Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

by Robert E. Howard

  I caught his swinging axe on my buckler and my forearm snapped like a twig. The force of that terrific stroke dashed me earthward, but I caught myself on one knee and thrust upward, just as the Frank loomed above me. My scimitar point caught him beneath the beard and rent his jugular; yet even so, staggering drunkenly and spurting blood, he gripped his axe with both hands, and with legs wide braced, heaved the axe high above his head. But life went from him ere he could strike.

  Then as I rose, fully awake now from the pain of my broken arm, men came from the rocks on all sides and made a ring of gleaming steel about me. Such men I had never seen. Like him I had slain, they were tall and massive with red or yellow hair and beards and fierce light eyes. But they were not clad in mail from head to foot like the Crusaders. They wore horned helmets and shirts of scale mail which came almost to their knees but left their throats and arms bare, and most of them wore no other armor at all. They held on their left arms heavy kite shaped shields, and in their right hands wide edged axes. Many wore heavy golden armlets, and chains of gold about their necks.

  Surely such men had never before trod the sands of the East. There stood before them, as a chief stands, a very tall Frank whose hauberk was of silvered scales. His helmet was wrought with rare skill and instead of an axe he bore a long heavy sword in a richly worked sheath. His face was as a man that dreams, but his strange light eyes were wayward as the gleams of the sea.

  Beside him stood another, stranger than he; this man was very old, with a wild white beard and white elf locks. Yet his giant frame was unbowed and his thews were as oak and iron. Only one eye he had and it held a strange gleam, scarcely human. Aye, he seemed to reckon little of what went about him, for his lion-like head was lifted and his strange eye stared through and beyond that on which it rested, into the deeps of the world’s horizons.

  Now I saw that the end of the road was come for me. I flung down my scimitar and folded my arms.

  “God gives,” said I, and waited for the stroke.

  And then there sounded a swift clank of armor and the warriors whirled as Sir Eric burst roughly through the ring and faced them. Thereat a sullen roar went up and they pressed forward. I caught up my scimitar to stand at Sir Eric’s back, but the tall Frank in the silvered mail raised his hand and spoke in a strange tongue, whereat all fell silent. Sir Eric answered in his own tongue: “I cannot understand Norse. Can any of you speak English or Norman-French?”

  “Aye,” answered the tall Frank whose height was half a head more than Sir Eric’s. “I am Skel Thorwald’s son, of Norway, and these are my wolves. This Saracen has slain one of my carles. Is he your friend?”

  “Friend and brother-at-arms,” said Sir Eric. “If he slew, he had just reason.”

  “He sprang on me like a tiger from ambush,” said I wearily. “They are your breed, brother. Let them take my head if they will; blood must pay for blood. Then they will save you and the girl from Muhammad.”

  “Am I a dog?” growled Sir Eric, and to the warriors he said: “Look at your wolf; think you he struck a blow after his throat was cut? Yet here is Kosru Malik with a broken arm. Your wolf smote first; a man may defend his life.”

  “Take him then, and go your ways,” said Skel Thorwald’s son slowly. “We would not take an unfair advantage of the odds, but I like not your pagan.”

  “Wait!” exclaimed Sir Eric. “I ask your aid! We are hunted by a Moslem lord as wolves hunt deer. He seeks to drag a Christian girl into his harem – ”

  “Christian!” rumbled Skel Thorwald’s son. “But ten days agone I slew a horse to Thor.”

  I saw a slow desperation grow in Sir Eric’s deep-lined face.

  “I thought even you Norse had forsaken your pagan gods,” said he. “But let it rest – if there be manhood among ye, aid us, not for my sake nor the sake of my friend, but for the sake of the girl who sleeps among those rocks.”

  At that from among the rest thrust himself a warrior my height and of mighty build. More than fifty winters he had known, yet his red hair and beard were untouched by grey, and his blue eyes blazed as if a constant rage flamed in his soul.

  “Aye!” he snarled. “Aid ye ask, you Norman dog! You, whose breed overran the heritage of my people – whose kinsmen rode fetlock deep in good Saxon blood – now you howl for aid and succor like a trapped jackal in this naked land. I will see you in Hell before I lift axe to defend you or yours.”

