Too troubled to wonder at them the lonely caravan moved on into ragged, red-streaked sandhills, even the camels making heavy going of it. They had reached a gully between two lesser ranges when Meng Hsiang gave a low growl, a long purring grumble. He tossed his head, snatching at the head-rope, showing the whites of his eyes.
‘Steady, there,’ Nicander said, uneasy about what unseen threat out in the savage wilderness had alarmed him. He went to pat the big muzzle but it was jerked away. He heard other snorts and gnarls behind and realised the whole camel train was disturbed. A stab of fear went through him.
A little further on they came across it. A field of bones. Bleached a glaring white, obscenely protruding from rags and the mummified remains of bodies half-covered in sand, camel skeletons each arched back the same way at the agonising moment of death, their burdens still tied on them.
There was no pattern to it – the bodies lay at random in all directions. Had they kept together to the last and then… crept away for their final minutes under the pitiless sky?
Gulping, he went to the nearest human remains and stared down at the untidy body. The skull still had hair plastered on a leathery skin, the desiccated face leering at the world that had taken its life.
‘Poor devil,’ he whispered. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘You never can tell.’ It was Marius, standing behind him. ‘The desert dries ’em out, then leaves it alone. Could be one year, a hundred. Who knows.’
‘We could be joining them, my friend.’
‘Yes, possibly. Doesn’t mean we give it away before we have to? Come on, Nico. Think what we’ve got in our little chest there. Some day…’
He couldn’t find words and turned away.
There was a knot of people around Su, shouting at him in despair and anger. The voices carried clearly – Su was arguing that this only proved they were on the right track, that this was where other caravans passed, just that this particular one was ill-prepared.
He set the camel train in motion again, the imperative of survival taking priority over the impulse to provide a decent burial.
They had left the bone-field far behind but Meng Hsiang was still not happy. His eyes were rolling and he was jibbing. After what he had just seen Nicander was full of dread and the fear of the unknown returned.
The camel wrenched at his rope, snarling in temper and frustration. Nicander tried to calm the beast.
There was shouting at the head of the line and the caravan stopped. Unbelievably he saw that the cameleers were throwing off the nose-peg ropes to let the animals free. As each camel was released it made off at an ungainly lope into the sandhills on the right and disappeared.
From the crest of a nearby coarse, sandy hummock Nicander marvelled at the sight. A sizeable streamlet glittering and lazily meandering before him. And along the bank was green -breathtaking, beautiful, unbelievable green!
He and the others, delirious with the joy of life restored, were soon gulping greedily at the runnels of water.
The camels were in a solid line, splashing and slurping, giving rumbles of contentment and flicking water over themselves. They had been saved – and it had been the camels who had been the means.
They had been travelling so many miles in the gully, not knowing that running parallel, only a short distance away, was water and life. What cruel circumstance had meant that for the other caravan, the wind on that day had chosen to blow in the wrong direction, that their camels had not picked up on the scent of water, while this day theirs had?
Now Su knew where they were. Impatiently he drove the caravan across the braided stream. Then they followed the river for another five miles before they were presented with an even bigger miracle. The oasis village of Yu Li.
Willows, poplars – trees! Growing along the banks and pathways – and an orchard!
Men came out, advancing on the caravan – women too, laughing faces. Stalls of bright melons were wheeled into place under the shade of the poplars, with much chattering, greeting, calling.
The oasis had been planted centuries before, in the time of the Han when caravans traded across immense distances to bring wealth to China and needed fresh supplies and water. That it was situated on the edge of the hideous Gobi was no supernatural feat – all it had needed was the miracle of water. The natural fertility lying waiting in the soil did the rest.
There was even a caravanserai! This far from civilisation it would be too much to expect all the comforts of home but to those emerged from the valley of death it was heaven.
And they would be resting here for a whole three days!
That night as Nicander lay staring up at the smoke-grimed roof, he forgave them everything, even the red-eyed cockroaches as long as his finger, and jumping spiders with bodies as big as pigeon’s eggs. He just wished he couldn’t hear the crunching of their jaws as they took their prey.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
‘It’s the toughest of all, no doubt about it,’ Korkut told Nicander and Marius. ‘When we pass through the Shuan Ch’eng range we’ll be in the Black Gobi, and that’s flat all the way, completely open to the worst from the north.’
‘It’s late in the season, too, dear,’ Zarina said. ‘But once we’re through to Turfan it’s much easier.’
Korkut grimaced. ‘Hm. Su heard a rumour that the Mongols are out. That I don’t like!’
‘He said that we’re going to move as fast as we can,’ his wife added.
‘Meaning it’s up early and flogging all day until the last of the light. I’m already feeling it. Perhaps I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.’
The road petered out and once again they were moving over the trackless plain, towards a distant blue-grey rumpled line. In the clear desert air distance was deceptive and it was not for another stage that they had reached the foothills of the range. The peaks were abrupt and craggy with long scree slopes. Su led the camel train through a gloomy defile, its walls sheer and forbidding.
On the other side were uplands populated with jagged boulders, and then another stone-strewn range with a gorge appeared.
As they passed through the ravine, they were met with a wind that set everyone’s clothing a-flutter. Down on the level ground it eased off. The landscape was now utterly featureless. Not a hill, a dune or even a distant range, simply an iron-flat stony plain reaching out into the limitless distance.
They tramped on.
The wind picked up with force. It had a coolness in it that was strangely disturbing in the still fierce heat of the sun out of the cloudless sky. With nothing to deflect it, it came in flat and hard, making the camels lurch and stumble. It stung exposed skin with sand and rock particles, whipping mercilessly. Nicander wound cloth around his face and kept his hands inside his robe. He tried to lean into the wind but within a short time it was impossible to move.
The camels knelt down and Nicander and Marius took shelter in the lee of the big bodies, so close they could smell their rank but comforting goat-like smell. Ying Mei and Tai Yi could not be seen through the dust.
The sandstorm passed as quickly as it had arisen. Spluttering and protesting, the camels got to their feet with their riders and the caravan got under way again.
Nicander was taken aback at the sight that met his reddened eyes. On the next camel in front the familiar structure of the howdah was missing, ripped away by the force of the wind. Between the humps was a hunched figure, ragged strips of clothing streaming out in the last of the wind. Another bedraggled figure trudged gamely along beside.
He’d never given much thought to the howdah before; but he now realised it must have been a never-ending nightmare in that lurching, swaying, broiling prison. Yet Ying Mei had always come to the evening fire looking fresh and cool. What torments this noble lady must be enduring!