Swords From the East (26 page)

"Burta-Mingan!"

"Here, Chepe Noyon!"

The Tiger wheeled and peered into the shadows under the rocks, uncertainly, for Mingan's voice was little more than a hoarse croak. All that was visible was the dog Mukuli standing in front of what seemed to be a round stone. Chepe Noyon took a swift step-backward.

"Abide where you are, devil! Come no nearer but relate to me if indeed you have a human voice what has become of the girl Burta and the hero Mingan."

Mukuli, uncertain whether this were friend or foe, wagged his tail tentatively and sat down, whining. Mingan rasped impatiently-"I am here, buried alive by Jamuka who carried Burta off."

Chepe Noyon's jaw dropped, and, fumbling in the throat opening of his armor, drew out a small ebony cross, holding it high in front of him.

"In hoc signo vines!-By this sign conquer! Now, devil, take flight; or if dog you be, show me where my comrade Mingan lies."

Perceiving the friendlier note in the man's voice, the dog barked and crawled to one side, scratching at the earth by the prisoner's chin. Chepe Noyon advanced slowly and peered anxiously into the haggard and distorted features.

"If you are verily Mingan's head-aye, so you are-tell me where lies the rest of you."

"In the sand under your foot-dig me out."

Not until food and drink and the warmth of a fire restored Mingan to something resembling a living being did Chepe Noyon feel fully satisfied that the man at his side was in truth his friend.

"There is evil afoot," he grumbled, relating what had passed in the Three Rivers country.

The failure of the envoys he had sent to Prester John to return had decided Genghis Khan that war with the Keraits was unavoidable, and the Master of the Horde, once his mind was made up, had moved at once to ward Tangut, following the northern edge of the sandy desert where his horses would find grazing. Genghis Khan had sent Chepe Noyon to the well to find Burta and bring the Gipsy girl to him.

"He trusts me," said the Tiger moodily, "although I am a Kerait, but it is not fitting that I should command a tuman in the coming battle between Prester John and Genghis Khan. I do not understand why my people have taken up the sword. How did the messengers from the Three Rivers perish? Why did Jamuka take his stand beside Prester John?"

Mingan pondered awhile.

"I can see a little both of treachery and trickery. But if Genghis Khan is on the march there is little time to learn the truth. Since you came nearly due south to the well, the Mongols must be as near to Tangut as we. If you are faithful to Temujin, you should ride to Tangut at once-"

"Aye, on Jamuka's trail. I was sent to find Burta and bring her off safely, and that I will do."

"Nay, you would fail. One way is open to us, to seek out the daughter of Podu and at the same time to seek behind the mask of our enemy, who goes about in the skin of a bear-"

"It was not Prester John who raided our tents and who was overthrown by my horse."

"Who wears the mask of a bear," went on Mingan calmly. "And that way leads us to Prester John himself."

Burta had saved Mingan's life, and he knew now that the wayward girl loved Genghis Khan. To venture in the camp of Jamuka's army after her would be to search for one grain of sand in the desert. Their only recourse was to seek an audience with Prester John of the Christians, in the castle of Tangut, and to put their case before him, since he alone had power to overrule Jamuka.

He explained this to Chepe Noyon, who was only half-convinced.

"Yet, in the time of my father, Mingan, and his father, no one of our village has seen the face of Prester John. He has lived for twelve times a hundred years; he is a magician."

Mingan was quite ready to believe this.

"So will he aid us the more."

He was in no condition to set out that evening, so he slept through the night, which was more than the Tiger did. In the morning they made up their packs, gave the camels a drink, and were about to climb into the cloths that served for saddles when the brown dog came lurching after Mingan, whining anxiously, sensing that they were going to abandon him. Mingan had not the heart to leave Mukuli behind, and placed him on the rump of his camel after bandaging his hurts.

He thought little of it at the time, save that Chepe Noyon grumbled, but thereafter he had reason to be thankful for Mukuli's presence.

For a week they traveled due west.

A sandstorm, sweeping down on the Gobi out of a black sky, and heralded by a devastating wind, obliterated the tracks left by Jamuka and his men before the two palladins had journeyed westward for three days. Chepe Noyon, as the storm cleared away, crawled out from beside his camel and pointed to a series of whirling columns which rose from the earth to the clouds hanging low overhead.

