Swords From the West (64 page)

Tossing up the staff, he caught it in the fingers of one hand and twirled it around his head. Then, setting his long legs, he gripped the quarterstaff with both hands widely separated, well in front of him. To the onlookers this seemed the merest bombast, and the eyes of the Kankali glittered as he advanced on the archer and thrust at Bunsley's ribs, meaning to wound the red man a few times before killing him. Instead the yeoman warded the blow by lowering one end of his pole. Again the Kankali thrust with no better result.

Angered by the gibes of his companions, the Spearman shortened his grasp and feinted, minded to end the matter out of hand. But Will halted him abruptly by bringing up one arm and jabbing wickedly at the throat. Choking, the Kankali staggered back and the yeoman smote him on either ear so quickly that the two thuds sounded as one.

Blood flowed down the warrior's jaw, and he rocked dizzily, then crumpled down on the sand.

"The fool is strong in the arm," observed Inalzig. "Now we will try his skill."

He barked an order, and a stocky warrior sprang out from the growing throng of watchers. The khan tossed him a javelin-a throwinn spear no more than a yard long with a small, barbed point.

"Send him to jehannum or taste a hundred lashes."

Robert, who had watched English yeomen practicing with the quarterstaff in Antioch, had known that Will could make a long spear look ridiculous, but a javelin was not to be warded so easily. Nor could he come to the archer's aid, for such a move would mean drawn weapons and a swift end for them both.

But Will, watching his adversary keenly, yelped cheerfully.

"So-ho, here be a dog with sharp teeth, so give heed, Master Robert, to some pretty work."

Leaping about in front of the Kankali, he whirled the quarterstaff in the man's eyes until the warrior decided that the Frank was not going to attack, and launched the javelin. Will, having waited for just this, dodged alertly, and the short spear did no more than glance from one shoulder, cutting it to the bone.

The warrior snarled and drew a curved dagger. Rushing in, he slashed at the archer's ribs, only to drop like a log and lie where he had fallen. Will had stepped aside and slid one hand down to the other, swinging lustily with the full weight of the staff upon the Kankali's skull.

"Now, St. Dunstan send that he be the one that cracked my pate in the battle," he remarked.

To the Moslems his skill with the staff savored of the marvelous, for they were men who used none but edged weapons. Even the khan was stirred to interest and asked if the red man could do tricks with anything but a stick.

"Put a bow into his hands and set the best of your archers against him," suggested Robert.

After some hesitation Inalzig agreed and had one of the short Turkish bows brought out for Will, who took it with misgivings, saying that it might do to use from a horse's back but was no thing to tickle the fancy of a Northumberland lad. He selected his arrows with care, choosing the longest he could find.

Thus equipped he outdid the best of the Kankalis, who withdrew from the contest with as much dignity as they could muster, explaining loudly that the Frank was surely djinn-infested. Indeed Will was strutting about with a lop-sided grin, for he had more than his share of vanity. Inalzig had fallen into a rage and nursed his wine-cup sullenly until Abdullah, who had followed the archery with mild interest, arose and declared that he had come from a country where men used bows otherwise.

"Then put the fool to shame, 0 minstrel," grunted the chief.

"Nay," responded the minstrel, "I lack his skill, yet have I learned a trick that your men know not."

Taking a small turban cloth, he walked to the nearest tree. Rolling the cotton strip tightly, he wrapped it around the bole of the tree so that a strip some two fingers in breadth showed white against the dark trunk.

Then, calling for a saddled pony, he chose a short, powerful bow and a quiver with six arrows. Mounting and riding off, he wheeled the pony some two hundred paces from his mark and set it to a gallop. One after the other he loosed three shafts rapidly as he rode, gripping the ends of the arrows between thumb and forefinger.

Abreast the tree Abdullah swiftly unstrung the bow and used the flying cord on his pony as a whip. Then, stringing it taut again, he emptied his quiver as he drew away from the mark. It was no easy feat to loose the shafts over the pony's rump, and the Kankalis raised a shout of gratification when it was seen that all but one of Abdullah's arrows had struck the bole of the tree, and three were within the cotton band.

"Such nimble finger work is not our way," remarked Will, studying the hits made by the minstrel, "for we pull a long bow and draw each shaft to the head. Yet no man can say Will Bunsley gave ground to him in honest yeoman sport."

