El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (84 page)

He came up on one knee instantly, gun in hand.

“What is it?”

Yar Ali Khan crouched beside him, gigantic shoulders bulking dimly in the gloom. The Afridi’s eyes glimmered like a cat’s in the dark. Back in the shadow of the cliffs the unseen horses moved restively, the only sound in the nighted canyon.

“Danger,
sahib
!
”
hissed the Afridi. “Close about us, creeping upon us in the dark!
Ahmed Shah is slain!
”

“What?”

“He lies near the mouth of the ravine with his throat cut from ear to ear. I dreamed that death was stealing upon us as we slept, and the fear of the dream awoke me. Without rousing you I stole to the mouth of the eastern ravine, and lo, there lay Ahmed Shah in his blood. He must have died silently and suddenly. I saw no one, heard no sound in the ravine, which was as black as the mouth of hell.

“Then I hastened along the south wall to the western ravine, and found no one! I speak truth, Allah be my witness. Ahmed is dead and Lal Singh is gone. The devils of the hills have slain one and snatched away the other, without waking us — we who sleep lightly as cats! No sound came from the ravine before which the Sikh had his post. I saw nothing, heard nothing; but I
sensed
Death skulking there.
Sahib
, what
men
could have done away with such warriors as Lal Singh and Ahmed Shah without a sound? This gorge is indeed the Gorge of Ghosts!”

Gordon made no reply, but crouched on his knee, straining eyes and ears
into the darkness, while he considered the astounding thing that had occurred. It did not occur to him to doubt the Afridi’s statements. He could trust the man as he trusted his own eyes and ears. That Yar Ali Khan could have stolen away without awakening even him was not surprizing, for the Afridi was of that breed of men who glide naked through the mists to steal rifles from the guarded tents of the English army. But that Ahmed Shah should have died and Lal Singh been spirited away without the sound of a struggle smacked of the diabolical.

“Who can fight devils,
sahib
? Let us mount the horses and ride —”

“Listen!”

Somewhere a bare foot scruffed on the rock floor. Gordon rose, peering into the gloom. Men were moving out there in the darkness. Shadows detached themselves from the black background and slunk forward. Gordon drew the scimitar he had buckled on at Khor, thrusting his pistol back into its scabbard. Lal Singh was a captive out there, possibly in line of fire. Yar Ali Khan crouched beside him, gripping his Khyber knife, silent now, and deadly as a wolf at bay, convinced that they were facing ghoulish fiends of the dark mountains, but ready to fight men or devils, if Gordon so willed it.

The dim-seen line moved in slowly, widening as it came, and Gordon and the Afridi fell back a few paces to have the rock wall at their backs, and prevent themselves from being surrounded by those phantom-like figures.

The rush came suddenly, impetuously, bare feet slapping softly over the rocky floor, steel glinting dully in the dim starlight. The men at bay could make out few details of their assailants — only the bulks of them, and the shimmer of steel. They struck and parried by instinct and feel as much as by sight.

Gordon killed the first man to come within sword-reach, and Yar Ali Khan, galvanized by the realization that their foes were human after all, sounded a deep yell and exploded in a berserk burst of wolfish ferocity. Towering above the squat figures, his three-foot knife overreached the blades that hacked at him, and its sweep was devastating. Side by side, with the wall at their backs, the two companions were safe from attack on rear or flank.

Steel rang sharp on steel and blue sparks flew, momentarily lighting wild bearded faces. There rose the ugly butcher-shop sound of blades cleaving flesh and bone, and men screamed or gasped death-gurgles from severed jugulars. For a few moments a huddled knot writhed and milled near the rock wall. The work was too swift and blind and desperate to allow much consecutive thought or plan. But the advantage was with the men at bay. They could see as well as their attackers; man for man, they were stronger and more agile; and they knew when they struck their steel would flesh itself only in enemy bodies. The others were handicapped by their numbers, and the knowledge that they might kill a companion with a blind stroke must surely have tempered their frenzy.

Gordon, ducking a sword before he realized he had seen it swinging at him, experienced a brief pulse of surprize. Thrice his blade had grated against something yielding but impenetrable. These men were wearing shirts of mail! He slashed where he knew unprotected thighs and heads and necks would be, and men spurted their blood on him as they died.

Then the rush ebbed as suddenly as it had flooded. The attackers gave way and melted like phantoms into the darkness. That darkness had become not quite so absolute. The eastern rims of the canyon were lined with a silvery fire that marked the rising of the moon.

