The gates of the monastery of the Holy Spirit rolled slowly back upon themselves. A cassocked priest of the Orthodox Russian Order thrust his head into the narrow opening and gazed upon those who sought admittance to the monastery, which stood in the mountains overlooking the waters of the Dnieper and formed a place of refuge for travelers in the early seventeenth century.

He saw, scattered along the road winding up to the monastery gates, a throng of horsemen accompanied by some carts. The riders he recognized as Cossacks by their astrakhan hats and wide sheepskin svitzas. They were impatiently waiting for the gates to be opened, and the appearance of the priest’s sturdy head and shoulders was greeted by a wild shout.

“Hey, the batko!” they roared. “Look how be pokes out his shaven skull, like a baby vulture—come and take a drink of brandy, batko, it will warm your frozen bones! Hey, he must think we are ugly, he makes long faces at us!”

Several of the riders spurred abreast of the carts and jerked beakers of brandy from servants who acted as teamsters and wine-drawers. Most of the assembly were drunk, the priest knew, for it was a good two days’ travel to the Zaporogian Island encampment of the Cossack army—and when the Cossacks rode to escort a fellow member to the monastery it was no crime, as in time of war, to drink on the march. Wherefore few were sober, and he

who was too old to serve longer in the army, and who sought peace in the monastery, was least sober.

“Stand forth, Split Breeches!” rumbled the riders. “Let the batko see how tall you are, and fat. Devil take the man, where is he—”

At the command of his companions a powerful, gray-haired Cossack pushed to the front. Although he must have swallowed enough brandy to cripple a camel, he sat steadily in his saddle until he had waved farewell to the others. Then he spurred up to the gate. The priest drew himself up sternly.

“Who is there?” he demanded.

“Cossack, batko!” growled the warrior.

“What do you seek?”

“I am come to pray for my sinful soul.”

Dismounting, the Cossack stepped toward the gates, which opened wider at his approach. Opened and then closed behind him. His horse, separated from his companion of years, stood patiently where he had been left. Somewhere in the monastery, chimes, which were wont to sound at evening, echoed melodiously. At the sound several of the Cossacks removed their astrakhan hats and crossed themselves. Others sought the brandy wagons, to begin the march back to camp. They had come out of respect to the one they called Split Breeches, who was too old to fight and who sought to end his life in the monastery. The farewell accomplished, they departed for the camp where there were whispered tidings of war with the Tatars across the Dnieper.

To the free Cossacks, a summons to war was as the scent of game to a trained wolfhound. Wanderers, seekers of adventure, born fighters, they lived by the sword. When one was born the father laid his sword beside it, saying—

“Well, Cossack, here is my only gift to you, whereby to care for yourself and others.”

Fighting without pause, it was rare that a Cossack lived to be as old as the one called Split Breeches, or another who had just filled his beaker at the brandy wagon and held it up for a toast.

He was tall as Split Breeches but lean, his scalp lock gray, and his bushy eyebrows overhanging narrow eyes and high cheekbones. His red morocco boots were of the finest stuff, and tar had been smeared over his costly nankeen breeches to show his scorn of appearances. A high sheepskin hat was perched over one ear.

“To our Russian land, and a speedy war!” he cried.

“Khlit has said well,” several responded.

“The horde of the Khan is gathering. Without doubt there will be war—”

“But Khlit will not be there,” spoke up a Cossack who wore a hetman’s attire from the outskirts of the group. “He has fought through too many wars already, devil take him, and he has out-stayed his time in the Siech.”

The tall Cossack straightened his hat and, without an instant’s hesitation, spurred through the crowd to the speaker. Throwing down his beaker he pointed out over the Dnieper to the farther bank—territory of the Tatars.

“Hetman,” he growled, “think twice before you say that Khlit, he called the Wolf, Khlit of the Curved Saber, is too old to ride with the Siech. He who rode alone through the camp of Mirai Khan is not ready to seek the gates of a monastery.”

The hetman, who had spoken hastily, was not prepared to take back his words; as a chief of a kuren his speech held weight. Moreover, he had reason for what he said. And the Cossacks knew that Khlit’s years were above those of any other in the Siech. Measuring glances with the angry veteran, he replied:

“This is not a time to think of the past, Khlit. War is upon us, and the men from the hills across the Dnieper say that hordes beyond the Krim Tatars are marching to the riverbanks. The name of Khlit of the Curved Saber has gone through the Ukraine to the Salt Sea. But we must fight with our arms, not names. And your arm is lean. Have I spoken the truth, noble sirs?”

The Cossacks, slightly quieted by the sight of the monastery, listened carefully. The incident had assumed the air of a council.

And the warriors were jealous of their rights to decide for the welfare of all in a council. Before any could reply Khlit spoke.

“Mirai Khan would shake in his boots for joy if the word came to him that Khlit was humble. Is it the will of the noble sir to give pleasure to Mirai Khan and the ranks of the Flat-Face? The monastery doors are for weaklings and men who have tasted too much blood.”

Several of the Cossacks nodded assent but the majority were thoughtful. They were not given to much thinking—that they left to their leaders. Moreover, the hetman had said that Khlit was old, and the monastery was at hand. Many would like to say that they had seen the last of Khlit of the Curved Saber. Cossack usage was not to be put aside, and usage ordained that old men seek prayer for their souls.

Khlit, keen to judge the feelings of men, and crafty as a war-scarred wolf, saw that delay and debate would not aid him. Cossacks never waste time in quibbling. Inwardly, he laughed, and waved his hand around the assembly. “Come, noble sirs, he shouted, “do you order Khlit to the monastery? How will you fight the Tatars then? What is the decision of the assembly? Come, we are not old women, what is it to be?”

With his fate hanging in the balance—for the word of a council was law with the free Cossacks—Khlit scanned the faces of his companions and his heart sank as he failed to recognize a friend. All were young men, strangers, and few were from his kuren. The hetman was an acquaintance, but Khlit suspected that the officer was not free from jealousy.

Instead of replying at once the warriors glanced at each other and muttered uncertainly. The monastery was near. Yet the name of Khlit of the Curved Saber was known to them all. Finally one voice spoke up.

“The monastery,” growled the hetman. “The monastery!” shouted others, and the assembly cried its assent.

Khlit wasted no time.

“So be it—the monastery,” he snarled. “But one fit for a warrior. Tell your leader that Khlit has gone—tell the Koshevoi Ataman that he of the Curved Saber has sought a place where no other Cossacks have been. Get back to your kennels, dogs!”

Still fuming, he wheeled to the hetman and drew out his whip.

“You have put the old wolf from the pack,” he said bitterly, “and you will find many jackals among the pack. When you tell the Koshevoi Ataman what you have done, he will send for me. But a wolf does not run with jackals. Rather, he goes alone until he has silenced the whimpering of the jackals. Hey, alone!”

Before the others could respond or move, the veteran Cossack had swung his horse from the throng. Leaving the winding trail to the monastery, he darted forward down the slope of the mountain. It was not long before he was lost to view in the trees.

The chimes had ceased their tocsin when the Cossacks again caught sight of Khlit. A mile below them his horse was swimming out into the swift waters of the river. Beside his horse, one hand in the beast’s mane, another steadying his powder and pistols on the saddle, Khlit was swimming. Horse and rider were headed for the farther bank of the Dnieper, beyond which lay Tatary.

II

It was in Winter, the Year of the Ape, according to the Mongol calendar, that Tal Taulai Khan, Chief of Chiefs, leader of the Black Kallmarks, told his wives that he was tired of them. Instead of killing them and obtaining others from Circassia, Georgia, or Astrakhan, Tal Taulai Khan began a hunt through the mountains that separated him from the lands of the West.

The Grand Khan of the Kallmarks knew no bounds to his king-dom. The wall that girded China, Sabatsey, the Land of Dogs, was no bar to his entrance. His horsemen thronged to the shores of the Salt Sea. When he hunted, the chiefs of the country came to pay homage. If they neglected to do so their towns were sacked. To make easier the royal pathway, the commander of his armies, Kefar Choga, made, as they went along, a road that was wide and

level. If a gorge was to be crossed a bridge was built. If the hunt delayed long in one spot pavilions were built of solid tree trunks and ebony.

It was the will of Tal Taulai Khan to hunt, and never during his life had the will of Tal Taulai Khan failed to achieve its purpose. That it was Winter made no difference. The cold in the mountains of the Black Kallmark land was great. Snows were deep. Passage, for ordinary travelers, was impossible. Yet Tal Taulai Khan announced that it was his will to hunt to the summit of the mountain called Uskun Luk Tugra in Kallmark tongue, or Pe Cha in the speech of the Mongol Tatars, which signified the “roof of the world.”

Nothing else would be worth the while of Tal Taulai Khan. In the woods that girdled the slope of Uskun Luk Tugra he had heard from an Usbek Tatar that there were noble stags, while on the summit of the mountain was a frozen lake on the shores of which gleamed at night a curious fire the color of emeralds.

In appearance Tal Taulai Khan was true to his descent, which was from Genghis Khan, leader of the Golden Horde, and the chiefs of the Mongol Tatars. He was taller than most of his followers, impassive of face, with the narrow eyes and high cheekbones of his breed, massive in figure, with a wide, firm mouth, black mustaches, and a heavy chin.