  “Nay, Hrothgar,” the ancient white bearded giant spoke for the first time and his voice was like the call of a deep throated trumpet. “This knight is alone among we many. Entreat him not harshly.”

  Hrothgar seemed abashed, angry, yet wishful to please the old one.

  “Aye, my king,” he muttered half sullenly, half apologetically.

  Sir Eric started: “King?”

  “Aye!” Hrothgar’s eyes blazed anew; in truth he was a man of constant spleen. “Aye – the monarch your cursed William tricked and trapped, and beat by a trick to cast from his throne. There stands Harold, the son of Godwin, rightful king of England!”

  Sir Eric doffed his helmet, staring as if at a ghost.

  “But I do not understand,” he stammered. “Harold fell at Senlac – Edith Swan-necked found him among the slain – ”

  Hrothgar snarled like a wounded wolf, while his eyes flamed and flickered with blue lights of hate.

  “A trick to cozen tricksters,” he snarled. “That was an unknown chief of the west Edith showed to the priests. I, a lad of ten, was among those that bore King Harold from the field by night, senseless and blinded.”

  His fierce eyes grew gentler and his rough voice strangely soft.

  “We bore him beyond the reach of the dog William and for months he lay nigh unto death. But he lived, though the Norman arrow had taken his eye and a sword-slash across the head had left him strange and fey.”

  Again the lights of fury flickered in the eyes of Hrothgar.

  “Forty-three years of wandering and harrying on the Viking path!” he rasped. “William robbed the king of his kingdom, but not of men who would follow and die for him. See ye these Vikings of Skel Thorwald’s son? Northmen, Danes, Saxons who would not bide under the Norman heel – we are Harold’s kingdom! And you, you French dog, beg us for aid! Ha!”

  “I was born in England – ” began Sir Eric.

  “Aye,” sneered Hrothgar, “under the roof of a castle wrested from some good Saxon thane and given to a Norman thief!”

  “But kin of mine fought at Senlac beneath the Golden Dragon as well as on William’s side,” protested Sir Eric. “On the distaff side I am of the blood of Godric, eorl of Wessex – ”

  “The more shame to you, renegade mongrel,” raved the Saxon. “I – ”

  The swift patter of small feet sounded on the rocks. The girl had wakened, and frightened by the rough voices, had come seeking her lover. She slipped through the mailed ranks and ran into Sir Eric’s arms, panting and staring wildly about in terror at the grim slayers. The Northmen fell silent.

  Sir Eric turned beseechingly toward them: “You would not let a child of your own breed fall into the hands of the pagans? Muhammad Khan, sultan of Kizilshehr is close on our heels – scarce an hour’s ride away. Let us go into your galley and sail away with you – ”

  “We have no galley,” said Skel Thorwald’s son. “In the night we ventured too close inshore and a hidden reef ripped the guts out of her. I warned Asgrimm Raven that no good would come of sailing out of the broad ocean into this narrow sea, which witches make green fire at night – ”

  “And what could we, a scant hundred, do against a host?” broke in Hrothgar. “We could not aid you if we would – ”

  “But you too are in peril,” said Sir Eric. “Muhammad will ride you down. He has no love for Franks.”

  “We will buy our peace by delivering to him you and the girl and the Turk, bound hand and foot,” replied Hrothgar. “Asgrimm Raven cannot be far away; we lost him in the night but he will be scouring the coast
to find us. We had not dared light a signal fire lest the Saracens see it. But now we will buy peace of this Eastern lord – ”

  “Peace!” Harold’s voice was like the deep mellow call of a great golden bell. “Have done, Hrothgar. That was not well said.”

  He approached Sir Eric and the girl and they would have knelt before him, but he prevented it and lightly laid his corded hand on Ettaire’s head, tilting gently back her face so that her great pleading eyes looked up at him. And I called on the Prophet beneath my breath for the ancient one seemed unearthly with his great height and the strange mystic gleam of his eye, and his white locks like a cloud about his mailed shoulders.

  “Such eyes had Editha,” said he softly. “Aye, child, your face bears me back half a century. You shall not fall into the hands of the heathen while the last Saxon king can lift a sword. I have drawn my blade in many a less worthy brawl on the red roads I have walked. I will draw it again, little one.”

  “This is madness!” cried out Hrothgar. “Shall kites pick the bones of Godwin’s son because of a French girl?”