Yar Ali Khan gave tongue like a wolf and charged after the retreating figures, foam of aroused blood-lust flecking his beard. He stumbled over a corpse, stabbed savagely downward before he realized it was a dead man, and then Gordon grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He almost dragged the powerful American off his feet, as he plunged like a lassoed bull, breathing gustily.

“Wait, you idiot! Do you want to run into a trap? Let them go!”

Yar Ali Khan subsided to a wolfish wariness that was no less deadly than his berserk fury, and together they glided cautiously after the vague figures which disappeared in the mouth of the eastern ravine. There the pursuers halted, peering warily into the black depths. Somewhere, far down it, a dislodged pebble rattled on the stone, and both men tensed involuntarily, reacting like suspicious panthers.

“The dogs did not halt,” muttered Yar Ali Khan. “They flee still. Shall we follow them?”

He did not speak with conviction, and Gordon merely shook his head. Not even they dared plunge into that well of blackness, where ambushes might make every step a march of death. They fell back to the camp and the frightened horses, which were frantic with the stench of fresh-spilt blood.

“When the moon rises high enough to flood the canyon with light,” quoth Yar Ali Khan, “they will shoot us from the ravine.”

“That’s a chance we must take,” grunted Gordon. “Maybe they’re not good shots.”

With the tiny beam of his pocket flashlight Gordon investigated the four dead men left behind by the attackers. The thin pencil of light moved from face to bearded face, and Yar Ali Khan grunted and swore: “Devil worshippers, by the beard of Allah! Yezidees! Sons of Melek Taus!”

“No wonder they could creep like cats through the dark,” muttered Gordon, who well knew the uncanny stealth possessed by the people of that ancient and abominable cult which worship the Brazen Peacock on Mount Lalesh the Accursed.

Yar Ali Khan made a sign calculated to exorcise devils which might be expected to be lurking near the place where their votaries had died.

“Come away,
sahib
. It is not fitting that you should touch this carrion. No wonder they stole and slew like the
djinn
of silence. They are children of night and darkness, and they partake of the attributes of the elements which gave them birth.”

“But what are they doing here?” mused Gordon. “Their homeland is in Syria — about Mount Lalesh. It’s the last stronghold of their race, to which they were driven by Christian and Moslem alike. A Mongol from the Gobi, and devil-worshippers from Syria. What’s the connection?”

He grasped the coarse woolen
khalat
of the nearest corpse, and swore down Yar Ali Khan’s instant objections.

“That flesh is accursed,” sulked the Afridi, looking like a scandalized ghoul, with the dripping knife in his hand, and blood trickling down his beard from a broken tooth. “It is not fit for a
sahib
such as thou to handle. If it must be done, let me —”

“Oh, shut up! Ha! Just as I thought!”

The tiny beam rested on the linen jerkin which covered the thick chest of the mountaineer. There gleamed, like a splash of fresh blood, the emblem of a hand gripping a three-bladed dagger.

“Wallah!” Discarding his scruples, Yar Ali Khan ripped the
khalats
from the other three corpses. Each displayed the fist and dagger.

“Are Mongols Muhammadans,
sahib?”
he asked presently.

“Some are. But that man in Baber Khan’s hut wasn’t. His canine teeth were filed to sharp points. He was a priest of Erlik, the Yellow God of Death. Cannibalism is part of their rituals.”

“The man who sought the life of the Turkish Sultan was a Kurd,” mused Yar Ali Khan. “Some of them worship Melek Taus, too, secretly. But it was an Arab who slew the Shah of Persia, and a Delhi Moslem who fired at the Viceroy. What would true Muhammadans be doing in a society which includes Mongol pagans and Yezidee devil-worshippers?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” answered Gordon, snapping off the electric torch.

They squatted in the shadow of the cliffs, in silence, as the moonlight, weird and ghostly, grew in the canyon, and rock and ledge and wall took shape. No sound disturbed the brooding quiet.

Yar Ali Khan rose at last and stood up etched in the witch-light glow, a fair target for anyone lurking in the ravine-mouth. But no shot followed.

“What now?”

Gordon pointed to dark splotches on the bare rock floor that the moonlight made visible and distinct.

“They’ve left us a trail a child could follow.”