Men spoke of him as the leader of three times a hundred thou-sand horsemen. Tal Taulai Khan desired above all things to be waging a war. In the Year of the Ape, however, the peoples on his borders were quiet, so the Khan declared that he would hunt. Whereby came the great hunt of Uskun Luk Tugra, when the rivers that came from the mountain were red with blood on their frozen surfaces and Kallmark warriors drank the blood of dead enemies to keep the life and warmth within them, owing to the cold which smote them when they ascended to the roof of the world.

The Khan’s impassive eyes had shown a gleam of interest when he questioned the bonzes, who were servants of the god Fo and

came to his court from the Dalai Lama through the land of the Great Muga, as to the success of this hunt. They had made reply that it was written in the sacred texts of the god Fo that hunting was honorable for such as the Grand Khan, and that in the Year of the Ape he would hunt such game as he had not met with before.

Wherefore the zeal of Tal Taulai Khan, who had some respect for the words of the bonzes, was great for the hunt, and the death of ten thousand horses the first cold night’s march was only an incident in the advance of his horde toward the west of the Kallmark land and the summit of Uskun Luk Tugra. It is so related in the annals of one named Abulghazi Bahadur Sultan.

III

Great was the pride of Khlit of the Curved Saber, whereby great was his anger. As he rode east he cursed hetman and Cossack who had called him fit for the monastery. To Khlit, inmates of monasteries were no more than suckling swine. To be ordered hence by the hetman of his kuren, or barracks, was more bitter than the dregs of arak, the Tatar wine.

Khlit was not blind to the fact that if he had appealed to the Koshevoi Ataman, the decision of the hetman and the hasty council by the gate of the Holy Spirit might well be overruled. Once when his arm was stronger, he had been hetman. Age had lost him his rank. But such an act was not agreeable to Cossack pride, the pride of an old hetman. The matter, to Khlit, called the Wolf, was simple. Some Cossacks, jealous or hostile, had driven him from the Siech. They must live to regret what they had done.

During the weeks of travel to the heart of Tatary this thought fastened upon the mind of Khlit, even as the sun began to circle farther to the south and the night cold became keener. The Cossacks who had cast him out at the monastery had not seen the last of him. The time would come when they would see him again.

Khlit knew that the Tatar hordes were gathering for war, and his instinct told him that it was directed toward the Ukraine.

Where war was, Khlit was at home. He did not intend to join the ranks of the Krim Tatars, servants of Mirai Khan, for an old score lay unsettled between the Khan and Cossack, and Khlit’s head would have honored one of Mirai Khan’s tent poles.

But beyond the Krim Tatars, his ancient foes, were the Black Kallmarks, of whom he had heard, but who had never set eyes on Cossacks. It was to the Kallmarks Khlit rode. So great was his anger that it carried him swiftly over three wide rivers, the familiar Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga.

Khlit’s anger cooled, as his own danger grew. Riding by night and keeping well to the north, he passed the land of the Krim folk in safety. Tatar horsemen were gathering at the valley camps, he noticed, leaving their herds on the hills. Isolated riders met the Cossack and after keen scrutiny of his horse and weapons, rode by with a backward glance until out of pistol shot. There is a saying that a Tatar’s hand goes quickest to his sword. Yet Khlit’s aspect commanded respect, and hence the right of way along his journey. Once only did he stop a rider.

During the first days of his journey the Cossack had the good luck to kill a stag with a pistol shot. Some time he spent in cutting the meat from the carcass, drying it in the sun, and placing it under his saddle, between the leather and the back of his horse, where friction and heat would keep the meat tender and warm. He had dismounted to eat a strip of his meat and smoke a pipe in a slight depression along his path where he would not be visible from the steppe.

Khlit’s ears were not dulled with age, or he would not then be alive, and when he heard a rattling as of saddle trappings and weapons he dropped food and pipe and sprang to the edge of the gully where he had taken concealment. From the sounds he had expected that a troop of Krim riders would be passing, but he saw only a solitary rider trotting slowly by at some distance. At the sight his mustache twitched in a smile.

By old experience he knew the sight of a Krim shaman, or conjurer, and he grinned as he noted the hideous mask which

garbed the man’s features, the long cloak that floated over the tail of the horse, and the mass of miniature iron images of birds and beasts that cluttered up the magician’s saddle and which had given forth the sounds he had heard.

Relieved of an apprehension, Khlit drew out a pistol and advanced from his place of concealment. Wrapped up in his own thoughts and lulled by the clatter of his accouterments, the shaman did not notice the Cossack’s approach until they were nearly abreast, when Khlit spoke.

“Hey, swine of the devil’s sty,” he cried in fluent Tatar, for he had a lifelong knowledge of the speech, “stop your horse and share the meat of a Christian Cossack!”

The shaman cast a hasty glance around and decided that resistance was not to be attempted. Yet the appetite with which he shared Khlit’s piece of meat was not great. Khlit, however, was in high good humor at the meeting and plied the other with meat, cakes, and tobacco.

“The men of the Krim steppe do not sleep in their huts,” he observed craftily after a while. “They ride together in banks with weapons. What is in the mind of Mirai Khan?”

The shaman chewed his meat and his dark eyes scanned Khlit narrowly.

“There are wolves loose on the steppe with the coming of Win-ter,” he began. “And the word has gone forth from Mirai Khan, our leader, that they are to be hunted down lest too many of the sheep and oxen be taken. Perhaps you have heard the cry of the wolves—”

“I have heard the gathering cry of the packs, shaman,” snarled Khlit. “But they have two legs, and swords instead of teeth. Tell no more lies, Flat-Face, or I will cut open your belly. I asked, what is the word that goes through the Krim land and brings the riders together with arms?”

“I will tell, noble chief,” responded the conjurer hastily. “It is the truth, every word! This is the Year of the Ape, when it is written in the sacred books of our cult that there will be a battle.

It is written in the books that they shall win victory in battle if Mirai Khan leads them, not otherwise.”

Khlit mentally sifted the words of his companion and arrived at the conclusion that the Krim folk were actually getting ready for war, and that Mirai Khan, whose tricks he knew of former years, had secretly ordered the shamans to declare that he must lead them into battle. It needed no more to assure Khlit that the Krim horde was preparing to swoop down on the land of the Ukraine. Yet what was the delay? Why wait until Winter? It seemed as if Mirai Khan was not yet ready to strike.

“And the Black Kallmarks,” continued Khlit thoughtfully, watching the shaman, “are they likewise on the march? Is any-thing written in the books concerning them? Where are they to be found, son of a devil’s dog?”

The shaman’s face twitched involuntarily in surprise and his eyes narrowed. For a second too long be thought.

“Aye, noble Cossack,” he whined at length. “The Black Kallmarks, who are the finest warriors in the world—except the Cossacks—are marching, and marching, and with them the Mongol Tatars, all under the leadership of the celestial Tal Taulai Khan. But it is a hunt. They are bound for Uskun Luk Tugra, the roof of the world, where the green fire burns by the frozen lake. It is the word of Tal Taulai Khan that they hunt.”

“In Winter?” Khlit scowled. “Their prince must love the chase to freeze his bones on the mountains. Have the Kallmarks ever come into the land of Mirai Khan?”

The shaman’s gaze shifted. “Not for two men’s lifetimes,” he responded. “Yet Tal Taulai Khan has commanded a hunt. He wishes his men to become hardened, for he desires good fighters. Go you to the court of Tal Taulai Khan, noble sir? I will tell you how to find it.”

“Aye,” said Khlit shortly.

“Then ride into the rising sun for the space of a month. When you come to the wide Jaick River, turn south unto the mountain peaks, with snow and ice covering. One, the higher, is Uskun

Luk Tugra. Pass between the two and in time you will hear the approach of Tal Taulai Khan, who rides higher.”

“Good!” Khlit rose and swaggered to his horse. “Tell Mirai Khan that you have spoken with Khlit, he called the Wolf, who rides past the land of the Krim Tatars to see the face of Tal Taulai Khan. He will remember me.”

The Tatar spat in the direction of Khlit’s back. As the Cossack rode away, the face of the shaman writhed into an evil smile.

Khlit, usually prompt to fathom the minds of his enemies, had passed over the words of the shaman lightly. He had overestimated the man’s fear of him—a common trait of the Cossacks. He had perceived the man’s reluctance to speak of Mirai Khan. Yet he had not noticed the other’s readiness to speed him on to Tal Taulai Khan.

The shaman, on his part, viewed the departure of Khlit with the certainty that he would not return. All the Krim Tatars had heard of Khlit, the Cossack Wolf, and Mirai Khan counted the days until he could achieve the death of Khlit. And Mirai Khan, as the shaman knew, was at present in the camp of Tal Taulai Khan. For the first time in the knowledge of the shaman tribe, Krim Khan had ridden into the court of the Grand Khan. Hence, if Khlit reached his destination, and Mirai Khan was still alive, it meant the death of the Cossack. Which was what the shaman desired.

IV

The rivers of the foothills of Uskun Luk Tugra were frozen, and the sun’s rays did not serve to thaw the ice when brazen strokes on the copper basin outside the pavilion of Tal Taulai Khan summoned his host to the hunt that seemed without an end.

