Swords From the West (30 page)

"Another division of eight hundred approaches from the Zarafshan valley," put in one of the Turks cautiously, "to close the pass called the Gate."

"They cannot enter the Gate. You alone will enter the valley. What is your plan?"

The two Chagatais fell silent, but Basankor was no quibbler over trifles. If the stranger came in good faith, his information would be vital; if he should prove to be a spy, he was in their hands. The Mongol explained that he meant to move in column toward the lake and feint at the town, in reality to draw off to the west, occupy the road up the inner side of the Gate and open the pass to the Tatars in the Zarafshan ravine.

Again Nial shook his head.

"If you turn your backs upon them, the clans of Paldorak will come out boldly and gnaw your flanks. They are jackals, but they will follow and strike and pull down the wounded. The Gate is too strong to take from either side. I have seen. There is only one sure way."

The three officers waited expectantly, wary of a trick.

"Attack without pause," Nial said quietly. "Divide the regiments and enter Paldorak from two points. Do not try to capture house after house, but press forward to the clear ground by the citadel. Thus you will seize the kurgan, the castle of Gutchluk."

"Verily, it will be defended against us," one of the Chagatais objected. "Thus we will have foes behind us and others facing us within the walls."

"The walls will not be defended. No man of Paldorak dares enter them."

"Ahai! Because of the wizard's magic?"

"Nay, because of their own fear. Gutchluk Khan is alone in that kurgan that can hold all your men, all your horses."

The three were veteran soldiers, knowing the power of a disciplined attack, but they all had some dread of magic workers who brought about storms and plagues and sent thunder down from the sky. Moreover, they knew the Tatar ranks might be shaken by fear of such magic.

"How great is his power?" Basankor asked.

Nial did not make the mistake of trying to convince them that Gutchluk might be an ordinary man.

"Gutchluk," he explained grimly, "can throw his voice from one place to another. He can change his face and work death by poison. That is true, as I have seen. Yet he has no power to bring down thunder, nor is his skin proof against arrows. He is evil. His men have slain the daughter of a noyon of the Horde. When you have captured him, and when you hold his citadel, his people will be like a snake without a head. You can attack them from the kurgan. And the garrison of the Gate will not be able to come to the aid of Paldorak."

Nial knew that the unruly clans would be dismayed at sight of the Tatars in the citadel. But given time, Gutchluk could work mischief even against the disciplined cavalry.

"Kai," Basankor assented curiously, "you look thin and weak-as if you had been struggling with a wizard, Nial Khan."

"Three of his attendants I slew, yet the debt of blood I hold against him is not paid."

"What does he look like in his human shape?"

Nial meditated while the three waited respectfully to hear his views. Men who have fought hand to hand with wizards were not common.

"He might have been a treacherous Persian, but that one is in his shroud by now. He might be a blind old man who carries a lantern, but perhaps is not blind. But I think he is a priest out of Ind, with green eyes and a turtle head, dressed like a servant of a god."

The three breathed heavily in unison. This was verily a magician, a worker of magic. Nial made haste to turn their thoughts another way.

"Basankor Khan," he said crisply, "order the attack for the beginning of the last watch of the night. Then by the first light your columns will be near to Paldorak; and when you reach the height the sun will be up and you can see all things clearly. I will guide the regiment through the cen ter of the city, for the way is known to me. The other regiment will find only a few camps in its path up the slope. Is it good, my plan?"

For a moment Basankor considered, stirring the red crust of the dung fire.

"It is a good plan," he assented. "Go thou with the men of the guard. We wish to talk together unheard."

Before an hour had passed the Scot was summoned by a Tatar archer who said that the commander had ordered all men to saddle at once.

Chapter VI

"Give Me a Knife!"

At sunrise Paldorak resounded with the din of pandemonium. Courtyards and caravansaries spewed forth half-clad hillmen and riderless horses to add to the tumult. Scrambling out of sleep, men and women snatched up weapons and rushed to the housetops, while belated drums thumped and renegade mullahs screamed curses at Allah.

Up the steep streets came the grinding roar of trampling hoofs, the smashing of arrows upon shields and the hoarse yelling of struggling men.

