Free Swords From the East by Harold Lamb

dull screaming.
    Cattle lowed from the plain, whence riders came in on sweating horses, from the steppe, from the more distant tribes of Tartary, to learn what had befallen at Kob.
    They saw the crimson spot in the sky that showed where the city still burned on the second night of the sack.
    On his back near the reeds where the women and children from Kob had taken refuge, Hugo of Hainault lay, his head on his hands, his eyes closed. He was rather more than hungry. Never having accustomed himself to the kumiss of the Tatars, or the poorly cooked meat they ate, his one meal of the day had been black bread and fruit, washed down by cold water from a spring near the lake.
    Above the whistle of the wind in the reeds and the murmur of a woman quieting her child, his quick ear caught a light step. Opening his eyes, he saw a slim figure standing over him.
    "It is Yulga, my lord, and I scarce could find you. I have some cold lamb's flesh and a bowl of wine. Aruk said that you have a throat for the wine of China, so I had this from a merchant whose caravan has wandered here."
    "Wine!"
    Hugo sat up and brushed his mustache. "You are a good child."
    "The girl has manners of a sort," he reflected, "and it is necessary to remember that here is not monsieur le comte, but a vagabond of the highways. Even the remnant of my clothing and money is gone with my forest chateau."
    "My lord," Yulga's low voice broke in, "the kurultai-the council of the clans-has been assembled since the setting of the sun. The wise ones among the noyons are trying to discover the road we must follow. They have heard that Galdan Khan has ordered the death of all the souls in Tartary. His main army is on the road leading to the Urkhogaitu Pass. Soon he will arrive with his banners in Tartary, and with him will be five times ten thousand riders."
    Yulga spoke quickly, almost breathlessly.
    "My lord, we will not flee, for where would we go? Cheke Noyon yielded his breath in Kob, and others of our bravest are licking their wounds here. More horsemen are coming in from the Torgut and Buriat clans, and before long others will ride hither from the north.
    "We have no khan like Galdan," went on Yulga sadly, "for the kelets-the evil demons of the air-bring him news, and he is invulnerable. Gorun shivers in his tent and says that Galdan Khan has made magic. The priest can make no magic for us."
    She paused and then lifted her head.
    "My lord, there is a magic that can help us. I heard of it from the Christian priest who is dead."
    "The one for whom you pray?"
    "Aye, my lord. He told us that God opened a path through a sea, so an army of Christians could pass with dry feet."
    Hugo was silent. Once at a banquet at the Palais Royal he had made a jest of this, remarking that if the Israelites of Egypt had been monks and the Red Sea a sea of wine, they would not have passed unwet.
    "And an evil horde," pointed out Yulga eagerly, "that pursued the Christian khans was swallowed up in the sea. Is not that the truth?"
    Thought of Paul stayed the gibe that rose to Hugo's lips.
    "If the Christian priest said it," he responded grimly, "it is true. He was my brother."
    Yulga pondered this.
    "Then you must be a Christian from God, because he was an envoy, and you are a khan, a leader of men. And you came to help us in our need. If we do not have a miracle we will all die."
    Breathlessly she kneeled beside the wanderer. He could hear her heart beating. So, he thought with a wry smile, a price must be paid for one's supper even in the wilderness.
    "Then you will die," he said gruffly.
    Yulga laughed patiently.
    "My lord jests. How else could the priest who was your brother live after death came to him?"
    "Live? How?"
    "In the yurt where we pray. When we are there we hear again the words he spoke to us. And how did you, my lord, find his yurt if you did not know where it was?"
    Emboldened by the silence of the man, she went on swiftly,
    "Tell us how we can overthrow Galdan Khan. In two days he