voice cracking with restrained emotion, 'They go… you stay.' Bobbing his head, he would give so much, but no more and keep face with his men.
'Good enough, you dog thief, but you go to the hills and wait. When they reach the city, I will let this little viper free, but I want enough distance to be able to get a running start before you come after me.
The chieftain bobbed his head in agreement. After all, they were masters of the plains and deserts.
None could outrace them on horseback. Whirling, the Hsuing-nu left in a cloud of sand and dust, riding to the hills Casca had indicated a mile away.
Keeping a close eye on them, Casca made his way back to the cluster of guards where the surviving women who had just been raped lay whimpering.
The guards opened ranks and wondered. Pointing back to the city of Ho-T'ien, Casca ordered, 'Get yourselves and the animals that can move out of here. They won't attack until you are inside the city. Before you leave, I would suggest slitting the throats of the wounded men and animals so they will not suffer.'
The leader of the guards quickly agreed and sent two of his men to perform the grisly task. The cries of hurt animals and men became less one by one until only the silence of the desert breeze was to be heard.
A man in silken robes carrying a knife that looked out of place, came and bowed low in front of the Roman.
'Oh, noble stranger. I am the merchant Wu ch'ing, whose miserable life you saved. Know also you have protected a gift to his Highness the Emperor Tzin of the Western Kingdom.'
With that, he opened the closed curtains of the palaquin and a tiny graceful hand came forth, followed by a face with such beauty it took Casca's breath away.
'This is Li Tsao, Daughter of Light, a gift to the Emperor.' The girl of no more than thirteen looked Casca straight in the eyes with no trace of fear, her face perfection, everything in harmony and skin smoother than the finest silk ever woven. Her eyes were like almonds, dark and intelligent, and she moved with a grace unknown to the western world. She took in fully the figure of the man in front of her, the scarred face and hands and hard eyes. He was not unpleasing, if somewhat rough.
Clearing his throat with a sudden feeling of embarrassment, Casca pointed toward the city with his still dripping blade: 'You must go now. I don't know how long they will wait.'
The girl put her hands up to his sweating face and pulled him down to her. She set her lips on him and pulled the breath from him with the longest sweetest kiss he had ever felt. For the first time she spoke, her voice as delicate and musical as her appearance. 'We will meet again, barbarian. Remember me, I am Li Tsao. I am only a gift now, but one day I shall be more.'
Casca waited until the last of the caravans and survivors had disappeared over the rise from which he had attacked. Then giving them a few more minutes to be sure, he mounted his horse and holding the young Hsuing-nu warrior by the hair, he placed him where his people could see.
Releasing the boy, he kicked Glam in the flanks so hard the ratty little horse farted and took off as fast as his legs could move. Casca accepted the loss of his pack horse stoically. Everytime he helped someone, it seemed to end up costing him one way or another.
The next three days were spent breaking speed records to Keryia and the next city with water a hundred-plus miles away. Jugotai's promise that his gift was tougher and longer-lasting than an ordinary horse proved to be true; the tough animal was indeed a good gift.
Near Keryia, the Hsuing-nu halted the chase, not for reasons of exhaustion but simply that this region belonged to another tribe and even though they and the Hsuing-nu were cousins, they shared little else other than hate for each other, as is common among many families. To enter their hunting grounds would mean war.
Casca was free. As free as he could be.
Exhausted, he walked through the gates of Keryia. He had alternately ridden and run all the way, stopping only when heat and exhaustion threatened to kill his mount. Now two days rest refreshed him and this time he hooked up with a returning merchant who was wealthy enough to afford a large bodyguard of tough wiry men, looking as if they belonged to the same stock as the Hsuing-nu with the name of Hsien-pi.
The journey took three months with stops at the great marshes, past the lesser town of Ch'iehmo, fed by the river of the same name. They marched along the banks of the river to the marshes for two hundred miles, the rivers fed by the great mountains to the south, standing over them like waiting sentinels. On clear days, the ice could be seen clearly though they were hundreds of miles away. From there, near the eastern edge of the marsh, when the sun was in the right position, Casca could see a shimmering to the north about ten miles away. The merchant he had attached himself to said it was a salt basin, known as Lop Nor. From the Lop Nor to Yumen was four hundred miles of barren land, filled only with the howls of desert jackels and the scurrying of lizards.
At Yumen, Casca found a large city of ten or more thousand. Here was the crossroads from east to west and north to south and the southernmost outpost of the Emperor Tzin. It was well garrisoned with tough-looking soldiers standing guard on crenelated mud walls, most of them carrying a weapon he had not seen before. It looked like a miniature arbalest and shot short arrows with tremendous force. A week there told him much and his usage of the language of Chin increased even more. Minding his own business, he watched everything and was watched, though with courtesy. He was asked his business by a plain looking man with an air of importance and when shown the packet of letters from the King of Kushan, was bothered no more. Messengers were favored and not to be interfered with in the business of kings.
Glam grew fat again in a short time. His powers of recuperation were almost as outstanding as Casca's. The road to the Jade Gate was clear and well marked. When he left Yumen behind, he knew he was on the final part of his journey. The name itself had a magic to it-The Jade Gate-or was it that he still sometimes in his sleep felt on his face the mask of Jade he once wore among the Teotec tribes so far away?
A steady gait dissolved the miles behind him. He was now heading southwest, keeping the Na Shan mountains to the right. He traveled on; summer was full on them and usually he rode at night, taking shelter in the shade of crags and crevices until the worst of the heat was done. He would ride on, lost in his thoughts and dreams of his life and past and what might be, while sitting on Glam's back, like a hairy ship. He dozed and dreamed of faces and sounds which rocked him on his journey: Rome, Persia, Germania, the hold at Helsfjord, the Roman square standing with locked shields or forming the tortoise to assault a city's walls. And always he awoke with the sour taste of battle in his mouth.
Thirteen
One-thousand-five-hundred miles of stone forming the greatest single work in the life of the world, turned and twisted, like a monstrous serpent, and seemed to fall back on itself as it crested the twisting mountains and turned and finally disappeared over the horizon.
Casca wore a cloak of wild goatskin and breeches of camelskins made pliable by the chewing of the hides and scraping and pounding of the women of the Yueh-chih.
The wind was blowing from behind, in from the plains. Soon the direction would change and the wind come from the seas bringing the spring rains and floods, but for now, the jacket and breeches were welcome to cut the chill edges that searched through the lacings of his clothes. His hair had grown long and hung to his shoulders; his face was darkened by the winds and the sun.
Old Shao Tze was right, the wall seemed to run forever. He had told Casca on the galley that it had been started by the Emperor Shih Huang Ti, two hundred and fourteen years before the birth of the crucified prophet, Yesuah. It had been designed to keep out the marauding Mongolian peoples who preceded the Huns.
Riding alongside the wall, after four days he finally came to a portal where one of the permanent garrisons was maintained. Frequently he had seen mounted riders and archers watching him from the walls, but no words were spoken. However, long before he reached the portal, his coming was well known.
From the height of the wall, he resembled to the watchers one of the wandering nomads of the steppes. Stopping for the night in the sheltered crevices among the rocks, he would feed on chunks of horsemeat which he placed under his saddle and rode on to tenderize it; learning from the nomads, he made use of the droppings of