The warriors crowded closer when they saw that the Frank would attempt to equal the minstrel's feat. They had been weaned from boyhood with bows in their hands, but like Abdullah were accustomed to shoot from the saddle.

Will signed for the bow Abdullah used to be brought him, and again selected a half dozen arrows. Instead of standing, he knelt this time about a hundred yards from the trees and stuck the heads of the arrows lightly in the sand in a half-circle under his right hand. After testing the pull of the new bow, he thumbed the silk string and fitted an arrow, holding it in place between his first and second fingers which gripped the string. He let it fly and caught up another deftly. His long arms worked smoothly, and he set his jaw stubbornly.

It seemed to Robert that two arrows were in the air at once as his eye followed the first to the mark before looking for the second. When the last shaft was sped he shouted approval. Although Will had not tried his skill from a saddle, he had bettered Abdullah's hits. All the arrows were in the tree and four in the white band.

"Good!" grunted Inalzig. "The fool may live if he can; and it will be your turn, 0 emir, to think of a trick when we stand at the Gates."

Chapter VI

The Word on the Rocks

Robert frequently pondered the warning of the khan as they made their way at a rapid pace through the wooded uplands that lay beyond the river. And he had other things to think about.

To Will's chagrin there was no sign of the maid or the priest in the raiding party; nor would Abdullah give them any word of the fate of the cap tives. The minstrel fell into a moody silence, broken only by his harsh songs sometimes at evening when they lay at ease in the tent openings and listened to the gambling and gossip of the Kankalis.

Abdullah became impatient at any delay-though these were few, because each day brought Inalzig fresh tidings of impending warfare and the chief was anxious to reach his destination, Bokhara, as quickly as possible.

"The maid and the monk live yet," he assured Robert, "and it may fortune that you will see them again. But who can foretell what the turn in the road will bring? By the host of the dead! Only fools prophesy before the event!"

He studied the face of the young warrior as a wise man might read a book, sheet by sheet. And the finely wrought lips and candid gray eyes made him shake his head.

"Nay, you pray as a Moslem, and you walk as one-a little slowly-and you sit the saddle like a Seljuk and an emir, but your eyes and mouth say otherwise. Why, by the white horse of Kaidu, do your thoughts dwell on a Christian child, scarce a woman?"

Robert merely nodded at Will Bunsley, who jogged ahead on his nag, heedless of the inevitable dust cloud and the midges that swarmed about his eyes

"Ha, the redbeard!" Abdullah smiled. "A skilled bowman and a man without fear. Yet he rides on a vain quest with room in his skull for no more than the idea that brought him forth. Allah, do we draw rein again?"

He shaded his eyes to gaze where Inalzig had halted the head of the column to let a string of camels pass. They were racing Bactrians, and the riders jeered at the weary ponies of the Kankalis. Robert, who had an eye for weapons and the men who bore them, observed that the camel riders wore splendid, silvered mail under black khalats, that their targets were bossed with gold and their voluminous turbans crested with peacock feathers.

"Warriors of the Caliphs of Baghdad," muttered Abdullah under his mustache. "Mark the white camel of the leader. Ha, it will be a great war if the caliphs are sending men to the shah. Verily the Moslems are gathering their might, like a leopard crouching to spring."

On other days they sighted detachments of furtive hillmen, who kept well away from Inalzig's standard, and horsemen mounted on splendid Arabs, who raised the shrill ululation of the Saracens at sight of friends.
These were heading through the villages, tending in the same direction as Inalzig, which was toward a line of blue summits that rose each day a little higher upon the horizon, with one great peak bearing a snowcap standing upon the travelers' right hand.*

"To the Iron Gates," Abdullah nodded. "All who ride to Khar from the West must pass the Gates and give surety to the warders of their purpose. These arrays are no more than the outlying detachments, bound for the main armies at the great cities."

"I had thought them a mighty force," observed Robert.

Abdullah smiled.

"The puppy thought the jackal was a wolf! Nay, the master of the Throne of Gold hath five times a hundred thousand riders to his command."

This, Robert fancied a jest, for such numbers were incredible. In Palestine the host of the crusaders amounted to no more than fifteen thousand.

