The Quest of Kadji
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Chronicles of Kylix #1
- Год: 1973
- Язык: английский
- Год: Five Star Paperback
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Quest of Kadji». Краткое содержание книги:
THE VILLAGE was a miserable cluster of log huts huddled together amidst the plain around an open square of beaten earth that the spring rains would turn to a sea of mud. But this was the beginning of winter, and although the snows had not yet come the earth was hard and dry and bare.
At the center of the bare space rose the village well. To the eastern side, rose the go-mak, the hut of the village chief. No less than the others of the small village, it was a squalid hovel, but taller than the rest and chinked with hard-packed clay. A feather-crested spear was thrust deep in the earth before its door. The red and gold feathers of the crest were old and tattered, faded and grey. Many generations had passed since the Ushamtar warriors who had come from the grasslands of the south to settle all this land had planted the proud war spear there as a rallying point. But the villagers were Ushamtar still, and they stood tall and proud and silent, with grave faces and keen eyes, arms folded on their chests, as the weary Nomad warriors entered the village with sundown.
By twos and threes the fighting Kozanga rode in, black moving shapes in the gathering gloom. The village chief had bade his wives build a great fire in the open space, and by its flickering red light the villagers could see the marks of battle on the torn and blood-stained ishlaks of the mounted men. Spired steel helms were dented; round leather-on-wicker shields were broken and battered; slim throwing spears were splintered. And many there were who did not ride but lay moaning ha carts dragged behind the main body of the clan host, men with ravaged faces and haunted eyes, wrapped in filthy bandages.
The village women threw their hands up, clucking amongst themselves at the sight of the wounded warriors. And even before the Lord of the warrior legion had exchanged greetings with the village chief, they vanished into huts and reappeared with pots and jars of strong wine and basins of steaming water and packets of dried herbs and fresh bandages, torn perhaps from their voluminous underskirts, wherewith to treat the injured warriors.
Zarouk drew his great white stallion up before the go-mak of the chief with a flourish. With his left hand—for his right would serve him no more—he threw back the folds of his great ishlak and laid bare to the sight of men the glitter of the great hooked axe of cold steel he wore strapped to his girdle.
“Hai-yaa! The Peace of the Gods be with you, O Ushamtar!” he cried.
The village chieftain bowed low, touching the earth with the fingers of his right hand. “The fortune of Heaven ride with you, O Kozanga,” he replied gravely.
For a moment they looked at each other thoughtfully, each fully conscious of the drama of the moment and each determined to uphold the honor and courtesy of their respective peoples. The villager was an old man, bony-shanked and bald of pate, his lean and leathery face seamed and wizened with the years. But his dark eyes were sharp and keen and watchful, and he stood proudly, his gaunt shoulders wrapped in a fringed kuruz of fine white cloth.
“Of your courtesy,” the Lord said, “I require food and drink and a place to rest for my sword-brethren, and for our horses, fodder and shelter from the wolves and the night cold.”
“All these shall be yours,” the villager said. Zarouk paused, hesitant. Then, because honor demanded truth in full, he added:
“But I must declare that the Dragon Emperor of golden Khôr has named us rogues, outlaws and renegades, and set upon us his dogs, the foreign mercenaries of Rashemba, who may yet be to this hour on our trail. If you feel that our presence will bring danger upon your village, I say, speak out, and we will ride on …”
The face of the old chieftain did not change. Pride in his ancient blood and age-old heritage held him stiff with dignity.
He said; “I bow me in the shadow of the Lord of the Dragon Throne—a thousand years to his name!—I and my fathers have bowed to his shadow and we are his men. But, also, we are Ushamtar, and the great Kozanga warriors are our brethren from the days of old. I would spit on my grandfathers’ bones, were I to deny hospitality to the sir-brethren of the Chayyim Kozanga… .”
The harsh lips of the jemadar, drawn thin and tight with weariness and suffering, twitched. But he said no word. With his left hand he drew the sacred Axe of Thom-Ra, the holy totem of the Kozanga, borne by a thousand jemadars of his race since Time’s Dawn, and set it to his lips.
“The Peace be upon you all,” he said, and permitted his captains to ease him down from the saddle, for he was too weak to dismount.
iii. Kozanga Vengeance!
FOR ONE night and no longer did the exhausted and beaten Nomads rest in the village of the Ushamtar. They ate and drank hugely, paying with red gold for the hospitality of their hosts, as was the ancient custom. Then, having seen their blown and weary horses fed, watered, rubbed down and in safe shelter—and then only—did the proud Kozanga sleep. Like dead men they slept, but woke with first light of dawn to move on. Ahead of them, many leagues across the endless plains of whispering grass, lay the black mountains. Impassable to any man but a Kozanga were those tall and mighty mountains of black stone—an impregnable fortress of dark stone, hewn by the very hands of the Gods at the dim, forgotten beginning of things.
The secret passage through that wall of black rock was the hereditary secret of the Kozanga sword-brethren, for ages ago the fathers of the Nomad warrior clan had first raised the red-and-black war standard of their legion behind those mountains, on the banks of Chaya, the Sacred River. For thousands of years the Sons of the Chayyim Kozanga had passed that secret down the generations. Could they but reach that frowning rampart of black stone in the land of Maroosh, they would be safe—aye, and let the pursuing Rashemba knights yap like dogs at a closed gate! There, in the hidden valleys and the secret places of the mountains, the heroes of the conquered and broken legion could rest, heal their wounds, hone their blades, to ride again another day.
Aye! To ride straight to the tall gates of golden Khôr that had sold them to the, foreign dogs! All of the Empire of the Dragon would feel that cold kiss of steel and taste the sour wine of fear when the mighty Kozanga brethren rode on the trail of vengeance! That the old jemadar swore, deep in his soul.
With first light he summoned to the hut wherein he lay his grandson, Kadji. He watched with proud eyes as the tall youth, wrapped in a flowing’ ishlak of tribal red and black, his blond locks flying free in the frosty air, rode up in a thunder of hooves before the hut and swung from the saddle to kneel in the dirt before his grandsire.
The grizzled Lord smiled slightly, and set one mighty hand on the boy’s head, lifting his face. Like a young hawk, Kadji raised bright, fierce eyes to meet his gaze. Blue as heaven and bright as sword steel were those clear young eyes, fearless and keen. The face of the youth was fair, but not soft: strong and lean, tanned to the hue of old leather by sun and wind, with lips that smiled and laughed, but he had the strong square jaw of his fathers and the bright gold mane of his mother. Kadji he was named, which was “Red Hawk” in the tongue of the Great Plains. And like a hunting hawk could he hurtle across the measureless leagues of whispering grass, astride his black Feridoon pony.
A fine hunter was the boy, and a fierce swordsman, for all his young years. His steady nerve and bold daring and bright, mischievous ways had made him beloved among the sword-brethren of the Kozanga. And Zarouk knew, deep in his heart, that when he could no longer lead the charge, the elder brothers of the legion would pass the name of jemadar to Kadji the Red Hawk… .