The dawn attack of the Tatars had succeeded as only the advance of disciplined cavalry can succeed against irregular fighters. Paldorak had sent scouts out to watch the valley entrance, and these had galloped in with word of the Tatars' approach. But so swiftly did the regiments of the Horde move that they were not a quarter hour behind the tidings, and the bands of horsemen mounting hastily by the lake had been swept away by a charge following a flight of hard-sped arrows.

In the semidarkness the clans could not guess the number of their assailants, and the Tatars were well into the streets before the Kara Kalpaks could form above them to offer real resistance. Yelling throngs began to appear on the roofs, to hurl stones and javelins. But the regiments had seen street fighting before. Heavy leather shields and helmets with horsehair crests protected the riders, and powerful bows kept the men on the roofs back from the parapets.

Nial, riding by Basankor Khan with the Mongol regiment, behind the standard, saw groups of Kara Kalpaks charge at the head of the column, to be cut to pieces by long lances and short, curved sabers. Clans assailing the rear fared no better, and the thousands of Paldorak hung back to see what the Tatars would do. Heads turned up to the height, outlined against the sunrise, watching for a sign from Gutchluk.

But the Tatars did not break ranks, or enter the square. Nial guided them up to the open ground above the highest roofs, where the rearmost ranks wheeled and began to search the streets with their arrows.

Hot from the fighting, the foremost squadrons did not hesitate to enter the deserted gate of the citadel, although murmurs of "Khuru, khuru" were heard as they made their way between the ruined walls.

They pointed to the vultures that flapped away, wondering aloud whether the magician khan had taken the shape of one of those. The blind man was found, running helplessly about the pool; and before Nial could reach him the Tatar troopers had cast him in, to see if he would turn into a fish and save himself in that way. But the blind man sank in the scum, and whatever he might have told died with him.

Basankor made his way to the outlook tower to watch the progress of the second column, which was having more difficult work with the swarms of mounted Kara Kalpaks from the camps on the east slope.

"Stay at my side," he ordered Nial. "Now that we have this kurgan, I care not where Gutchluk Khan hides himself."

But he sent a squad of dismounted men to search the chambers below at the Scot's urging. They lighted torches and disappeared with grim faces. One of them reported presently at the tower top.

"Ahatou," the warrior grunted. "We have come upon treasure, fine white camel skins and jade-many things taken from the caravans that were robbed in former years by these dogs."

It was some time before a second messenger appeared.

"Only one man was below, although we saw the white bones of others. But he does not look like a magician."

Nial and the Tatar khan turned to see Abu Harb brought up, held fast by the arms, with a sword against his throat.

"Ai, Nial Khawand," the Arab shouted, "What is this battle? Am I a dog to be led about like this? Give me a knife and I will make them sick."

"This is not Gutchluk," Nial explained to Basankor. "It is a hunter, my companion of the road who was taken captive."

"Wallahi-" Abu Harb stretched his long arms and yawned at the rising sun-"I see you have won a victory. That is good, but have you brought food fit to eat? I have set nothing between my teeth for a night and a day and a night."

Mara Nor offered him some dried meat, but Abu Harb would have none of meat not slain by Moslem ritual, so they gave him fermented camel's milk until he was content. To Nial's questions he would only answer that he had seen no living man in the citadel but Toghrul, the servant, who had taken him from the Kara Kalpaks and had bound him upon the crucifix, hiding him away in a distant cell thereafter.

He laughed when the Tatar soldiers announced triumphantly that they had found the figure of a seated god playing with precious stones. A god with a black face and eyes that peered with the glare of the dead.

Nial, however, suggested to Basankor that the resplendent figure be brought up and hung by a rope from the wall, so that the men of Paldorak might see how the power of Gutchluk had been broken.

This had a greater effect than he had expected. Masses of people gathered on the rooftops to stare up at the hanging image. Perhaps some had seen it before, or had heard of it. By then the sun was high, and the second column of Tatars had gained the height.

When the horsemen moved out upon the slope, the throngs thinned away below them, and soon strings of camels and horse herds were seen hastening from the city. When the Tatar officers wanted to ride in pursuit of them, the redheaded Mongol refused.

