Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

by Robert E. Howard

  In the first irresistible flood of that charge, such defenders as were not instantly ridden down had been torn apart and swept back in utter confusion. The weight of the impact had swept Red Cahal’s steed away as on the crest of a flood, and he found himself reining about in a narrow alley, where he had been tossed as a bit of driftwood is flung into a back-eddy by a rushing tide. He had lost sight of the patriarch and had no doubt that he lay among the trampled dead before the Damascus Gate.

  His sword was red to the hilt, his soul ablaze with the battle-lust, his brain sick with fury and horror as the cries of the butchered city smote on his ears.

  “I’ll leave my corpse before the Sepulcher,” he growled, and wheeling, spurred up the alley. He raced down a narrow winding street and emerged upon the Via Dolorosa just as the first Kharesmian came flying along it, scimitar dripping crimson. The red stallion’s shoulder brushed the barbarian’s stirrup and Cahal’s sword flashed like a sunburst. The Kharesmian’s head leaped from his shoulders on an arch of crimson and the Gael yelped with murderous exultation.

  And now came another riding like the wind, and Cahal saw it was Akbar. The soldier reined in and shouted, “Well, good sir, are you still determined to sacrifice both our lives?”

  “Your life is your own – my life is mine!” roared Cahal, eyes blazing.

  He saw that a group of horsemen had ridden up to the Sepulcher from another street and were dismounting, shouting in their barbaric tongue, spattering the holy stones with blood-drops from their blades. In a red mist of fury Cahal smote them as an avalanche smites the pines. His whistling sword cleft buckler and helmet, severing necks and splitting skulls; under the hammering hoofs of his screaming charger, men rolled with smashed heads. And even in his madness Cahal was aware that he was not alone. Akbar had charged after him; his great voice roared above the clamor and the heavy scimitar in his left hand crashed through mail and flesh and bone.

  The men before the Sepulcher lay in a silent gory heap when Cahal reined back and shook the bloody mist from his eyes. Akbar roared in a strange tongue and smote him thunderously on the shoulders.

  “Bogda, bogatyr!” he roared, his eyes dancing, and no longer Cahal doubted that he was Haroun. “You fight like a hero, by Erlik! But come, malik – you have offered a noble sacrifice to your God and He’ll hardly blame you for saving yourself now. Thunder of Allah, man, we can not fight ten thousand!”

  “Ride on,” answered Cahal, shaking the red drops from his blade. “Here I die.”

  “Well,” laughed Akbar, “if you wish to throw away your life here where it will do no good – that’s your affair! The heathen may thank you, but your brothers scarcely will, when the raiders smite them suddenly! The horsemen are all dead or hemmed in the alleys. Only you and I escaped that charge. Who will carry the news of the raid to the Frankish barons?”

  “You speak truth,” said Cahal shortly. “Let us go.”

  The pair wheeled away and galloped down the street just as a howling horde came flying up the other end. Beyond the shattered walls Cahal looked back to see a mounting flame. He hid his face in his hands.

  “Wounds of God!” he groaned. “They are burning the Sepulcher!”

  “And defiling the Al Aksa mosque too, I doubt not,” said Akbar tranquilly. “Well, that which is written will come to pass, and no man may escape his fate. All things pass away, yea, even the Holy of Holies.”

  Cahal shook his head, soul-sick. They rode through toiling bands of fugitives who screamed and caught at his stirrups, but Cahal steeled his heart. If he was to bear warning to the barons, he could not be burdened by helpless ones.

  The roar of pillage and slaughter faded into the distance; only the smoke stood up among the hills, mute witness of the horror. Akbar laughed gustily.

  “By Allah!” he swore, smiting his saddlebow, “these Kharesmians are woundy fighters! They ride like Tatars and slay like Turks! Right well would I lead them into battle! I had rather fight beside them than against them.”

  Cahal made no reply. His strange companion seemed to him like a faun, a soulless fantastic being full of titanic laughter at all human things – a creature outside the boundaries of men’s dreams and reverences.

  Akbar spoke abruptly. “Here our roads part for a space, malik; your road lies to Ascalon – mine to El Kahira.”

  “Why to Cairo, Akbar, or Haroun, or whatever your name is?” asked Cahal.

  “Because I have business with that great oaf, Baibars, whom the devil fly away with!” yelled Akbar, and his shout of laughter floated back above the hoof-beats.