"Yonder are the first of the guardians of Tangut, and it is well for us that they passed us by."

Mingan watched the moving pillars of sand circle and vanish into the murk of the tempest, and nodded understandingly. He had become accustomed to the changing moods of the desert and knew that the sand pillars were caused by the suction of the wind. If Chepe Noyon, who was reckless enough, dreaded the approach to the man called Prester John, there must be greater danger than this to be faced.

In fact, coming to one of the last camps of Gipsies on the caravan track they were following, the Tiger halted long enough to trade his camels for two shaggy ponies, a lute, and a suit of beggar's weeds. His own armor and cloak, with his sword, he gave to the headman of the camp with instructions to take them to Genghis Khan and receive goodly guerdon for so doing.

He learned from the Gipsies that Jamuka's cavalcade had passed the day before, and was careful to make sure of the nomad's fidelity by describing the capture of Burta. With the weapon and armor as tokens, the man was to inform the Mongol khan that Mingan and Chepe Noyon would press on to Tangut and search for the girl. He told the Gipsy where to find the Horde-about a week's ride to the north and west. This done, he arrayed himself in the long smock and high-crowned hat of woven reeds and slung the lute over his shoulder.

"We will shave off your beard," he observed, scanning Mingan. "The rest of you looks rarely like a hungry scavenger of the caravan tracks. Lo, I am a minstrel, a singer of songs-you a teller of tales. Whine when you speak and call all men'Good Sir' and bow when you are kicked. Then no one will know that you are one of the Mongol Horde."

They kept, however, the gold tablets showing their rank in the Horde concealed in their wallets. Other weapons, in their new guise of wandering entertainers, Chepe Noyon said they were better without.

From the Gipsy camp they hurried on through rising ground to a barren waste of rocky plain where Jamuka's trail was lost again, but where Mingan made a discovery. It was after daybreak when the air was clear that he sighted in the plain before them the towers and walls of a city, surrounded by groves of trees rising to majestic height.

"It must be Tangut," he cried.

The Tiger smiled.

"Ride on and enter the gate, if you can."

Sure of what he saw, Mingan hastened forward, yet came no nearer to the city. By afternoon, when he thought to reach the nearest trees, it fell apart while he watched, and vanished, leaving the desert bare and shelterless. With an exclamation, he turned to Chepe Noyon, who was much amused at his discomfiture.

"'Tis part of the magic of Prester John," the Tiger explained. "Those who seek out Tangut see on every hand these cities in the air, and, pursuing them, are completely lost."*

He spoke with satisfaction, for he had witnessed the miracle of the skies more than once, but in Mingan there was a quick stirring of the blood. He had thought he knew the desert, yet now he looked upon the manifestation of forces beyond his knowledge or control. Misgivings crowded upon him, but he set his teeth and took up the reins of his horse again.

As if the vision of the city had been a warning, they suffered much from cold and hunger in a land where the mists crowded in on them, and snow lay in the pockets of the rocks. By the thin air Mingan knew that they must be at the summit of a lofty elevation. Chepe Noyon admitted that he had lost his way, and they fared badly until the dog Mukuli scented out a passing caravan in the mists, and the two warriors joined company with some Arab traders who were hastening on to Tangut, to work south from there out of the Gobi before war should overtake them and their burden of silk, spice, and tea.

From the cold heights they descended into a broad valley where the sun warmed them. Here Chepe Noyon got his bearings and led the way past bands of warriors riding north, and herds of horses, cattle, and sheep driven south. At night they made their quarters in the village serais where by virtue of the lute and the many tales of Mingan, coupled with the tricks he had taught Mukuli, they received food and a sleeping place of sorts.

They were now in the Jelair country, and learned that the army of the Turkish tribesmen and the Keraits was assembling within a day's march toward the setting sun. Jamuka had joined his host, but Chepe Noyon discovered that the men who had been with the khan of the Jelairs had ridden on to the city of Tangut, taking with them a strange woman. Evidently Jamuka had feared to take Burta into the tumult of a mobilization camp.

