Swords From the East (58 page)

"Allah!" muttered the Kislar Agha, reining aside watchfully to give the fleeing man room.

Pain swept through Azadi. Here she was, with a horse, and the Cossack was free, as she had planned. But now he could not escape-

"Uuh-aaul," Sokol howled like a wolf as he reached them. Abreast the Kislar Agha, he checked in his tracks, flinging up his arms, the loose sleeves fluttering.

And the great black horse reared, snorting. As he did so, Sokol ran at the Kislar Agha, who swung up his scimitar and slashed down. But the Cossack leaped under the blade, the hilt striking his shoulder. His arms closed around the waist of the Kislar Agha, dragging him back from the saddle as the black horse came down on all four feet. The two men rolled on the ground, the sword falling from the hand of the Kislar Agha. And the Cossack pounced on it.

The Kislar Agha scrambled to his feet, snatching a curved knife from his girdle. Savagely he struck with the knife. As he did so, he screamed.

Whistling in the air, the scimitar in the Cossack's hand slashed into the Kislar Agha's head. There was a sound like that of an axe hitting rotten wood, and the Agha went down.

The two other Moslems had been running at the Cossack. When he turned, with a sweep of the bloodied sword, they sprang away and vanished into the brush. But the Cossack was after the black horse of the Kislar Agha. In five seconds he had thrust the sword through his belt, had caught the saddle horn of the rearing charger, and was in the saddle.

Azadi cried out joyously. She clapped her hands, and tore the veil from her face, her gray eyes shining. "It happened-oh, it happened. I did it. Now go-go like the wind!"

The Cossack stared at her.

"Go quickly!" she cried again. The hounds bayed near at hand.

Sokol tightened the rein, and the great black horse circled. He swung down from the saddle and caught up Azadi in his long arm. Gripping her across his knees, he turned the frantic horse and drove in the sharp stirrup edges. Horse and man and maid swept away, down the trail as the leading hounds raced up, to halt with a tumult of yelping where the scent ended at the dead body of a man.

At the heels of the hounds came the Sultan, and behind him a cavalcade of his officers straining for a sight of the fugitive who was to be torn by the dogs. Instead they came upon Ibrahim halted by the body of the Kislar Agha. They did not see the horse dealer or the spy because those two worthies were creeping away, with the fear of torture strong upon them.

The hounds ran in circles, crashing through the brush and returning always to the slain Commander of the Women. No one dared speak until the Sultan spoke, and Ibrahim clutched his beard, staring from the bloodied earth to the raw-boned wreck of a horse with the broken saddle that grazed calmly upon the bushes before him.

"Was the Kislar Agha mad," he said uncertainly, "to ride hither on such a thing as that?"

He shivered, because the Cossack had vanished into air above the body of the palace official, who should not have been in this wood, and who would never have come, in any case, upon a lame cart horse. "Aye," he muttered, "that Cossack was a magician. He cast his power upon the dogs and escaped. By the beard of the Prophet, there is a woman of my serai who will be cut from her skin this night!"

But the Sipahi Agha, who had dismounted and cast about the ground, salaamed at the Sultan's stirrup. "Lord," he said, "the sword of the Kislar Agha is missing. And yonder lie the fresh tracks of a speeding horse. Surely the infidel devil slew thy servant and fled on his horse. Give permission that I follow with a regiment. May my head fall if I do not bring him back."

"Go, then." The Sultan ground his teeth and headed back at a gallop toward his harem.

But he did not set eyes again upon the girl Azadi, nor was anyone found who knew what had become of her. She had vanished like the Cossack. And when, three days later, the Sultan heard that the Sipahi Agha lay dead with most of his regiment, he only nodded moodily. It was clear, beyond doubt, that magic had done this.

"It was written," he said, "and no man may alter what is written."

When the red ball of the sun went down behind the dark treetops, Sokol dismounted from his wearied horse. He still held Azadi in his arms, and now he turned her face up to the sky. He kissed her on the lips and he laughed.

"Ohai, the Cossack rides in the night, and who can follow him?"

Azadi pressed her dark head against his shoulder, dreading the moment when she would be set down and left alone here in the silent forest.

"But whither," she cried, "where will you go?"

"To the black water. Aye, to the sea." Again he laughed. "Harken, little Azadi, to what thy Sultan sought to hear. At the end of this forest is the sea, and on the sea a city of the Sultan. I know it well, because they took me captive there, when I came to find the way for my kounaks-my men. They follow me, my men-four regiments of the sons of devils, Azadi, in their long boats. Tomorrow, or the day after, they will be there to raid the Sultan's city. And when they see me with such a horse and sword, they will say, 'That is our ataman-he has been playing with the Turks."'

Suddenly the girl threw slender arms about his shoulders, pressing herself against him. It seemed to her that she would die if he set her down and rode away to this city on the sea.

"The spell!" she cried, in pain. "This spell thou hast laid upon me I cannot break. I-I wanted to bring a horse, so that you could ride away from the dogs. But you never looked at my steed."

"That peddler's nag! "

She nodded, tears dampening her flushed cheeks.

"Nay, little Azadi," Sokol said slowly, "I have no skill at conjuring. The power of magic is in thee. For now that I have looked once into thine eyes I cannot let thee go from my arms."

A deep breath of amazement escaped the girl. A quiver of delight ran through her body, and she smiled up at him.

"Then look!" she cried softly. "Quickly, before the light is gone. Wilt thou take me to the sea? Now, look again. To thy land, with thee? Nay-I said only to look, beloved of my heart."

