‘They are under my command,’ Sergei told him sharply. ‘Do your job, and no harm will come to you. My word on it.’
Kizka only looked unhappy, evidently doubting the word of a Russian as sincerely as he would have expected a Russian to doubt his.
Their route led at first along the Georgian Military Highway, and the travelling was fast on the well-maintained surface. The road climbed rapidly, and soon they were far above the green of the valleys, in a land of strange and awesome peaks, spires and minarets reaching up into the clouds, like the skyline of a roughly hewn, gigantic city. The unmistakable triangle of Mount Kazbek was on their right, and the Mountain of the Cross on their left, as the road climbed dizzily between the great peaks. Despite the bright sunshine, the air struck cool and thin so high up; and still the road climbed, up towards the Kayshaour Pass, after which it fell away again down the other side of the Caucasus backbone, into the green land of Georgia far below, and the plains which ran down to the shores of the Black Sea.
Before they reached the pass, however, Kizka halted, and pointed away up the mountain slope to his left.
‘Our way lies there,’ he said.
Sergei looked. ‘I see no road,’ he said sternly, wondering if his guide were about to lead them astray, the more easily to abandon them in a wild and rocky place. ‘Do you expect us to scramble over the rocks like mountain goats?’
Kizka looked pityingly. ‘There is the path – don’t you see? I will show you – follow me, but keep close. It is rough in places.’
Kizka’s little tough pony made nothing of the scramble up the almost sheer mountain side, and the Cossacks drove their mounts upwards with a will, but poor Nabat was a cavalry horse, and resented the supposition that he had somehow of late grown wings. His iron-shod hooves slipped, and he scrabbled for footholds, sweating with anxiety, his ears laid back in protest. Had it not been for the round, mousey rump ahead of him, and Sergei’s spurs digging suggestively into his flanks, he would have refused altogether; but after the first precipitous climb, something resembling a path appeared, a narrow way winding with the shape of the mountain, but evidently well worn.
When at last the path stopped climbing and widened out, Kizka stopped and slipped down from the saddle.
‘We rest the horses here for a while,’ he said.
Anxious though he was to get on, Sergei saw the sense of it, jumped down, and loosened Nabat’s girth. The gelding sighed and stretched his neck gratefully, and dragged in the thin mountain air through stretched nostrils. Sergei looked around. They were almost at the top of the world. There were still peaks higher, but they were wreathed in cloud and invisible. The lower edges of the cloud blurred into mist, drifting with the light breeze, and occasional wisps of it brushed his skin with a damp chill. The Caucasus ran in a long ridge north-west to south-east, dividing Daghestan from Georgia, the Caspian plain from the Black Sea plain. From this vantage point, Sergei thought, on a clear day it ought almost to be possible to see both shores. Above them there was nothing but the blue sky, through which the sunshine fell clear and clean; stepping to a rock over the drop, Sergei looked down and saw a colony of jackdaws far below him, and the spread-fingered shape of an eagle, drifting out over the valleys on the warm air.
The horses had gained their breath, and were now nosing about in search of something to nibble, so Sergei nodded to Kizka, and ordered the remount. They rode on, climbing at first, and then beginning to descend. Time had worn the sharpness from this part of the mountain ridge, breaking it into small, subsidiary peaks. The track was clearly marked now, and here and there Sergei saw traces of previous travellers, horse dung at least several days old, and other tracks branching off downhill. Automatically he reached round to make sure his sword was loose in the sheath. A frequented path suggested lookouts, guards, danger.
Suddenly Kizka stopped. ‘I go no further,’ he announced firmly.
Sergei frowned at him. ‘What are you talking about? You are to take us to Kourayashour.’
Kizka nodded ahead. ‘This path goes nowhere else. Follow it, and you will come to the place, without fail.’
‘You will come with us,’ Sergei said, laying a threatening hand on his sword-hilt. Kizka’s eyes followed the movement, and then flickered nervously about the horizon.
‘I dare not,’ he said. He dropped his reins and spread both hands in an unexpected gesture of appeal. ‘Understand, master, I do business with these people. If they know I bring you here, next time they will kill me. For Akim Shan Kalmuck I bring you this far, because I am obliged to, but I must not be seen. It must not be known I am your guide.’ He looked around again, his eyes showing white. ‘Already perhaps I have come too far. I must go now, quickly.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ Sergei said, reaching out. ‘You’ll take us to the village as agreed.’
But Kizka was too quick for him. He turned his pony with a jab of the heel, picking up the reins as he did so, and drove it straight down the mountainside in a scurry of dislodged stones. ‘Follow the path,’ he called over his shoulder.
Sergei gave a curse, and looking down, saw the tribesman reach a path lower down, turn on to it, and kick his pony into a trot.
‘Shall I go after him, sir?’ the Cossack officer asked.
‘No – you’d never catch him. And what’s the use? He’d only slip away again.’
‘Do you think it’s a trap, sir? Maybe he was leading us into an ambush.’
Sergei had already considered the likelihood. ‘Anything is possible. Tell your men to be on the alert. But unless they take us by surprise, we ought to be a match for any undisciplined tribesmen, even in their own country.’
He felt they were drawing near. The signs of frequentation were everywhere, dung both old and fresh, the scars of horseshoes on exposed rock, the print of bare hooves on the turf where the path crossed a stream. They had been going gradually downhill, and there was more greenery around them, moss and bushes and even the occasional stunted tree. More cover, too, and all the men were nervous and alert now, riding in absolute silence, hands ready on their rifles, eyes flicking back and forth for any sign of an ambush.
The path rounded a big, smooth outcrop of rock, and suddenly they were there. The path widened, crossed a stream, and opened out into a flat area on which had been built a corral for horses. Beyond that was the village itself, a jumble of izby of various sizes, built of wood, interspersed with huts made of daub and roofed with turf. Behind the village rose a cliff, on top of which they could see the silhouettes of armed lookouts. Between them and the corral was a party of mounted tribesmen, a few with rifles, others with arrows ready nocked on their short, lethal bows.
Sergei called the halt. He was not surprised to see the armed party, only surprised that they had not been challenged before, and his eye rapidly summed up their number and strength. The arrows and the guns were not pointing directly at them; that, and the fact that they had been allowed to come thus far without attack, suggested an unexpected willingness to parley.
He turned to the lieutenant. ‘Don’t let anyone make a hostile movement until I give the command. It looks as though they don’t want a fight – God knows why – and I should like to get out of this without bloodshed if we can.’
‘Yes, sir. You’re going to parley with them, sir?’
‘Yes. Cover me. If they kill me, wipe them out.’
‘Be careful, sir. They’re Chechen,’ the lieutenant said anxiously.