Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

by Robert E. Howard

  Cahal’s cold eyes gleamed and he laughed aloud as the lurking madness in his soul responded to the madness of the proposal. His hard hand smote against the brown palm of Renault d’Ibelin.

  “Doom hovers over all Outremer, and Death is no grimmer met on a mad quest than in the locked spears of battle! East we ride to the Devil knows what doom!”

  The sun had scarce set when Cahal’s ragged servant, who had followed him faithfully through all his previous wanderings, stole away from the ruined walls and rode toward Jordan, flogging his shaggy pony hard. The madness of his master was no affair of his and life was sweet, even to a Cairo gutter-waif.

  The first stars were blinking when Renault d’Ibelin and Red Cahal rode down the slope at the head of the men-at-arms. A hard-bitten lot these were, lean taciturn fighters, born in Outremer for the most part – a few veterans of Normandy and the Rhineland who had followed wandering lords into the Holy Land and had remained. They were well armed – clad in chain-mail shirts and steel caps, bearing kite-shaped shields. They rode fleet Arab horses and tall Turkoman steeds, and led horses followed. It was the capture of a number of fine steeds which had crystallized the idea of the raid in Renault’s mind.

  D’Ibelin had long learned the lesson of the East – swift marches that went ahead of the news of the raid, and depended on the quality of the mounts. Yet he knew the whole plan was madness. Cahal and Renault rode into the unknown land and far in the east the vultures circled endlessly.

  IV

  The bearded watcher on the tower above the gates of El Omad shaded his hawk-eyes. In the east a dust-cloud grew and out of the cloud a black dot came flying. And the lean Arab knew it was a lone horseman, riding hard. He shouted a warning and in an instant other lean, hawk-eyed figures were at his side, brown fingers toying with bow-string and cane-shafted spear. They watched the approaching figure with the intentness of men born to feud and raid.

  “A Frank,” grunted one, “and on a dying horse.”

  They watched tensely as the lone rider dipped out of sight in a dry wadi, came into view again on the near side, clattered reelingly across the dusty level and drew rein beneath the gate. A lean hand drew shaft to ear, but a word from the first watcher halted the archer. The Frank below had half climbed, half fallen from his reeling horse, and now he staggered to the gate and smote against it resoundingly with his mailed fist.

  “By Allah and by Allah!” swore the bearded watcher in wonder. “The Nazarene is mad!” He leaned over the battlement and shouted: “Oh, dead man, what wouldst thou at the gate of El Omad?”

  The Frank looked up with eyes glazed from thirst and the burning winds of the desert. His mail was white with the drifting dust, with which likewise his lips were parched and caked. He spoke with difficulty.

  “Open the gates, dog, lest ill befall you!”

  “It is Kizil Malik – the Red King – whom men call The Mad,” whispered an archer. “He rode with the lord Renault, the shepherds say. Hold him in play while I fetch the Shaykh.”

  “Art thou weary of life, Nazarene,” called the first speaker, “that thou comest to the gate of thine enemy?”

  “Fetch the lord of the castle, dog,” roared the Gael. “I parley not with menials – and my horse is dying.”

  The tall lean form of Shaykh Suleyman ibn Omad loomed among the guardsmen and the old chief swore in his beard.

  “By Allah, this is a trap of some sort. Nazarene, what do ye here?”

  Cahal licked his blackened lips with a dry tongue.

  “When the wild dogs run, panther and buffalo flee together,” he said. “Doom rushes from the east on Moslem and Christian alike. I bring you warning – call in your vassals and make fast your gates, lest another rising sun find you sleeping among the charred embers of your hold. I claim the courtesy due a perishing traveller – and my horse is dying.”

  “It is no trap,” growled the Shaykh in his beard. “The Frank has a tale – there has been a harrying in the east and perchance the Mongols are upon us – open the gates, dogs, and let him in.”

  Through the opened gates Cahal unsteadily led his drooping steed, and his first words gained him esteem among the Arabs.

  “See to my horse,” he mumbled, and willing hands complied.

