Swords From the Desert (17 page)

He had forty camels bearing the gifts to the court of Ind, and as many more to carry barley and chopped hay for the animals; he had his retinue, and its slaves, and the escort of sevenscore Red Hats, and the Baluchi camelmen. Besides, he had brought along nearly a hundred wild Kurds, lest the shah's cavalry turn upon him. Or perhaps the shah had sent the cavalry so that Mirakhon Pasha would not take the emperor's gifts for himself. I do not know.

The Kurds had their own chieftain, but Mirakhon Pasha paid them, and gave them many opportunities to plunder. Though the Kurds have no love for the Red Hats, and always make camp by themselves in their black goatskin tents, there was no fighting in the caravan. The Kurds feared Mirakhon Pasha more than their own chieftain or the ghost of the Desht-i-Lut-the dry lands.

Truly, he was a man without fear or remorse of any kind. He said we would set out near the hour of sunset and travel through the night, halting at dawn to rest and eat, and pushing on until we came to the next well. And when we set out from the last village, descending into the barren plain, he gave permission to his Kurds to circle back and plunder the village.

W'allahi, with a red sunset behind us and wailing in our ears, we moved down into the dark plain. Before long, even the Kurds ceased quarreling about the horses they had driven off, and the Baluchis muttered and took hold of the charms they wore on their necks.

A new moon shed light over the black wall of the hills beside us, enough light to make men and beasts appear as shadows. Here, in the gateway of the dry lands, there was silence. No wind sifted the sand, no brush crackled as the animals plodded by.

This silence of the dry plain was something I knew well; but the Iranis missed the sounds of the night in fertile land, where water runs, and birds stir in forest growth, or the wheat whispers under wind breath. Because the Kurds were mountain folk they also felt ill at ease.

"It is well known," said one who came to my side, "that this place is barren because a curse was laid upon it."

"It is worse in the day," responded another who had heard. "Then the wind slays, and the doomed have only time to cry, 'I burn,' before they fall lifeless. I have seen."

Nay, there was no end to the tales they told of ghosts that lingered in this accursed region. Finally all the talk ceased and the Baluchis halted their camels. The men crowded closer together, and all listened.

It was only a little sound they had heard, from far off. No more than a high-pitched chant, so faint that we could not hear the words or the voices of the singers. We could see nothing at all.

"It is the illahi," called out Mirakhon Pasha from the head of our column.

Truly, it might have been the chanted prayers of pilgrims returning from Meshed or Imam Reza. The pasha raised his voice in a shout-

"0 ye of the pilgrimage performed, grant us a blessing!"

Though we all listened intently, the chant did not cease, nor did any man answer. I noticed that none of our riders galloped toward the sound to greet the other caravan.

"God alone knows," muttered the Kurd who had first spoken, "whether they be living or dead."

Mirakhon Pasha ordered the camels into motion and mocked at the fears of the Iranis, asking who had heard a dead man sing in the Desht-i-Lut?

"I will bear witness to one thing," he laughed. "They who lag behind will not live to see the other side of the plain."

He did not cease to make a jest of this fear of the caravan, and before dawn I saw how he dealt with another happening.

It was in the hour of dusk before sunrise when we had halted. The Baluchis had started fires, fed by thornbushes and the sticks they had gathered on the way. Into the pots over these fires the Kurds had thrown slices of mutton-there had been sheep as well as horses in the plundered village-and the warriors were warming themselves at the flames.

At this hour the men are sleepy and the beasts weary. The packs are not taken off, because the well is still distant an hour's ride, or two. The slaves stumbled about in the darkness, and the leaders of the caravan cursed first one and then another.

We heard a shout from one of our sentries, then the roar of a firelock. A horseman galloped through the kneeling camels, shouting for Mirakhon Pasha.

I heard a familiar sound-the drumming of hoofs, coming nearer.

"To horse!" cried the pasha, already in the saddle of the dun mare. A servant passed him his round shield with the silver boss, and he rode over to the Red Hats, calling out orders. Beyond doubt, it was a raid.

Farash Agha did not mount his horse. He summoned a score of his men and ran over to the line of kneeling camels, beyond the firelight. The Kurds acted after their manner, dashing away from the raiders into the shelter of darkness and then halting to see what would happen. Already arrows whipped by me.

