David Gibbins - The Tiger warrior

“Nobody else ever goes there?”

“For generations we controlled the mines. During the Soviet war we sold lapis lazuli to buy guns. The mines were under my sway and that of my forefathers. Our word was law. We banned anyone from going to the old workings on pain of death. It was what my grandfather wanted. It is only since the rise of the Taliban that our control has slackened, as we have had to look elsewhere, to defend our villages like the one being attacked now across the valley. Even so I am certain they are undisturbed. It is only the lower shafts now that produce the high-grade lapis. And nobody who lives in these mountains climbs higher than they absolutely need to. Up there you will find only death.”

While he was talking the others filed out behind. There was a whinnying from somewhere below, then a strange bellow and a stomping of hooves. Katya caught her breath. “You have the akhal-teke!”

Rahid stared at her. “You know,” he said quietly. “Of course. You told me. Your Kazakh family.”

“No other horse makes a sound like that,” she said, her voice halting. “The war-cry of the akhal-teke. ”

“They run wild in the valley. This is one of the last places where they are kept pure. That’s one reason why we keep outsiders away.”

“You breed them?” Costas said.

Rahid paused, then looked at him. “I am the direct male heir of Qais Abdul Rashid, progenitor of all the Pashtun tribes,” he said. “He in turn was descended from the clan who lived in this valley from before the time of Alexander the Great. My ancestors bred the akhal-teke for the First Emperor of China, Shihuangdi, after his warriors came here looking for them.”

Katya stared at him, stunned. “Your clan are imperial horse-breeders,” she said. “We thought they had all passed into history.”

“We are the last. Ours are the final remaining purebreds.”

“Do you still heed the call?” Katya said quietly. “Do the warriors still come?”

“A Pashtun’s word is his oath. My ancestor gave it sixty-six generations ago.”

“When was the last time they came? Has Jack told you I think we are being followed?”

“The oath was one of secrecy.”

“I sensed the akhal-teke near the lake at Issyk-Kul,” Katya murmured. “I heard that noise, and smelled something. There was a presence nearby.”

“Our oath was to Shihuangdi, and to those who can prove to us that they are his eternal guardians.”

“The Brotherhood of the Tiger,” Costas said.

Katya pulled out a photograph from her front pocket. “You mean those who can show you this. The tattoo.”

Rahid remained silent, staring at the valley. There was a sudden tension in the atmosphere. Jack shot Costas a warning look, and Katya saw it. She put away the photo and confronted Rahid. “You know the Brotherhood is corrupted. He who controls it now has been tempted, and rules as if he is the reincarnation of Shihuangdi himself In doing so he has broken his oath to the emperor. The oath of your clan is no longer binding.”

Rahid looked at her silently, and then spoke. “Two weeks ago, a group came to the valley from a mining company, claiming I owed them allegiance. Eight men, prospectors. They wanted me to take them to the lapis lazuli mines.”

“A mining company,” Jack murmured. “Chinese?”

“INTACON.”

Jack drew in his breath. “What did you do?”

“I told you what we do.” Rahid gestured at the rifle in Jack’s hands. “My ancestor swore an oath to the emperor, to the true Brotherhood, not to these animals. I killed them all.”

“And the other one?” Jack said quietly. “The one who followed them, who is there now? Waiting for us?”

Rahid touched the rifle, and stared at Jack. “Your enemy is my enemy. God be with you. Inshallah.”

Jack looked him hard in the eyes, and understood. Through the entrance passageway they heard the staccato noise of distant gunfire, and then the bellow of the horse, a strange, unnerving sound. Katya still seemed distracted by it, disturbed. “Can I touch it?” she said. “I haven’t touched one since I was a child.”

Rahid shook his head. “Not now. When you return. When you bring that rifle back, with one round missing.” He looked at Jack, then pointed at the path toward the mountains. “That’s your route.”

Jack held out his hand. “Tashakkurr. I owe you.”

Rahid shook it. “It’s our code. Pashtunwali. Hospitality to travelers.”

“But not all of them,” Costas said.

“No, not all of them. You’ve been lucky.” Rahid slapped Costas on the back. “Salaam. Go now.” He turned and disappeared over the ledge. A few moments later there was the sound of whinnying, then the clatter of hooves on shingle, receding down the slope. Then the noise was gone, and all Jack heard was a whispering of wind across the rock, a sharp, dry wind brought down from the peaks of the Hindu Kush. He slung the rifle over his left shoulder and squinted up the valley. He took the Beretta out of his bag and handed it to Costas. Pradesh slung his rifle and passed his revolver to Altamaty. They knew that Katya had her own sidearm. Costas snapped back the slider on the Beretta, cocking it, then eased the hammer to the safe position and tucked the pistol in the breast pocket of his coat. “I’m ready,” he said.

“I’ll take point,” Jack said, walking forward.

“No.” Pradesh niftily sidestepped Jack and took the lead, heading off up the path. Jack relented, and looked at his watch. “It’ll take two hours to get there, according to Rahid. That puts us at mid-afternoon. And that’s probably two hours Afghan time, for people who live in these mountains. The air’s pretty thin and we’re not acclimatized. We’d better get moving. We don’t want to be stuck up there after dark.”

Costas pulled on a pair of fleece gloves. “Roger that.”

Just over two hours later Jack unslung the rifle and sat on a rock, waiting for the others to catch up. The penetrating chill of the early morning had gone, but he knew that a few minutes sitting here and the cold would return with a vengeance, made worse by lack of sleep and food. He pulled his binoculars out and scanned the narrowing cleft in the mountains ahead, looking for signs of movement, the telltale flash of sunlight against metal. Still nothing. He tucked the binoculars away, and made a mental note to avoid using them again unless absolutely necessary. If he did have to use the rifle, he needed to be attuned to what he could see with the naked eye, to be able to judge distances, to sense the difference at a thousand yards between rock and animate form. He glanced at the ridge far above, squinting in the harsh sunlight. The valley had become narrower and higher as they had trekked farther into the mountains. The cleft ahead was no more than two hundred meters wide, bare rock and scree on both sides, the ground between dry and cracked. They had followed Rahid’s advice and kept to the upper path, a good hundred meters above the valley floor. Jack reached down and picked up a piece of rock. Despite the frigid air it was warm, baked by the sun. There was no blue in it, but it was jagged, fractured. The scree ahead could be mine tailings, debris from thousands of years of hacking and picking at the rock, by miners lighting fires to crack the stone and expose the veins of precious blue. Jack looked at the slopes again. It fitted exactly with the description in Lieutenant Wood’s book. He realized that he must be looking at the fabled lapis lazuli mines of Sar-e-Sang. His heart began to pound. This was it.

The other four came up behind. Costas slumped down beside Jack, and Pradesh knelt back against a rock, his rifle on his knees. Altamaty pointed to a pall of dust above the valley floor, and Katya clambered up onto a rock to follow his gaze. Jack knew she had been looking out for the horses since they had left Rahid. They had seen none, but she had told Jack that Altamaty had seen signs that he’d been sensitized to by his nomad upbringing. Jack looked at the valley floor. He saw no horses, but he did see people, a man and a boy. They were standing in front of a tent that was stretched between boulders at the base of the opposite slope. They were bundled up in sheepskins, and wispy smoke was rising in front of them. They were six hundred meters away, maybe seven hundred. Jack made a mental note of their size at that distance, and let his eyes dart up the slope behind them, looking at the boulders and ridges, at points of concealment, gauging the gradient of the scree and the increased distance as the slope rose toward the ridge some five hundred meters above.