The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

A movement near the western horizon caught his eye. He saw a bit of green waving just below the blue Galilee hills that separated this plain of Esdraelon from the coast. Qutuz's banner, smaller, farther away.

Despair clutched at Daoud. But Qutuz could be feigning a retreat to lure the Tartars into spreading themselves too thin. Then he saw the black Tartar standard, much closer, in the midst of a furious[271] melee of fighting men and falling horses half obscured by dust. Qutuz would not leave part of the center behind to fight the Tartars unless he were running away. Daoud remembered the tightness he had seen in Qutuz's face before the battle, the hopelessness in the sultan's voice.

He is fleeing in terror. We are all dead men. Islam is lost.

Daoud looked to the east and saw that Baibars was still sitting motionless, a small figure at this distance on his fawn half-blood, the bearer with the yellow standard sitting behind him.

Daoud turned in the saddle and swept his gaze over the long line of his own troop. Their red turbans bobbed up and down as their horses danced. The wind was from the north, and their scarlet cloaks fluttered behind them. The bearded faces in the front rank were grave, but there was no fear. There was no murmuring now, no questioning. Their mounts, brown, white, and black, the finest steeds in al-Islam, stood with necks stretched and ears laid back, eager for the charge.

An orange pennant beside Baibars's standard summoned the commanders to confer with their leader.

"I go to the emir for orders," Daoud said loudly, so they would not think he was fleeing the field.

By the time he reached Baibars, a half circle of five emirs and ten bashis had formed around their commander. Daoud could hear Baibars muttering to himself in his boyhood Kipchaq tongue. Curses, no doubt.

Far to the north Daoud saw horsemen riding westward, away from the battlefield. The left wing, under Kalawun. The Tartars had come nowhere near them. They must have given way to fear when they saw the center fall back.

Daoud saw no fear in Baibars's brown face. His wide mouth with its thin lips was formed in a half smile. The expression around his eyes, the blue one that saw so deeply and the opaque white, was calm and confident. He pulled on his reins to turn his half-blood so that his back was to the field of battle.

"Most of our army has fled." His voice was deep and so full of confidence Daoud almost thought he heard laughter in it. "The Tartars think they have won. Now, therefore, let us ride against them."

The commanders looked at one another in wonderment.

Buoyed up by Baibars's calm strength, Daoud felt himself despising the officers under his and Baibars's command.[272]

They think Baibars is mad. To the devil with them. Even if he is mad, I will follow him and die with him.

The thought occurred to him that if Baibars should fall—God forbid!—then he would have to lead these fifteen thousand men. For a moment he was seized by fear, whether of his lord's death or of having to lead alone, he was not sure.

Baibars saw the disbelief of his officers. "You do not deserve to ride with me," he said, and now there was scorn in his tone. "Have you not always risked death in battle? Can the Tartars do more to you than kill you? I tell you, if we are defeated, better to die here than live as fugitives. Now go to your troops. In a moment you will see my standard move against them. Do as you will, follow or run away as you choose, and God will reward you accordingly. If I must, I will ride alone."

Daoud felt the blood rush to his head in dizzy excitement.

"You will not ride alone, Lord," said Daoud fiercely.

"No, Bunduqdari, no," said another emir, Bektout, a Kipchaq like Baibars. "Let us offer our lives to God and ride out with light hearts."

The other officers shouted their eagerness to die for Islam. Daoud felt full of gratitude. Baibars had put the spirit of war back into them. He had done what Qutuz could never do.

After the other emirs had ridden back to their troops, Baibars said quietly to Daoud, "I truly believe I will win. Until the instant that they kill me, I will know that I am winning."

Back at the head of his own troop, Daoud watched Baibars and waited. For a moment a silence fell over this part of the field. The drumming of hooves, the clash of steel, and the screams of men carried clearly from far to the west.

Baibars on horseback sat a short distance in front of the long dark ranks of Mamelukes. He turned and beckoned to his standard bearer, who trotted forward bearing the yellow silk banner inscribed with the words of the Koran in black letters, "For the safety of the faith, slay the enemies of Islam."

Baibars took the banner in his right hand and held it high, then lowered it till its end rested in a leather socket beside his foot. In his left hand, his sword hand, his long, curved saif, inlaid with gold, flashed in the sunlight. His fawn half-blood pawed the air with her front hooves.

"Oh, God, give us victory!" he shouted. "Yah l'Allah!"

An echoing roar came back from the ranks of the right wing.[273] Half standing in his copper stirrups, guiding his mare with the pressure of his legs, Baibars sent her into a headlong gallop. Daoud struck his spurs into his own horse's flanks and raced after him. He squinted into the wind that blew his beard back against his neck.

The dark blur of struggling Tartars and Mamelukes grew rapidly larger. Qutuz's banner was nowhere to be seen, but the beast-tail Tartar standard rose up in the west, and Kalawun's black banner was waving far to the north.

They were coming on the Tartar horsemen from the flank and rear. Daoud was close enough to see faces turn and Tartars wheel their ponies to meet the attack.

Daoud drew his bow out again, picked a big Tartar with a drooping black mustache, and loosed an arrow at him. The Tartar fell back over his gray pony's rump, and the pony slowed, trotted out of the Tartar formation, and stood nibbling on the tall dead grass while its dead master lay nearby.

