Read Online The White Ship by Chingiz Aitmatov - Free Book Online Page B

rose for its daily journey, all preparations were complete. The standards with horsetails on their staffs and the hero's battle dress and armor had been brought out. His horse was covered with the funeral cloth. The musicians were ready to blow into their karnais—their battle trumpets; the drummers were ready to strike their drums so that the whole taiga would rock, and birds would fly up like a cloud into the sky and whirl overhead with screams and moans, and beasts would rush, gasping and snorting, through the forest thickets, and grass would bow to earth, and echoes rumble in the mountains, and mountains tremble. The mourners loosened their hair ready to weep and chant in praise of the dead hero Kulche. The warriors dropped on one knee, to raise the mortal body on their powerful shoulders. Everyone was ready, waiting for the body to be carried out. And at the edge of the woods nine sacrificial mares, nine bulls, and nine times nine sheep stood tethered, to be slaughtered for the funeral feast.
    But now came something unforeseen. Although the tribes along the Enesai warred constantly among themselves, it was the custom that on days when chiefs were being buried neighbors were not to be attacked. Yet now hosts of enemies, who had stealthily surrounded the encampment of the sorrowing Kirghiz tribe during the night, rushed out of their hiding places on all sides, and not a man had time to mount his horse or seize his weapons. A frightful carnage followed. Everyone was killed. The enemy had planned it so, in order to put an end to the proud Kirghiz tribe forever. No one was spared, so that none would be left to remember the crime and avenge it, so that time would bury all traces of the past with shifting sands. And who could tell, then, what had been, and what had not been . . . ?
    It takes a long time to bear and rear a man, but killing him is faster than fast. Many people lay hacked to death in pools of blood. Many had leaped into the river to escape from the swords and spears, and drowned in the waves of the Enesai. And all along the bank, along the cliffs and rocks, the Kirghiz yurts were flaming, for miles and miles. No one had managed to escape, no one survived. Everything was burned and destroyed. The bodies of the vanquished were thrown from the cliffs into the Enesai. The enemies rejoiced: "Now these lands are ours! These woods are ours! These herds are ours!"
    The enemies were leaving with rich booty and never noticed the two children, a boy and a girl, coming home from the forest. Mischievous and disobedient, they had run off into the woods that morning to strip bark for baskets. In the excitement of their game, they had gone deeper and deeper into the thickets. Hearing the din and noise of the attack, they rushed back, but found nobody alive—neither their fathers, nor their mothers, nor their brothers and sisters. The children remained without kith or kin. They ran, crying, from one burnt yurt to another, but did not find a single living soul. In one hour, they were turned into orphans, alone in the whole world. And in the distance billowed a cloud of dust; the enemies were driving to their own lands the herds and flocks seized in the bloody raid.
    The children saw the dust raised by the hooves and ran after it. After their cruel enemies the children ran, weeping and calling. Only children would do such a thing. Instead of hiding from the murderers, they tried to catch up with them. Anything seemed better than being left alone. Any place seemed better than their dreadful, wrecked, accursed home. Hand in hand, the boy and the girl ran after the herds, crying out to the people to wait, to take them along. But how could their feeble voices be heard amidst the neighing and the clattering of hooves, how could children overtake the raiders, galloping hotly away with their booty?
    The boy and the girl ran for a long time, but they never caught up with the enemy. At last, exhausted, they fell upon the ground. They were