Kefar Choga himself, leader of the Kallmark army, stood by the copper basin, waiting with bowed head for the appearance of the Khan. Kefar Choga was a Mongol Tatar, with the olive face and black eyes of his breed. Beneath his fur cloak his legs bowed to the shape of a horse’s barrel. His bronze helmet reflected the faint light of the Winter sun.

Behind Kefar Choga stood the chieftains of the army, leaders of tribes from the land of the Great Muga, the Khirghiz Steppe, Mongol Tatars. Wrapped in furs, fortified with heavy drinks of arak and hasty mouthfuls of half-raw horse’s flesh against the cold of the mountains, they waited the coming of the man they called Chief of Chiefs, Khan of the Kallmarks.

Near the group of chieftains were ranged the bonzes, priests who had journeyed to the Kallmark court from the kingdom of the Dalai Lama, their chests and arms naked in spite of the morning chill, and their furs white and gray. They poised their stout bodies in an attitude of reverence, not without an inward groan at the discomfort of their position.

In an outer ring thronged the mirzas and tribal leaders who had come to visit the Path of the Khan, as custom demanded, and shared in the hunt. Policy as well as fealty dictated this course, for Tal Taulai Khan was inclined to lay waste the territory of any chieftain who neglected to visit him. With the visitors mingled the leaders of the hunt, Tatar horsemen, Usbek guides, caretakers of the royal packs of dogs.

At some distance from the pavilion, which was mounted on wheels, full two hundred feet wide, and drawn by a hundred yoke of oxen, crowded the courtiers, Mongols and Chinese, loaded with accouterments, jars of refreshment and food should it please the Khan to halt before reaching the next camp, and silken cloths to lay under him if he descended from his horse. They were watchful of the hangings over the door of the pavilion, awaiting the appearance of Tal Taulai Khan.

A cry of welcome went up from the courtiers and visitors as the

far hanging was pushed aside and the figure of the Khan emerged.

For a moment Tal Taulai Khan stood facing the sun, as his

pavilion was always placed to face the sun’s rising place. The

assemblage bowed salutation but the Khan glanced only toward

his horse, waiting by the pavilion steps, Kefar Choga at the bridle.

Seizing the hammer from the attendant at the copper basin,

Tal Taulai Khan struck an impatient summons that echoed the

length of the great camp. Folding his arms over his wide chest, he watched the streams of riders that started from either side of the encampment up the valleys at the note of the gong. A steady stream of horsemen made its way to either flank, to take station perhaps ten miles away, forming the two horns of the human net that was to sweep the hills of game, closing in to a circle, so that Tal Taulai Khan could find and kill the cornered game.

This done, Tal Taulai Khan descended the steps and sprang on his horse with a lightness and agility surprising to one who did not know that the Khan spent the days of many months of the year in saddle, riding with his horde to war or hunt. Once he was seated, the chief’s jeweled turban nodded affably to Kefar Choga, who bowed to the stirrup, remarking to himself that the Khan was in good humor this morning.

Drawing his scimitar from its sheath, Tal Taulai Khan noted with approval that it had been sharpened in the night by Kefar Choga, and, as further evidence of his satisfaction, ordered a beaker of arak to be brought him, which he emptied with a single heave of his furred and silken shoulders.

“Horsemen from the hills,” said he to Kefar Choga, “say that there are many of the horned sheep in the foothills of Uskun Luk Tugra, so there will be excellent sport today. To hunt mountain sheep with spear is better even than slaying a full-grown stag with a sword.”

“That is true, O Chief of Chiefs,” growled Kefar Choga, who had something on his mind. “But the sun must be higher before the beaters are at station on the flanks. Meanwhile, if it pleases you, there is one who would speak with you, the leader of the Krim Tatars, Mirai Mirza.”

In the presence of the Grand Khan, all khans lost their title, being called mirza. Kefar Choga was a man of few words. He had received a hundred good Arab horses with five camel loads of weapons from the hand of Mirai Khan to gain the ear of Tal Taulai at an opportune moment. This, however, he did not mention. The brow of the Kallmark chief darkened.

“Is this the hour, O Kefar Choga,” he responded sulkily, “to think of mirzas or the welfare of tribes? Have the Krim Tatars ever given me aught but disrespect and raids? Mirai Khan was bold to come hither without fifty thousand horsemen. Are the beaters in place yet?”

Kefar Choga mentally vilified the ancestors and descendants of the Krim leader, and hastened to smooth over his mistake.

“In a short hour we can proceed, O Chief of Chiefs,” he muttered, “for I have planned a great hunt for today, with a sweep of twenty miles.” Tal Taulai grunted approval. “Yet already”—Kefar Choga cast about for some means to distract his leader—“already, at sunup our outposts have taken the first game of the day.”

“How did that happen?” the Khan demanded. “What hunter took up his spear before I had ended my kill? Roast the soles of his feet over a fire and throw him to the jackals!”

Kefar Choga held up his hand.

“No spear was taken up, O Chief of Chiefs. This game wandered into the outpost. It was neither stag nor mountain sheep. Never have I seen the like.”

“A jaguar?” Tal Taulai showed immediate interest. “A mar-ten?”

“Neither,” Kefar Choga shook his head. “It was a horseman wearing sheepskin, with a fur hat. Never have I seen the like before. He speaks broken Tatar and says he has journeyed for three moons to come here.”

“I will see him,” said Tal Taulai with some disappointment. “It is well that the outlying chieftains come to the camp.”

Kefar Choga waited for no more, but motioned to a group of his officers who were sitting their horses outside a pavilion nearby. The courtiers and chieftains fell back to allow the group to pass to the Khan, who eyed a tall figure in the midst of the Tatars.

Kefar Choga, Tal Taulai thought, had spoken truth. Never had he seen a man so tan who was swathed in furs, with mustaches the length of his belt and shoes that came to his knees, with blue eyes instead of black.

“What is your name, and tribe?” he demanded.

The newcomer looked inquiringly at Kefar Choga, who rendered the speech of the Khan into Western Tatar speech.

“My name,” said the rider, “is Khlit, surnamed the Wolf. I am come from the Cossacks.”

Tal Taulai considered this when it was repeated to him.

“Like a wolf you look, and show the manners of your breed,” he meditated aloud. “Is he the leader of his tribe, come to render homage?”

To the Khan’s surprise, the Cossack shook his head angrily and growled a response.

“He says,” explained Kefar Choga without emotion, “that the Cossacks do not render homage to anyone. And he is not the leader. He has left them to seek fighting elsewhere. He has heard of the Kallmark Khan, and traveled far to see your face.”

For an instant the Khan stared at Khlit curiously. He was not accustomed to men who sat straight in the saddle when speaking to him and acknowledged no ruler. Then his gaze drifted to the mountains and the spreading lines of horsemen.

“If he is a fighter born, see that he is in the front of the first battle,” he instructed Kefar Choga. “Meanwhile watch him, for I like not these strangers from the West. If the wolf shows his teeth, a spear in the back will make him meat for his brethren.”

V

No further notice was taken of Khlit until nightfall. The Cossack had taken a deer’s quarter from the spoil of the hunt and was preparing to make himself a meal beside his horse when a figure pushed through the throng of Kallmarks around the fires, and Khlit recognized the leader of the army, Kefar Choga.

The Tatar touched him on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow his guidance. At a further word from Choga two of the men seized stakes from the fire and hastily constructed torches with which they accompanied them.

In spite of a long day’s ride over the snow-carpeted mountains Kefar Choga appeared as tranquil as in the morning, although Khlit’s bones—accustomed as he was to the saddle—ached from the toil.

Watchful and curious he followed the chief, noting that speculative glances were cast their way from the throngs around the multitude of fires that blazoned the valleys, as fireflies lighted the steppe of the Ukraine.

Kefar Choga spoke no word until they had passed beyond the camp proper and through the quarters of the outposts where regiments of horsemen nursed their arms beside their mounts or slept from weariness.

It was not until they came to the edge of a cliff that Kefar Choga paused and motioned out into the night. They were standing at the brink of the cliff, but Khlit had concluded that it would not do to show any fear of his surroundings under any circumstances. He was fully aware that in the camp of Tal Taulai Khan the lives of men hung tenderly to their bodies, and a stranger who slept with his back exposed was gambling with perdition if he had anything of value on his person that might tempt the Kallmarks. Stepping to the edge of the cliff, Khlit shaded his eyes from the glare of the torches and looked out. A new moon cast a faint light over the valley below them, which Khlit recognized as one up which the horde of Kallmarks had passed that afternoon.

A curious moaning, snarling sound drifted up to him from the depression, and as he listened a chorus of howls welled up and died down. Hardened as he was to the sights and sounds of the mountains, Khlit drew in his breath sharply.

“Your brethren,” growled Kefar Choga. “Look!”

His eyes being now accustomed to the semigloom, Khlit made out the bed of the valley, which stretched as far as he could see. Hundreds of carcasses of dead horses littered the snow and lay piled in the groups of firs, half-trodden into the ground by the passage of the multitude over them, victim of the cold and labor of the merciless hunt. But the horses were not alone. Dozens

of dead Kallmarks spotted the valley, frozen or crippled during the ride and left by their comrades, who were hardened to such mishaps.

Again the wave of howls uprose on the wind and Khlit noted that the valley seemed alive with moving forms. He understood the meaning of the howls now. A multitude of wolves and jackals was following the Kallmark horde, too numerous to be counted. The valley swarmed with them, as if with vermin.