  It was hours later when Cahal, pushing his horse as hard as he dared, met the travellers – a slender knight in full mail and vizored helmet, with a single attendant, a big carle with a rough red beard, who wore a horned helmet and a shirt of scale-mail and bore a heavy ax. Something slumbering stirred in Cahal as he looked on that fierce bluff face, and he reined in.

  “Man, where have I seen you before?”

  The fierce frosty eyes met his levelly.

  “By Odin, that I can’t say. I’m Wulfgar the Dane and this is my master.”

  Cahal glanced at the silent knight with his plain shield. Through the bars of the vizor, shadowed eyes looked at him – great God! A shock went through Cahal, leaving him bewildered and shaken with a thousand racing chaotic thoughts. He leaned forward, striving to peer through the lowered vizor, and the knight drew back with an almost womanish gesture of rebuke. Cahal reddened.

  “I crave your pardon, sir,” he said. “I did not intend this seeming rudeness.”

  “My master has taken a vow not to speak or reveal his features until he has accomplished his penance,” broke in the rough Dane. “He is known as the Masked Knight. We journey to Jerusalem.”

  Sorrowfully Cahal shook his head.

  “No Christian may ride thither. The paynim from the outer steppes have swept over the walls and the Holy of Holies lies in smoking ruins.”

  The Dane’s bearded mouth gaped.

  “Jerusalem – taken?” he mouthed stupidly. “Why, good sir, that can not be! How would God allow his Holy City to fall into the hands of the infidels?”

  “I know not,” said Cahal bitterly. “The ways of God and His infinite mercy are past my knowledge – but the streets of Jerusalem run with the blood of His people and the Sepulcher is black with the flames of the heathen.”

  Perplexed, the Dane tugged at his red beard and glanced at his master, sitting image-like in the saddle.

  “By Odin,” he growled, “what are we to do now?”

  “There is but one thing to be done,” answered Cahal. “Ride back to Ascalon and give warning. I was going thither, but if you will do this thing, I will seek Walter de Brienne. Tell the Seneschal of Ascalon that Jerusalem has fallen to heathen Turks of the outer steppes, known as Kharesmians, who number some ten thousand men. Bid him arm for war – and let no grass grow under your horses’ hoofs in going.”

  And Cahal reined aside and took the road for Jaffa.

  VI

  Cahal found Walter de Brienne in Ramlah, brooding in the White Mosque over the sepulcher of Saint George. Fainting with weariness the Gael told his tale in a few stark bare words, and even they seemed to drag leaden and lifeless from his blackened lips. He was but dimly aware that men led him into a house and laid him on a couch. And there he slept the sun around.

  He woke to a deserted city. Horror-stricken, the people of Ramlah had gathered up their belongings and fled along the road to Jaffa, crying that the end of the world was come. But Walter de Brienne had ridden north, leaving a single man-at-arms to bid Cahal follow him to Acre. The Gael rode through the hollow-echoing streets, feeling like a ghost in a dead city. The western gates swung idly open and a spear lay on the worn flags, as if the watch had dropped their weapons and fled in sudden panic.

  Cahal rode through the fields of date-palms and groves of fig-trees hugging the shadow of the wall, and out on the plain he overtook staggering crowds of franti
c folk burdened with their goods and crying with weariness and thirst. When the fugitives saw Cahal they screamed with fear to know if the slayers were upon them. He shook his head, pushing through. It seemed logical to him that the Kharesmians would sweep on to the sea, and their path might well take them by Ramlah. But as he rode he scanned the horizon behind him and saw neither smoke-rack nor dust cloud.

  He left the Jaffa road with its hurrying throngs, and swung north. Already the tale had passed like wildfire from mouth to mouth. The villages were deserted as the folk thronged to the coast towns or retired into towers on the heights. Christian Outremer stood with its back to the sea, facing the onrushing menace out of the East.

  Cahal rode into Acre, where the waning powers of Outremer were already gathering – hawk-eyed knights in worn mail – the barons with their wolfish men-at-arms. Sultan Ismail of Damascus had sent swift emissaries urging an alliance – which had been quickly accepted. Knights of St. John from their great grim Krak des Chevaliers, Templars with their red skull-caps and untrimmed beards rode in from all parts of the kingdom – the grim silent watchdogs of Outremer.