  Cahal stumbled to a horse block and sank down, his head in his hands. A slave gave him a flagon of water and he drank avidly. As he set down the flagon he was aware that the Shaykh had come from the tower and stood before him. Suleyman’s keen eyes ran over the Gael from head to foot, noting the lines of weariness on his face, the dust that caked his mail, the fresh dints on helmet and shield – black dried blood was caked thick about the mouth of his scabbard, showing he had sheathed his sword without pausing to cleanse it.

  “You have fought hard and fled swiftly,” concluded Suleyman aloud.

  “Aye, by the Saints!” laughed the prince. “I have fled for a night and a day and a night without rest. This horse is the third which has fallen under me – ”

  “Whom do you flee?”

  “A horde that must have ridden up from the dim limbo of Hell! Wild riders with tall fur caps and the heads of wolves on their standards.”

  “Allah il Allah!” swore Suleyman. “Kharesmians! – flying before the Mongols!”

  “They were apparently fleeing some greater horde,” answered Cahal. “Let me tell the tale swiftly – the Sieur Renault and I rode east with all his men, seeking the fabled city of Shahazar – ”

  “So that was the quest!” interrupted Suleyman. “Well, I was preparing to sweep down and stamp out that robbers’ nest when divers herdsmen brought me word that the bandits had ridden away swiftly in the night like the thieves they were. I could have ridden after, but knew that Christians riding eastward but rode to their doom – and none can alter the will of Allah.”

  “Aye,” grinned Cahal wolfishly, “east to our doom we rode, like men riding blind into the teeth of a storm. We slashed our way through the lands of the Kurds and crossed the Euphrates. Beyond, far to the east, we saw smoke and flame and the wheeling of many vultures, and Renault said the Turkomans fought the Horde. But we met no fugitives and I wondered then – I wonder not now. The slayers rode over them like a wave out of the night and none was left to flee.

  “Like men riding to death in a dream, we rode into the onrushing storm and the suddenness of its coming was like a thunderbolt. A sudden drum of hoofs over a ridge and they were upon us – hundreds of them, a swarm of outriders scouting ahead of the horde. There was no chance to flee – our men died where they stood.”

  “And the Sieur Renault?” asked the Shaykh.

  “Dead!” said Cahal. “I saw a curved blade cleave his helmet and his skull.”

  “Allah be merciful and save his soul from the hell-fire of the unbelievers!” piously exclaimed Suleyman, who had sworn to kill the luckless adventurer on sight.

  “He took toll before he fell,” grimly answered the Gael. “By God, the heathen lay like ripe grain beneath our horses’ hoofs before the last man fell. I alone hacked my way through.”

  The Shaykh, grown old in warfare, visualized the scene that lay behind that simple sentence – the swarming, howling, fur-clad horsemen with their barbaric war cries, and Red Cahal riding like a wind of Death through that maelstrom of flashing blades, his sword singing in his hand as horse and rider went down before him.

  “I outstripped the pursuers,” said Cahal, “and as I rode over a hill I looked back and saw the great black mass of the horde swarming like locusts over the land, filling the sky with the clamor of their kettledrums. The Turkomans had risen behind us as we had raced through their lands, and now the desert was alive with horsemen – but the whole east was aflame and the tribesmen had no time to hunt down a single rider. They were faced with a stronger foe. So I won through.

  “My horse fell under me, but I stole a steed from a herd watched by a Turkoman boy. When it could do no more, I took a mount from a wandering Kurd who rode up, thinking to loot a dying tra
veller. And now I say to you, whom men dub the Watcher of the Trail – beware, lest these demons from the east ride over your ruins as they have ridden over the corpses of the Turkomans. I do not think they’ll lay siege – they are like wolves ranging the steppes; they strike and pass on. But they ride like the wind. They have crossed the Euphrates. Behind me last night the sky was red as blood. Hard as I have ridden, they must be close on my heels.”

  “Let them come,” grimly answered the Arab. “El Omad has held out against Nazarene, Kurd and Turk – for a hundred years no foe has set foot within these walls. Malik, this is a time when Christian and Moslem should join hands. I thank you for your warning, and beg you to aid me in holding the walls.”

