woven with a maiden’s hair! If one guard dares to put his foot upon this roof,
I will pull down the walls of Turgohl!”

The lariat whirled thrice about his head and the loop spun up into the clear air, settled over the spike embedded in the topmost marble block. So these wizards thought they could defeat him! Well, there were secrets they had not learned. Their marble walls were laid marvelously close together, but without mortar. His rope would work like a lever on that upthrust spear point to roll the stone block from its base. What did it weigh? Three, four hundredweight? His mighty shoulders had lifted a thousand pounds—and his feet were anchored. He could not pull them off!

There was silence after his shout, and Wan Tengri stared upward at the secured rope, drew it taut with a loop about his body and twisted it around his arms. It was a nice calculation he must make. It would take all his strength to stir that marble block, yet once it started to roll, he must ease the strain lest he pull it down atop him! Laughter was pumping at his mighty chest again. Well, it was better to go out that way, in one sweet, clean blow, than to slave for sorcerers and wizards!

“March back to your quarters,” Wan Tengri whispered, “or I will pull down the walls! The sorcery is already at work. Will you go?”

A whisper from the flame wind answered: “Forward! Bring me this boasting fool to labor among the slaves!”

Wan Tengri said: “It is the last warning.”

He drew himself to his fullest height and reached high up on the rope of plaited horsehair. With it he had roped and thrown a wild stallion of the plains; he had held a raging tiger prisoner. It would not fail him now. His chest arched high with a deep-sucked breath. He threw his strength against the rope, wrenched violently. That was to loosen the block in its seat. The rope bit deep into the muscled swelling of his arms. He could hear the mumble of men’s voices and the creak of wood as a guard set foot upon the ladder. There was no time for nice calculation. The stone must come down!

Wan Tengri got a new grip upon the rope. His shoulders arched and the corded muscles dented his thighs. The veins writhed like serpents in his temples. Cloth ripped across his back with a hissing whisper like an arrow’s flight, and still the stone did not move! Wan Tengri’s rage surged through him like the touch of the flame wind. His ankles threatened to disjoint themselves from the strain of his arms. With savage violence, he flogged himself to further effort. The muscles across his loins seemed to creak. A wrench—
Ah!
There had been movement that time. The shadows of the wall had changed. The block was leaning toward him! With the final exhaustion of his strength, Wan Tengri wrenched at the rope like a wild beast at a leash. The block leaned farther. There was a grating rasp of stone grinding on stone.

“A warning!” Wan Tengri whispered as he collapsed backward to the roof. He could do no more than whisper. “A warning! The first block falls!”

His eyes were riveted to that mighty block, leaning toward him with such splendid, ponderous slowness. Did it bring him death—or freedom? Too soon to tell. Too soon to know where its mighty weight would strike. He heard a frightened shout from a guardsman.

“Back!” Wan Tengri strained his panting lungs for the shout. “Back, before I tear down the walls of Turgohl!”

Ah, that block was beautiful! Its spear point caught the glitter of every glimmering light. White and clean. If this was death—Wan Tengri forced his drained body to his feet. If this was death, it would find Pester John ready! The stone was gathering speed; its roll remained ponderous and slow, but with each foot it plunged more swiftly. Wan Tengri laughed. He caught up his sword and thrust it upward in salute!

“Ave!”
he cried.
“Ave et vale!”
How often his shout of “Hail and farewell” had rung across the arena! But it had been “hail” for him and “farewell” for the others. Now—

So close its winds fluttered his clothing and he felt the harsh kiss of the stone on his uplifted hand—so close the stone passed him by. Its weight struck the muted drumhead of the roof in fearful thunder, echoed a score of times by the frantic shouts of the fleeing guards. Wan Tengri felt a savage wrench at his ankles, then he was falling, too, plunging down atop that massive block that had crushed through the roof. For long moments, Wan Tengri was not sure he still lived. He lay stunned and empty of thought and feeling across the block, pulled through into the storehouse beneath. Perhaps there was a prayer in his brain, but he did not utter it consciously. Only his lips moved faintly,
“Christos.”

The aching of his overstrained muscles set him stirring presently. He heaved up his body and there, in the shaft of faint light that poured through the breach of the roof, he saw the spear point embedded in the marble. It had pierced through the thick felt of his Mongol cloak, thrusting in between arm and side. And Wan Tengri, thrusting to his feet, laughed aloud. Dust roiled about him, deepening the shadows, but through it he could still hear the frightened flight of the guards. He was free—

He moved his feet, and scowled down in the darkness. They could move separately, but there was a great weight on each one. Still, he could walk. He lifted them carefully, clumping his groping way off through the shadows of the warehouse, rewinding the lariat about his waist as he went.

