El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (76 page)

Jallad yelled savagely and rushed at O’Donnell, but the American did not await the attack.

There was no one between him and the Waziri on the couch. He leaped straight for the four men who still gripped the prisoner. They let go of the man, shouting with alarm, and drew their tulwars. One struck viciously at the Waziri, but the man rolled off the couch, evading the blow. The next instant O’Donnell was between him and them. They began hacking at the American, who retreated before them, snarling at the Waziri: “Get out! Ahead of me! Quick!”

“Dogs!” screamed Red Turban as he and Jallad rushed across the room. “Don’t let them escape!”

“Come and taste of death thyself, dog!” O’Donnell laughed wildly, above the clangor of steel. But even in the hot passion of battle he remembered to speak with a Kurdish accent.

The Waziri, weak and staggering from the torture he had undergone, slid back a bolt and threw open a door. It gave upon a small enclosed court.

“Go!” snapped O’Donnell. “Over the wall while I hold them back!”

He turned in the doorway, his blades twin tongues of death-edged steel. The Waziri ran stumblingly across the court and the men in the room flung themselves howling at O’Donnell. But in the narrow door their very numbers hindered them. He laughed and cursed them as he parried and thrust. Red Turban was dancing around behind the milling, swearing mob, calling down all the curses in his vocabulary on the thievish Kurd! Jallad was trying to get a clean swipe at O’Donnell, but his own men were in the way. Then O’Donnell’s scimitar licked out and under a flailing tulwar like the tongue of a cobra, and a Yusufzai, feeling chill steel in his vitals, shrieked and fell dying. Jallad, lunging with a full-arm reach, tripped over the writhing figure and fell.
Instantly the door was jammed with squirming, cursing figures, and before they could untangle themselves, O’Donnell turned and ran swiftly across the yard toward the wall over which the Waziri had already disappeared.

O’Donnell leaped and caught the coping, swung himself up, and had one glimpse of a black, winding street outside. Then something smashed sickeningly against his head. It was a stool, snatched by Jallad and hurled with vindictive force and aim, as O’Donnell was momentarily outlined against the stars. But O’Donnell did not know what had hit him, for with the impact came oblivion. Limply and silently he toppled from the wall into the shadowy street below.

It was the tiny glow of a flashlight in his face that roused O’Donnell from his unconsciousness. He sat up, blinking, and cursed, groping for his sword. Then the light was snapped off and in the ensuing darkness a voice spoke: “Be at ease, Ali el Ghazi. I am your friend.”

“Who the devil are you?” demanded O’Donnell. He had found his scimitar, lying on the ground near him, and now he stealthily gathered his legs under him for a sudden spring. He was in the street at the foot of the wall from which he had fallen, and the other man was but a dim bulk looming over him in the shadowy starlight.

“Your friend,” repeated the other. He spoke with a Persian accent. “One who knows the name you call yourself. Call me Hassan. It is as good a name as another.”

O’Donnell rose, scimitar in hand, and the Persian extended something toward him. O’Donnell caught the glint of steel in the starlight, but before he could strike as he intended, he saw that it was his own
kindhjal
Hassan had picked up from the ground and was offering him, hilt first.

“You are as suspicious as a starving wolf, Ali el Ghazi,” laughed Hassan. “But save your steel for your enemies.”

“Where are they?” demanded O’Donnell, taking the
kindhjal
.

“Gone. Into the mountains.
On the trail of the blood-stained god.”

O’Donnell started violently. He caught the Persian’s
khalat
in an iron grip and glared fiercely into the man’s dark eyes, mocking and mysterious in the starlight.

“Damn you, what do you know of the blood-stained god?” His
kindhjal’s
sharp point just touched the Persian’s skin below his ribs.

“I know this,” said Hassan imperturbably. “I know you came to Medina el
Harami following thieves who stole from you the map of a treasure greater than Akbar’s Hoard. I too came seeking something. I was hiding nearby, watching through a hole in the wall, when you burst into the room where the Waziri was being tortured. How did you know it was they who stole your map?”

“I didn’t!” muttered O’Donnell. “I heard the man cry out, and turned aside to stop the torture. If I’d known
they
were the men I was hunting — listen, how much
do
you know?”