  But Cahal shook his head.

  “You will not need my help, and I have other work to do. It was not to save my worthless life that I have ridden three noble steeds to death – otherwise I had left my body beside Renault d’Ibelin. I must ride on; Jerusalem is in the path of these devils, with its ruined walls and scanty guard.”

  Suleyman paled and plucked his beard.

  “Al Kuds! These pagan dogs will slay Christian and Muhammadan alike, and desecrate the holy places!”

  “And so,” Cahal rose stiffly, “I must on to warn them. So swiftly have these Kharesmians come that no word of their coming can have gone into Palestine. On me alone the burden of warning lies. Give me a fleet horse and let me go.”

  “You can do no more,” objected Suleyman. “You are foredone – an hour more and you would drop senseless from the saddle. I will send one of my men instead – ”

  Cahal shook his head. “The duty is mine. Yet I will sleep an hour – one small hour can make no great difference. Then I will fare on.”

  “Come to my couch,” urged Suleyman, but the hardy Gael shook his head.

  “This has been my couch before,” said he, and flinging himself down on the scanty grass of the courtyard, he drew his cloak about him and fell into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. Yet he slept but an hour when he awoke of his own accord. Food and wine were placed before him and he drank and ate ravenously. His features were still drawn and haggard, but in his short rest he had drawn upon hidden springs of endurance. An iron man in an age of iron, he added to his physical ruggedness a dynamic nerve-energy that carried him beyond himself and upheld him after more stolid men had dropped by the wayside.

  As he reined out of the gates on a swift Arab steed, the watchmen shouted and pointed to the east where a pillar of smoke billowed up against the hot blue sky. The Shaykh flung up his arm in salute as Cahal rode toward Jerusalem at a swinging gallop that ate up the miles.

  Bedouins in their black felt tents gaped at him; herdsmen leaning on their staves stiffened at his shout. A rising drum of hoofs, the wave of a mailed arm, a shouted warning, then the dwindling hoof-beats – behind him the frenzied people snatched up their belongings and fled shrieking to places of shelter or hiding.

  V

  The moon was setting as Cahal splashed through the calm waters of the Jordan, flecked with the mirrored stars. The sun was rising when his horse fell at the gate of Jerusalem that opens on the Damascus road. Cahal staggered up, half dead himself, and gazing on the crumbling ruins of the shattered walls, he groaned aloud. On foot he hurried forward and a group of placid Syrians watched him curiously. A bearded Flemish man-at-arms came forward, trailing his pike. Cahal snatched a wine-flask that hung at the soldier’s girdle and emptied it at one draft.

  “Lead me to the patriarch,” he gasped throatily. “Doom rides on swift hoofs to Jerusalem – ha!”

  From the people a thin cry of wonder and fear had gone up – Cahal wheeled and felt fear constrict his throat. Again in the east he saw flying flame and drifting smoke – the gigantic tracks of the destroying horde.

  “They have crossed the Jordan!” he cried. “Saints of God, when did men born of women ride so madly? They spurn the very wind – curst be the weakness that made me waste even a single hour – ”

  The words died in his throat as he looked at the ruined walls. Truly, an hour more or less could have no significance in that doomed city.

  Cahal hurried through the streets with the soldier and he saw that already the word had spread like wild-fire. Jews in their blue shubas ran about howling; in the streets and on the house-tops women wrung their white hands and wailed. Tall Syrians bound their belongings on donkeys and formed the nucleus of a disorderly horde that streamed out of the western gates staggering under bundles of household goods. The city crouched trembling and dazed with terror under the threat rising in the east. What horde was sweeping upon them they did not know, nor care; death is death, whoever the dealer.

  Some cried out that the Tartars were upon them and both Moslem and Nazarene shook. Cahal found the patriarch bewildered and helpless. With a handful of soldiers, how could he defend the wallless city? He was ready to give up his life in the vain attempt; he could do no more. The mullahs rallied their people, and for the first time in all history Moslem and Christian joined forces to defend the city that was holy to both. The great mass of the people fled into the mosques or the cathedrals, or crouched resignedly in the streets, dumbly awaiting the stroke. Men cried on Jehovah and on Allah, and some prophesied a miracle that should deliver the Holy City. But in the merciless blue sky no flaming sword appeared, only the smoke of the pillaging, the flame of the slaughter and at last the dust clouds of the riders.

