May There Be a Road (Ss) (2001) Read Online Free PDF Page A

China. I'm sure you do not care.." but you will. There is a secret track over the mountains to India. It is the track used by Abu Back in the sixteenth century when he fled from Khotan. It is also my gateway to the mountain people. Do you know this track?"
    "It is idle talk.." bazaar talk. There is no track. There are only a few mountain pastures and fewer people. All you will find in the mountains are granite and ice, glaciers and clouds."
    "If you were to show me the track, which is important to my future plans, I might permit you to keep your bride, and would let her father go free."
    "Such stories are the talk of fools,"
    Tohkta said. "They are the idle tall of goatherds."
    To know men, Batai Khan had taught him, is the knowledge of kings. Tohkta looked into the eyes of Chu Shih and saw no mercy, only ruthless ambition.
    To refuse would mean torture and death. Torture he could stand; what he feared was torture for Kushla, or for her father.
    "I do not believe," Chu Shih said, "that stories of the ancient route are talk. If you wish to go free, you will show me the track. If you do not show me, another will."
    "I will show you what is there, but it may not be to your liking."
    This man, Tohkta told himself, must die. I must kill him or return to kill him. If he lives our mountains will never be free. If need be Tohkta's people could wait for years before they came again to the oasis towns, and by that time, these might be overthrown, or their ideas changed. Young though he was, Tohkta had learned all things change; the Tochari had learned patience from their mountains.
    Chu Shih's command brought in two more soldiers.
    Tohkta had a moment of sharp panic when he saw them, wanting to plunge at the door and fight his way free, but he fought down the feeling. He must think of Kushla and her father, who might be killed. Escape they must .. . somehow.
    Out upon the street, the bridge of his wishing fell into the gorge of despair, for they had Tola Beg also. Two soldiers gripped the arms of the old yak hunter, and there was blood welling from an ugly cut on his cheekbone.
    Turning, the Chinese colonel strode away.
    Kushla and Yakub being pushed ahead, Tola Beg and Tohkta followed surrounded by the six soldiers.
    The Chinese who had searched them were coastal Chinese, unfamiliar with the customs of mountain Tochari. It was the custom in the hills to wear their hair long and their beards also.
    Tohkta's hair was wound about his head under his sheepskin hat, and into the hair was thrust a thin-bladed knife, as was also the custom.
    Soldiers loitered before the Ya-men, several hundred yards away, but the street led through a narrow avenue of darkness bordered by a double row of tamarisks. In this darkness, Tohkta halted, and when the soldier behind him ran into him, Tohkta turned and drawing his knife, struck upward into the softness of the man's stomach.
    Tohkta's hand drew Kushla behind him.
    Yakub, with more courage than Tohkta expected, seized the rifle of the soldier next to him, and then with a rush like a sudden gust of wind, Batai Khan and his riders swept through the tamarisks.
    The horses were among the soldiers and all was confusion, pounding hooves, and flashing blades.
    Several of the soldiers had their rifles slung and Chu Shih was knocked sprawling by the shoulder of the horse of Batai Khan.
    Lifting Kushla to the saddle of a lead horse, Tohkta leaped into his own saddle. A soldier slipped a rifle to his shoulder, but Tohkta rode him down, grasping the man's weapon as he fell. Then they were away in the darkness and riding hard for freedom and the hills.
    There was shouting and a wild shot, but the attack had been sudden and with broadswords, the ancient Tochari way of fighting. In the darkness the soldiers had no chance against the charging horses and flashing blades. And it was only now that the force at the Ya-men was alerted.
    Tohkta glanced back. Behind them there was confusion and wild shots but no roaring of