Swords From the East (48 page)

Gathering up the reins in the hand that held his sword, he plied the whip that had been resting against the tent. Loosang's horses were well fed, and there were six of them. They lurched forward into the traces. Before the wagon could gain headway a pair of lean herdsmen leaped to the steps and lifted their pikes. Billings dropped the reins and was about to thrust with his sword, when he saw the two hesitate and lower their weapons.

"The wolf of Nadesha!" one of them cried.

They were looking at his belt. But Billings did not wish to be taken in hand, belt or no belt. He shouted to the herdsmen to give back and lashed out again with his whip. The horses broke into a trot and then to a jerky gallop. The two invaders dropped off.

Others, spurred on by the gylong who urged his horse frantically after the wagon, were running behind the yurt. A clamor of angry yells rose above the creaking of the axles and clattering of the wooden floor. The yellow flag whipped in the wind; the streamers snapped out from the eaves of the purple tent. Dogs barked.

Grinning, Billings plied the whip. It occurred to him that Loosang might emerge from within, and he kept a wary eye over his shoulder while he guided his imposing chariot along the muddy plain. He could make out two ample piles of skins, the beds of the disciples. Also a wine cask and an array of foodstuffs, all jolting about. A bell was ringing violently.

The tent bellied like a sail, and the front portions were torn loose from the floor pegs. From this aperture Alashan peered.

"By the mane of the white horse of Kaidu, what has happened?"

Taking in the situation, he smiled and beckoned Billings. As they had outdistanced the pursuers, the mapmaker brought his steeds down to a trot and tied the reins to a carved image of the sitting Buddha.

Behind a curtain stretched midway across the tent he saw a figure lying on a couch. It was clad in all Loosang's finery. Under the high, lacquered hat was the head of a panther.

As Billings looked, the eyes rolled in the head toward him, and the jaw of the beast turned a little. Overhead the bell began to toll again as the wagon crossed some rough ground. The flesh on Billings's back grew cold. In the strong odor of the tent there was a smell of something unclean.

"Look," said Alashan. Around the ridgepole were arranged other heads, some of familiar animals, some of ghastly and obscene shapes.

"A mask," muttered Billings. "What is beneath?"

"Nothing. Weights, hung under them, move these eyes of painted mica. The jawbone is loose. It is an effigy."

"To frighten those who might look in while Loosang is away."

"Aye. But here is no sign of Nadesha."

Abruptly the wagon slowed, lurched, and was still, tilted to one side. They were ditched. Looking out, Billings saw his pony and Alashan's horse. A spear's cast away was Norbo with his two servants and the pack animals.

Alashan walked to the horse of the Master of the Herds and Billings followed, while the Tatars stared in puzzled surprise. Luckily they were among a nest of dense thickets and no others were in view at the moment. But Billings knew that the mad flight of the sacred wagon across the plain had been seen by many, and that presently the fat gylong would catch up with them.

"My lord," the boy saluted the chieftain respectfully, "it is a lie that Loosang's body rests here while his spirit is abroad. Here is only a mask and garments. Loosang has gone from the Horde. Nadesha is not to be found. She has spoken with him. He is a master of evil, to my mind. I have read in his eyes that he lusts after her."

Unexpectedly the old woman-servant spoke up, seizing the stirrup of the noble, her master.

"My lord, chief of the ulus, it is said in the tents that the shape of the lama was seen on the night before last, riding like a demon as tall as a tree, and attended by his familiar in the form of a woman."

"Whither did they turn the heads of their horses?" asked Alashan.

"Who knows, my young lord? Up into the stars where the tengeri leap from mountain to mountain or down into the earth where-"

"Alashan," broke in Billings, "the fat priest called Loosang abbot of Sonkor. Is that truth?"

"Aye," assented the boy, "he comes from the lamasery that is nearest the steppe."

"Do you know where it lies?"

The boy shook his head, whereupon Billings showed him a strip of yellow paper he had taken from the wallet in his coat-the map of the Armenian, showing the caravan route from Constantinople to Tashkent. It was inaccurate and wildly picturesque as to distances. In the northeast corner was a picture of a tower and the legend "Sonkur." A mountain was drawn close by.