  The patriarch had bunched his pitiful force of men-at-arms, knights, armed pilgrims and Moslems, at the Damascus Gate. Useless to man the ruined walls. There they would face the horde and give up their lives, without hope and without fear.

  Cahal, his weariness half forgotten in the drunkenness of anticipated battle, reined beside the patriarch on the great red stallion that had been given him, and cried out suddenly at the sight of a tall, broad man on a rangy Turkish bay.

  “Haroun, by all the Saints!”

  The other turned toward him and Cahal wavered. Was this Haroun? The fellow was clad in the mail shirt and peaked helmet of a Turkish soldier. On his brawny right arm he bore a round spiked buckler and at his belt hung a long broad scimitar, heavier by pounds than the average Moslem blade. Moreover, Haroun had been clean-shaven and this man wore the fierce curving mustachios of the Turk. Yet the build of him – that square dark face – those blazing blue eyes –

  “By the Saints, Haroun,” said Cahal heartily, “what do you here?”

  “Allah blast me if I be any Haroun,” answered the soldier in a deep growling voice. “I am Akbar the Soldier, come to Al Kuds on pilgrimage. You have mistaken me for another.”

  Cahal frowned. The voice was not even that of Haroun, yet surely in all the world there was not such another pair of eyes. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, it is of no moment – where are you going?”

  For the man had reined about.

  “To the hills!” answered the soldier. “We can do no good by dying here – best come with me. From the dust, it is a whole horde that is riding upon us.”

  “Flee without striking a blow? Not I!” snapped Cahal. “Go, if you fear.”

  Akbar swore loudly. “By Allah and by Allah! A man had better place his head beneath an elephant’s tread than call me coward! I’ll stand my ground as long as any Nazarene!”

  Cahal turned away shortly, irritated by the fellow’s manner and by his boasting. Yet for all the soldier’s wrath, it seemed to the Gael that a vagrant twinkle lighted his fierce eyes as though he shook with inward mirth. Then Cahal forgot him. A wail went up from the house-tops where the helpless people watched their oncoming doom. The horde had swept into sight, up from the hazes of the Jordan’s gorge.

  The skies shook with the clamor of the kettledrums; the earth trembled with the thunder of the hoofs. The headlong speed of the yelling fiends numbed the minds of their victims. From the steppes of high Asia these barbarians had fled before the Mongols like thistle-down flying before the wind. Drunken with the blood of
slaughtered tribes, ten thousand strong they surged on Jerusalem, where thousands of helpless folk knelt shuddering.

  Cahal saw anew the hideous figures which had haunted his half-delirious dreams as he swayed in the saddle on that long flight: tall rangy steeds on which crouched the broad forms of the riders in wolfskins and mail – square dark faces, eyes glaring like mad dogs’ from beneath high fur caps or peaked helmets; standards with the heads of wolves, panthers and bears.

  Headlong they swept down the Damascus road – leaping their horses over the broken walls, crowding through the ruined gates at breakneck speed – and headlong they smote the clump of defenders which spurred to meet them – smote them, broke them, shattered them, trampled them down and under, and over their mangled bodies, struck the heart of the doomed city.

  Red hell reigned rampant in the streets of Jerusalem, where helpless men, women and children ran screaming before the slayers who rode them down, howling like wolves, spitting babes on their lances and holding them on high like gory standards. Under the frenzied hoofs pitiful forms fell writhing and blood flooded the gutters. Dark blood-stained hands tore the garments from shrieking girls and lance-butts shattered doors and windows behind which cowered terrified prey. All objects of worth were ripped from their places and screams of agony rose to the smoke-fouled heavens as the victims were tortured with steel and fire to make them give up their pitiful treasures. Death stalked howling through the streets of Jerusalem and men blasphemed their gods as they died.