THE GATE IN THE MOUNTAIN
IT WAS several days later that Kirdy and Nada camped near a Tatar cemetery—a place of gray, moss-coated rocks, and dense rushes—and listened to a harangue by Arslan, the ax-man, who had offered to accompany them. A half dozen rough- coated ponies grazed outside the firelight, with the bay stallion that the girl had kept. Their packs now held little except meat and salt and Arslan's cooking implements, and furs.
Squatting at a little distance from them, the Tatar spoke gravely, his hideous face outlined by the glow of the fire against the loom of a rock.
“Kai, it is so. Here the grazing land ends and the tayga, the thick forest begins. After the rains, it was a small matter to follow the trace of thy enemy; but in the forest a trail is lost if it be three or four days old.”
Kirdy merely nodded, and Nada, lying outstretched on a bed of moss, hands clasped behind her head, looked only at the canopy of stars that seemed nearer now they had left the mists of the plain behind. Arslan peered at his master uneasily.
“Thou hast seen. Once, in the first day thine enemy sought to turn west. He fell in with riders going to the camp of the khan. They knew him not. They sold him a sheep and perhaps other things. As far beyond this spot as a man can see, thine enemy the Fanga dismounted. His companion cooked part of the sheep. The horses rolled and grazed.
“For a while they watched from a high place, doubtless seeing others of my people. So they knew no path was open to them toward the setting sun. They turned then to the rising sun.
“Now they ride toward the Mountains of the Eagles, and through these mountains they mean to go.”
Kirdy looked up.
“How knowest thou?”
“If a buffalo makes for a ford does it not mean to cross the stream? It is so! These twain have drawn their reins toward a gut in the range. They will go through.”
“Is there a way?”
The ax-man rubbed his knees and looked everywhere but into the Cossack's eyes.
“There is a way.”
“Can this Fanga find it without a guide?”
Arslan grinned.
“Nay, Kazak, hath he not a guide? One who knows all the ways of the earth?”
“Who, then?”
“Shaitan, who sits atop yonder rampart. He beckons the rider and surely the gate is open when the Yakka Shaitan, the Lord of the Night, beckons.”
The Cossack grunted and tried another tack. Arslan had spoken of the snow range not as mountains but as a rampart, which implied a citadel or fortified place somewhere above them.
“Is the gate barred?”
“Is the pass to the wolf's gully barred to the lamb? Nay, the pass is open.”
“What pass?”
Arslan waved a scarred hand impatiently.
“Yonder pass, high—high. There the eagles and the vultures sit and wait. Fools may go through the pass to the other side. Yet the eagles are wiser. They sit and wait for food.”
“Beyond the pass, is there a fortified place?”
“Ask the kites! They know, and we—we do not know. Only at one time there was a city beyond the rampart. It was the city of the Golden Horde.”
“And now?”
“It is a kuran tengri—a place accursed. In three lifetimes no man of the Horde has crossed to the side of the rampart where the sun rises.”
And that was all Arslan would say. Considering his words, Kirdy saw a little light. To the Tatars all lofty peaks are traditionally sacred—they went to a mountain summit to pray, and ran away if a storm came up. The snow range that was now clearly visible, even in the starlight, was a natural barrier. That Arslan and his fellows should be superstitious about the Mountains of the Eagles was to be expected.
Now Arslan had used the words kuran tengri to describe what lay beyond the pass above them. This meant a forbidden or haunted spot, but a place of spirits as well. Such a name usually, the Cossack remembered, had a cause.
If there were indeed a city beyond the pass, it might be a city where the Horde had met with calamity in almost forgotten days. If so, the Tatars would naturally avoid the site. Asia has its lost cities where once devastating sand or plague has entered in—or an invading horde. Time would have erased the memory of calamity, though not the dread of the place.
So much Kirdy knew. And this would account for the tale of the Persian, that the mountain rampart was unscalable, and that beyond it the sun came up. Yet Al-Tâbir had also said that Nada knew of a city on the far side of the range, and had told Otrèpiev of it. He looked at the silent girl.