“It will not be long, Cossack,” observed Kefar Choga pleasantly, “before you lie yonder.”

Khlit swept a quick glance at the Tatar. Kefar Choga was regarding him curiously, his narrow eyes gleaming in the torch-light.

“Be it long or soon,” responded Khlit, “there will be many to keep me company. Aye, the wolves feast high when Khlit of the Curved Saber strikes his last enemy to the earth.”

Kefar Choga grunted. His eyes did not move from the Cossack. Khlit thought to himself that something was upon the mind of the other, but he said nothing, preferring to let the Tatar speak.

“In the camp of Tal Taulai Khan, when the hunt is on, a man is slain more often than a bonze can count. The wolves know this, wherefore they follow.”

Kefar Choga swept his hand toward the valley. Khlit took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, preparing to fill the one from the other. He did not lose sight of the Tatar. It was probable, he thought, that Tal Taulai Khan had expressed a wish that he be thrown to the jackals. Still, Kefar Choga seemed in no hurry to move.

“Harken, Khlit,” said the Tatar leader, “know you a man who calls himself Mirai Mirza, chief of the Krim folk?”

“Aye,” Khlit responded casually, “I know his face.”

“He has no love for you. When you were brought before Tal Taulai Khan this morning I heard him say to another that it would not be long before you had a knife in your back.”

Khlit paused in the act of lighting his pipe at one of the torches. “Mirai Khan is here?” he muttered. “In the camp of the Kallmarks?”

His face did not show how important he considered the news. That Mirai Khan would come without escort to the Kallmarks he had not anticipated, although he expected that the Krim leader would try eventually to unite his forces with those of the Grand Khan.

“He seeks an alliance,” explained Kefar Choga. “Since he has promised your death it will not belong before you lie yonder. The thought came to me to tell you.”

Khlit meditated. Kefar Choga was not one to waste his time in an act of kindness. Rather, he must anticipate something from his trip to the edge of the camp. If Mirai Khan had been long with the Kallmark horde, he would hardly have neglected to buy or barter the friendship of Tal Taulai’s right-hand man. It was more than possible that Kefar Choga and Mirai Khan had an understanding.

If so, his situation was doubly precarious. Mirai Khan would like nothing better than to separate Khlit’s head from his body. If the two were acting together, Kefar Choga’s warning would only be accounted for on either of the grounds. Either he deemed Khlit as good as dead already, or he hoped to work on the fears of the Cossack.

Thus Khlit meditated, and a reply to Kefar Choga came into his mind.

“Say to Mirai Mirza that when he tires of waiting, Khlit’s saber is ready to meet him.”

Kefar Choga threw back his squat head and laughed harshly. “To see the jackal fight the wolf—by the god Fo, they would be well matched!”

“Bring us face to face,” continued Khlit calmly, “and you will see the wolf fight the jackal. It will be a good fight.”

He threw out the remark as a gambler casts his dice. If Mirai Khan was actually planning to take his life—and there was no reason to doubt it—it would be better for Khlit to meet the Krim

Tatar in personal combat. And Kefar Choga was a man who would be pleased to see the two slay each other. So much Khlit had read in his eyes, with the wisdom of years.

And at the same instant he understood the reason for their coming to the spot. And that Kefar Choga was indeed banded with Mirai Khan.

He had stepped forward to light his pipe at the torch held by one of the Kallmarks. Still, he watched Kefar Choga. For the first time he saw the Tatar’s gaze fall from his, and go, involuntarily, behind him. Just a little, the slit eyes narrowed, and the broad mouth opened. Khlit did not stop to think. He acted, with instinctive caution.

He stepped quickly, not backward, but toward Kefar Choga, past the direction of the Tatar’s gaze.

As he did so, he heard a cough behind him, and the figure of Kefar Choga darkened. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the torch behind him whirl over the cliff. Turning, he saw the torchbearer stagger and throw up his am. With a gasping cry the man’s knees gave under him and he toppled forward over the cliff. Not too quickly, however, that Khlit did not see the tuft of an arrow sticking out between his shoulder blades.

Shading his eyes with his hand, his glance flitted over the camp, the groups around the fires and the shadows. Some were staring at him. But of the man who had aimed the arrow at him and sent the torchbearer to death by mistake there was no sign.

“It is useless to look,” snarled Kefar Choga irritably. “The man who shot the arrow is gone. He was a servant of Mirai Mirza, and if he is wise he will not return to his master.”

In his speech there was the anger of the man who has wasted his time vainly.

VI

Many times as the Kallmark horde gained nearer to the slope of Uskun Luk Tugra—which they could now see rising before them, above its circling forests of fir—Khlit, surnamed the Wolf, tried to count on his fingers the thousands of warriors that formed the

hunters of Tal Taulai Khan, and as many times gave up the task as hopeless.

There were more Kallmarks than he had seen in the Krim encampment, more than the trees in the woods of Muscovy, almost as many, he thought, as grains of salt in the sea that is made of white salt in the land of the Usbeks. All the Cossacks of the Siech army would equal no more than a third part of the Black Kallmarks who followed the road of Kefar Choga with their thousand ensigns.

Before he came to the Kallmark camp, Khlit had heard of the horde, but now he marveled at the human river of horsemen that flowed up the passes toward Uskun Luk Tugra.

Left to himself, Khlit found time to meditate. Since that first day Tal Taulai Khan had not noticed him, and Kefar Choga had said no word. Mirai Khan he saw at a distance, near the person of the Khan.

He himself was free to go where he chose in the camp, but he found that the outposts turned him back when he ventured near the limits of the army. At night fires were kept going to warm the guards, and no chance was offered to slip between them, owing to the snow, which outlined the figures of moving men.

The cold had taken a firmer grip on the hunters. Rivers that they bridged were coated with ice. Winds buffeted down from the mountain heights and searched under their fur tunics. Khlit was glad of his warm svitza, heavy boots, and sheepskin hat.

The court, Khlit among them, had taken refuge one night from the icy air in the pavilion of Tal Taulai Khan. The interior of the building was warmed by torches and fires in brazen kettles. On heaps of furs the chieftains sat on the floor drinking arak and swallowing clouds of tobacco smoke from their long pipes.

On the side usually reserved for the women the bonzes sat, whispering among themselves, with an eye to Tal Taulai Khan, who was playing chess in the center of the pavilion with Kefar Choga. The bonzes were favored, as servants of the god Fo, but even favorites were not anxious to risk the cloud of displeasure

which darkened the Khan’s handsome face—displeasure at the poor success of the last few days’ hunt.

Few stags and no horned sheep had been met with and Tal Taulai Khan had withdrawn that afternoon from the chase in anger, leaving the slaughter of wild swine and deer to his attendants.

These things Khlit considered as his glance wandered from the Khan to Mirai, leader of the Krim folk, whose bald head glittered in the torchlight at Kefar Choga’s elbow. Recently, thanks to the influence of Kefar Choga, the Krim leader had enjoyed more favor at the hands of the Grand Khan.

He knew the enmity of Mirai Khan against the Cossacks was such that he would risk much to lead an overpowering horde across the water of the Dnieper. Khlit drew his pipe from his mouth and watched closely, for the chess game had ended and Tal Taulai Khan sat back in his armchair, while Kefar Choga with a low bow acknowledged at once his own defeat, his sovereign’s victory, and the celestial goodness of the Chief of Chiefs to engage in the mimic battle of chess with him.

“Great is your skill, O Chief of Chiefs,” he said quickly, “beyond that of other mortals. Honored am I to help display your potency. Yet, if it please you, there is one who has more skill than I—”

Tal Taulai Khan drank of a bowl of mare’s milk, which is headier than the strongest wine of Cyprus.

“Another?” he said indifferently. “Let him play—we will see if your words are truth.”

Kefar Choga arose and stepped back. The eyes of the assembly searched for the new player, and rested on the bald head and scarred face of the Krim leader, who occupied the defeated general’s seat.

To Khlit the mimic warfare of the chessboard with its jeweled effigies of warrior and castle was a sport for weak minds. Yet he studied the players with intent interest. Tal Taulai Khan, who towered upright in his chair in white furs and silks flaming

with gems, held in his hand the war or peace of three nations. Mirai Khan, crouching over the board, swaddled in a gray cloak, was the spirit urging the Tatar hordes toward the Dnieper and Cossackdom.

Outcast from the Siech, Khlit felt a wave of homesickness for the islands in the Dnieper, the familiar kurens of his jovial comrades, and the sight of the wide steppe. Homesickness was strange to him, and he shook himself angrily. Yet, if he had reasoned the matter, he would have found that his old anger against hetman and Cossack had been replaced by the lifelong enmity for Tatar and Mirai Khan.

It did not escape him that at the end of the game, Mirai Khan did not immediately leave the board, but leaned forward to whisper something to the Kallmark chief. When Mirai Khan arose, the Tatar was stroking his mustache with the air of a man well content

At risk of incurring notice and displeasure, Khlit arose from his seat in a corner of the pavilion and swaggered through the throng, pushing his way among the seated groups until he was beside a Kirghiz warrior who reclined, yawning and picking his teeth, a half-dozen paces from the chessboard. The Kirghiz chieftain looked up warily as Khlit squatted beside him, and scowled.