All at once there was a great shouting. The raiders cried out loudly, loosing many arrows and circling the camp swiftly, trying to drive off our horses. They were long-limbed men wearing high sheepskin hats-Turkomans who had come down from the hills near at hand, perhaps to attack the pilgrims we had heard, or drawn by our fires.

They did not know the strength of the caravan until Mirakhon Pasha led his riders at a gallop through them, and turned to meet them with spear and sword. In the darkness the spear is better than the bow, and the sword better than all else. Soon I could hear the clash of steel blades.

In this moment of disorder I thought of Radha, and went to seek the white camel. A dozen of the raiders swept into the camp near me and flung themselves from the saddles to begin plundering. They ran toward the laden camels, and Farash Agha ran to head them off with his twenty warriors.

So the Turkomans-who are no great fighters afoot-were soon fleeing here and there, between the fires, among the yelling slaves and the grunting camels. I soon saw the white camel and the carpet shelter that screened Radha, and the two swordsmen who stood guard over her.

The thought came to me that I could steal up behind the watchers and free the Rajput girl, and go with her into the darkness. After that we could certainly manage to find horses running loose.

I crept toward the white camel, with one eye on the fires, lest I be ridden down. Mirakhon Pasha was back in the camp, his horse galloping on the flank of a warrior who was turning desperately this way and that to escape. But the pasha came up swiftly on his left side and struck savagely with his scimitar. The Turkoman flung himself from the saddle to the earth, but his right foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged by the galloping pony.

Mirakhon Pasha did not leave him thus. He swerved and came up behind the pony, shifting his sword to his left hand. When he was abreast the raider he bent low and his curved steel blade whistled in the air. It struck heavily, and Mirakhon Pasha jerked it free, recovered, and reined aside, laughing.

The Turkoman lay still, but the pony galloped off into the darkness with his right foot and half the leg still fast in the stirrup. Thus the pasha with one blow severed the limb of his foeman, while both horses were at speed.

This done, he rose in his stirrups to look at the white camel. I lay upon the ground without moving. There was no way of approaching nearer to Radha because the sky was growing light overhead, and the Kurds, who had seen how matters went, were hastening up to take a hand in plundering the bodies of the slain. Only two or three Turkomans were afoot in the camp, snarling like wounded wolves, hemmed in by the disciplined Red Hats. Their comrades had fled and the Iranis were pursuing.

So I crawled back to the fire, where the nobles were gathering around Mirakhon Pasha, praising him greatly. Riders came up with the heads they had cut from the dead raiders, and of these heads-eight or ten or a dozen-the pasha commanded a pyramid to be built.

When he saw me, the pasha shouted for me to bind up the wounds of the Red Hats, of whom nearly a score had slashes and arrow gashes. He watched me for awhile, as if to see truly whether I knew my trade. Then, restless as the chained leopard, he wandered off to look at the prisoners. Only a few had been taken-three or four, and all wounded.

"They will not ride again against a caravan of the shah," said the pasha.

Evidently his men knew what was coming, for they left the steaming pots of mutton to crowd around him, and the Kurds hastened up, grinning. I heard the pounding of mallets driving stakes into the ground, and saw that the tribesmen were being bound to the stakes. I did not watch the torture, but when we rode away I looked back and saw vultures dropping from the sky and sitting in rings around the bodies of the Turkomans who were still moaning.

So we went deeper into the dry lands, and the hills, the lair of the Turkomans, dropped behind us. And Mirakhon Pasha seemed to be in the best of humors. The raid had roused him to display his strength and, like the panther, he was no longer restless when he had struck down his quarry.

"Ho," snarled the bearded Kurd who had first spoken to me. "The kites feed well in the tracks of this Master of the Horse."

This tribesman himself looked much like a carrion bird, with his beak of a nose and his gaunt bare neck, and his little gleaming eyes set beneath thick brows. Verily, his plumage was black, for his one visible garment of black wool stretched down to his bare feet, thrust into up-curving slippers. He had girdled himself over the hips with many girdles of silk and worked leather. On his bare chest he wore a silver talsmin, taken from the body of some holy man.