  “God’s splendor!” thundered the ancient. “Am I king or dog?”

  “You are king, my liege,” sullenly growled Hrothgar, dropping his eyes. “It is yours to give command – even in madness we follow.”

  Such is the devotion of savage men!

  “Light the beacon-fire, Skel Thorwald’s son,” said Harold. “We will hold the Moslem hard till the coming of Asgrimm Raven, God willing. What are thy names, thine and this warrior of the East?”

  Sir Eric told him, and Harold gave orders. And I was amazed to see them obeyed without question. Skel Thorwald’s son was chief of these men, but he seemed to grant Harold the due of a veritable monarch – he whose kingdom was lost and dead in the mists of time.

  Sir Eric and Harold set my arm, binding it close to my body. Then the Vikings brought food and a barrel of stuff they called ale, which had been washed ashore from the broken ship, and while we watched the signal smoke go up, we ate and drank ravenously. And new vigor entered into Sir Eric. His face was drawn and haggard from lack of sleep and the strain of flight and battle, but his eyes blazed with indomitable light.

  “We have scant time to arrange our battle-lines, your majesty,” said he, and the old king nodded.

  “We cannot meet them in this open place. They would leaguer us on all sides and ride us down. But I noted a very broken space not far from here – ”

  So we went to this place. A Viking had found a hollow in the rocks where water had gathered, and we gave the weary horses to drink and left them there, drooping in the shade of the cliffs. Sir Eric helped the girl along and would have given me a hand but I shook my head as I limped along. And Hrothgar came and slipped his mighty arm beneath my shoulders and so aided me, for my wounded leg was numb and stiff.

  “A mad game, Turk,” he growled.

  “Aye,” I answered as one in a dream. “We be all madmen and ghosts on the Road of Azrael. Many have died for the yellow-haired girl. More will die ere the road is at an end. Much madness have I seen in the days of my life, but never aught to equal this.”

  V

  We shall not see the hills again where the grey cloud limns the oak,

  We who die in a naked land to succor an alien folk;

  Well – we have followed the Viking-path with a king to lead us forth –

  And scalds will thunder our victories in the washael halls of the North.

  – The Song of Skel Thorwald’s Son

  Already the drum of many hoofs was in our ears. We took our stand in a wide cleft of a cliff, with the broken, boulder strewn beach at our backs. The land in front of us was a ravine-torn waste, over which the horses could not charge. The Franks massed themselves in the wide cleft, shoulder to shoulder, wide shields overlapping. At the tip of this shield-wall stood King Harold with Skel Thorwald’s son on one hand and Hrothgar on the other.

  Sir Eric had found a sort of ledge in the cliff behind and above the heads of the warriors, and here he placed the girl.

  “You must bide with her, Kosru Malik,” said he. “Your arm is broken, your leg stiff; you are not fit to stand in the shield-wall.”

  “God gives,” said I. “But my heart is heavy and the tang of bitterness is in my mouth. I had thought to fall beside you, my brother.”

  “I give her in your trust,” said he, and clasping the girl to him, he held her hungrily a moment, then dropped from the ledge and strode away, while she wept and held out her white arms after him.

  I drew my scimitar and laid it across my knees. Muhammad might win the fight, but when he came to take the girl he would find only a headless corpse. She should not fall into his hands alive.

  Aye, I gazed on that slim white bit of flesh and swore in wonder and amaze that a frail woman could be the death of so many strong men. Verily, the star of Azrael hovers over the birth of a beautiful woman, the King of the Dead laughs aloud and ravens whet their black beaks.

  She was brave enough. She ceased her whimpering soon and made shift to cleanse and rebandage my wounded leg, for which I thanked her. And while so occupied there was a thunder of hoofs and Muhammad Khan was upon us. The riders numbered at least five hundred men, perhaps more, and their horses reeled with weariness. They drew rein at the beginning of the broken ground and gazed curiously at the silent band in the defile. I saw Muhammad Khan, slender, tall, with the heron feathers in his gilded helmet. And I saw Kai Kedra, Mirza Khan, Yar Akbar, Ahmed El Ghor the Arab, and Kojar Khan, the great emir of the Kurds, he who had led the riders who harried the Arabs.