“Harken, Eagle of the Steppe,” observed Khlit, using the favorite Kirghiz salutation, “did not Mirai Khan say to Tal Taulai that his skill was great beyond understanding?”

The reclining fighter closed one eye lazily, as if meditating whether to reply or no.

“Nay,” he muttered, “Mirai Khan said that the hunt of Tal Taulai was not worthy—that it were better to seek honor beyond the Dnieper where murderous Cossacks were to be found—a tribe that attacks all peoples, as a mad dog bites all he meets—such were worth the attention of Tatars and much spoil was to be got.”

A glance convinced Khlit that the tribesman was too indifferent and too ignorant to make game of him.

“It is the truth,” added the Kirghiz, to vindicate himself of all charge of politeness. “Cossacks are good only to be strung on a spear.”

Khlit ignored the challenge.

“And what did Tal Taulai reply?” he asked in a low tone, for he had not heard.

“Nought,” said the Kirghiz indifferently, seeing that his challenge was not to be taken up.

VII

So drew near its end the great hunt of Tal Taulai Khan on the foothills of Uskun Luk Tugra, when the frozen rivers that came down from the mountains were red, and the annals of Abulghazi Bahadur Sultan told of a hundred camels’ loads of human ears borne away from the spot where the hunt ended—the hunt that was to make memorable the Year of the Ape.

The sun warmed the snow on the slope of Uskun Luk Tugra and flickered on the doorway of Khlit’s pavilion when he awakened on the last day but one of the hunt and found four men with spears, under the leadership of a Kirghiz horseman, at the entrance,

This was in keeping with many changes Khlit had observed in the camp. The morning hunt did not start as usual. There was much bustle and talking among the Kallmarks. Much arak and mare’s milk was drunk. Upon inquiry Khlit learned that it was not permissible for him to leave the pavilion. Kefar Choga had said so.

When the sun was high Kefar Choga came and escorted Khlit to the entrance to Tal Taulai’s pavilion. Groups of Kallmarks stared at him as he went by. Khlit realized that he was attracting more attention than usual.

He found the court of the Khan standing in the open air, Tal Taulai on horseback, attended by Mirai Khan. The Cossack’s

pulse quickened as he understood that he was to be taken before the Kallmark leader.

“Mirai Mirza says,” he heard Choga mutter in his ear, “that you have the cunning of a dozen serpents and the craft of a score of wolves, but I see it not. You have not slain a man, or taken spoil since coming to camp.”

Khlit was silent, watchful of what went on, and especially of Tal Taulai Khan, who was stroking a falcon on his wrist.

The eyes of the chieftains sought out the Cossack and a silence fell upon them as he stood upright before the Khan. A change had taken place in his fortunes, although he was still armed and ostensibly unmolested, and Khlit, who knew the quickness of misfortune in the Kallmark camp, watched the Khan for a sign of what was coming. He did not like the new honor that had come to Mirai Khan. Tal Taulai lifted his gaze from the falcon and his dark eyes swept over Khlit caressingly.

“The Cossacks,” he said softly, and Kefar Choga interpreted, “are a nation of beasts that form a plague spot on the edge of my kingdom. By the words of my good servant Mirai Khan, I have come to know of their iniquity. They must be punished. As a plague spot is burned from a man’s body, they shall be scourged.”

Khlit made no reply for a space. He had feared that the alliance between the two Khans might be completed. It was not to his liking to listen to insult to the Cossacks.

“Mirai Khan,” he responded to Kefar Choga, “has told you twisted truth out of the evil heart. The Cossacks are a free people. Ask Mirai Khan how often the Tatar horde has entered the Ukraine. Ask him how many times he has made an ally of the Turk to harass Russia.”

Khlit’s boldness had little effect an the composure of Tal Taulai Khan, who was not wont to alter decisions once formed. After a short conference with Mirai Khan the Kallmark leader turned to Kefar Choga.

“How is a thief punished in your land, Cossack?” the leader of the army interpreted.

“By hanging,” replied Khlit.

“And a deserter in war?”

“He is shot.”

“And a drunkard in time of war?”

“By drowning.”

“How is a murderer punished?”

“By burial alive.”

Kefar Choga made Tal Taulai Khan acquainted with what Khlit had said.

“The Chief of Chiefs says,” he explained, “out of the depths of his limitless wisdom, that no free people would endure such punishments, wherefore you have lied in saying the Cossacks were free. And he says that a tribe that dealt with each other so harshly would be merciless to others. Wherefore he holds that Mirai Mirza’s words must be true—that the Cossacks are no less than a breed of murderers and ravaging dogs that must be exterminated.”

Anger welled up in Khlit.

“Turks and Tatars,” he shouted, “who have faced the Cossack army know that we are not dogs—yet there are few who have lived to tell of it. Tal Taulai Khan will come to grieve for the day he lifts his arm against the Cossacks if his horde is more numerous than the wolves on the plain.”

Kef ar Choga frowned.

“Already,” he told Khlit, “costly presents of jewels from Pekin, sapphires from Kabul, gold ornaments from Samarkand, with rare weapons from Damascus and countless silken cloths, are pre-pared in baskets for the Krim folk to be sent on ahead as an omen of alliance. Krim Tatar and Kallmark Tatar will turn their swords against the Cossacks.”

Tal Taulai Khan was growing impatient of the audience with the captive Cossack.

“Ask him what punishment he deserves,” he told Kefar Choga. “Whether to be hanged as a thief or buried alive as a murderer. Let him decide.”

Khlit’s heart was heavy. He saw no mercy in the eyes of the Tatar gathering. Rather, indifference. Yet Khlit had sent many men to death. He drew himself up and crossed his arms.

“Decide,” growled the Kallmark general, “or I will speak for you.”

Khlit shook his head angrily. Neither death was to his liking. He had his sword, and his arms were free. He could go to his death as a Cossack should, weapon in hand. He stepped forward and held up his hand.

“Say to Tal Taulai Khan,” he responded, “that he can see with his own eyes the valor of a Cossack—greater than all else on earth. Say that Khlit, surnamed the Wolf by his enemies, will fight against the Kallmark horde. Say that Tal Taulai Khan can have sport at the hunt for following game that is not stag or tiger.”

“How mean you?” questioned Choga.

“This. There can be a hunt tomorrow at the foot of Uskun Luk Tugra. It will begin here, with Kallmark cavalry far out to either side, and continue to the slope of the mountain. There it must end, for the way to the summit of the mountain is hidden. Tal Taulai Khan can see how a Cossack fights.”

“Bah, dog!” Kefar Choga spat derisively. “Think you the Kallmark horde will hunt for one man?”

“You asked,” retorted Khlit, “that I choose a manner of death, and I have chosen. Let me ride away from the camp toward the mountains, and the Kallmarks take up the chase.”

“Nay, that would bring us, perchance, among the Krim ranks —” remonstrated Choga, when a motion from Tal Taulai cut him short.

“The Cossack has chosen,” the Khan cried, “and it shall be so. It will be a great hunt. Better game is this than stags. We will chase the wolf. Guard him until then.”

“That were not wise,” broke in Kefar Choga angrily. Tal Taulai scowled.

“Who mutters when the Khan of Khans orders?” he cried. “Kefar Choga! I have ordered. Keep the Cossack in the guarded pavil-

ion where the gifts for the Krim chiefs are stored. See that he is well mounted and armed tomorrow. Let him not be harmed meanwhile. It will be a good chase.”

VIII

As a gambler handles his dice before making a final throw, Khlit, surnamed the Wolf, sat captive that night in the pavilion where the gifts of Tal Taulai Khan to the chieftains of the Krim folk were stored, and thought deeply.

Around him were stacked woven baskets of gems, silks, gold, and weapons. Costly rugs were heaped on the floor. Incense and curiously wrought Chinese vessels ranged around the wall, with sets of priceless armor, silver and gold inlaid, from Damascus and Milan. He could have taken up in his hand the ransom of a Polish

voevod.

It was not the treasure, destined as a bond of friendship between Kallmark Tatar and Krim Tatar, that occupied the Cossack’s mind. He could have placed a score of emeralds in his pocket from the nearest basket without being observed by the guards, yet it was out of the question to try to escape from the pavilion. Khlit was a marked man, having been sentenced to run before the Khan’s hunt on the morrow.

Even if it had been possible to slip out of the pavilion, the Cossack could not have gone a dozen paces through the camp without being seen and overpowered. By his readiness of wit in the morning he had won himself a chance—a slender chance—for freedom and he was not minded to risk incurring the attention of the Khan again.

Khlit’s thoughts were not engaged with his own welfare alone. The success of the Krim leader in leaguing with Tal Taulai Khan was like gall in the mouth to the Cossack whose feud with Mirai Khan dated back to the days when he had first won knighthood in the Siech. More than anything else, Khlit longed for the over-throw of the Krim leader; while Mirai Khan had lost no opportunity to scheme for his death at the hands of the Kallmarks.

The dice of fate, Khlit meditated, were favoring the Tatar. Yet he was not ready to abide by the fall of the dice. It was Khlit’s nature to fight while life was in him, and so it happened that he took up his pair of Turkish pistols from his belt. Tearing a strip of silk from a hanging, the Cossack began carelessly to clean his weapons, as if intent on preparing them for the morrow, when Tal Taulai Khan had decreed that he ride armed from the camp.