Three Tartars peeled off from their formation and charged at Daoud. His arrows took two of them, and an arrow from one of his men struck down the third.

Elated, he whispered a prayer of thanks to God. Baibars's yellow standard changed direction. Following it, Daoud pulled his horse around and raced away from the Tartars. He stood in the stirrups, bow and an arrow in hand with a steel-tipped armor-piercing arrow nocked. Resting his right knee against his heavy wood and leather saddle, he turned until he was looking over his horse's rear and took careful aim. To steady his aim, he fired the arrow just after his horse's four feet struck the ground. He saw a Tartar thrown off his pony by the force of the arrow, and he laughed aloud.

He saw files of Tartars pulling away from the main formation, which was pursuing Qutuz and Kalawun. Baibars's attack was pulling the Tartars apart.

Love for Baibars surged within him. The Tartars were said to be masters of warfare, but Baibars could out-general even them.

Following the yellow standard, Daoud rode back and forth over the field. He lost all sense of the progress of the battle. For brief moments he took his eyes off the enemy warriors to glance up at the sun, a pale disk visible through a haze of smoke and dust, to see in which direction he was riding.

Many times he shot his last arrow, got down from his horse and, standing in the grass with horsemen galloping all around him, refilled[274] his quiver from those of fallen Mamelukes and from the bodies of Tartars.

Mounted or on foot, he felt as if no arrow or sword could touch him. He seemed, when he had ridden out to battle, to have left fear somewhere behind.

He recognized Mamelukes from other ortas riding beside him, and his hopes leapt at the sight of them. They must have come back to join the battle from the shattered left wing and center.

Following the yellow standard, he saw that the Tartars were now always on his left. For the most part, he kept his eyes on them and stayed close to the other Mamelukes. The plain was almost featureless, but glancing to his right from time to time, he noticed certain twisted trees and black boulders he was sure he had passed before.

The sun was halfway between the zenith and the western horizon when the yellow standard halted. The Mamelukes turned to face the Tartars, whose standard rose from their midst. Looking to either side, Daoud saw curving lines of mounted Mamelukes stretching until they disappeared around the edges of the packed Tartar mass.

What had happened? Baibars's refusal to abandon the field and the greater numbers of the Mamelukes must have tipped the scales. Daoud's heart pounded with joy as he realized that they had ground down the numbers of the Tartars and surrounded the survivors.

Baibars, down the Mameluke line, called out, "Finish them. One by one. Hand to hand."

He still held high the banner of the orta. He raised his curved saif and pointed it at the Tartars.

He turned toward Daoud for a moment, and Daoud saw the exaltation in his face. Baibars's face was coated with gray dust. His gold khalat was streaked with blood, and none of it, Daoud was sure, was his. An angel must be riding on his shoulder.

With another wave of his saif Baibars charged into the mass of Tartars. Howling in an ecstasy of fury, the rest of the Mamelukes rushed after him.

Daoud reached over his shoulder and pulled his curving, double-edged saif from its leather-covered scabbard. He tried to ride near Baibars, but a wall of Tartars rose up between them. While he fought for his own life, Daoud could only pray that God would protect Baibars.

And then he was no longer fighting many Tartars, but just one.[275] They had chosen each other out of the struggling multitudes, like partners in a dance.

Daoud saw his man as vividly as if he had been staring at him for hours. Red ribbons fluttered from the sides of his fur-trimmed iron helmet. The ends of his black mustache hung down on either side of his mouth like whiplashes. His cheeks and chin bore the ridges of thick scars he seemed to have cut into his flesh. His nose had been crushed in some past battle, and it was a shapeless lump between his jutting cheekbones. His eyes were hard and expressionless.

Daoud rode at the Tartar eagerly, rejoicing that for now the battle was between himself and this one man. For him now this Tartar was all Tartars.

The scarred brown face was utterly concentrated on a single purpose, to kill Daoud. The Tartar reminded Daoud of a tale told by a storyteller in a bazaar at El Kahira of invincible bronze warriors, statues brought to life by a magician.

Daoud's Yemenite stallion leapt at the Tartar as Daoud brought his saif down.

The Tartar raised his round leather-covered shield and easily caught the blow of Daoud's sword while swinging his own scimitar around at Daoud's chest. The blade struck Daoud's ribs on the left side. The cunningly woven rings of Damascene steel under Daoud's tunic stopped the edge of the blade, but the blow sent a shock of pain through his body.

Daoud struck downward again with his saif and chopped a deep gash in the Tartar's shield. The force of the blow hurt Daoud's arm. His tall Yemenite and the Tartar's piebald pony pranced in a cloud of dust as their riders slashed at each other. The Tartar's brown tunic hung in ribbons.

Daoud saw a spot of sunlight reflected from his silver locket flash in the Tartar's eyes. The Tartar glanced at Daoud's chest, his eyes caught by the light. In that instant Daoud thrust straight at his enemy's throat.

He thought he had no chance of hitting the right spot, but the point of his saif went in just below the Tartar's chin and above his high leather collar. Blood poured after the sword's point as Daoud jerked it out.

Praise God! Daoud thought with delight as he saw that he had won. And he thought with thankfulness of Blossoming Reed, for her gift of the locket.[276]

For the first time, an instant away from death, an expression of feeling crossed the Tartar's face. His lips parted and the corners of his mouth pulled down in a grimace of pain and disgust.

Daoud had