  Now Muhammad stood up in his golden stirrups and shading his eyes with his hand, turned and spoke to his emirs, and I knew he had recognized Sir Eric beside King Harold. Kai Kedra reined his steed forward through the broken gullies as far as it could go, and making a trumpet of his hands, called aloud in the tongue of the Crusaders: “Harken, Franks, Muhammad Khan, sultan of Kizilshehr, has no quarrel with you; but there stands one who has stolen a woman from the sultan; therefore, give her up to us and ye may depart peacefully.”

  “Tell Muhammad,” answered Sir Eric, “that while one Frank lives, he shall not have Ettaire de Brose.”

  So Kai Kedra rode back to Muhammad who sate his horse like a carven image, and the Persians conferred among themselves. And I wondered again. But yesterday Muhammad Khan had fought a fierce battle and destroyed his foes; now he should be riding in triumph down the broad streets of Kizilshehr, with crimson standards flying and golden trumpets blaring, and white-armed women flinging roses before his horse’s hoofs; yet here he was, far from his city, and far from the field of battle, with the dust and weariness of hard riding on him, and all for a slender girl-child.

  Aye – Muhammad’s lust and Sir Eric’s love were whirlpools that drew in all about them. Muhammad’s warriors followed him because it was his will; King Harold opposed him because of the strangeness in his brain and the mad humor Franks call chivalry; Hrothgar, who hated Sir Eric, fought beside him because he loved Harold, as did Skel Thorwald’s son and his Vikings. And I, because Sir Eric was my brother-at-arms.

  Now we saw the Persians dismounting, for they saw there was no charging on their weary horses over that ground. They came clambering over the gullies and boulders in their gilded armor and feathered helmets, with their silver-chased blades in their hands. Fighting on foot they hated, yet they came on, and the emirs and Muhammad himself with them. Aye, as I saw the sultan striding forward with his men, my heart warmed to him again and I wished that Sir Eric and I were fighting for him, and not against him.

  I thought the Franks would assail the Persians as they clamored across the ravines but the Vikings did not move out of their tracks. They made their foes come to them, and the Moslems came with a swift rush across the level space and a shouting of “Allaho akbar!”

  That charge broke on the shield-wall as a river breaks on a shoal. Through the howling of the Persians thundered the deep rhythmic shouts of the Vikings and the
crashing of the axes drowned the singing and whistling of the scimitars.

  The Norsemen were immovable as a rock. After that first rush the Persians fell back, baffled, leaving a crescent of hacked corpses before the feet of the blond giants. Many strung bows and drove in their arrows at short range but the Vikings merely bent their heads and the shafts glanced from their horned helmets or shivered on the great shields.

  And the Kizilshehrians came on again. Watching above, with the trembling girl beside me, I burned and froze with the desperate splendor of that battle. I gripped my scimitar hilt until blood oozed from beneath my finger nails. Again and again Muhammad’s warriors flung themselves with mad valor against that solid iron wall. And again and again they fell back broken. Dead men were heaped high and over their mangled bodies the living climbed to hack and smite.

  Franks fell too, but their comrades trampled them under and closed the ranks again. There was no respite; ever Muhammad urged on his warriors, and ever he fought on foot with them, his emirs at his side. Allaho akbar! There fought a man and a king who was more than a king!

  I had thought the Crusaders mighty fighters, but never had I seen such warriors as these, who never tired, whose light eyes blazed with strange madness, and who chanted wild songs as they smote. Aye, they dealt great blows! I saw Skel Thorwald’s son hew a Kurd through the hips so the legs fell one way and the torso another. I saw King Harold deal a Turk such a blow that the head flew ten paces from the body. I saw Hrothgar hew off a Persian’s leg at the thigh, though the limb was cased in heavy mail.

  Yet they were no more terrible in battle than my brother-at-arms, Sir Eric. I swear, his sword was a wind of death and no man could stand before it. His face was lighted strangely and mystically; his arm was thrilled with superhuman strength, and though I sensed a certain kinship between himself and the wild barbarians who chanted and smote beside him, yet a mystic, soul-something set him apart from and beyond them. Aye, the forge of hardship and suffering had burned from soul and brain and body all dross and left only the white hot fire of his inner soul that lifted him to heights unattainable by common men.