The Quest of Kadji (15 page)

GOLDEN SUMMER had come back to the world of Gulzund again, and Kylix the sun star rode high in the son of her warm rays.

In the land of Maroosh, amidst the black mountains, where Chaya the Sacred River flows broad and strong from her secret source through the green and fertile valleys that lie forever locked away behind grim and impassive walls of unbroken stone, peace and plenty lay to every land.

The sword-brothers of the Chayyim Kozanga Nomads rested in the warmth, their wounds now healed, their decimated ranks replenished. Children ran and played along the curve of the great, slow-sweeping river; young lovers trysted in the reedy shallows where the heavy boughs of fruited
iongua
trees sheltered their whisperings and their doings from the eyes of the villagers; strong young warriors, stripped bare save for a rag twisted about their loins, stood thigh-deep in the clear waters, scrubbing down their stallions. Beyond the river, above the green meadow, where the cozy thatch-roofed huts nestled together in the flanks of the mountain wall, women ground corn in stone bowls, exchanged gossip as they scrubbed out their washing, or rested in the shadow of great trees while the noonday meal hissed deliciously over open-hearth. Fires.

In the stone-paved square before the House of the
jemadar
, Zarouk, Lord Chieftain of the Kozanga clans, stretched out his long legs and leaned back in the carven chair of ancient wood. About him a circle of fierce-eyed elders, hawk-nosed and white-bearded, disputed a troublous point of tradition. As for the tall chieftain, his wound now long-since healed, his strength long-since returned, he blinked and closed his eyes sleepily against the weight of golden sun and wished the hour of the midday feast had come.

IT WAS a keen-eyed sentinel, posted high in the crags above the secret valley where the warrior clans rested in peace and plenty, who spied them first: a yellow-haired boy mounted on a black Feridoon pony, a flamehaired girl of about the same age, riding a grey mare, with a great plains-wolf loping tirelessly at her side, and an old, lean-shanked Easterling, with bald pate and dangling queue, bouncing along on an ambling steed in the rear. The three strangers were winding their way through the tortuous maze that was the only pass through the black mountains, the pass that had been the closely guarded secret of the Chayyim Kozanga warriors since the far-off day of Kozang of Chaya himself, the first ancestor of the Nomad warrior clans.

His hand went to the great seven-foot-long warhorn bound with rings of pure brass, but be stayed his hand for a time, and bent again his keen gaze on the distant figures far below as they wound slowly through the black mountains toward the secret valley. Time enough to signal the approach of enemies; one more long look he would take, for there was something familiar about that yellow-haired boy, something about the way he sat his steed, something in the set of his shoulders, and the way one brown hand clenched the reins, bending up a little from the wrist . . . true, the brigh-haired boy was a boy no longer, but nigh unto manhood, fleshed out and broader of shoulder, stronger of back, more powerful of arm than he remembered . . . but something about the strong, sunburnt youth reminded him of . . . of . . . could it be? . . .

THEY REINED to a halt before the last turning of the pass, and Kadji reached out and took the hand of his wife in his own and smiled into her smiling face. In a moment or two they would ride on, down into the valley, the ancient homeland of his people, the cradle of his race, into the strong arms of his Grandfather and into the thunderous, triumphant welcome of the swordbrothers . . . but in a moment: not now; not quite yet.

In five months they had come all the way back across the wide-wayed world to where his Quest had begun a year or more before. But the road back had been easier than the hard long road to World’s End. They had struck south from the gates of Ithombar, and, in easy stages, had reached the Easterling port city of Narangazaya, and the great ships, and the mysterious seas of the south.

There, what little was left of their gold had purchased a slow, lazy voyage for them, from isle to isle, from sea to sea, all along the coast of the world until at last they had come ashore south of the Great Plains, horses and all, for the last ride north into the land of Maroosh where the impassable ring of the black mountains guarded forever the secret valley of the Chayyim Kozanga from a thousand enemies.

Aboard the fat-bellied merchant ship they had hired—the
Arthayan Queen
she was called, and her captain a fat, sleepy old rogue of an Easterling who had passed the months of the voyage playing an inscrutable and mysterious board-game with old Akthoob, something involving multicolored polygons and tiny carven ivory pieces, Kadji could never puzzle it out—had come a black-robed priest of All Gods, bound for the High Temple at jungled Thash. He had married the boy Kadji and the girl Thyra there on the deck of the
Arthayan Queen
, in the presence of all the crew, one magnificient night with seven moons aloft to light the heavens in honor of their nuptials.

That was many months ago; and as he stood there, holding the hand of the flamehaired girl he had followed across the very world to its ultimate and terrible Edge, Kadji smiled, thinking of the son she bore within her at this moment. For old Akthoob had peered into the mists of unborn tomorrows and had emerged smiling. and bobbing and promising a strong son with the clear, fearless blue eyes of his father and the gorgeous flamegold mane of his royal mother.

One day, perhaps, they would come thundering out of the black mountains, the mighty host of the Chayyim Kozanga, to win that flamehaired and yet unborn lad’s birthright for him at the point of a thousand swords; aye, one day . . . for a blood-feud yet stood between the Kozanga and the dog-knights of Rashemba, and whether it was the High Prince Bayazin or some high and mighty lordling of the
kugars
who had been victorious in the civil war that had wracked golden Khôr when Kadji fled from it a year ago on the track of Shamad the Impostor, and who now clung precariously to his unsteady place upon the Dragon Throne, it mattered little, for both were foemen of the Chayyim Kozanga!

The heart of the young warrior quickened at the thought of it, but it was only just and true: his wife, Thyra, was the last living survivor of the House of the Holy Azakour, and the son of her blood and his had a claim to the Dragon Empire stronger than that of any man or woman yet alive on Gulzund. And mayhap someday, with a thousand Kozanga war banners rustling over her head, Thyra would ride with Kadji and the boy and old Grandfather, too, across the whispering plains to the gates of the Dragon City, to claim rightful heritage. And thus the Chayyim Kozanga would weld their fighting strength to the ancient royal power and wealth of the Dragon Throne, and from this mingling would arise an Empire mightier than any that had ever risen aforetime, such as would stand forever and ever until at last the sun burnt out and the world went dark and cold . . . ah, it was a lovely dream! And it yet might all come true. . . .

Behind him, old Akthoob was grumbling loudly, saying something about the midday meal, and Haral, the black Feridoon pony, snuffing in the old, familiar scent of the green meadows of the Chaya’s banks, the warm sweet smells of home, was nickering eagerly.

And then, from far above, from high among the towering crags, a great wondering cry rang out—at which, beyond the curve, in the sunlit village, Zarouk the old
jemadar
started to his feet, his heart a fountain of glorious joy, his eyes brimming with glad tears, and at the sound of which all of the great sword-brothers sprang to their feet, snatching up sword and buckler to cash steel against steel in the iron song of welcome.

From far above their heads the great, joyous cry rang out:
“Hail, Kozanga! . . . Kadji . . . Kadji . . . Kadji! . . . Cry welcome and hail, for the Red Hawk of the Chayyim Kozanga returns . . . and lo! he has become a man in his travels . . . O, Kadji . . . Kadji, . . . Kadji . . . !”

And he laughed and squeezed the girl’s hand and grinned at the old Easterling wizard and nudged the little black Feridoon pony forward, and they rode around the curve, and they were home. The Quest of Kadji was ended.