“This much,” said Hassan. “In the mountains not far from this city, but hidden in an almost inaccessible place, there is an ancient heathen temple which the hill-people fear to enter. The region is forbidden to
Ferengi
, but one Englishman, named Pembroke,
did
find the temple, by accident, and entering it, found an idol crusted with red jewels, which he called the Blood-Stained God. He could not bring it away with him, but he made a map, intending to return. He got safely away, but was stabbed by a fanatic in Kabul and died there. But before he died he gave the map to a Kurd named Ali el Ghazi.”

“Well?” demanded O’Donnell grimly. The house behind him was dark and still. There was no other sound in the shadowy street except the whisper of the wind and the low murmur of their voices.

“The map was stolen,” said Hassan. “By whom, you know.”

“I didn’t know at the time,” growled O’Donnell. “Later I learned the thieves were an Englishman named Hawklin and a disinherited Afghan prince named Jehungir Khan. Some skulking servant spied on Pembroke as he lay dying, and told them. I didn’t know either of them by sight, but I managed to trace them to this city. Tonight I learned they were hiding somewhere in the Alley of Shaitan. I was blindly searching for a clue to their hiding-place when I stumbled into that brawl.”

“You fought them without knowing they were the men you sought!” said Hassan. “The Waziri was one Yar Muhammad, a spy of Yakub Khan, the Jowaki outlaw chief. They recognized him, tricked him into their house and were burning him to make him tell them the secret trails through the mountains known only to Yakub’s spies. Then you came, and you know the rest.”

“All except what happened when I climbed the wall,” said O’Donnell.

“Somebody threw a stool,” replied Hassan. “When you fell beyond the wall they paid no more attention to you, either thinking you were dead, or not having recognized you because of your mask. They chased the Waziri, but whether they caught and killed him, or he got away, I don’t know. I do know that after a short chase they returned, saddled horses in great haste and set out westward, leaving the dead men where they fell. I came and uncovered your face, then, to see who you were, and recognized you.”

“Then the man in the red turban was Jehungir Khan,” muttered O’Donnell. “But where was Hawklin?”

“He was disguised as an Afghan — the man they called Jallad, the Executioner, because he has killed so many men.”

“I never dreamed ‘Jallad’ was a
Ferengi,”
growled O’Donnell.

“Not all men are what they seem,” said Hassan casually. “I happen to know, for instance, that you are no Kurd at all, but an American named Kirby O’Donnell.”

Silence held for a brief tick of time, in which life and death poised on a hair trigger.

“And what then?” O’Donnell’s voice was soft and deadly as a cobra’s hiss.

“Nothing! Like you I want the red god. That’s why I followed Hawklin here. But I can’t fight his gang alone. Neither can you. But we can join forces. Let us follow those thieves and take the idol away from them!”

“All right,” O’Donnell made a quick decision. “But I’ll kill you if you try any tricks, Hassan!”

“Trust me!” answered Hassan. “Come. I have horses at the
serai —
better than the steed which brought you into this city of thieves.”

The Persian led the way through narrow, twisting streets, overhung with latticed balconies, and along winding, ill-smelling alleys, until he stopped at the lamp-lit door of an enclosed courtyard. At his knock a bearded face appeared at the wicket, and following a few muttered words the gate swung open. Hassan entered confidently, and O’Donnell followed suspiciously. He half expected a trap of some sort; he had many enemies in Afghanistan, and Hassan was a stranger. But the horses were there, and a word from the keeper of the
serai
set sleepy servants to saddling them, and filling capacious saddle-pouches with packets of food. Hassan brought out a pair of high-powered rifles and a couple of well-filled cartridge belts.

A short time later they were riding together out of the west gate, perfunctorily challenged by the sleepy guard. Men came and went at all hours in Medina el Harami. (It goes by another name on the maps, but men swear the ancient Moslem name fits it best.)

