Swords From the East by Harold Lamb Page A

repeated.
    Now the figure stood up to leave the chapel, and he saw it was Yulga, a clean white hood over her long hair. She left the grove without seeing him. Hugo reflected that she must be repeating the ritual she had heard Paul say many times, without understanding its full meaning.
    So, he wondered, had Paul's life been taken that the souls of two or three barbarians might be saved?
    Hugo's head dropped on to his chest as he sat on a bench in the hut. Weary, exhausted by hunger, he slept.
    For a while the candles flickered. Then one went out and the other. The cabin was in darkness. Outside the night sounds of the Altai began-the howl of a wolf, the whir of a flying owl.
    Chapter III
    The Storm
    One night in early summer, from the fastness of the Altai, Aruk the hunter heard a whirring in the air, a rustle in the underbrush. Against the stars he made out the flight of birds, going north, down the mountain. Against a patch of snow-for in the Urkhogaitu Pass, the snow never quite melts-he saw black forms leap and pass.
    Aruk knew that those leaps were made by mountain sheep. They were running down the rocks from the pass. Near at hand several deer crackled through the saxual bushes. A soft pad-pad slipped past him.
    That was a snow leopard, leaving his fastness in the bare rocks of the heights.
    Aruk was on foot in a trice, and slapped the halter on his pony without waiting for the saddle. Snatching up his bow, he was off on the trail to Koh.
    Behind him black masses moved against the snow, and horses' hoofs struck on stone. An arrow whizzed past his head. Another. The nimble feet of his pony carried him out of range, and presently to the yurt of Ostrim, the falconer.
    Reining up at the door, he struck it with his foot and shouted: "Up and ride! 'Tis Aruk that calls."
    Too wise to ask questions, the old man got together his several ponies and sprang upon one, the great Bouragut, the golden eagle, on his wrist. Yulga carried the hawk.
    "The Kalmucks are in the pass," Aruk called to Yulga. "They are stealing through like ferrets, hundreds of them. Galdan Khan has loosed the vanguard of his dog brothers on our Tatar land."
    Yulga, at this, urged her pony the faster with voice and heel. Like three ghosts they sped down to the rolling slopes of the foothills.
    "The Krit warrior said," observed Ostrim after a space, "that ten could hold the summit of the pass against a thousand. Why did not Cheke Noyon post a guard in the Urkhogaitu?"
    "Because the ten would be food for the crows by now," grunted Aruk. "When did our Tatar folk ever post a guard-"
    "The Krit!" cried Yulga suddenly. "We are passing his yurt, and he will be slain in his sleep if he is not warned."
    Swearing under his breath, Aruk reined in, calling to the others to ride on and take the news to Koh. He would go for the Krit.
    "Be quick!" Yulga was alarmed. "Do not let them take you-"
    But Aruk was a fox in the night. The chapel in the grove proved to be deserted, Hugo having gone far afield on his horse that night; and the hunter edged down to the steppe by paths that did not meet the main trail on which the Kalmucks had already passed him in force. He did not fear for Yulga or her father.
    "The hut of the Krit will soon be ashes," he muttered, for fires were already making the night ruddy behind him.
    The Kalmucks, seeing that their approach was observed, were slaying the people of the countryside and setting fire to their yurts.
    Once, crossing a clearing in the gray of the false dawn, Aruk saw a patrol of the Kalmuck Turks surround a nest of tents. He could make out the black, quilted coats of the dreaded riders, could see their round, sheepskin hats and the points of their long lances.
    They were driving the flocks of sheep in the clearing, and harrying out the tents whence men and boys ran, half-clothed, to be spitted on lances or hewn down with scimitars.
    The wailing of women rose on the air, to subside into moans. Aruk made out the small form of a young girl