Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures M

by Robert E. Howard

  “Free me!” she begged. “Zulaikha is dead – free me, in God’s name!”

  With a muttered oath of impatience he slashed her cords and turned away again, almost instantly forgetting about her. He did not see her rise and glide through a curtained doorway.

  Outside a voice shouted: “Othman! Name of Shaitan, where are you? It is time to mount and ride! I saw you run in here! Devil take you, you black dog, where are you?”

  A mailed and helmeted figure dashed into the chamber, then halted short.

  “What – ? Wellah! You lied to me!”

  “Not I!” responded de Guzman cheerfully. “I left the city as I swore to do; but I came back.”

  “Where is Othman?” demanded Al Afdhal. “I followed him in here – Allah!” He plucked his moustaches wildly. “By God, the One True God! Oh, cursed Caphar! Why must you slay Othman? All the cities have risen, and the Berbers are fighting the Sudani, who had their hands full already. I ride with my men to aid the Sudani. As for you – I still owe you my life, but there is a limit to all things! In Allah’s name, get you gone, and never let me see you again!”

  De Guzman grinned wolfishly. “You are not rid of me so easily this time, Es Salih Muhammad!”

  The Turk started. “What?”

  “Why continue this masquerade?” retorted de Guzman. “I knew you when we went into the house of Zahir el Ghazi, which was once the house of Es Salih Muhammad. Only a master of the house could be so familiar with its secrets. You helped me kill el Ghazi because the Berber had hired Zaman and the others to kill you. Good enough. But that is not all. I came to Egypt to kill el Ghazi; that is done; but now Al Hakim plots the ruin of Spain. He must die; and you must aid me in his overthrow.”

  “You are mad as Al Hakim!” exclaimed the Turk.

  “What if I went to the Berbers and told them that you aided me to slay their emir?” asked de Guzman.

  “They would cut you to pieces!”

  “Aye, so they would! But they would likewise cut you to pieces. And the Sudani would aid them; neither loves the Turks. Berbers and blacks together will cut down every Turk in Cairo. Then where is your ambition, when your head is off? I will die, yes; but if I set Sudani, Turk and Berber to slaying each other, perchance the rebellion will whelm them all, and I will have gained in death what I could not in life.”

  Es Salih Muhammad recognized the grim determination which lay behind the Castilian’s words.

  “I see I must slay you, after all!” he muttered, drawing his scimitar. The next instant the chamber resounded to the clash of steel.

  At the first pass de Guzman realized that the Turk was the finest swordsman he had ever met; he was ice where the Spaniard was fire. To his reluctance to kill Es Salih was added the knowledge that he was opposed by a greater swordsman than himself. And the thought nerved him to desperate fury, so that the headlong recklessness that had always been his weakness, became his strength. His life did not matter; but if he fell in that blood-stained chamber, Castile fell with him.

  Outside the walls of El Kahira the mob surged and ravened, torches showered sparks, and steel drank and reddened. Inside the chamber of dead Zulaikha the curved blades sang and whistled. Smite, Diego de Guzman! (they sang). Spain hangs on your arm. Strike for the glories of yesterday and the splendors of tomorrow. Strike for the thunder of arms, the rustle of banners in the mountain winds, the agony of endeavor, and the blood of martyrdom; strike for the spears of the uplands, the black-haired women, fires on the red hearths, and the trumpets of empires yet to be! Strike for the unborn kingdoms, the pageantry of glory, and the great galleons rolling across a golden sea to a world undreamed! Strike for the wonder that is Spain, aged and ever ageless, the phoenix of nations, rising for ever from the ashes of a dead past to burn among the standards of the world!

  Through his parted lips Es Salih Muhammad’s breath hissed. Under his dark skin grew an ashy hue. Skill nor craft availed him against this blazing-eyed incarnation of fury who came on in an irresistible surge, smiting like a smith on an anvil.