In doing so, he placed himself in full view of the Kirghiz captain of his guard, who loitered by the pavilion entrance. He did not look up as the warrior approached him.

There was silence while Khlit polished his weapons and the Kirghiz watched.

“Spawn of the devil,” observed the Kirghiz presently, “those are too fine a brace of pistols to belong to an idolatrous Cossack. I will take them.”

“Son of the son of swine,” replied Khlit calmly, “the pistols are indeed choice. Yet will you not have them, for the word of Tal Taulai Khan was that I should be armed. Will the Grand Khan hear that one of his captains has despoiled the prisoner?”

The Kirghiz scowled and was silent. The displeasure of Tal Taulai Khan was not to be invoked lightly. This time it was Khlit who spoke.

“Nevertheless, nameless one, it is in my mind that I will sell the pistols, for I take only a saber tomorrow. And the price is cheap. Where is Kefar Choga?”

The Kirghiz muttered under his breath.

“One told me,” he responded, “that Kefar Choga was at chess in the pavilion of the Krim mirza. I know not. What price do you ask for the pistols, Cossack?”

“This.” Khlit held up one of the weapons and regarded its shining barrel, while the other’s eyes gleamed. “Go quickly to Kefar Choga and say that I would see him, for there is much I would tell him. What hour is the hunt to begin?”

“When the sun is highest. Tal Taulai would wait until the early cold is gone, and the presents are dispatched to the Krim tribes who wait nearby in the northern foothills of Uskun Luk Tugra.”

“Then say to Kefar Choga I would see him before dawn. You say Mirai Khan is with him?”

“Why should I lie, dog?” demanded the Kirghiz impatiently. “I am wasting breath—give me the pistols.”

Without waiting for permission, he caught up the weapons from Khlit and stuck them in his belt. Retracing his steps to the door, he crouched and lit a pipe over the embers of the watchmen’s fires. For a long hour he did not move, to show his contempt for the prisoner’s request.

On his part Khlit did not make the mistake of again addressing the man, but watched until the Kirghiz rose, yawned heavily, and sauntered forth. Then the Cossack pulled at his mustache and counted the men remaining in the pavilion. There were eight.

Drawing out the curved blade which had won the title of Khlit of the Curved Saber, he set it across his knees and sharpened the edge with a small piece of sandstone which he carried in his pocket for that purpose. Outside the pavilion he heard the brazen basin at the door of Tal Taulai Khan mark the passage of the hours. He calculated that it was midway between midnight and the first streak of dawn.

Through the entrance of the structure he could see the moon-light on the fir-clad slope of Uskun Luk Tugra, on the summit of which, reached by a hidden way, was the frozen lake and the ever-burning fire of green. It was cold in the pavilion, but Khlit made no move to join the others by the fire.

He did not stir as steps echoed outside. Several of the arakdulled Tatars scrambled to their feet as the hangings were pulled back and three figures entered.

Khlit, with a quick upward glance, recognized the stocky, helmeted form of Kefar Choga, and the cloaked figure of Mirai Khan. He had guessed truly that Mirai Khan would come to the treasure

pavilion, curious to hear what he wished to say to the Kallmark. Not in vain had Khlit dealt with the Krim leader for many years.

Scheming and distrustful of others, Mirai Khan had viewed with suspicion the request of the Cossack. He himself had bribed Kefar Choga at heavy cost. It was not impossible that Khlit might do the same.

Khlit made no movement to rise. He continued to stroke the edge of his saber while the Tatars gained his side and stood looking down at him. By the flicker of the torchlight the Cossack could see that Kefar Choga was swaying slightly on his bowlegs, as a stunted pine rocks in the wind, from the effects of arak. Mirai Khan, however, showed no ill results.

The Kirghiz chieftain, seeing that nothing of interest was occurring, withdrew to the fire. Kefar Choga and Mirai Khan waited. Still Khlit did not speak.

“The dawn is near the top of Uskun Luk Tugra,” observed Mirai Khan, gloating, “when these costly gifts shall be sent in baskets to my people a few miles to the east, you shall be brought to ground at the hand of the first hunter who overtakes you. Is your blood cold, Cossack, or do you tremble with fear at the sight of Tatars?”

“Speak!” growled Kefar Choga, aiming an unsteady kick at Khlit’s ribs. The Cossack grunted, but took no further notice of the insult.

“The army of the Siech,” continued Mirai Khan viciously, “will tremble when they hear that the hordes of Tal Taulai Khan and the Krim folk are rolling down the mountains toward them. It is a good hunt that begins tomorrow.”

Khlit sought the Khan’s glance with his own.

“Nay,” he said, “the hunt ends tomorrow, when the gifts of Tal Taulai Khan reach the Krim chieftains.”

“That is a lie, Cossack dog,” muttered Kefar Choga, “for you will be chased to Uskun Luk Tugra as a mad jackal is hunted by the pack. Aye, it will give us a taste of what is to come.”

“Of Cossack blood,” amended Mirai Khan mockingly.

“The Tatar horde is restless,” went on Kefar Choga, “for the hunt is barren and it is written in the books that there will be a big battle in the Year of the Ape, which draws toward its close. Speak, Cossack, will there be a good chase tomorrow or will you drop from fright at the first sight of pursuers? Ha! What say you?”

“It will be a good chase.”

“My tribes to the north in the mountain passes will watch,” grinned Mirai Khan, thrusting his bald head closer to Khlit, “and perchance you will wander into their midst and be slain by a Krim blade.”

“I will go to the northern passes,” assented Khlit, nodding gravely, his eyes on the Krim Tatar, “but no Krim blade will be honored with blood of Khlit, surnamed the Wolf. Many Krim hands have fallen lifeless that lifted against me, Mirai Khan. Know you not the past, when your horsemen died at my hand? Remember the battles of the Dneiper! Remember the ride of Khlit through your camp on the steppe!”

“Bah,” said Kefar Choga, as Mirai Khan meditated evilly, “a swine marked for slaughter will squeal. The Cossack is doomed.” “Tomorrow,” muttered Khlit, “the hunt will end.”

“It is not written so,” objected Kefar Choga.

“The shamans say,” broke in Khlit, “that only under the leadership of Mirai Khan may Krim Tatars achieve victory.”

Something like a grunt of surprise echoed from Mirai Khan. At the same instant Khlit, without stirring from his crouching position, flung the curved saber up with both hands.

It was well for Mirai Khan that he was watchful and suspicious. Otherwise he would have died quickly. For he stood close to Khlit, and so rapid was the upward sweep of the saber in the Cossack’s arms that the blade clipped a strip of skin from the Tatar’s bald forehead, even as he sprang back.

So it happened that Kefar Choga, excellent warrior as he was, had not time to dash the stupor from his eyes and draw his blade when two crouching figures glided about the pavilion, and two

curved sabers made unceasing play of light before his astonished gaze.

Not less skillful than Khlit with the sword was Mirai Khan. Warding the Cossack’s thrusts and feeling warily for foothold as he retreated, Mirai Khan clung to his life desperately. Wrapping his cloak over his left arm, he made shift to use the latter as a shield.

Kefar Choga and his Tatars gathered near the combatants, yet so swift was the movement of the men and so varied the play of sword that none were willing to try to lay hand on Khlit.

Pressing the surprise of his attack with all the strength of great height and reach, the Cossack allowed his enemy no moment of breathing space. His plan called for quick action, and though he had missed the first blow, Khlit saw that he had won an advantage.

The glancing blow on the Tatar’s forehead had broken the skin, wherefore was Mirai Khan forced to shake the drops of blood from his eyes. Fearing to be blind by the flow of blood, he cursed savagely and made to come to grips with the Cossack. Khlit was careful to keep him at arm’s length, and to turn quickly, as he struck, against a blow from behind. The Kallmarks, however, were still numbed with arak and the surprise of the captive’s assault.

All the anger of a score of years surged up in Khlit as he felt the blade of his enemy against his own. So far the dice of fate had been good to him, and he had been able to single out the Krim Tatar for attack. Khlit was not the man to let slip an advantage once gained. He watched the eye of Mirai Khan narrowly, pressing him backward around the enclosure.

As for Kefar Choga, twin feelings perplexed him. Ordinarily he would be willing to let one kill the other without troubling himself to feel concerned over the issue. Yet Tal Taulai Khan had planned an alliance with the tribes of Mirai Khan, and while the death of the latter might not interest the Grand Khan more than

the slaying of a horse, there was the chance that he might be displeased over the miscarriage of his plans.

Balancing the possible disapproval of his sovereign against the probable injury to himself should he try to interfere, Kefar Choga was unable to come to a conclusion. Dire was the anger of the Kallmark leader if aroused.

The Kirghiz warrior squatted on some carpets out of reach of the fighting men and smiled. If Khlit were killed, he could sleep in comfort, not being obliged to keep watch. If Mirai Khan died, Khlit might then be slain immediately, and still he could sleep. But in a moment the smile faded in a look of interest.

The end of the duel had come as quickly as the beginning. Khlit had been waiting for the moment when the blood from the forehead might confuse Mirai Khan’s aim. As he watched he saw the Tatar throw his left hand to his head in an effort to free himself of the menace.

Panting from the violence of the attack, Khlit had nevertheless kept much strength in reserve, and as the other’s left arm went up the Cossack brought his saber down in a feint at Mirai Khan’s skull.