“I have to thank the All-High of the Kasimer for a pair of extra boots,” he chuckled in the darkness. “They will serve to keep my feet warm!”

It was a toilsome thing to walk, and his body felt drained. His sword groped before him, and he clumped on, heavily. So it was he came presently to a door. It resisted his weight, and he lifted his incased foot and drove it at the panel. It splintered and the door swung wide, quivering. He laughed weakly again, staggered on. He was in the guardroom now, deserted save for an arrow-pierced man who had crawled there to die. Wan Tengri paused to sling a fresh quiver of arrows over his shoulder and labored on toward the door. The court was deserted, too, save by the dead.

“This wizardry has its economical aspects,” Wan Tengri muttered to himself. “See how many lives were spared by my magic. If they had not fled, I must have killed them all!”

He peered about him uncertainly, then saw a small and twisted man step from a doorway across the width of the court. Anger growled in Wan Tengri’s throat, and he flicked an arrow from its quiver, groped for his bow. Ahriman help him, he had left that good bow upon the roof!

“Come to me, thou who falsely claim the name of comrade,” Wan Tengri rumbled. “Come, thou lion of valor!”

The man came forward at a run, and behind him darted a dozen other forms. They were like wolves, like jackals where the tiger has fed. As they darted forward, they stripped the dead of weapons—all save the crippled one whom Wan Tengri had helped. He ran to prostrate himself at Wan Tengri’s feet.

“Master,” he whined, “I did but go to summon aid. When the flame wind speaks, you must run—run like the wind itself, else the ground will open to receive thy feet. I called to thee, master, and ran—for help.”

Wan Tengri smiled thinly. “It seems to me, my lion, that you used the magic of the wizards and vanished. Had I not menaced the very walls of Turgohl with my own enchantments, thou and thy jackals would have come too late! Come now, before the flame wind speaks again. By Ahriman, it’s like a whirlwind I’d run in my new Kasimer boots—all in one place! Up with thee, my faithful comrade, my very prince of lions, and march. Have one of these, thy valiant guardsmen, fetch my great bow from the roof. And quickly, else my steel will try out the magic of thy heartbeat!”

The beggar beat his forehead in the dust in his protestations of gratitude and service. The stringy gray hair was matted to his skull with perspiration, and Wan Tengri saw that his left arm had been bandaged only hurriedly where an arrow had pierced it through. The man’s legs were scrawny as a starving peasant’s, and the great strength of the barbarian’s arms could snap that crippled body like a straw.

“All right, Monkey-face,” he said sourly. “I believe a third of what you say, which makes me a credulous fool. My bow—and a place to hide until I can change my boots!”

The man’s shrewd brown face twisted up and there was so much malicious glee in the beady eyes, the wryness of the loose-lipped mouth was so comical that Wan Tengri threw back his head and made his laughter ring—until he remembered the flame wind. He cursed then, peering up at the sky where the stars were paling with the menace of the swift-footed dawn, and went stumping across the court while the monkey-faced thief shouted piping orders and skipped ahead to point the way. There was need for haste. Light, that enemy of thieves, would soon flood the city, and the hoofs of horses were ringing on a cobbled way. From their even rhythm, Wan Tengri knew that a troop of guards rode to the assault. He squeezed his broad shoulders into a narrow passage between two mud huts. Behind him, he caught the lipless whisper of thieves, the shuffle of their hastening feet. It would be death for any man caught in that shambles. It would be death for Prester John if he were tracked down. How horrible that death could be, he who had fought through the East had ample wit to guess. He spat contemptuously. They’d never take him alive for such woman’s play as that! Had he not laid his plans, and were they not working swiftly? Already, the thieves’ leader had sworn allegiance with his forehead in the dust. When he had cemented the entire band to himself with bonds they would not dare to sever, he would be ready to strike. Until then, he could bide his time—and hold his tongue.

Monkey-Face was fumbling with a great rock sealed into the wall of a mud hut, but his wounded left arm hampered him. Wan Tengri brushed him aside and leaned his weight against a stiffened arm upon the stone. It swung inward on greased hinges, and he eyed the opening dubiously.

“If these rat holes of thine grow smaller, Monkey-face,” he said, “I shall have to seek other warrens.”

It was a squeeze to pull his giant’s bulk through and down the steep ladder that descended a well. The ladder quivered under his weight and his unfeeling feet fumbled and slipped on the rounds. Monkey-face jabbered just beneath him, guiding his steps in turn with quick touches of his deft fingers. At last, Wan Tengri emerged into a low passageway where a torch burned in a socket, and the wall threw back crystalline reflections. The tunnel was lined with glistening white, and for a dazzled moment he thought that they were gems.