"It is in the air and in the water and the sand," muttered the old woman, "so the Kara Kirghiz say-the Black Kirghiz tribesmen."

With his sword's point Billings traced an equilateral triangle in the mud; then he glanced at the sun, reflecting dimly from the gray haze. With a last look at his map he replaced it carefully in his coat and thought for a moment.

"Sonkor lies in that quarter-" he pointed with his sword-"two days' and one night's hard riding."

Everyone except Norbo drew back hastily from the triangle in the mud, and all surveyed Billings expectantly. This was surely magic! Billings, with the knowledge that the gylongs would arrive very soon in the thicket, had done some rapid thinking.

The map-unreliable as to distances-told him that the temple of Sonkor lay near mountains, at the edge of the river Chu, which flowed from the mountains of Tibet far to the southeast. So the old woman had proclaimed-near the heights, the sand, and the water.

A single rider moves more swiftly than an army; Loosang would have left the Horde before they reached the point nearest to Sonkor. At the end of nine days he must be back again; so he could not give more than four days to each half of his journey, because even a Tatar jigit would need some hours' rest and a change of horses at Sonkor. Admitting that Loosang was travelling over the lower sides of his equilateral triangle, and the Horde had journeyed along the northern side for a day and a half, it was easy to see that Sonkor lay about two days and some hours and to the south by southeast.

Billings was sure of this when he observed that the route he had figured for Loosang and Nadesha skirted the edge of the Kangar. No one would willingly cross the Kangar.

"That will lead me through the desert," reflected Alashan.

"Will you follow Loosang?"

"Aye." Alashan turned to his horse.

Then Norbo spoke for the first time.

"You have not asked permission of your father, the Khan, to leave the Horde."

Nadesha was greatly loved of Norbo. All three knew that if she had gone with Loosang to the place of the lamas it would be only by the rarest of good fortune that she would regain the Horde. Loosang, if he desired the girl, would not bring her back to the protection of her father and Ubaka Khan.

Yet the Master of the Herds, who could not leave his post, reminded Alashan that he was the son of the Khan and might not leave the Horde unbidden.

"Peace be with you, uncle," said Alashan moodily. "Let Zebek Dortshi and the others say that I have left the clan during suffering and hunger. Tell them so yourself, if you will."

He flung himself into the saddle.

"Give me goatskins for water, and another horse, Norbo! Give them to me. I shall follow Nadesha's trail until I find her." His dark cheeks flushed. "By the white horse of Natagai, my father will not call me a man! I go my own road."

The cracks in Norbo's worn face deepened and he pulled at his gray mustache. Billings, who had secured his own pony, now mounted and spoke, before the Master of the Herds.

"Alashan-" he listened for the splash of approaching hoofs-"I have told you one true word. And I have shown you where Sonkor lies. I can lead you to the temple with my maps. I will go with you."

The boy's eyes were hostile.

"Nay, I will find Nadesha without aid from you."

"Perhaps. But two swords are better than one. You are betrothed to Nadesha. I am her brother. We are together in this thing."

"Kai, be it so." Norbo nodded. "The son of the Khan must not go without a man to protect his back. Better a hundred of my clan-"

"Not so," barked Alashan. "They would take the word to my father at once and I would be bound and beaten." He looked long at Billings. "If you are my companion in this thing, you are nonetheless my enemy when it is over-if we both live. Is that agreed?"

Under his mustache Billings smiled.

"Kai-be it so."

There was no time for more. The man-servant who had been watching from the thicket reported the approach of riders led by the priests. Norbo quickly thrust the reins of his own horse into Alashan's hand, and gave the remaining riding pony to Billings.

"Come back to the Horde," he growled at Alashan, "or I am dishonored." To Billings he added coldly-"Protect the prince."

As they put spurs to their horses, drawing the two spare mounts with them, Billings was still smiling. Here was a chance at liberty. With a horse-two horses and a weapon-he could reach Sonkor and, by the aid of his maps, work south to Tashkent, where in time he could find a caravan going west to Samarkand and the Caspian.