Nothing had been seen or heard of the Horde which was believed to be still in the Three Rivers country. But Chepe Noyon suspected that it was nearer than that.

Three days more of riding and they reached a fairer land, where the camps of the nomads ceased and villages appeared, where fields of grain, newly sown, lined the highways, and white-kerchiefed women greeted them pleasantly, inquiring for news of the armies. To the south and west a line of forested mountains arose,*
and this time Mingan found that they remained in view. Chepe Noyon smiled as they drew in among the foothills, skirting groves of fruit trees in blossom.

"You are within ten arrow flights of Tangut, the chief city of Prester John. Can you tell me where it lies?"

Mingan searched the mountain peaks that rose overhead and shook his head.

"Verily," he admitted, "there is magic in this place for I see naught save some hamlets of shepherds and many roads that twine and twist about."

By way of answer, Chepe Noyon turned aside, to follow a brisk stream that led them to a bridge. Crossing this, the Tiger swerved again into a great white road, wide as any in Cathay. Mingan saw that the road ran into a long, narrow valley almost concealed by two shoulders of the hills-a valley whose middle was a canal from which the stream ran and whose sides were row upon row of clay houses.

Mirrored in the canal, or lake, was the upper end of the gorge, and here were no dwellings, but a steep slope of the mountain, heavily wooded. At the summit of this height were the black walls of a castle. It was quite unlike the pavilions and pagodas of Cathay, for the high walls shut in a space over which showed the tops of the trees, barely visible at that distance, and in the center reared up a single tower.

At the head of the lake was an open plaza from which steps of black granite began, disappearing in the forested slope, through which zig-zagged a roadway up to the castle, judging from the gaps in the trees.

"There is the abode of Prester John," said Chepe Noyon.

"Where we must go," nodded Mingan.

But evening was at hand, and Chepe Noyon said that now a guard of Jelair bowmen was drawn across the plaza at the head of the lake where the granite stairway began. Orders had been issued that not even the bringers of food were to be admitted to the stair after dark.

"Besides," added the Tiger thoughtfully, "if we go not up by the stair, we must climb the forested height to the wall, where the guardians are not men but beasts of the wilds. If we must face the four-footed sentinels, it were best we did not do so at night."

Mingan finished his scrutiny of the castle approaches and pointed to a pigeon that circled over the valley on the northern side, descending to the houses.

"Aye, now is the hour of rest."

They led their tired ponies back to one of the semis at the entrance of the valley, placed there for the Moslem merchants and the caravans that passed through Tangut. That night, however, they were the only occupants of the place who claimed meat and fruit for themselves, and grass for their ponies, from the attendants who ministered to the wants of travelers. Although they dined well and the shelter offered them was clean and comfortable, they were able to sleep little.

Above them the streets of the city buzzed with talk and movement; horses clattered in and out of the roadways, and the Tiger, venturing out to inquire the meaning of the commotion, came back with gleaming eyes.

"The merchants who left the city made no mistake. Ho, the rats are running from the tents when the smoke of fire comes down the wind. A carrier pigeon has come in from the camp of the Keraits and Jelairs in the north. The Mongols have reached Jamuka already and have struck their blow. So the word of the pigeon said."

Mingan smiled.

"Yesukai, who came to this place, said that the birds of Tangut talked, but has a pigeon a tongue? Not three days have gone by since we passed the camp of Jamuka, and none have overtaken us on the road."

"These are carrier pigeons-taken from their home to a distance. A message is written and tied to their claw and, released, they fly between sunrise and sunset the space that a horse covers in thrice that time."

Chepe Noyon sighed and shook his head. "The Horde, to the number of a hundred times a thousand, fell upon Jamuka's array before the main forces of the Keraits came up from the cities yonder in the mountains. All the wiles of the Master of Plotting could not serve to overcome the advantage of the sudden attack. That is always the way of Genghis Khan."

Later messages admitted that Jamuka was retreating rapidly to Tangut.

Knowing the tactics of Genghis Khan, Mingan felt that the Mongols would press the pursuit, hoping to overtake the leaders of the enemy and break up resistance in the city before it could come to a head. The battle had been fought and won by dawn of that day, and before the second sunrise the victors or the vanquished would be within the foothills of the mountains.