“Nada, why did you send Otrèpiev to chase shadows? Who knows the country beyond these mountains?”
“Ai-a, White Falcon!” She stretched slender arms toward the stars, and turned on her side to smile at him. “Am I a vampire, to lead men from the trail and slay them? I spoke the truth.”
She watched Arslan replenish the fire and go off to the ponies.
“The ax-man is troubled. I think he is afraid. And you—you are like all men. When your enemy escapes you turn to me with a black brow and say, 'Why did'st thou in this fashion?' Long ago my father wandered in the steppe and crossed the path of this Horde. And the mother of Tevakel Khan liked me and told me many tales—of a city that had once belonged to the Horde. I told her of Moscow, and she swore that this kuran tengri was more splendid than that, with higher walls. They who entered this city found peace. And that, surely, is greater than Moscow. I think the hag wanted to steal me, but Tevakel Khan forbade.”
“Arslan says that Otrèpiev is heading for the pass that leads to this place.”
Drowsily, Nada nodded, resting her head on her arm.
“Aye, my Falcon, and if he finds a city and a strange people, he will make himself master of them, as he did of the Muscovites. When the Turkoman riders were seen coming toward us on the plain, he robed his followers in rich coats and sables and took the scepter in his hand, greeting the dog-thieves as servants come to his aid.”
She laughed delightedly.
“Kai, so it happened they were astonished and a little afraid—when six wild geese flew up from the grass at their coming. I saw it. Luck played into the hand of Gregory Otrèpiev, but his boldness saved my life.”
Now she glanced fleetingly at the silent Cossack.
“O White Falcon, I made him a promise that if he should make himself king of the people beyond the mountain I would then bend the head to him and sit at his feet as queen.”
“That was ill said.”
From beneath long lashes dark eyes took stock of the young warrior and his growing anger. Nada fairly purred.
“'Why did'st thou in this fashion?' So the Cossack says in his heart, being blind as a wounded ox. Have you tamed me, Cossack? Have you bound my tongue?”
“It was ill done, to send Otrèpiev astray!”
This seemed to please her the more.
“Ill done! It was his fate that he should go! A new kingdom to be conquered! What if he had but one man to ride at his heel, his treasure lost, his courtiers slain? The rampart is high—the more reason to climb it; the city beyond is unknown—so he went to find it. That is his way. Besides,” she added tranquilly, “where else could he go? You have seen and Arslan has growled it out, that only the mountain pass was open to him.”
“Nay, yours was the spur that sent him forward.”
“True! How much better for him if he had lingered at that first camp, eating mutton until you came, with your sword, on a Tatar's pony—”
Kirdy winced, because the diminutive beasts of the Golden Horde were ill-suited to his height, and Nada, secure on the great limbed charger had pointed this out more than once.
“—and cut him to pieces,” the girl concluded pleasantly. “As it is, he goes free into the unknown.”
“You led him across the dry lands—”
“Should I leave him for the kites? Nay, he could never have found the way. And you blame me for that?”
Now in his heart Kirdy had no blame for any act of the girl; a blind rage was seizing him. Al-Tâbir had said that Nada had joined the company of Otrèpiev because she knew that, sooner or later, Kirdy would come up with them. Rage whispered that Al-Tâbir lied, to curry favor—that Nada loved the false Tsar and the glitter of his deeds. Jealousy whispered that Nada was now riding at his side, not because she wished to be with him, but because she sought to lead him astray from his pursuit.
And in this moment Nada's mood changed, as a leaf blown by the wind whirls and rushes back upon the gust. Her long eyes, intent on the fire, grew troubled and she put her hand lightly on the Cossack's arm. Under her fingers the man's muscles were like iron, and he did not dare look at her, for the anger in him.
“Kirdy,” she said after a moment, “look!”