In time, it could be done. He had promised to complete the map for Nadesha only so long as he should be with the Horde. Plying whip and spur, the thicket was soon left behind and they merged among the groups of tired riders who, half-asleep, splashed through the mud.

Behind them two furious gylongs righted the sacred wagon and searched fruitlessly the myriad tracks around the thicket. They shot questions and threats at Norbo in the same breath. But the old Tatar had retired into his habitual silence.

When the priests rode off he began to walk through the marsh with the ungainly gait of one whose stiff limbs are better schooled to the belly of a horse. Followed by the two servants and the pack animals, he trudged along, his eyes raised, from habit, to the gray expanse of sky in the east.

But not in two days and one night, or in twenty days, could Captain Billings have found the temple of Sonkor whither Loosang had gone with Nadesha. Before the sun had gone down for the first time, he had lost his direction and a cloudy night concealed the stars.

They kept the wind, the hot wind that had sprung up during the day, at their backs. They rode in silence, Billings in the lead. Progress was slow-deep sandy dunes to be met with for the most part, and serried clay gullies that turned them aside constantly.

Billings fancied that they were ascending. His ears strained for a sound, but the darkness was like a heated curtain. The croaking of frogs, the trilling of birds-all this had been left behind them with the marshland. Nor was there any moisture in the air. The steppe of the Kangar, the Hunger Steppe, was a blind labyrinth of dunes and gullies.

"Halt and unsaddle the horses," ordered Alashan, when the night was about half done and the air was becoming a little chill. "Eat and sleep."

Surprised, Billings reined in. The boy was already working at the saddle girths and made no response to Billings's questions. When the maker of maps climbed down, Alashan spoke curtly.

"We are wandering, first on one hand, then the other. I have been watching that rock for an hour."

He pointed behind them, but only after straining his eyes a long time did Billings make out a bulk that was darker than the sky and the sand, an outcropping of basalt or sandstone shaped like a pillar.

"You are merely keeping your back to the wind," pointed out the Tatar angrily. "The wind changes."

Billings heard the boy's jaws crunch on a portion of the dried meat he had carried between saddle and saddle cloth to keep it warm and soft enough to eat.

"Nay-your map was a picture; this is a desert. How will you find the right direction in the morning?"

Billings was engaged with his scanty rations of decaying cheese and tough meat. They had been able to buy some provisions from another clan, and had filled their goatskins at a pool before leaving the Horde.

The mapmaker was accustomed to laying a stick of wood along the course to be followed the next day when he made camp. But now he was aware that Alashan was right: he had been wandering from the true direction, and one quarter was like another. Moreover there had been no time at their departure to retrieve the compass from the packs containing his instruments.

"The sun will show us the way, Alashan."

"And if there be no sun?"

"Then we will see."

Morning dawned gray and cloudy. The wind had failed. The horses had found a scrub thicket of tamarisk and were feeding there, near a stagnant pool of yellow water. When Billings would have filled a half-empty goatskin here, Alashan pulled him back.

"That is death. Come, it is time-time."

They mounted, Billings stiffly, Alashan with a spring. The boy glanced over his shoulder.

"Which way?"

Surveying the sea of dunes, Billings noted the position of the purple finger of basalt. Away from this he turned his horse's head, and Alashan followed without comment. The boy rode like one possessed, pointing out the strips of clay that offered firmer footing than the sand on the tops of the ridges. He changed from horse to horse without halting.

At first Billings glanced at the boy, expecting him to halt, to eat. But Alashan pulled some of the dried meat from under a saddle and went on.

Billings removed his tattered coat and tied it behind his saddle, and then his waistcoat followed suit. He felt little relief. Then he tried chewing some of the meat, but that increased his thirst. Presently Alashan pulled down into the soft bottom of a gully. A line of tracks were visible.

"Two camels with riders," muttered Alashan.

He took the lead, following the tracks. They led slightly across the course Billings had been on. Before long other traces joined the camel tracks. Alashan studied them, dismounting in order to see the better.

"What can you say of this, my giaour captain?"

Utilizing the pause to fill his pipe, Billings shook his head good- humoredly.

"Nothing, except that they be horses."