The Wolf Master/Chapter 14

ECAUSE on the far side of the border dignity rides in a saddle and disgrace walks afoot, Kirdy lingered at the wagon tent until one of his horses was brought. This in itself was little less than a miracle, since the whole plain seemed to be alive with beasts.

The rain had ceased; mist lay in the hollows, and under a murky sky an orange glow spread in the east. Against this light the Cossack made out the dome-like tops of kibitkas, the tossing horns of multitudes of cattle, the black shapes of riders. He heard the harsh grunting of camels, the squealing of stallions, the bellowing of bulls, the incessant, plaintive crying of thousands of sheep and unnumbered goats.

His nostrils tingled with the acrid smoke of dung and damp wood fires, the warm breath of trampled grass, and the reek of wet leather. Axles creaked, dogs howled and unseen men shouted. It was a dawn of calamity, as if these inhabitants of the steppe had been driven together by flood or fire. But there was order in the chaos. Near at hand an old woman milked a complaining camel, and out of the nearest herd his black kabarda was led up, saddled. Two warriors waited to see what he would do next—two broad and silent men clad in wolfskins, with lacquer helmets topped by a horsetail plume, with a leather drop that came down over their shoulders. Bows and arrows rested in carved wooden cases at their hips, and each held a weapon Kirdy had never seen before.

This weapon was a battle-ax—a four-and-half-foot staff, of ivory or bamboo, with a leather thong that passed around the wrist. The head was long, the cutting edge slightly curved, the butt a steel point.

“Oucheha keri kari,” the Cossack said to the Tatars. “It is the dawn, and the drums summon to saddle.”

The swift roll of the horse drums had ceased near him, but had been taken up in distant kibitkas, and he knew it must be a summons to muster. Knew, too, that it was infinitely better to make this assertion than to ask the question—because uncertainty is cousin to fear, and for a captive to show fear is to invite taunts.

The Tatars regarded him impassively.

“Ay-a, the weapon-bearing men ride from the yurta.”

“Then I must speak with Tevakel Khan.”

To a black dome rising out of a cleared space in the encampment they led him, and he loosed the girdle of his sword at the threshold. Older than the blade itself is the tabu against carrying so much as a stick into a tent of the Hordes of high Asia—and not for the khan's herd of ponies would any Tatar have stolen a weapon so left at the entrance.

The dome was of felt, rising on interlashed wattles, and a squadron could have formed beneath it. Within, it was divided by partitions of painted leather into many compartments. By the fire in the central chamber knelt Tevakel Khan on a carpet.

“What gift, O Kazak,” he asked, “dost thou bring to the Altyn Juz?”

He spoke placidly in the half voice of one who is accustomed to silence in his listeners. An old man, Tevakel Khan, with a thin, good-humored face and brilliant eyes—a straight figure in a horse-hide jacket, the dark mane running down the middle of his back. His embroidered boots had very high red heels and his black satin skull cap was neatly sewn with silver thread.

Considering him, Kirdy judged that he was not to be trifled with—a generous man, indulgent with increasing years, but with authority in his very blood. And the Cossack tried to think of some fitting gift. He had said that he came to the Golden Horde on a mission, and a present would be expected. But he had no gift.

“I bring—”

He was about to say a black kabarda stallion, but a glance about the compartment checked him. Behind Tevakel Khan were ranged sandalwood and ebony chests, rolls of splendid carpets and saddles ornamented with silver inlaid on iron. The bowls on the little table from which the chieftain helped himself to dried raisins and tea and millet cake were amber and jade. Tevakel Khan was wealthy—a horse meant little more to the nomad than one of the raisins he selected with such care.

“I bring a sword,” he said.

Tevakel Khan looked at him expectantly. The Cossack requested one of the attendants to carry in the curved saber that he had left at the entrance, and he noticed that the Tatar repressed an exclamation of pleasure when he beheld the jeweled hilt and the rich scabbard that the warrior held forth in both hands. Before Tevakel Khan could take it, Kirdy stepped forward and spoke.

“I am Ak Sokol, the White Falcon, and I have come to the Altyn Juz from the land of infidels near the setting of the sun.”

The Tatar, sipping a bowl of tea, waited in courteous silence.

“The dog of a Shiite,” observed one of his household, “said thou wert near at hand on the plain, with two horses. He was fleeing from the Turkomans. Art thou his brother?”

The question was put with thinly veiled contempt, and Kirdy paid it no heed.

“Hearken, O Khan of the Altyn Juz,” he went on. “Thy drums beat the summons to saddle. Thy enemies the Turkomans have come up from the southern plain to raid thy herds.”