She pointed up, beyond the dark network of the forest, to the wall of darkness that was the bare, rocky heights above the timber line. Out of this black wall rose at intervals the snow peaks, gleaming in the clear starlight. To the girl—as well as to Arslan—they resembled watch towers built upon a wall of sheer immensity.
“Tevakel Khan is old and wise,” she whispered. “Do as he counseled. Go back to the Horde. Your wounds have not closed; there is fever in you.”
Now he looked at her, with burning eyes, his lips set upon clenched teeth. And she frowned and tried to shake his arm.
“Go back, Kirdy. You did not hear the tale of the wife of Tevakel Khan. Only now—” she hesitated, then, “I fear that Gregory Otrèpiev will indeed be master of the country beyond, and blood will fall between us—yours or mine.”
Once Kirdy laughed and at the sound of it she drew back, lips parted.
“Remember the omen of the yataghan. Your blood was on it when it was given me.”
But the Cossack rose suddenly to his feet, and cupped his hands about his eyes to peer at the heights.
“Kirdy,” Nada went on impulsively, “let Otrèpiev meet his fate, wherever he has gone. He will not return. I fear, for us.”
“Nada,” he said slowly, “there is no fear in you. Your beauty is such that you command and men obey, like slaves. It burns, this fever.”
His hands clenched, and his arms flung out so that bones and sinews cracked.
“That is the way of it! Your thoughts are bent on this traitor, because he has played the part of a king. What thought have you for the Falcon, the Cossack? He serves to protect you—to groom your horse-—to bring wood for your fire. When the wolves howl, the borzoi is caressed by his mistress; when the sun shines, the Cossack is good enough for your jests. The Cossack is bloody—the Cossack is revengeful—and in your dreams you cling to the man who has slain multitudes for a whim—”
Springing to her feet, Nada faced him with blazing eyes.
“Stop! I have given my love to no man.”
“Nay, only you can know if Otrèpiev be man or fiend.”
“I—”
Nada caught her breath, and the sound of it was surely a sob. The next instant she had grasped the hilt of the yataghan and drawn the weapon with a thin slither of steel. With all the strength of shoulders and arm she struck at Kirdy, and the twisted blade stopped over her head as if bound by chains.
The Cossack, laughing wildly, had caught her wrist with one hand and when she sought to snatch the sword in her left hand he drew her forward and turned her about so that her head pressed back against his shoulder and his left hand grasped her girdle, holding her helpless. Her sheepskin hat fell off, and the loosened tangle of silk-like hair swept against his throat.
“Look!” he said between his teeth. And Nada ceased futile struggling to stare up at the heights.
In the maw of blackness between two of the peaks a red eye of light was visible.
“It is in the pass,” Kirdy went on grimly, “far above the tayga, where no Tatars venture. That is the fire of Otrèpiev, and when you beheld it you said to me, 'Turn back!' You would have led me from the trail.”
“As God lives, that is a lie. I did not see the light.”
But Kirdy merely laughed between his teeth, and released the girl, turning his back upon her as if the yataghan and her anger, and his, did not exist.
“Hi, Arslan! Make ready the packs. We will go upon the road.”
Nada stood utterly still, one arm pressed against her heart, and presently she sheathed the sword, and came to Kirdy but did not touch him.
“You are wild with the fever,” she said quietly. “Pour water on your head, walk about, and then sleep. Then in the morning go whither you will. I—I have no place to go, except to the Tatars, and would you have me do that?”
“Nay, you shall not leave my side until the end of the road.”
She waited while Kirdy and the Tatar made up the packs and saddled the ponies with experienced hands in the darkness. Arslan, after a glance into the Cossack's face and another at the gleam of light above them, made no objection to entering the forest on horses that had not slept.
The three mounted and moved off in silence, leaving the glen with its starlight at once. And when they entered the gloom of the forest, they were no longer three. Arslan turned aside and made off toward the valley.
“Eh,” he said, a week later, at the yurta of his clan, “I saw the light. It was the eye of Shaitan, looking out from the gate in the rampart.”