Читать книгу Tamerlane: The Earth Shaker - Harold Lamb - Страница 11

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That Ilias Khan should come back was inevitable, and Timur went forward to meet him half-way—on the plain north of the Syr where the Mongols liked to graze and refit their horses before launching down into the Tatar countries. Ilias Khan came with all the strength of the north, a disciplined and veteran array, mounted on the best horses of Asia, well officered, well armed—their horned standards shining above the close-packed squadrons of leather-clad horsemen.

They were less numerous than the Tatars, but Timur knew their worth and kept in touch with them by his scouts until Amir Hussayn arrived on the scene with his mountain clans.

For once all the power of the Tatars was united in the field—the Barlas clan and the desert riders, the Jalair chieftains, the troops of the great house of Selduz, Hussayn’s warriors with the Ghur clans and Afghan volunteers who had scented the war from afar. The helmeted men and the bahaturs had rallied to the standards.

Nearly all were mounted—only the servants and some regiments of spearmen and the herders guarded the camp behind trenches. And they were not the irregular light cavalry that modern imagination associates with Asia.

They wore armour, the fine steel mesh of Persian make, pointed helmets with steel drop and coif to fasten under the nose or chin to protect the throat. Double mail or plates covered their shoulders. Some of the horses had leather or mail body curtains and light steel headpieces.

Besides the universal bow or bows, strengthened with horn or spliced with steel, they carried scimitars, long tulwars or the straight two-edged Persian blades. Their spears were sometimes the light ten-foot lance with a small tip, sometimes the shorter and heavier weapon with an iron knob on the butt, intended for smashing through armour. Most of the riders carried iron maces.

Their unit was the squadron, the hazara and the regiment, commanded by ming-bashis, colonels. The amirs were scattered throughout the array, and upon them rested the burden of leadership in the actual fighting. About Timur and Hussayn were grouped the amirs of their personal following, the tavachis, or courtier officers—aides-de-camp.

Timur had divided his host into right wing, centre and left wing, and each in turn was drawn up in two bodies, the main body and reserve. The right wing, that he had made the stronger purposely—was under Hussayn’s command. The point of greatest danger, the weaker left wing Timur took himself. With him he had the Barlas lords, Amir Jaku and his fellows.

Timur was hopeful, exultant in this decisive test of strength. The Tatars, beholding their own numbers, and the dignity of their array became filled with confidence. And then it rained. A true spring storm of the high steppes, lashing the ground and the men with torrents and waging a battle of its own in the sky with thunder chasing lightning. The ground, soft in the beginning, became a morass of mud; the horses, chilled and weakened, splashed around in mud up to their bellies. The river added to the inundation by flooding the gullies and lowlands. The men went about in soggy garments, protecting their weapons as best they could.

The chronicler explains sadly that this rain was a trick of the Jat Mongols, whose magicians produced it with the Yeddah stone.^[1] And he adds that the Jats, forewarned as to what was coming, had prepared themselves with heavy felt shelters and felt blankets for the horses, and that they dug canals to drain their position. Which is his way of saying that the invaders came through the deluge of several days in much better condition than Timur’s men. At all events, they mounted fresh ponies and moved toward the Tatar camp.

Timur advanced to meet them, and after the usual skirmishing of individual swordsmen, the advanced regiments on his left flank charged the right wing of the enemy. At once the Tatars were broken and driven back. The Jats came in a mass at their heels, and Timur’s reserve cavalry wavered.

Faced with disaster, Timur ordered his drums to sound an advance and plunged forward with his Barlas men. Upon the sea of mud, the disordered regiments lost all cohesion and separated into yelling groups, maddened by uncertainty.

Bows were useless in that wet—horses slid on their rumps and the channels of yellow water became red with blood. Steel was the only weapon that served, and the clanging of blades, the screaming of horses, the shouting of the warriors, and the war cry of the Tatars—“Dar u gar!” made a bedlam of the plain.

Timur headed in toward the standard of the Jat wing commander, and got close enough to strike at the Mongol general with his axe. The blow was parried by his foeman’s shield, and the Mongol rose in his stirrups to cut at Timur with his sword, when Jaku, who had kept behind his lord, thrust the officer through with his spear. The standard came down.

Again Timur sent word to sound his saddle drums and cymbals, and the Mongols—always disheartened by the loss of a standard—began to retreat. On that plain no orderly retreat was possible, and the northern riders broke, drawing clear after a time on their fresher horses.

Riding to a hill, Timur tried to see what was happening elsewhere. Amir Hussayn had fared badly and had been driven back, only the stubborn resistance of his reserve holding the Mongols in check. The centre of both armies had merged into this phase of the conflict.

Timur signalled his men to reform, but this was slow work. Too impatient to delay, he took what squadrons were intact near him and charged into the right of the Mongols who were engaging Hussayn. He had advanced so far that he was able to strike them almost from the rear. At this unexpected onset they drew off. Meanwhile, Ilias Khan cautiously held back his reserve and seemed disposed to retire altogether.

It was a glorious opportunity, and Timur sent his own courier to Hussayn to urge him to reform his divisions without delay and advance.

“Am I a coward,” Hussayn cried, “that he summons me before my men?” He struck Timur’s messenger in the face and returned no answer.

Time was passing, and Timur mastered his anger and sent two officers who were relatives of the amir to Hussayn, to explain that Ilias was on the point of giving way and that they must advance at once.

“Have I fled?” Hussayn swore at them. “Why then does he press me to go forward? Give me time to assemble my men.”

“Khoudsarma,” the messengers replied, “O my Lord, Timur is now engaged with the enemy’s reserve. Look!”

Either Hussayn’s jealousy was aroused, or it was impossible for him to get forward. Eventually Timur had to draw back, before darkness set in. He camped in the field, and, overcome by moodiness, would neither go to see Hussayn nor listen to the amir’s messengers. He determined then that he would never go into battle again with Hussayn as joint commander.

The next day brought more rain, but Timur, still embittered, went forward and engaged Ilias, alone. He was beset by separate divisions of Mongols, and forced to retreat. The ride back through the storm over the marshes and flooded inlets covered with the masses of the dead was rendered dismal by memory of his losses. Chilled, shaken by bitterness, he rode in silence, his Barlas men following him at a distance. He had been soundly defeated, and he never forgave Hussayn for his failure to support him.

Hussayn sent officers to him with various plans for retiring into India, but Timur in his present mood would have none of that. “Let your road be to India or the seven hells,” he said. “What is it to me?”

He retired on Samarkand and saw that the city was provisioned for a siege, then went on to his own valley to recruit a fresh army while the Jats were occupied with Samarkand.

And he found Aljai dead of a sudden sickness, buried in her white shroud in a garden of his house.

[1] It was an old tradition that the Mongols were apt at magic. The chronicler proves the case to his own satisfaction, by explaining that next day when one of the magicians was killed, the rain ceased.