Two other fierce lions!
I hope that you would give Hsuehtoo a munificent reward.”
It took Hsuehtoo several days to send the princess’ letter back to Manas. The two warriors bestowed a place of interest called Zareshunbie upon Hsuehtoo at the requirement of the princess.
The warriors stationed in the city of Beijing were homesick. They were eager to wait for the order to go home issued by Manas. However, Manas did not want to do so. Different from Bakai, who often urged Manas to go back home, Almambet maintained that the grand army stay right there for some time to seek the chance of a decisive battle. In his opinion, only after depriving the troops of Konurbaiof the ability of fighting back could the grand army go back home. “We should not leave the capital. You know, I don’t want to be belittled by others simply because I run away in a fluster,” Manas maintained firmly. Thus, he asked other khans and their troops to return home first. On the contrary, Manas stayed in the capital together with the closest warriors of him.
Unfortunately, Manas did not realize that he had already been guilty of an irredeemable blunder. A catastrophe seemed to loom and befall him gradually.
They tried their best to find Konurbai after going into the city. However, they lost all trace of him. Almambet had serious misgivings about how to trace the warmonger. The Khitan prince often disguised himself as an ordinary man and then took to the street in search of Konurbai. Although his efforts ended up in failure every time, the Khitan prince had a hunch that the sly warlord must be working on a hazardous scheme. But none of them envisaged that Konurbai had dug out a blind pass leading to the suburbs. No one knew the existence of such a blind pass except himself. After Kyrgyz people entered the city, the warlord hid himself inside the underground pass just like a mouse every day. He did so in order to wait for the arrival of Manas.
As the time of going back home was approaching, Manas was about to understand what was going on outside the palace. Clad in the overcoat of Manas, Baimart stepped into a sedan chair and made a feint of inspecting the whole city. Having learned that Manas Khan was making an inspection, the masses stood on both sides of the street and attentively looked into Baimart
Numerous Warriors Die in Battlefield and Manas Khan Passes Away
67
who disguised himself as Manas. Baimart’s sedan chair was going down the street when Almambet,Chubak and Serhaq came back from the coutryside and bumped into the guy who were in disguise. The coward and muddle-headed guy forgot his task, jumping from his sedan chair and bowing to the three warriors in a hurry. Almambet had no time to prevent Baimart from doing so. “The goddamned guy completely forgot what he should do. He was ordered to dress himself up as Manas so he should feign arrogance at his sedan chair. How could he dismount from his sedan chair and salute us in a humble way? Given how he behaved today, our control over the city and the throne, I guess, will be finished soon. The bastard pissed me off!” the Khitan prince said to his companions in an angry tone.
All the people made it to the palace of Manas out of rage and disappointment. “As soon as I saw the three warriors, I had no guts to draw myself up to my full height,” Baimart explained. “Your extreme stupidity completely screwed up our plan!” Bakai reprimanded him loudly. However, their complaints made no difference to the matter. Manas was lost in deep thought for a long time until the dusk. The thinking of Manas was suddenly interrupted by the noises outside the palace. Organized by Almambet, a total of forty warriors were playing a game outside. In order to check out whether those guys were doing the exercises of horsemanship, Manas put on his coat armor and rode out. He did not wear his helmet as usual out of carelessness. Contrary to anybody’s expectation, a pair of wicked eyes was staring at Manas from inside the blind pass which was unknown to others. As the horse of Manas got closer to the blind pass which was home to Konurbai, the horse began to be alert to the possible danger. However, Manas did not take note of such a concealed scheme of murder at all. As the horse was about a stone’s throw from Konurbai, the warlord raised his axe overhead and then hewed at the neck of Manas vigorously. In a bid to bump Manas off as quickly as he could, Konurbai once dipped the sharp axe into a poisonous solution of high concentration before. At the very beginning, Manas did not feel the injury on his neck. Konurbai tried to extract the axe from Manas’ mauled neck in order to make the second try. But he failed in doing so for the axe handle was disconnected from the rest of the weapon. The murderer had nothing to do but run away immediately merely because he was afraid of being found out and caught at the scene. Under the bright moonlight mixed with the candle light, Manas recognized
Legend of Manas
the mobster standing in the wake of him. Before Manas wanted to take another look, Konurbai had vanished. Manas ran towards where the mobster disappeared in a hurry and found a wall which could be moved. It turned out to be an end of Konurbai’s blind pass. With the help of lamps, Manas found out a tunnel under the wall and a trail of foot prints left by a horse. In terms of the horse foot prints which were easy to discern, Manas made sure at once that a horse had already been leaving just now. All the people playing the game of horsemanship stopped and bunched together around Manas. In spite of the wounds, Manas still sat rigidly upright on horseback. None of the warriors thought that their khan was hit by a poisonous axe.