"Let them go, and others after them. When the people below are scattered we will take possession of the town. Later we will follow the caravans. Kai, they have no way to go but east."

To Nial he remarked:

"Gutchluk dug his own grave. If he had not kept his people from this kurgan it would not have fallen into our hands. If he had not kept his true shape hidden from their eyes, they would not believe him to be that image we have overthrown."

"True," the Scot assented, "yet the real Cutchluk has escaped our hands. And so long as he lives his evil power will endure. Give me a hundred men and permission to seek for him."

"It is a little thing." Basankor was in a genial mood, after the rapid success of the attack. "Take whom you will, and search with the eyes of a ferret. But who could find a wizard in this swarm of ants?"

Basankor told off Mara Nor with a picked hundred from the Mongol regiment to go with Nial, and the riders from the Gobi stared with the curiosity of children at the gaunt man with fever in his eyes. Before long they were too occupied to wonder about him. The Scot led them like a pack of hounds through the alleys of Paldorak, heedless of the wailing of women who thought their last hour had come. He dismounted to run through the house of Mir Farash, and then swept the bazaar, overturning stalls and slashing down curtains, until even the ponies became frantic.

"With him it is always 'Nent-en,'" Mara Nor grumbled to Abu Harb, who rode with them, grimly silent after hearing of Alai's death. "Knoweth he no other command than 'Forward'?"

"Disobey him, 0 slayer of flies," the Arab muttered, "and thou wilt learn how much more he knoweth."

Never in a generation of service had the gnome-like ung-khan disobeyed an order; yet that afternoon he grew rebellious. Noon had filled the valley with unholy heat, without a breath of the cooler air from above. In this ominous stillness black clouds gathered round the peaks, the sky darkened and a sudden icy blast swept away all memory of heat. The sweatdrenched ponies shivered, and at the first reverberation of thunder the men of the Gobi crouched unhappily in their saddles.

Nial was leading them at a relentless gallop across the plain toward the road to the Gate, paying no attention to the scattered groups of Kara Kalpaks who took pains to leave them the road. It had struck him suddenly that Gutchluk would not have hidden himself in the corners of Paldorak, now emptied of warriors. The magician would have sought shelter in the hills, most likely with the still-unmolested caravan of the Gate. And as he rode the Scot scanned every face within sight.

His body Gutchluk could disguise, but not the down-thrust head or the glare of his green eyes.

Then, with a gust of wind that sent billows of dust racing ahead of the riders, rain smote the valley floor with the force of a thousand giant hammers. It beat upon the shoulders of the men and drenched the laboring ponies. In a moment the temperature dropped unbelievably. Under the lash of the wind the poplar groves creaked, and in another moment the red clay of the road softened to mire.

Steam rose from men and beasts to be whirled away into the gray flood that veiled everything a stone's throw from them. The cold increased, until the rain became hail and glistening pellets danced under the hoofs of the horses.

"Now thou seest," Mara Nor remarked to the Arab, "how this magician sends down his weapons from above to wound us. He covers himself with mist to blind our eyes."

Wiping the blood from his brows where a hailstone had cut the skin, he groaned aloud at a peal of thunder, tossed back from slope to slope until it vanished, grumbling in the upper air.

Then the hail and the wind ceased, and Nial sighted a group of fugitives climbing the road ahead of them. It was a mixed party, well mounted, pressing on rapidly after the drenched figure of a Hindu priest who did not look behind him. A fresh downpour hid them from sight until the summit of the pass was reached.

As if a veil had been lifted, the mist and the rain cleared and a fresh wind whistled through the gorge, over the wall and the closed gate. Some hundreds of tribesmen clung to the wall uneasily, threatened now by the Tatar detachment down in the Zarafshan ravine, and now by the victors of Paldorak. Caught men will either run in a panic or fight desperately, and the defenders of the wall seemed undecided which to do.

They shouted no defiance at Nial's small band and no arrows flew; for every hillman knew that a single wounded Tatar would be avenged with sword and fire. And these Tatars, led by the bareheaded farangi, were at the heels of the weary band of fugitives following the solitary priest. The priest, whom some of them recognized as one who appeared at times to listen to the talk in the bazaar of Paldorak, now seemed silently intent upon reaching the wall at all costs.