Without a word Yar Ali Khan sheathed his knife and secured his rifle from
among the pack-rolls near the blankets. Gordon armed himself in like manner, and also fastened to his belt a coil of thin, strong rope with a short iron hook at one end of it. He had found such a rope invaluable time and again in mountain travel. The moon had risen higher, lighting the canyon, drawing a thin thread of silver along the middle of the ravine. That was enough light for men like Gordon and Yar Ali Khan.

Through the moonlight they approached the ravine-mouth, rifles in hand, limned clearly for any marksmen who, after all, might be skulking there, but ready to take the chances of luck, or fate, or fortune, or whatever it is that decides the destiny of men on blind trails. No shot cracked, no furtive figures flitted among the shadows. The blood drops sprinkled thickly the rocky floor. Obviously the Yezidees had carried some grim wounds away with them.

Gordon thought of Ahmed Shah, lying dead back there in the canyon without a cairn to cover his body. But the Yusufzai was past hurting, and Lal Singh was a prisoner in the hands of men to whom mercy was unknown. Later the dead could be taken care of; just now the task at hand was to rescue the living — if, indeed, the Yezidees had not already killed their prisoner.

They pushed up the ravine without hesitation, rifles cocked. They went afoot, for they believed their enemies were on foot, unless horses were hidden somewhere up the ravine. The gulch was so narrow and rugged that a horseman would be at a fatal disadvantage in any kind of a fight.

At each bend of the ravine they expected and were prepared for an ambush, but the trail of blood-drops led on, and no figures barred their way. The blood spots were not so thick now, but they were still sufficient to mark the way.

Gordon quickened his pace, hopeful of overtaking the Yezidees, whom now were undoubtedly in flight. They had a long start but if, as he believed, they were carrying one or more wounded men, and were also burdened with a prisoner who would not make things any easier for them than he could help, that lead might be rapidly cut down. He believed the Sikh was alive, since they had not found his body, and if the Yezidees had killed him, they would have had no reason for hiding the corpse.

The ravine pitched steeply upward, narrowing, then widened as it descended and abruptly made a crook and came out into another canyon running roughly east and west, and only a few hundred feet wide. The blood-spattered trail ran straight across to the sheer south wall — and ceased.

Yar Ali Khan grunted. “The Ghilzai dogs spoke truth. The trail stops at a cliff that only a bird could fly over.”

Gordon halted at the foot of the cliff, puzzled. They had lost the trace of the ancient road in the Gorge of Ghosts, but this was the way the Yezidees had come, without a doubt. Blood spattered a trail to the foot of the cliffs — then ceased as if those who bled had simply dissolved into thin air.

He ran his eyes up the sheer pitch of the wall which rose straight up for hundreds of feet. Directly above him, at a height of some fifteen feet, a narrow ledge jutted, a mere outcropping some ten or fifteen feet in length and only a few feet wide. It seemed to offer no solution to the mystery. But halfway up to the ledge he saw a dull reddish smear on the rock of the wall.

Uncoiling his rope, Gordon whirled the weighted end about his head and sent it curving upward. The hook bit into the rim of the ledge and held, and Gordon went up it, climbing the thin, smooth strand as swiftly and easily as most men would manipulate a rope-ladder. Skill acquired in the riggings of sailing ships in all the Seven Seas came to his aid here.

As he passed the smear on the stone he confirmed his belief that it was dried blood. A wounded man being hauled up to the ledge, or climbing as he was climbing, might have left such a smear.

Yar Ali Khan, below him, fidgeted with his rifle, trying to get a better view of the ledge, which his pessimistic imagination peopled with assassins lying prone and unseen. But the shelf lay bare when Gordon pulled himself over the edge.

The first thing he saw was a heavy iron ring set deep in the stone above the ledge, out of sight of anyone below. The metal was worn bright as if by the friction of much usage. More blood was smeared thickly at the place where a man would come up over the rim, if he climbed a rope fastened to the ring, or was hoisted.

Yet more blood drops spattered the ledge, leading diagonally across it toward the sheer wall, which showed a great deal of weathering at that point. And Gordon saw something else — the blurred but unmistakable print of bloody fingers on the rock of the wall. He studied the cracks in the rocks for a few minutes, then laid his hand on the wall over the bloody finger-prints, and shoved. Instantly, smoothly, a section of the wall swung inward, and he was staring into the door of a narrow tunnel, dimly lit by the moon somewhere behind it.