Examining several of the human remains with a professional eye, Casca found indicators that spoke of violent death; a clean cut in the skull made by a sword, cracked ribs which could have come from a blow with a club or mace and several had arrowheads lodged in the ribs. There was no sign of wooden shafts or anything of wood. As the desert provided little wood, the raiders would naturally have taken any they found usable, even for extra kindling to throw on theirfires.
In the three days it took Casca to reach Ho-T'ien, he encountered two caravans, one of which numbered over three hundred pack animals carrying cargoes of rare spices, gems, ivory, slaves and the item most coveted by the matrons of Rome: silk. The caravans were well-armed, escorted by hired bands of mercenaries and slaves who preferred to work for the caravan masters rather than the desert raiders. Many of the mercenaries were Huns remaining from the Eastern tribes that hadn't been forced out by the pressures of the Hsuing-nu and had been migrating in ever greater numbers to the west.
These were tough men who had spent so much time in the saddle that their legs were deformed-they could hardly stand on even ground. As children their faces had been seared with red hot irons to stop the growth of beards, leaving only the upper lip with long mustaches that reached below their chins. In contrast, Casca also noticed a number of blue-eyed riders from the Caucasus mountains who were like giants next to the gnome-like Huns when standing. But in the saddle, the Huns with their laminated bows were the equal-if not the master-of all they met.
Casca hoarded his water even though his map showed water only a few days from Ho-T'ien. He felt relief when he reached the banks of the Khotan. He crossed a river shallow enough to be forded and made his way into a prosperous city. The predominant race was the same as Tsin, from Han. These were the merchant princes who bought and sold cargoes for transshipment east and west. Though the largest bulk of commerce went to the west, there was little that the Han needed from the barbarian countries to the west. When the merchants reached their destinations, they would sell all goods, animals and slaves and then wait until enough of them were gathered to hire a new batch of guards to protect them and make the long journey back, this time much faster without the hin-derance of pack animals. One successful journey could make a man as rich as a Persian prince. The dangers were great-as attested to by the thousands of bones lying along the trail-but so were the rewards.
Casca made his way through clean streets without the familiar garbage smell of Europe. Bright intelligent faces watched his progress with interest. This was a city that thrived on visitors and anyone unusual might mean money.
Adjusting the small packet that contained the letters from Kushan to the Peacock Throne, Casca swung out of the saddle and handed the reins to a dirty stableboy with eyes much older than his 12 years. Flipping the child a copper coin, he entered the Inn of the Circling Road.
All saloons and taverns have a sameness to them, though the talk may be in different tongues and unfamiliar drinks. Men sat to talk business or politics — Huns, Mongols and Hsuing-nu-all had an unspoken agreement that no blades would be drawn in the city of Ho-T'ien and all arguments would be settled outside the boundaries of the town. Their chieftains knew well the value of the Silk Road, for supplies and weapons could be obtained only with difficulty elsewhere. Though occasionally the city was sacked by a tribe who felt strong enough to get away with it, this had not occurred in ninety years.
The inn was a two-storied building of ba'ked mud, bricks and stone. The inside was lit by the central cooking fire and tallow or oil lamps. Most of the customers had bare arms and chests, or at most, tunics of thin material, their skins and furs put away for the night, which was cold enough to frost a man's breath in these high altitudes with days hot enough to bake a man's brains in his own pan.
The weeks spent in Kushan with Tsin learning what he could of the language of Chin, Served him in good stead. Taking a room from the keeper, he spent the next week talking and listening; the melodic tones of the orientals came to him readily. If somewhat stilted in style, he could still make himself understood and each day the feel of the new tongue became a little more natural. He thanked whatever powers there were for his ability to pick up languages. Here also he obtained news of the trail ahead, the best places to water and rest; this information came from the merchants of Chin. The Hsuing-nu, Mongols, and Huns spoke to no one other than their own and, though no blades were drawn, they swaggered through the city like conquerors pushing the milder merchants and visitors out of the way. This was accepted as a fact of life and the people of Ho-T'ien merely sighed and went about their daily business, clucking over the bad manners of the savages.
Rested, Casca decided the time had come for one more leg of his travels. Paying his bill with small coins of silver, he loaded his small horse with skins of water and bought a new pack animal; a wall-eyed bay mare who looked as if she were made out of leather, her legs were good and her teeth showed she still had a few good years left. Though he did not relish eating her, as tough as she looked, he knew he would have to cut off chunks of her and put them under his saddle, riding on them for days until they were tender enough to swallow.
Thumping Glam in the side to get him started, the smaller horse gave one quick snap at Casca's toes to let him know he wasn't pleased to be leaving. The week of good fodder and rest had swelled his belly to the point he looked pregnant.
The morning sun felt good on his face as he rode out. Glam's small hooves kicked up clouds of sand and dust as they rode. Casca settled into the jarring back-aching bounce that horses use when they want to show who's boss. The flat-roofed buildings of Ho-T'ien were not out of sight when the familiar sounds of death reached his ears, wounded horses screaming like women and the lesser deeper battle cries of men in conflict. The sounds even reached the ears of some in the city, but the things that went on outside were none of their concern; the city was all that mattered.
Hesitating for a moment, he started to turn his horse's head around and go back to the city when the sound of a woman's cry was heard. Dropping the pack horse's lead rope, he kicked Glam in the side and galloped forward as he took his shield from his pack. It was round with four steel bosses holding the arm straps inside. He pulled his sword from the scabbard and, leaning over in the saddle, kicked the horse into a run with the wind whipping in his face. The old familiar call to battle began to build along with the pulse racing faster as he crested a small rocky rise.
The scene greeting his eyes' was that of a small caravan of about twenty pack animals and thirty men being overwhelmed by a band of Hsuing-nu. Several women were already on the ground, legs spread and being gang raped by the warriors more interested in ass than loot. The remaining men clustered around a fallen camel with a palaquin on its back, the kind in which the women of the rich rode, shielded from the elements. From within, a thin cry of fear reached him from across the distance.
Slapping Glam on the butt with the-flat of his sword, he raced, filling his lungs to the bursting point and letting loose a long scream that jerked the heads of the Hsuing-nu around to see what had interrupted their pleasures. The small knot of guards were doing good work holding off the tribesmen, fighting frantically, several sending arrow after arrow into the circling screaming tribesmen, making them keep their distance.
For the most part, the tribesmen were letting them use up their supply of arrows and then it would be all over. Casca leaned over in the saddle and with a long swipe cut through the back of the neck of a Hsuing-nu who was just about to spill his load into the belly of the screaming woman beneath him. The feel of cold steel slicing through the vertebrae kept him from enjoying to the fullest his final moment of sex. Clam trampled two of his comrades under his sharp hooves and whinnied with pleasure.