Casca 34: Devil's Horseman by Tony Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

of use once more to the Mongols.
    He grinned and returned to his tent. Ashira was knelt besides a brass bowl of warm water. “I have prepared a wash for you, master,” she said.
    “Very good, Ashira.” Casca unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off. He’d not said too much to her about her outburst of petulance back on the road shortly after leaving Samarkand, and she’d calmed down. He guessed she had wanted to show him she was annoyed at being taken away from luxury and thrust into a harsher world, but as she had said, she was a slave and would go where she was told, even though she didn’t care much for it.
    Casca lay down on the cushions and relaxed as Ashira rubbed his chest with warm water and a damp cloth. He looked at her. Certainly attractive, no dumb low-class slut. She could speak a number of languages and knew her stuff, and that of the world around her. She must have been taken prisoner at some time.
    “Tell me, Ashira, of your past.”
    “Oh, I was born in Georgia, in Tiflis. When the Mongols came fifteen years ago they took me captive and I was taken to Samarkand and grew up as a slave. I know of no other life now. I was only twelve when I was taken away from my parents. They died.” She paused for a moment. “I was raped every day until I learned not to resist, then trained to pleasure men. I was – broken in, like a horse.” She looked up and for a moment Casca saw bitterness, then it was covered up by indifference and she shrugged. “Bought and sold, but always in high circles. I was a prized slave because of my training and my looks. But I am now getting old for a pleasure slave, so I think perhaps this is my fate, to be sent from Samarkand and become an army camp slave.”
    “Is that what you think? I’ll turn you over to the army?”
    Ashira stopped and looked at him, her eyes large and wet. “If it is your wish, then that is my fate.” She bent to wring out the cloth and Casca saw a tear drop into the bowl.
    Casca put a finger under her chin and raised her head. She was crying. The tears ran down her face as she silently wept. Casca sighed and took hold of her, pulling her to him. “You must think little of me if you believe I’ll sell you off to a bunch of raping soldiers. You’ll remain with me for as long as this campaign lasts, then maybe I’ll see to it you’re freed.”
    Ashira sobbed. “Freed? Where could I go, master? I have no home, my family is long dead, my homeland as foreign to me now as the place we are going to. I could only be freed and live in Samarkand, and we are now enemies of the governor there. I shall be a slave as long as I live.”
    Casca held the crying Ashira tight, and her tears flowed until she could cry no more, and she fell into a deep sleep, exhausted by her cathartic outburst. Casca held her thinking long into the night until consciousness slipped from him, too.
    * * *
    They resumed their journey, passing close to the northern limits of the Sea of Aral. Now they were well into the steppes and the winds of autumn were beginning to blow from the east. Kaidur sent scouts far and wide but they reported seeing nobody. Casca frowned and looked at his companion. “I would have thought we would have seen at least some people here.”
    “I came this way, but on the reverse journey, after our campaign thirteen years ago. We took many of the people here as slaves and the rest fled. Maybe this region has been slow to recover its inhabitants. Also, Casca-Badahur, remember, Subedei and Batu must have come this way recently. We are following in their footsteps to the camp.”
    Casca nodded in understanding. He spent many hours talking to the veteran soldier. He pressed him on the organization of the Mongol armies, wondering if their composition had changed since he had left, or since Genghis Khan had died. Kaidur shook his head. The Mongol army was still broken down into units of ten, the smallest being a troop of ten called an Arban led by a commander elected