Hassan the Persian was portly but muscular, with a broad, shrewd face and dark, alert eyes. He handled his rifle expertly, and a scimitar hung from his hip. O’Donnell knew he would fight with cunning and courage when driven to bay. And he also knew just how far he could trust Hassan. The Persian adventurer would play fair just so long as the alliance was to his advantage. But if the occasion rose when he no longer needed O’Donnell’s help, he would not hesitate to murder his partner if he could, so as to have the entire treasure for himself. Men of Hassan’s type were ruthless as a king cobra.

Hawklin was a cobra too, but O’Donnell did not shrink from the odds
against them — five well-armed and desperate men. Wit and cold recklessness would even the odds when the time came.

Dawn found them riding through rugged defiles, with frowning slopes shouldering on either hand, and presently Hassan drew rein, at a loss. They had been following a well-beaten road, but now the marks of hoofs turned sharply aside and vanished on the bare rocky floor of a wide plateau.

“Here they left the road,” said Hassan. “Thus was Hawklin’s steed shod. But we cannot trace them over those bare rocks. You studied the map when you had it — how lies our route from here?”

O’Donnell shook his head, exasperated at this unexpected frustration.

“The map’s an enigma, and I didn’t have it long enough to puzzle it out. The main landmark, which locates an old trail that runs to the temple, should be somewhere near this point. But it’s indicated on the map as ‘Akbar’s Castle.’ I never heard of such a castle, or the ruins of any such castle — in these parts or anywhere else.”

“Look!” exclaimed Hassan, his eyes blazing, as he started up in his stirrups, and pointed toward a great bare crag that jutted against the skyline some miles to the west of them. “That is Akbar’s Castle! It is now called the Crag of Eagles, but in old times they called it Akbar’s Castle! I have read of it in an old, obscure manuscript! Somehow Pembroke knew that and called it by its old name to baffle meddlers! Come on! Jehungir Khan must have known that too. We’re only an hour behind them, and our horses are better than theirs.”

O’Donnell took the lead, cudgelling his memory to recall the details of the stolen map. Skirting the base of the crag to the southwest, he took an imaginary line from its summit to three peaks forming a triangle far to the south. Then he and Hassan rode westward in a slanting course. Where their course intersected the imaginary line, they came on the faint traces of an old trail, winding high up into the bare mountains. The map had not lied and O’Donnell’s memory had not failed them. The droppings of horses indicated that a party of riders had passed along the dim trail recently. Hassan asserted it was Hawklin’s party, and O’Donnell agreed.

“They set their course by Akbar’s Castle, just as we did. We’re closing the gap between us. But we don’t want to crowd them too close. They outnumber us. It’s up to us to stay out of sight until they get the idol. Then we ambush them and take it away from them.”

Hassan’s eyes gleamed; such strategy was joy to his Oriental nature.

“But we must be wary,” he said. “From here on the country is claimed by Yakub Khan, who robs all he catches. Had they known the hidden paths, they might have avoided him. Now they must trust to luck not to fall into his hands. And we must be alert, too! Yakub Khan is no friend of mine, and he hates Kurds!”

Mid-afternoon found them still following the dim path that meandered endlessly on — obviously the trace of an ancient, forgotten road.

“If that Waziri got back to Yakub Khan,” said Hassan, as they rode toward a narrow gorge that opened in the frowning slopes that rose about them, “the Jowakis will be unusually alert for strangers. Yar Muhammad didn’t suspect Hawklin’s real identity, though, and didn’t learn what he was after. Yakub won’t know, either. I believe he knows where the temple is, but he’s too superstitious to go near it. Afraid of ghosts. He doesn’t know about the idol. Pembroke was the only man who’d entered that temple in Allah only knows how many centuries. I heard the story from his servant who was dying in Peshawur from a snake bite. Hawklin, Jehungir Khan, you and I are the only men alive who know about the god —”

They reined up suddenly as a lean, hawk-faced Pathan rode out of the gorge mouth ahead of them.

“Halt!” he called imperiously, riding toward them with an empty hand lifted. “By what authority do you ride in the territory of Yakub Khan?”

“Careful,” muttered O’Donnell. “He’s a Jowaki. There may be a dozen rifles trained on us from those rocks right now.”

“I’ll give him money,” answered Hassan under his breath. “Yakub Khan
claims the right to collect toll from all who travel through his country. Maybe that’s all this fellow wants.”