  Survivors had drifted into Ascalon and Jaffa – lame, weary folk, a bare handful who had escaped the torch and sword and survived the hardships of the flight. They told tales of horror. Seven thousand Christians, mostly women and children, had perished in the sack of Jerusalem. The Holy Sepulcher had been blackened by flame, the altars of the city shattered, the shrines burned with fire. Moslem had suffered with Christian. The patriarch was among the fugitives – saved from death by the valor and faithfulness of a nameless Rhinelander man-at-arms, who hid a cruel wound until he said, “Yonder be the towers of Ascalon, master, and since you have no more need o’ me, I’ll lie me down and sleep, for I be sore weary.” And he died in the dust of the road.

  And word came of the Kharesmian horde; they had not tarried long in the broken city, but swept on, down through the deserts of the south, to Gaza, where they lay encamped at last after their long drift. And pregnant, mysterious hints floated up from the blue web of the South, and de Brienne sent for Cahal O’Donnel.

  “Good sir,” said the baron, “my spies tell me that a host of memluks is advancing from Egypt. Their object is obvious – to take possession of the city the Kharesmians left desolate. But what else? There are hints of an alliance between the memluks and the nomads. If this be the case, we may as well be shriven before we go into battle, for we can not stand against both hosts.

  “The men of Damascus cry out against the Kharesmians for befouling holy places – Moslem as well as Christian – but these memluks are of Turkish blood, and who knows the mind of Baibars, their master?

  “Sir Cahal, will you ride to Baibars and parley with him? You saw with your own eyes the sack of Jerusalem and can tell him the truth of how the pagans befouled Al Aksa as well as the Sepulcher. After all, he is a Moslem. At least learn if he means to join hands with these devils.

  “Tomorrow, when the cohorts of Damascus come up, we advance southward to go against the foe ere he can come against us. Ride you ahead of the host as an emissary under a flag of truce, with as many men as you wish.”

  “Give me the flag,” said Cahal. “I’ll ride alone.”

  He rode out of the camp before sunset on a palfrey, bearing the flag of peace and without his sword. Only a battle-ax hung at his saddlebow as a precaution against bandits who respected no flag, as he rode south through a half-deserted land. He guided his course by the words of the wandering Arab herdsmen who knew all things that went on in the land. And beyond Ascalon he learned that the host had crossed the Jifar and was encamped to the southeast of Gaza. The close proximity to the Kharesmians made him wary and he swung far to the east to avoid any scouts of the pagans who might be combing the countryside. He had no trust in the peace-token as a safeguard against the barbarians.

  He rode, in a dreamy twilight, into the Egyptian camp which lay about a cluster of wells a bare league from Gaza. Misgivings smote him as he noted their arms, their numbers, their evident discipline. He dismounted, displaying the peace-gonfalon and his empty sword-belt. The wild memluks in their silvered mail and heron feathers swarmed about him in sinister silence, as if minded to try their curved blades on his flesh, but they escorted him to a spacious silk pavilion in the midst of the camp.

  Black slaves with wide-tipped scimitars stood ranged about the entrance and from within a great voice – strangely familiar – boomed a song.

  “This is the pavilion of the amir, even Baibars the Panther, Caphar,” growled a bearded Turk, and Cahal said as haughtily as if he sat on his lost throne amid his gallaglachs, “Lead me to your lord, dog, and announce me with due respect.”

  The eyes of the gaudily clad ruffian fell sullenly, and with a reluctant salaam he obeyed. Cahal strode into the silken tent and heard the memluk boom: “The lord Kizil Malik, emissary from the barons of Palestine!”

  In the great pavilion a single huge candle on a lacquered table shed a golden light; the chiefs of Egypt sprawled about on silken cushions, quaffing the forbidden wine. And dominating the scene, a tall broad figure in voluminous silken trousers, satin vest, a broad cloth-of-gold girdle – without a doubt Baibars, the ogre of the South. And Cahal caught his breath – that coarse red hair – that square dark face – those blazing blue eyes –

  “I bid you welcome, lord Caphar,” boomed Baibars. “What news do you bring?”

  “You were Haroun the Traveller,” said Cahal slowly, “and at Jerusalem you were Akbar the Soldier.”

  Baibars rocked with laughter.