This was a reasonable surmise, and Tevakel Khan made an exclamation of assent. Pin-points of fire glowed in his dark eyes.

“Allah hath caused desire to be born in the heart of Ilbars Sultan of Kwaresmia, the son of Arap Muhammad, lord of Khiva. He thought to find us with our eyes turned the other way, but he has come with a mighty following.”

Not long since, Kirdy had waged a long battle against Ilbars Sultan—the Leopard Prince. He had seen the Turkomans wipe out five hundred Don Cossacks, and the memory rankled.

“Ilbars Sultan has a high nose and keen eyes; he would rather slay men than carry off beasts and women. He is shrewd, but the blood lust blinds him.”

A faint surprize was apparent in the emotionless Tatar.

“What words are these words, O Kazak? Art thou a Fanga—a wizard, to know what passes beyond thy sight?”

“Nay, I have seen the sultan when swords were drawn. I say to thee, O Khan, that he is terrible in battle.”

“And is this thy mission—to praise Ilbars Sultan, the thieving dog, to my face?”

“As to that, I speak the truth. Yet I sought the Golden Horde to find therein an enemy. Within the year an oath was sworn that this enemy should die.”

Whatever the old khan thought of this he kept to himself. Blood feuds were more to be cherished than religious faith, in the steppe. His eye wandered to the curved sword.

“What is the name of thine enemy, O youth?”

“He was khan of the Muscovites.”

“Then he is not to be found within our grazing land. Hearken, Kazak. Some have said to me that thou art a spy, sent in advance by the Turkomans. What are words? I bear thee neither ill will nor good. Give me then the sword and go in peace. I have said!”

Kirdy inclined his head.

“And this is my answer, O Khan! Among my people it is a law of laws that a sword may not pass to another, while the master of it lives. Lacking other gifts, I offer to bear the sword on thy behalf in this battle. When I have taken spoil, then I will have a gift that is fitting.”

A murmur of impatience and anger arose from the listeners around the sides of the room—from the sons and grandsons of the khan, and his officers. They resented the appearance of the stranger at such a time, and more than resented his boldness. Even the quiet old man seemed surprized, but he meditated, his arms folded on his knees.

“Hearken, young warrior, to my second word. The lifetime of a horse before now, the Altyn Juz sought pasture in the west. We came to a river, and there found a lame man, a Kazak such as thou, whose only solace in life was a girl-child. Now this Kazak was assuredly a wizard, because the wolf packs came to his yurta of nights and he talked with them. We shared bread and salt, he and I, and our talk was as brothers and friends. That was long ago, yet I have seen no Kazak since. Abide, then, with me, but think no more of mounting for battle, lest my men slay thee, unknowing. With Ilbars Sultan is a mighty Fanga, and it will go hard with us. Tidings have come—”

With a gesture he dismissed the Cossack and turned to his household, crumpling the millet cakes in his slender fingers. Kirdy smiled as if greatly honored—though his very soul burned with impatience to be free of the tent and in the saddle—and took a seat among the sons of Tevakel Khan.

UT when he heard the first of the messengers who had been waiting at the entrance, he forgot weariness and disappointment in sudden interest. The Turkomans were within a day's ride of the Tatar camp.

The messengers, who were soaked and weary with riding through the night and the storm, told tales of tent-villages seized by the foe—of old people cut down, warriors burned or crucified or dragged by horses, and young women that died within an hour of capture.

This was no ordinary raid on the part of Ilbars Sultan. The Turkomans, with their allies, the Uzbeks, numbered close to twenty thousand. They had followed the grass up to the north with their horse herds, and they meant to wipe out the armed men of the Golden Horde, to seize the cattle and pasture-land for their own, and to keep the Tatar children for slaves.

In the face of calamity, the patriarch of the Golden Horde remained utterly calm. From the north and the west the Tatar clans were hastening on tired horses to the gathering of the Horde. To Kirdy, it seemed as if Tevakel Khan must give battle within the next two or three days.

If he retreated into the northern steppe he would lose the bulk of his cattle, many horses and all his sheep—and these herds were the very life of the Altyn Juz. On the other hand, if he stood his ground against the dreaded Turkomans now, he would be outnumbered.

And if there was a battle, what would become of Otrèpiev and Nada? They were not far away—a Turkoman does not yield up such captives. And, unless the Cossack could free himself from the watch of Tevakel Khan, this battle on the steppe would separate them again, as the black storm drives travelers asunder in the desert.

“In the night before this last the Tourka devils did the two-sword dance in the chieftain's place.”