"Is the pasha thy master, Sharm Beg?"

" Vai -we follow him."

The eyes of the Kurd dwelt on the striped cloth that covered my head, and it was clear that he wished to roll it and add it to his store of plundered girdles.

"And I, Sharm Beg?" I asked. "What will thy master do with me?"

"Y'Allah! Am I a sorcerer, that I should know? Thou art too old to bring any price as a slave."

Doubtless the Kurd thought that I had lived too long. Among his people there were sorcerers and perhaps a few priests, but no physicians. He came closer to look up at my sword, which was better than his own, and to pull moodily at his loose underlip.

"Knowest thou the way across the dry lands?" I asked.

"Aye."

"How many days?"

Sharm Beg withdrew his thoughts reluctantly from the matter of swords, and began to count on his greasy fingers, muttering to himself.

"Seven-eight days to the higher ground and the path that runs east to Ind."

"And if the water be bad in the wells-"

"Inshallah-it may rain."

"And if not?"

The Kurd frowned and cursed me.

"Thou art a fool and the son of a dishonored one! Mirakhon Pasha will find his way through-aye, the very ghosts of this place will aid him. Did he not shout to them and demand a blessing?"

Even the Kurds feared Mirakhon Pasha. That night we found the well to be deep-ten lance lengths-and the pasha gave orders to tie the leather water sack to a long rope, and the other end of the rope to the saddle horn of a strong horse. Then he showed his men how to drive two wooden stakes into the ground, so that the rope could travel over the crossed stakes when the horse was led away from the well. The dripping sack was drawn up to the stakes.

This the pasha did to keep his men from lowering too many water skins and wasting the water and quarreling among themselves-because the well was small and filled slowly once it had been emptied. Farash Agha stood over the well, giving water first to the nobles of the pasha's following, then to the officers of the Red Hats, and then to the men, in turn. But not all the skins were filled when we mounted and set out again.

Some of the slaves on poor horses began to lag, but the pasha would not delay the march for them. Indeed, he could not nor would he suffer them to ride the pack camels. At the sixth camp several of the slaves did not appear at all, but Mirakhon Pasha heeded them not.

Eh, we were deep in the bed of the dry lands. And still the sky remained clear and cloudless. On either hand, red ridges of rock lined the way, rising from the gray earth. Beyond the rocks, haze lay like a veil. Above the haze on the left hand stretched the dark purple line of hills.

Under the bright sun the caravan gleamed in many colors, through drifting dust-the crimson turban and silver-adorned harness of the cavalry, the cloth-of-gold and silver of the Irani nobles, the jewel-studded weapons, the pearl-sewn saddles.

But at night, under the half-moon, all were shadows. The men moved in silence, the feet of the camels thumping in a dull cadence like the pulsing of blood through the veins. It was in the seventh night that I heard Radha's song.

God knows why she sang thus. Hidden behind the carpets on the white camel, she could not be seen. Her voice, low and clear, rose and fell. No one knew the words.

At first the rhythm of the song bespoke grieving-but it was not the high ululation of women who mourn. It had in it both sadness and reproach. Then the song changed, and rose more swiftly.

And this, beyond any doubt, was a chant of battle. Aye, it shrilled with the whine of steel and clash of cymbals, and through it ran the mutterings of drums. Every man in the caravan listened, wondering.

"It is not good," grumbled Sharm Be-, who had come up to hear the better. "It hath the sound of sorcery."

But it amused Mirakhon Pasha, who vowed aloud that when he reached the dwellings of men, he would have her sing again. And the Irani nobles made jests concerning caged nightingales.

And that night the Kurds who were leading us lost the trail. We were passing over a part of the plain where the soil was streaked with white salt and strewn with rocks. Mirakhon Pasha halted the caravan while the tribesmen scattered to search for the track. They were gone for the time it takes to cook and eat meat, and they came back by ones and twos, some saying one thing, some another. In truth, the trail was lost.

By now the moon was down in the mist-a red ball hanging over the edge of the plain. For two hours, until the rising of the sun, there would be darkness. And the men, weary of stumbling over the boulders that lay on every hand, gathered in groups and talked angrily.