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weary band labored on, the tails of their turbans wrapped around their noses
and mouths to keep out the dust whipping at their faces.
* * *
Casca had a mouthful of dust and a terrible throb­bing pain at the back of
his head. Before he managed to get his eyes open he had the strangest feeling
of rising and falling, jolts and thumps. And he was par­alyzed. Only his
mouth had mobility, opening and shutting to the strange thumps and bumps. And
every time it did, he got more dust in it. He wished he could fall back into
the darkness and end the pain in his chest as well as that damnable throbbing
at the back of his skull.
But wishing didn't make the pain go away, so he finally opened his eyes and
instantly wished he hadn't.
He was on a horse, his legs tied to the animal's sides by a rope under the
animal's belly, his hands lashed together and the rope looped around the
horse's thick neck. Ahead of him rode Bu Ali and one of the Mamelukes. Beside
him rode a warrior he'd known slightly during his time with Mamud the slaver.
He was known as Karzan. Casca's head hurt too much for him to look back, but
he could hear the sounds of other horses' hooves behind him, so he was in the
middle of a small column heading, where?
"So you are back with us, Kasim?" The voice was that of Karzan, a slow,
easy-paced voice almost too soft for the size of the man. The Mameluke was
larger than most of the brothers and stood half a head over Casca. His face
and coloring along with slightly green eyes showed a mixture of many bloods in
his veins. "Yes, you have been out for a long time."
"Where are we?"
"Who knows? Bu Ali is heading for the mountains. I heard the mob saying
something about an Assassin being captured. You're not one of them are you?"
Casca shook his head to clear the remaining cob­webs. "That's a dumb
question to ask anyone." He left the question unanswered since anything he
said might have been the wrong thing. He didn't know if Karzan was a follower
of Hassan al Sabah or not.
"Why am I tied down on this horse and why the hell did Bu Ali hit me?"
Karzan shrugged his sloped shoulders. "You're tied to the horse because that
is what Bu Ali said to do. I don't know why he hit you, that is his business
and he is in command." That was it. Karzan was content to follow his orders
without question. Things he didn't understand, he wasn't meant to.
Casca was given water to drink from a leather skin and then studiously
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ignored. But Ali looked back at him once from the head of the column to give
him a wide grin.
Bu Ali halted his men and rode to a small rise and looked back toward Apnea.
He saw no sign of pursuit. Whoever it was that had been after them was no
longer in view nor had they been since three hours past. Now he was facing one
of the patches of wasteland where not even the creosote could survive. It was
dry with fine dust that went ankle deep and stretched for twenty leagues.
Casca looked ahead. There shimmering in the dis­tance and rising above the
clear desert air was a range of mountains that would be a five-day ride away.
The Elburz. Bu Ali was taking them to Castle Alamut.
The small unit of Mamelukes moved into the end­less dust of the ancient
seabed.
* * *
"Dust," Shojan pointed.
"I see it," Yousef said. He looked from the thin plume of dust to the
mountains on the horizon, then back again.
"They have a good head start."
"True, but there is but one place they can head and that's toward the
mountains. From where we are we can intercept them by going straight, then
cutting across. Also we will have a better supply of water from some springs
that I know of. The Mamelukes will have to ration theirs. We'll catch them."
"What if they travel all night?"
"It will make no difference for that is what we will be doing. It will only
prolong the chase a few more hours, no more. Be patient, Shojan. Be patient.
We will have them, this I swear."
* * *
Bu Ali made no camp. They traveled all that night stopping only to water their
animals, then to cover more miles before the heat of day turned the seabed
into an inferno. With first light they sought what thin shelter they could,
using their cloaks to make tents to shield them and their animals from the
hammering rays of the demon sun. Three more days and nights passed in this
manner till they reached the base of the Elburz Mountains still in darkness.
Dawn found them climbing a steep trail on foot, the horses left behind with a
single Mameluke to guard them. Casca had one rope noosed around his thick
neck, a second tied securely to his waist. The ends of both were in the hands
of Karzan, who was quiet for the first two thousand feet. But when the sun
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warmed their backs in full light, he looked up at the steep climb ahead and
muttered to no one, "I hope Bu Ali calls a rest when we get to that level site
ahead." Never once had he or the other Mamelukes questioned why Bu Ali was
taking them to Elburz instead of back to Baghdad and their Master Mamud. They,
like Karzan, left the problem of thinking to others. Their job was only to
obey and Bu Ali was in command therefore he must know what he was doing.
Casca also hoped for a rest. His legs were cramped from being tied under the
belly of his horse and burned with each labored step up the foot trail. He had
never been on this path before and wondered how long it would take them till
they reached the summit of Ala­mut, where he would face Hassan and find
out why this was being done to him.
Not once in the days of their trek had Bu Ali spoken to him, and after seeing
Karzan do so had ordered all the Mamelukes to avoid any conversation with
their prisoner at the risk of losing their tongues. Another hundred yards of
climbing and Casca could barely make out the parapets of Castle Alamut still
two thou­sand feet above them. He knew of this place. One of the Novices
at Alamut had pointed it out to him from the Castle walls and had told him
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that this was where many who had transgressed were sent to their maker.
He looked down. There were jagged rocks below, and to his left, the black
cleft that was the opening to the Bottomless Pit, which was, as the Novice had
said, the entrance to death for many. Casca grunted knowing that every pit had
a bottom. It was only a matter of reaching it.
A jerk on his lead rope and Casca stumbled over a rock to fall on his face. It
distracted Karzan's at­tention and that of the other Mamelukes in front of
him and behind him at the very instant that Yousef and his men attacked. They
poured out of the rocks circling the level site by the Bottomless Pit.
CHAPTER TWELVE [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]