Kam knew that the long night of winter was nearly over. He knew it by the wisdom of his six years. His wolf dog no longer burrowed so deep in the snow of twilights, and the ice of the river was cracking.

For Father Yenesei was rising out of his long sleep, throwing off the white coverlet of ice and snow. At his headquarters in the Syansk Mountains far to the south, the snow was melting and the black water was rushing down with the ice floes toward the bend in the Yenesei where the hills of Mongolia meet the plain of Siberia-still called Muscovy in that year of the late seventeenth century-where was the hut of Kam.

Well did little Kam know the moods of Father Yenesei. Kam himself had no father; he lived with old Ostak, the blind fisherman at the bend of the river.

During the past winter the boy had played with the treasures of Ostak, a walrus head on which the skin was wrinkled like the skin of a dried apple, a bit of carved ivory, a silver talisman, cast up from the wreck of some trader's vessel, and a long iron whaling spear.

For Ostak, in the time before the light went from his eyes, had been a man of the North, a killer of animals on the edge of the White Sea, a man largely thewed and savage of temper. Kam played on the skin of a polar bear. Kam was no longer a child. He played at killing the walrus head with the spear.

"Tchai!" he cried. "Soon I will run upon the walrus herds. I have already speared a salmon in the river. You know it, Uncle Ostak."

"Aye," the old Buriat murmured, "you are a rare young buck. You are the eyes of Ostak, just as your sister Aina is my hand."

It was Kam's task to lead the blind fisher to the skiff, to find him his nets, to carry the cleaned fish to the village some miles away. His hours of work were long, for Ostak moved slowly and toiled painfully. The need of work and of guiding the blind had made Kam alert and shrewd for his age.

When the ice would be gone, and the labors of the day done, Kam would play with his wolf dog on the bank of Father Yenesei, watching the reflection of the pines in the water of the round bay by which the hut was built. He would count the ships passing up or down, traders' luggers, the sailing skiffs that bore black-robed priests from Muscovy, who wore strange, square hats and gave presents-sometimes.

But on this warm day in the Month of the Fox, when the silver sun of the past months was turning to gold and the snow was damp under foot, the only vessel within Kam's range of vision was an ice-bound lugger a mile upstream, and he was watching the approach of three men with a dog sledge.

Kam knew the three. They were Muscovites, distinguished personages who owned the sailing ship that had been winter-bound in the upper reaches of the river by an early freezing of Father Yenesei.

Frequently Kam had seen them in the Buriat village nearby. Their presence had added zest to the dull winter for him. From the inn door he had listened while they sang gigantic songs and kicked on the floor. At times they played with an assortment of small colored pictures upon a table and emptied mugs of vodka at a great rate.

They brought wonderful, painted dolls and bead work, with colored cloths to exchange at the inn for food and vodka. When they danced with the Buriat women to the two-stringed fiddles, the sweat flew from their faces and the floor shook under their boots, so high did they jump.

In short they were demigods, capital fellows, regular batyrs, or heroes. Kam scrutinized their approach to his hut with emotion, and his black eyes opened wide at the guttural oaths that announced the trio had missed their way in heading back to the lugger from the village.

"Give us a drink to warm our gullets, uncle," they shouted at Ostak, who was feeding fish fins to his dogs.

Kam was lost in admiration. The faces of the demigods were red as the crimson of the northern lights at the time when the merry dancers*
were leaping in the air above the horizon. Their breath was as fragrant as wine. So it was, in fact. Their beards were like horses' manes compared to the long white mustache of Ostak that was like the fangs of a walrus.

"Kam," grunted Ostak as if he had observed the men, "go and bid your sister draw tarasun from the cask and give these to drink."

"Nay," responded the boy eagerly. "Aina is down at the ice, the hole in the ice, spear-fishing."

"Draw the tarasun yourself. Give to each of these strangers for they thirst. I cannot see their number."

The leader of the three emptied the bowl of fermented mare's milk at a gulp.

"So, you are blind, uncle. Well," he laughed, tossing the bowl to Kam, "you will behold the angels in Heaven, so don't weep about it. Come along, Fedor and Lak-take your Finnish name-Lakumainen."

He waved good-bye to the impassive Ostak and whipped up the dogs that drew the sledge slowly over the heavy snow. When they could not start the sledge, instead of giving it a push, he kicked the dogs until, snarling, they got underway.

Kam was surprised that a demigod should beat dogs. Ostak, despite his surly moods, always cared for his few wolf-breeds.

When Fedor, the smaller of the two Russians, and the gigantic Finn trailed after the sledge, Kam brought up the rear. Having given the exalted strangers to drink, he felt that he had earned the privilege of following them awhile.

"Lift up your heels, my lads," sang out the leader of the sailors. "We've got this food to stow away and the ice may break loose any day now. You'll have to step a measure, then, because Father Yenesei isn't any smooth maiden to handle, you know."

Nevertheless he did not head directly for the distant vessel, but circled to go by the hole in the ice where Aina stood with her spear. Several salmon, already frozen, lay by her.

Fedor and the Finn followed, accompanied by Kam, who tried to swagger or rather lurch as they did.

Aina did not look up; she had already scanned them carefully. She was a slender Buriat, with a tiny mouth and sharp, black eyes with curving lids. In her foxskins and horsehide boots she looked much like a boy, except for the moonlike roundness of her cheeks.