It was the oldest trick in the art of the sword, and in a warier moment the Tatar might have smiled at it. Confused by the blood, he flung up his own blade, parried at Khlit’s and grunted with terror as he met empty air.

Whirling his saber down, Khlit slashed savagely at the other’s side. Under the cloak of Mirai Khan the blade passed, and Kefar Choga shrugged his shoulders as he strove to escape from under Khlit. Writhing back, the blade of the Cossack fell full upon the neck of Mirai Khan, and the latter’s head dropped, held to the body only by the flesh muscles of one side of his neck. The curved sword of his enemy had nearly severed head from shoulders.

Kefar Choga watched while the legs of Mirai Khan drew up slowly and were still. Khlit stepped back, panting, and eyed them.

“It is written in the law of the Cossack,” said Kefar Choga to his men, “that a murderer shall be buried alive, yet will we

deal generously with this man and slay him on the scene of his crime.”

The Kirghiz chieftain drew a long knife and stepped toward Khlit while a half-dozen swords flashed in the torchlight. Still farther Khlit drew back and held up his hand. He sheathed his saber in its scabbard.

“The word of Tal Taulai Khan!” he cried. “No man may take sword or spear against the game marked for the chase of the Grand Khan. Did he not say so this morning in the council? Who is the man to go against the word of the Chief of Chiefs?”

The Tatars halted and sought each other with questioning glances.

“Tal Taulai Khan himself has said,” went on Khlit calmly, although his breath came deeply, “that none shall harm me until the hunt, and that weapons shall be given me. Who shall say otherwise?” He swept the circle of Tatars with his eyes. “There was a feud between Mirai Khan and the Wolf,” he went on, “and Mirai Khan had an arrow shot at my back. Kefar Choga himself saw. Wherefore is Mirai Khan dead. The feud is settled. Why not?”

With a last look at his enemies, Khlit turned his back. Taking up the sword of Mirai Khan, he stooped and with a quick stroke freed the head from the body of the Tatar. Placing the head beside him, he sat down.

Kef ar Choga murmured under his breath, for the back of Khlit was turned toward them.

IX

And so came near the end of the great hunt of Tal Taulai Khan in the Year of the Ape, as written in the annals Of Abulghazi Bahadur Sultan. Also is the tale of the last day and night, when the moon was full on the green fire that burned on Uskun Luk Tugra, written in the books of the bonzes who carried the news to the Dalai Lama in the mountains of Tibet.

The annals of Abulghazi Bahadur Sultan tell how fifty yoke of oxen carried baskets of gifts from the Kallmark Khan to the Krim chieftains at dawn of the last day of the hunt.

And now none spoke to Tal Taulai Khan until noon, for there was a frown on the face of the Khan, and Mirai Khan had been slain in the night, and no man was willing to lose his life in telling the news.

Never had a hunt begun with such preparations. Khlit, from his pavilion, where he sat alone under guard by the headless body of Mirai Khan, had watched the departure of the gifts that were to ally Tatar with Tatar and overwhelm the Siech. He heard the beat of horses’ hoofs as riders rode out to stations to the north and south ready for the beginning of the chase.

When the beat of hoofs had ceased, Khlit knew that the horde of Tal Taulai Khan stretched for a score of miles in a crescent. He had polished the blade of his saber, wiping away all traces of blood, and the Tatar guards heard strange sounds in the pavilion, for Khlit was endeavoring to sing to himself.

He sang in a harsh guttural the annals of the Ukraine that have no end, and the Kirghiz chieftain cursed, for no sleep would come to him. When his song was ended, Khlit had crossed himself devoutly, first removing his hat, and sheathed his saber against the summons to mount.

And the Tatars who thronged about the pavilion as Tal Taulai Khan struck the summons to the chase on the copper basin saw a strange sight. A choice Arab horse had been picked for Khlit by Kefar Choga himself.

“When you are loosed,” snarled the Tatar as he motioned for Khlit to come from the pavilion, “I shall not be far behind. We have a score to settle, you and I, by the name of the great god Fo!”

“Even so,” answered Khlit, and the Tatars murmured in surprise.

For they had seen the captive that was to be hunted to death leap from the steps of the pavilion to the back of his mount, and, lashing the horse’s flank with his Cossack whip, ride like a frightened bird through the camp. On the back of his horse Khlit stood upright, his cloak flying behind him, and his saber whirling around his head. He rode so, and when he was lost to view around

the first group of fir trees, sank to his saddle and settled into a long stride toward the slope of Uskun Luk Tugra.

As he went, Khlit surveyed his surroundings critically. Much of the lay of the land he had learned from the Tatars in camp. The slope of Uskun Luk Tugra, fir-clad and rising to forbidding cliffs, began some half-dozen miles in front of him. Up this he could not go unless he knew one of the concealed pathways that were the secret of the Tartar shamans who thus guarded the green fire that burned at night.

On each side of him were the snow-coated hillocks, rock-strewn, with scattered groves of stunted firs that served to conceal him temporarily from his pursuers. To the north these hillocks stretched into the mountain passes where escape was not possible. To the south was a waste of snow and rock ravines that promised no thoroughfare.

Khlit wasted no time in hesitating as to his course. At the first opening in the firs he turned north.

He was passing now between silent ranks of evergreens, twisting and dodging in and out to avoid thickets, but keeping his course by the sun, which was high overhead. A glance showed him that he was leaving a clear trail in the snow.

Somewhere behind him he knew that Kefar Choga and Tal Taulai Khan, fired with the lust of the hunt, were upon his tracks, with their packs of dogs and horsemen. On each side of him the riders from the wings were closing in.

Khlit did not hurry. He steadied his horse to a rapid gallop, feeling with approval the pliable muscles of his mount’s chest and forelegs. The horse was fresh and needed little urging. When he came to a thicket, Khlit halted and drew out pipe and tobacco. As he struck spark to tinder he listened. The horse pricked up his ears. Some distance behind, Khlit heard the faint shouts of men. Although there was no sound of the dogs, he know that they were on the trail, under the eye of Tal Taulai Khan himself.

Urging his mount forward, Khlit resumed his flight to the north. The Cossack was not given to overmuch thought, yet he

pondered the lot of Mirai Khan. Yesterday the dice of fate had fallen as the Krim leader wished. Today Mirai Khan was a name on the tongues of men. The old feud was settled. How was he, Khlit, to fare? Were the two enemies to fall together at the last of the Grand Khan’s hunt? Was Khlit decreed by the dice of fate to return to the Dnieper and to tell how the hunt had ended?

Of one thing Khlit was aware. Greater things would come to pass that day than were in the mind of Kefar Choga, or of the consummate chess player, Tal Taulai Khan. Greater even than written in the books of bonzes. Of that he was certain.

Khlit had told Mirai Khan that he would turn his horse’s head to the Krim tribes to the north. As he had promised, he did, hasting on at a pace that kept him just within earshot of the pursuing horsemen.

But now a change had come over Khlit. A little while ago he had been looking back over his shoulder as he rode. Now he watched the way ahead, scanning each clump of brush as he approached and eyeing tracks in the snow which became more frequent.

That he must be nearing the Krim encampment, he knew, yet there was no sound, nor could he see horsemen in his occasional glimpses up ravines ahead. He selected high ground and rode cautiously.

X

The sun was well past its highest point and the shadows of the firs were lying prostrate across his path when Khlit came face to face with the first of the Krim folk.

Galloping into a clearing in the firs, he drew his horse sharply back.

The clearing was filled with moving forms of men. Khlit recognized the small figures and round helmets of the Krim cavalry. Each horseman was fully armed with bow at his saddles side and quiver at his back. The leaders drew rein and stared at Khlit, who raised his hand to attract attention.

“Listen, men of the steppe,” he said quickly.

The remaining horsemen came to a halt, at the summons of Khlit’s raised hand. Their keen ears were strained into the distance. Khlit saw several whisper together. At the same instant he caught the sound of the pursuit, louder than before, and the crashing of many horsemen in the brush.

“Hey, men of the steppe,” he cried, “do you hear the hunt of Tal Taulai Khan approaching? The Kallmark horde is not on the chase!”

At a signal from one of their number the Tatars divided, passing to each side into the bush. Khlit waited quietly, hand near his sword, but none came near him. With a breath of relief he spurred on his horse, choosing the thickest cover and bending low in the saddle.

His quick eye did not miss the change in the woods.

Cleared spaces showed him vistas of moving horsemen. Thickets revealed Tatar helmets standing stationary. The snow under-ground was thickly trampled. Khlit must be nearing the Tatar camp, yet he saw no signs of tents or cattle herds.

Farther into the ranks of the Krim folk he trotted, his skill sufficing to keep him from running into the moving groups.

Isolated Tatars galloped full upon him, stared, and passed on at sight of his drawn sword. Once he caught the sound of horns blaring in the hills above him.

He heard a shot echo behind him. Then another, followed by a crackle of shots that seemed to roll up the hills and back into the valleys. Khlit stopped his horse in a grove and listened. The woods behind him were stirring with sound. Shots continued, and he caught the frightened neigh of a horse. Trumpets sounded from several quarters. Truly the hunt of Tal Taulai Khan, he considered, was growing.