"If the red archer," quoth Abdullah, his eyes gleaming, "would see vengeance at work, he has come in good time. Aye, he shall see what will fill his eyes. And you, 0 young warrior, will taste the mead of a man." With that he urged his horse up close to the heels of a pair of Kankalis until the dust nearly choked them and hid the rest of the detachment somewhat from view. Thrusting out his hand suddenly, the minstrel gripped Robert's fingers and when he drew away something hard and cold was in the knight's hand. Realizing that he was not to attract attention to himself, Robert did not look down for a moment. When he did so, he recognized within his fingers the chain of rubies that Abdullah had carried, carved in the semblance of roses.

"Place it within thy girdle," whispered the minstrel, "and show it only at the Sialak. The talsmin will pass you through."

He glanced about and reined closer.

"You will have need of all your wit if you live to reach Bokhara. Remember that no Kharesmian has proof against you, and you are fairly safe if you do not betray yourself-so beware of tricks. Remember, too, that it is ever best to face forward and to shun no risk. The Moslems are a folk of many tribes and quarrels-and that is their bane. If a man mocks you, cut him down; if a spy is sent, laugh at him. By all the gods, I have not brought you so far, to find you a weakling! "

Robert reflected that a good Moslem does not swear by more than one god.

"And you?" he asked.

"Whatever happens, I will seek you out in Bokhara. Yah bunnayi-O little son, tomorrow we climb the Sialak."

In the minstrel's dark eyes was something like concern for the youth who, towering half a head above him, he addressed as his little son. Yet when these words had passed he withdrew into his cloak of silence and sat for hours on his saddlecloth without turning hand to his lute or lifting his voice in song. And that night the heat of the plains was tempered just a bit by a long breeze from the north.

Robert sniffed it as he lay outstretched on his cloak, studying the canopy of stars, and though he thought surely it must be fancy, the breeze seemed to bear with it the tang of the salt sea and wet rocks.

They made a long stretch the next day and Bunsley complained that the Moslems hemmed him in as if he were part of the treasure of loot they were guarding. Other caravans made way for Inalzig's standard, and all through the day they drew nearer to a line of peaks that had lifted from the skyline two sunrises before.

The wind whipped and buffeted them as they ate their rice and dates and mutton that evening in the very shadow of bare slopes that flung back the red glory of the sunset. Robert had studied the line of mountains carefully, to pick out the pass that might let them through; he had seen cavalcades of hurrying riders sweep up to one point in the foothills and immediately pass from view.

When the last shaft of red light vanished from the tallest of the peaksthe one streaked with tiny spots of something that gave back the glitter of the sun-darkness settled like a cloak upon the serais where the caravans had halted for the night. The smoke of the dung fires was not to be seen, and the glow of the flames spread upon bearded faces and lines of picketed beasts.

This was the signal for Inalzig to order his men to saddle again, and four of them came and grinned at the two Franks before ranging them selves on either side. They went forward at a trot until a line of camels, grunting protest at the night march, slowed them to a hand pace.

So strong was the illusion of darkness that Robert felt that they were entering the breast of the hills. High rock walls closed in on them presently. By the echo of the hoofs on stones he judged that the cliffs were sheer and immense. When torches appeared ahead of him, he found that he could not begin to see the top of the canyon walls.

At places great boulders encroached on the narrow pass, leaving no more than a bridle way. The muffled voices and the uproar of the camels ahead sent the echoes leaping from side to side, to diminish to whispers drowned by the gusts of wind.

"Master Robert," quoth Will, "did the minstrel say that we would fall in with a company of dead lords, and ride with King Caesar and roguish Alexander-ha, St. Dunstan aid us!"

The echoes caught up his words and shouted them to the sky-

"Alexander-Alexander-aid us-aid!"

"Methinks this is the place."

Will lowered his voice to a whisper. And-

"Methinks this is-the place-the place!"

The windborne whisper passed overhead. Will fell to pattering what prayers he could muster on the moment, mixed with lusty curses on the paynims who had led him into such a stronghold of demons. The cliffs repeated back his mutterings and garbled the curses with the prayers so that presently he fell into a gloomy silence. The way twisted interminably, and they had to edge past the camels, which had been halted at one side while their riders, apparently, went forward. The ponies shied at the smell of the gaunt beasts, and presently the word came back to dismount.