Julian Stockwin - THE SILK TREE

Marius declared a halt and briskly detailed duties. While Arif saw to the camels Tai Yi and Ying Mei were to collect the scraggy dried bushes dotted about for firewood and prepare the food. He called Nicander to help him with the tents and then made a muster of their stock of stores and water.

The days passed and the landscape changed around them. Before, they had travelled over a hard gravel desert – now the dunes and sand ripples were growing, wind-blown crescents that had fine grains whipping from their crests. The only flat area was the bed of the Ho-T’ien as it made its way in vast sweeps through the depressions between the dunes.

Arif was vague about exactly how far off Khotan was, possibly some hundreds of miles. There was a precious connection with it, however, that they could reach out and touch – the Ho T’ien. It had begun its life as snow in the Kunlun above the town, and had made it right through the desert to the other side, their assurance that they would eventually arrive.

The dunes grew larger; swelling hundreds of feet from valley to crest they marched away into the desert in silent array yet through it still threaded their lifeline. At places water was visible at the surface of the now drying river bed. At others, the water thinned and braided, forming many small rivulets that joined and split.

Where the water was plentiful there was lush green, where it was not the bleak grey drabness of the wasteland went unrelieved.

Ying Mei was the first to notice Meng Hsiao stumble. He gave out a low, almost inaudible moan before raising his head again. She frowned, it was level going and should not have caused him problems.

Ordut responded with an irritated snarl at the break in pace. Meng Hsiang just phlegmatically paced on.

It happened again. ‘I think Meng Hsiao has hurt himself,’ she called in concern.

The caravan stopped and Arif went to see for himself. The animal seemed fractious and resisted his probing hands.

‘His stomach. He eaten something bad. He get over it.’

They got under way again but it was clear that the camel was in some discomfort and in the evening it refused feed. During the night it was heard groaning and in the morning it jibbed at its burden being loaded on again. No allowance could be made, however, for the other two had their own full loads.

Ying Mei walked beside it, patting the young animal’s muzzle and talking to it but it was clearly still in distress.

Arif had a worried frown when they made camp. ‘I not like it. He not better.’

The morning came, a cold grey dawning.

Ying Mei looked haggard – she had spent the night with the suffering creature.

‘Let’s go!’ Marius showed no sign of sympathy.

‘Can we not wait for Meng Hsiao to recover? I’m sure he’ll be better in a day or so.’

‘No. Get him to his feet, Arif.’

‘Ah Wu. Have mercy on the beast, please! He’s tried his best for us and now he needs us to be kind to him.’

‘Get him up, Arif.’

Ying Mei turned away as the switch was used mercilessly. The camel screeched and writhed but did not get up.

Meng Hsiang loped up and nuzzled him in perplexity and had to be dragged back.

‘He weak, Ma sheng . The load, it hold him down.’

‘Take it off him.’ Marius glanced at the other camels. ‘We can’t wait, there’s only rations for another ten days. Unload ’em all, sort out which is the most important and they’ll go with these two, the rest is left behind.’

‘And Meng Hsiao?’

‘If he can stay with us…’

Marius stood with folded arms as the pile of rejected stores steadily grew until it was one-third of the whole.

The other two camels were reloaded and Arif finally managed to drive the sick camel to its feet where it stood, trembling.

‘Move,’ Marius ordered.

They started out again, Meng Hsiao in the rear with Ying Mei.

But after a mile or so the camel was staggering; its humps drooping, the area between its legs and ribs concave and gaunt.

‘Keep up!’ roared Marius.

‘He can’t!’ called Ying Mei brokenly. ‘He needs a rest!’

The caravan halted.

Meng Hsiao fell to his knees, then to his side. His mouth was foam-streaked and his eyes dull.

Marius strode back. ‘Arif?’

‘He not go any more,’ he said with deep sadness.

‘Then we leave him. Cut him free.’

When nobody moved Marius grated, ‘He can’t keep up, so he takes his chances on his own. Just like any of us – right?’

Arif slowly untied the rope.

‘Move on!’ Marius urged.

‘I’m staying with him!’ Ying Mei cried.

‘No, we must go on.’

White-faced, Tai Yi went to her mistress and gently led her away.

The tiny caravan moved off, Ying Mei’s tear-streaked face looking back at the receding shape.

Heartrending bleats came faintly over the still air.

After a short while Marius halted them again. ‘Arif, you know what to do. Do it.’

The cameleer looked away, reaching for control, then took out his knife and paced back to the sick beast, which quietened when it saw him.

Ying Mei fell to her knees but held herself to a soundless grief.

Arif was with the camel for some time, hunched over the still form, working at something.

Then he returned. In his hands was a bloody haunch of meat.

Ying Mei retched helplessly.

Nicander tried to quell his pity; this was the cold logic of desert survival.

The next day the river died. Flat and broad it had been their security with the glittering water path always with them. Now there was just the wadi, wind-blown dust and a spreading desolation. The only water was in their precious gourds and water skins. And if the dry bed disappeared entirely, where was their path?

They kept on. The dunes were now at a stupendous height – towering to over a thousand feet between valley and crest.

That night, as soon as the camels were seen to, Marius lined Nicander, Arif and the women up and, one by one, granted a single gulp of water, a ceremony he had performed at strict intervals during the day. ‘No boiling, no cooking in water, nothing.’

The wind got up. It droned and whistled, finding every hole and slit and filling the tents with a fine dust that settled a gritty coating over everything.

Nicander lay with his covering over his head, unable to sleep. Had they made the right decision to come to this hellish land, where humans had no right to trespass? The alternative was seven years’ imprisonment. That bastard Taw would make sure of it. But they at least would be safe, not in this demented wilderness.

The wind increased, shaking and flapping the tent – but then there was something else. Tremors through the ground, a deeper pitch to the wind and at the back of it all… the sound – of a great army on the move.

‘Did you hear that, Marius?’ he said breathlessly.

The noise wavered and strengthened, the concussion of thousands of feet, the rumble of wagons from out of the darkness.

‘They’re coming for us!’

‘I hear it,’ came Marius’s voice, sounding not as steady as usual.

Intertwining it was a distant calling, a sad keening, the words not quite understandable.

Nicander’s mind whirled – for he could make it out now. They were calling to him, pleading with him to go outside and come to them.

‘It’s the demons of the Flowing Sands!’ gasped Arif. ‘They after us!’

Nicander stared into the near impenetrable dimness where only the indistinct shapes of Marius and Arif could be made out.

Outside the wind blustered and moaned and the calls grew more desperate.

Then he sensed a presence – close outside. A scrabbling and movement.