A lad who had crept through the outer patrols of the invaders had just come in to report what he had seen.

“They have many ponies, and a great camp. While the sword dance was going on some of them made a great noise and a flash of fire with weapons they held in their hands, yet no harm came to them.”

Tevakel Khan made a gesture of assent. Although the Altyn Juz had no firelocks, he had heard of them before.

“What does the Fanga nialma of the sultan?”

“He drinks fire.”

“A-ah!”

A sibilant moan from the listeners greeted this, and the boy glanced proudly around him, to take full credit for the ominous tidings he brought.

“The wizard drinks fire from a cup, sitting before Ilbars Sultan, the Leopard,” he went on. “My eyes beheld this. He sits on a white bearskin.”

“A-ah!”

“He has five lesser fanga, to wait upon him and increase his magic.”

“That is so,” put in another, a burly warrior who had carried off the first prisoner from a Turkoman outpost. “The six magicians were found marching toward Ilbars Sultan, out in the steppe. They were clad in red velvets and sables and silver cloth, and their garments were sewn with jewels from skirt to cap.”

Kirdy pushed aside the Tatar in front of him, to hear the better.

“Allahim barabat yik saftir,” murmured Tevakel Khan. “God is just and merciful!” By this he meant that all matters were ordained, and what was happening could not be altered.

“The Fanga nialma,” went on the warrior, “held in his hand at that time an apple, and the apple was of pure gold. He had changed it to gold.”

“What else?”

“Six geese took flight from the grass at the moment when the six fanga appeared.”

It was apparent to the old Tatar that mighty forces were opposed to him. The marauding Turkomans were evil, but this fellowship of magicians, drinking fire and changing fruit into gold were more to be dreaded. But all at once it seemed to him that his captive, the Cossack, had become possessed of a devil.

Kirdy 's dark eyes were blazing and the veins in the forehead stood out. The mention of a cup of fire had aroused his curiosity; the five companions of the wizard had aroused his suspicion, and the gold apple had made him certain of a strange fact. He remembered seeing, in other days, a gold apple among the crown pieces of the Tsars.

“O Khan,” he cried, “this Fanga nialma is no more than a man, and I have found mine enemy!”

The Tatars shook their heads and whispered gutturally—

“Nay—he is beside himself!”

But Kirdy, on his feet upon the carpet before the khan, seized a bowl of wine and emptied it down his throat. Facing the warrior who had taken a prisoner, he asked—

“Was there not a Kazak woman among the five companions?”

“Balmëz! Who knows? Yet, there was a woman dressed as a warrior.”

“Aye, so. And this stranger—no hair is on his face?”

“V'allah! When did a wizard have hair on his face?”

“Still, I say that I know this man. He is cunning as a steppe fox, and he flees from Frankistan because he has stolen the jewels and garments of a king. I followed him hither.”

Tevakel Khan considered and shook his head.

“Kai—can a common man drink fire?”

“Aye, so. I can drink fire from a cup. Bring hither my saddle-bags—thou!”

A stir of interest went through the throng in the tent, and the khan signed for the captive's bags to be brought. The White Falcon, he thought, was possessed of a devil, but of what kind of a devil remained to be seen.

Kirdy asked for a small china bowl, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found his leather flask of gorilka safe in the bag. There was enough of the white spirits left to almost fill the bowl. Deliberately, he placed it on the carpet before the khan and went to the fire.

With his knife he cut a sliver from a pine stick and lighted it in the fire. He touched the light to the spirits in the cup and a thin, bluish flame danced on the surface of the gorilka.

Tevakel Khan rose on his knees to watch the better, and Kirdy lifted the china bowl in both hands. When the Tatars saw the smokeless blue flame, they shivered.

“Glory to God!” said the Cossack, presenting the fire to the four quarters of the winds.

“E-eh!” breathed the watchers.

Tipping the cup toward him, Kirdy drank; but the instant before the spirits touched his lip, he let out his breath, soundlessly. Unseen by the khan, the blue flame flickered out. The young warrior drank down the gorilka, and sighed. It was good, and it was his last.

For some moments the old chief remained buried in thought. He thought of the other Cossack who had power over the wolves, and he reached a decision.

“Kai—it must be thou art also a fanga. A wizard who bears a sword, with hair on his face.”

Though Kirdy had not been prepared for this conclusion, he took instant advantage of it.

“Then grant me to ride in the battle. I will seek out this other fanga who drinks fire, and destroy him.”

The advantages of such an arrangement were apparent to Tevakel Khan and he agreed at once, only demanding that Kirdy remain near him until the fighting began.