Making fast the reins of his horse to a tree trunk, Khlit clambered from its back to the branches of the fir. Grunting with distaste, for climbing trees was not to his liking, he gained a height where he could look out over his surroundings.

He had a full view of the hunt of Tal Taulai Khan. Swarming over the wooded ridges in his rear, distinct against the snow, he saw myriads of horsemen, interspersed with packs of dogs. Every clearing was black with men moving up into the hills. The hunt was drawing its net about him. Yet Khlit was not alone in the net.

Moving down from the hills, in the valleys he could make out swarms of brown-cloaked riders, mounted on small steppe ponies. These were the Krim Tatars, moving from their encampment. Restlessly they pushed ahead, frequently stopping to consult together or to rally to the colored ensigns which led the warriors of each tribe. Were the Krim Tatars riding to a chase? Had they decided to come down to meet the Kallmark Tatars? Were they uneasy for Mirai Khan, their leader of a score of years? Khlit tugged at his mustache and watched them narrowly.

As he watched he heard the crackle of shots growing like the snapping of fire, and a dull shouting arose. The dice of fate, thought Khlit, were thrown upon the board and he must abide by the issue.

“If Mirai Khan leads the Krim Tatars into battle,” he quoted to himself, “there will be victory.”

But Mirai Khan was dead. The one man who know the hearts of both Kallmark Tatar and Krim Tatar, who had tried to bring together these nations long hostile, was not living.

As he watched Khlit learned the meaning of the shots that grew into a long roll. Across one of the clearings he saw a regiment of Kallmarks gallop. Uneasily the riders moved about, a few horsemen darting out to left and right as if to learn what was going on nearby. Then Khlit saw a strange thing. The leading riders sank from their horses to the ground, writhed, and lay still. Those following went forward a few paces, their ranks thinning.

Distant as he was, Khlit could make out a flight of arrows that swept from the woods into the Kallmark ranks. Other bands of brown-cloaked and helmeted Tatars that were not Kallmarks

emerged from the wood and drew in around the remaining riders. Swords flickered in the sun’s rays.

And then more Kallmarks swarmed into the clearing. The riders now were so mingled that there was no telling Kallmark from Krim. Yet always, they fell to the snow, singly and in groups.

He had seen what he wanted.

“It will be a good hunt,” he said softly, climbing upon his horse, for above the shouts and confusion he caught the sound of horsemen approaching him.

XI

Glancing back, Khlit saw several figures come into view a quarter mile behind him. He made out the squat, menacing form of Kefar Choga, wearing the cloak embroidered with his rank, and the tall Kirghiz chieftain. They rode behind a pack of dogs. By chance or keen scent the pack had followed him through the maze of firs.

Khlit bent low to avoid a possible pistol shot and urged his horse to full pace. Kefar Choga did likewise, accompanied by the Kirghiz. Khlit’s mount had had a brief rest, but the other two appeared as fresh. Looking back a second time, the Cossack saw that the distance had neither grown nor diminished. He remembered Kefar Choga’s promise to find him out in the hunt, and he knew that the Kallmark was not one to be lightly shaken off.

Khlit regretted that he had disposed of his pistols to the Kirghiz as he heard the crack of a shot behind him and saw the snow fly up a short distance ahead.

Turning aside, he swept through a thicket down into a ravine, dodged among some boulders, and came out on the level again to find that Kefar Choga had won a hundred paces nearer. Waving his hand at the Kallmark, he urged his horse up a rise, listening for the crack of a pistol.

The tired beast stumbled and floundered its way to the summit. Although the two pursuers should have been near them, instead he heard a sound that made him turn in his saddle.

Kefar Choga had pulled his mount to a sudden halt. The Kirghiz drew up beside him. The pack of dogs scattered to ev-

ery quarter. In Khlit’s ear echoed the shrill battle cry of the Krim Tatars.

A troop of the Krim warriors whom he had not seen on his flank had circled around the Kallmark horsemen. One of them pointed to Kefar Choga’s cloak with an exclamation. As a pack of wolves dart in on a stag at bay the horsemen swerved and rode at the two.

The Kirghiz coolly discharged his other pistol without effect. Khlit saw one Krim rider and then another go down before Kefar Choga’s weapon. Then the horsemen crowded into a circle. The flashing swords were sheathed, and Khlit knew that the last of his pursuers was out of the way.

Wisely deciding not to attract the attention of the Krim cavalry to himself, he trotted on and found that he was making his way into the encampment of the Krim Tatars. Gray tents stood on every quarter. Embers of fires blackened the snow. Empty wagons were ranged at intervals. In the camp Khlit saw no man stirring

Looking about him curiously, he had almost gained the farther side of the camp, on the point nearest the Uskun Luk Tugra, which loomed overhead, when he saw a movement in one of the tents.

Guiding his horse thither, Khlit noted that outside were piled heaps of baskets that appeared familiar. Costly rugs were torn into shreds on the snow. Gold vessels had been trampled under-foot. The baskets themselves had been emptied and cast aside. Khlit pondered as he eyed the remnants of Tal Taulai Khan’s gifts to the Krim Tatars.

Recalling the movement in the tent, he swept the tent pole to the ground with his saber. The cloth covering writhed as it lay prostrate.

“Unnamed one,” growled Khlit, “come, or be spitted to the ground.” The movement under the tent hastened and presently a dismal-looking figure stood upright. A red cloak was tangled in the man’s leg and the front of his undergarment bulged, while from it hung an emerald necklace, with a sapphire cross.

“Hey, shaman,” greeted Khlit, remembering his acquaintance of the steppe, “are you a vulture that you prey upon the gifts of a khan? Disgorge the jewels, toad, and come here.”

The shaman obeyed, his face quivering with fright.

“It is the day of fate,” he whimpered, “it is the doom of the Krim folk. The Black Kallmarks are marching upon us. Their lines draw in like a net. They are traitors and idolatrous— foresworn! Before today we had awaited them as friends.”

“Where is Mirai Khan, who leads the Krim Tatars to victory?” mocked Khlit.

“Aie!” the shaman wailed, stuffing a costly necklace unnoticed by Khlit into his sleeve, “Mirai Khan is dead, his head severed from his body. It is the beginning of doom for the Krim nation. None shall survive the net of the Black Kallmarks, who are more numerous than the sands of the salt sea—”

He broke off to cower as the din of combat swept up to the two. Khlit’s nostrils expanded as with pleasure. He hearkened to the cries and shots that echoed from every quarter of the hills.

“It is not my doom, devil take it,” he cried. “Come shaman, show the way to the summit of Uskun Luk Tugra, the roof of the world, for our tribe knows it well. The doom of this day is great for the Kallmark hunters who have found other game than they sought, yet it is written that you and I, the wolf and the serpent, shall pass through.”

Wherefore it happened that Khlit rode silently behind the moaning form of the conjurer up concealed paths in Uskun Luk Tugra, past waterfalls that moistened his horse’s feet, and between chasms that glowed on their summits with green fire until he came out on the snow of the summit and stood amazed at the flat field of shimmering glow that seemed to be the fires of a thousand devils, soft, as deep as an emerald’s glow.

“By my faith,” he swore, “is this the court of the devil? No land was ever so flat, and fires burn red, not green.”

He shuddered, while the shaman edged close to his horse for warmth, for the cold on the roof of the world was great.

“Nay, noble Cossack,” he whined, “the flat is but a frozen lake, and the fire is not flame but light. See”—he caught up a bit of rotten wood—“it is harmless. We call it phosphorus and it lies on the dead trees that were killed when the lake gripped their roots.”

The shaman laid his flaming hand on the mane of the horse, which did not stir.

“It is well,” said Khlit. “Come.”

And the journey of the two continued along the lake, lit by the green fire, until they could see down into the valleys where the two hordes had been.

Many fires were there, and over all the dim light of the moon.

The outer wings of Tal Taulai Khan’s host were engaged with the remnants of the Krim army. Khlit watched for so long that the shaman became faint with the cold.

Fires that had spread in the groves of firs lighted the landscape and showed where horsemen moved in countless ranks over the farther hills. Khlit had eyes only for sight of this, but the shaman, who had suffered much, shuddered when he saw that the battle-field abandoned by the horsemen was black with moving objects. No sound came up to them, but he recognized the wolves that followed in the track of Tal Taulai’s horde, covering the scene of the battle, like vermin upon a wound.

So Khlit saw the end of the hunt of Tal Taulai Khan.

For those who care to know more of the matter there are the annals of Abulghazi Bahadur Sultan, wherein is found an account of how the horde of Tal Taulai Khan turned back from the hunt after the great battle of two days and one night in which the tribe of Mirai Khan was annihilated.

It was thus that the prophecy written concerning the Year of the Ape was fulfilled, although it was the Krim Tatars and not the Cossacks that fought the Grand Khan. In the annals of Abulghazi Bahadur Sultan it is explained that the battle began when the host of the Black Kallmarks advanced unawares against the Krim

tribe. Yet the cause of the battle, as written in the annals, was otherwise.

It was due to the gifts of Tal Taulai Khan to the Krim chieftains. For out of the first basket from the Grand Khan opened by the Krim men rolled the head of Mirai Khan, leader of the Krim horde. Yet it is written in the annals that Tal Taulai Khan afterward took an oath upon an image of a god that neither he nor his men had placed the head of Mirai Khan in the baskets that were sent as gifts, not otherwise.