  “By Allah!” he roared, “I bear a scar on my head to this day as a relic of that night’s bout in Damietta! By Allah, you gave me a woundy clout!”

  “You play your parts like a mummer,” said Cahal. “But what reason for these deceptions?”

  “Well,” said Baibars, “I trust no spy but myself, for one thing. For another it makes life worth living. I did not lie when I told you that night in Damietta that I was celebrating my escape from Baibars. By Allah, the affairs of the world weigh heavily on Baibars’ shoulders, but Haroun the Traveller, he is a mad and merry rogue with a free mind and a roving foot. I play the mummer and escape from myself, and try to be true to each part – so long as I play it. Sit ye and drink!”

  Cahal shook his head. All his carefully thought out plans of diplomacy fell away, futile as dust. He struck straight and spoke bluntly and to the point.

  “A word and my task is done, Baibars,” he said. “I come to find whether you mean to join hands with the pagans who desecrated the Sepulcher – and Al Aksa.”

  Baibars drank and considered, though Cahal knew well that the Tatar had already made up his mind, long before.

  “Al Kuds is mine for the taking,” he said lazily. “I will cleanse the mosques – aye, by Allah, the Kharesmians shall do the work, most piously. They’ll make good Moslems. And winged war-men. With them I sow the thunder – who reaps the tempest?”

  “Yet you fought against them at Jerusalem,” Cahal reminded bitterly.

  “Aye,” frankly admitted the amir, “but there they would have cut my throat as quick as any Frank’s. I could not say to them: ‘Hold, dogs, I am Baibars!’ ”

  Cahal bowed his lion-like head, knowing the futility of arguing.

  “Then my work is done; I demand safe-conduct from your camp.”

  Baibars shook his head, grinning. “Nay, malik, you are thirsty and weary. Bide here as my guest.”

  Cahal’s hand moved involuntarily toward his empty girdle. Baibars was smiling but his eyes glittered between narrowed lids and the slaves about him half-drew their scimitars.

  “You’d keep me prisoner despite the fact I am an ambassador?”

  “You came without invitation,” grinned Baibars. “I ask no parley. Di Zaro!”

  A tall lank Venetian in black velvet stepped forward.

  “Di Zaro,” said Baibars in a jesting voice, “the malik Cahal is our guest. Mount ye and ride like the dev
il to the host of the Franks. There say that Cahal sent you secretly. Say that the lord Cahal is twisting that great fool Baibars about his finger, and pledges to keep him aloof from the battle.”

  The Venetian grinned bleakly and left the tent, avoiding Cahal’s smoldering eyes. The Gael knew that the trade-lusting Italians were often in secret league with the Moslems, but few stooped so low as this renegade.

  “Well, Baibars,” said Cahal with a shrug of his shoulders, “since you must play the dog, there is naught I can do. I have no sword.”

  “I’m glad of that,” responded Baibars candidly. “Come, fret not. It is but your misfortune to oppose Baibars and his destiny. Men are my tools – at the Damascus Gate I knew that those red-handed riders were steel to forge into a Moslem sword. By Allah, malik, if you could have seen me riding like the wind into Egypt – marching back across the Jifar without pausing to rest! Riding into the camp of the pagans with mullahs shouting the advantages of Islam! Convincing their wild Kuran Shah that his only safety lay in conversion and alliance!

  “I do not fully trust the wolves, and have pitched my camp apart from them – but when the Franks come up, they will find our hordes joined for battle – and should be horribly surprized, if that dog di Zaro does his work well!”

  “Your treachery makes me a dog in the eyes of my people,” said Cahal bitterly.

  “None will call you traitor,” said Baibars serenely, “because soon all will cease to be. Relics of an outworn age, I will rid the land of them. Be at ease!”

  He extended a brimming goblet and Cahal took it, sipped at it absently, and began to pace up and down the pavilion, as a man paces in worry and despair. The memluks watched him, grinning surreptitiously.

  “Well,” said Baibars, “I was a Tatar prince, I was a slave, and I will be a prince again. Kuran Shah’s shaman read the stars for me – and he says that if I win the battle against the Franks, I will be sultan of Egypt!”

  The amir was sure of his chiefs, thought Cahal, to thus flaunt his ambition openly. The Gael said, “The Franks care not who is sultan of Egypt.”