  Under the brown-crusted bandage de Guzman’s wound was bleeding afresh, and the blood poured down his temple, but his sword was like a flaming wheel. The Turk could only parry; he had no opportunity to strike back.

  Es Salih Muhammad was fighting for personal ambition; Diego de Guzman was fighting for the future of a nation.

  A last gasping heave of thew-wrenching effort, an explosive burst of dynamic power, and the scimitar was beaten from the Turk’s hand. He reeled back with a cry, not of pain or fear, but of despair. De Guzman, his broad breast heaving from his exertions, turned away.

  “I will not cut you down myself,” he said. “Nor will I force an oath from you at sword’s edge. You would not keep it. I go to the Berbers, and my doom – and yours. Farewell; I would have made you vizir of Egypt!”

  “Wait!” panted Es Salih, grasping at a hanging for support. “Let us reason this matter! What do you mean?”

  “What I say!” De Guzman wheeled back from the door, galvanized with a feeling that he had the desperate game in his hand at last. “Do you not realize that at the instant you hold the balance of power? The Sudani and the Berbers fight each other, and the Cairenes fight both! Neither faction can win without your support. The way you throw your Memluks will be the deciding factor. You planned to support the Sudani and crush both the Berbers and the rebels. But suppose you threw in your lot with the Berbers? Suppose you appeared as the leader of the revolt, the upholder of the orthodox creed against a blasphemer? El Ghazi is dead; Othman is dead; the mob has no leader. You are the only strong man left in Cairo. You sought honors under Al Hakim; greater honors are yours for the asking! Join the Berbers with your Turks, and stamp out the Sudani! The mob will acclaim you as a liberator. Kill Al Hakim! Set up another caliph, with yourself as vizir, and real ruler! I will ride at your side, and my sword is yours!”

  Es Salih, who had been listening like a man in a dream, gave a sudden shout of laughter, like a drunken man. Realization that de Guzman wished to use him as a pawn to crush a foe of Spain was drowned in the heady wine of personal ambition.

  “Done!” he trumpeted. “To horse, brother! You have shown me the way I sought! Es Salih Muhammad shall yet rule Egypt!”

  VII

  In the great square in el Mansuriya, the tossing torches blazed on a maelstrom of straining, plunging figures, screaming horses, and lashing blades. Men brown, black and white fought hand-to-hand, Berber, Sudani, Egyptian, gasping, cursing, slaying and dying.

  For a thousand years Egypt had slept under the heel of foreign masters; now she awoke, and crimson was the awakening.

  Like brainless madmen the Cairenes grappled the black slayers, dragging them bodily from their saddles, slashing the girths of the frenzied horses. Rusty pikes clanged against lances. Fire burst out in a hundred places, mounting into the skies until the herdsmen on Mukattam awoke and gaped in wonder. From all the suburbs poured wild and frantic figures, a roaring torrent with a thousand branches all converging on the great square. Hundreds of still shapes, in mail or striped kaftans, lay under the trampling hoofs, the stamping feet, and over them the living screamed and hacked.

  The square lay in the heart of the Sudani quarter, into which had come ravening the blood-mad Berbers while the bulk of the blacks had been fighting the mob in other parts of the city. Now, withdrawn in haste to their own quarter, the ebony swordsmen were overwhelming the Berbers with sheer numbers, while the mob threatened to engulf both hordes. The Sudani, under their captain Izz ed din, maintained some semblance of order, which gave them an advantage over the unorganized Berbers and the leaderless mob.

  The maddened Cairenes were smashing and plundering the houses of the blacks, dragging forth howling women; the blaze of burning buildings made the square swim in an ocean of fire.

  Somewhere there began the whir of Tatar kettle-drums, above the throb of many hoofs.

  “The Turks at last,” panted Izz ed din. “They have loitered long e
nough! And where in Allah’s name is Othman?”

  Into the square raced a frantic horse, foam flying from the bit-rings. The rider reeled in the saddle, gay-hued garments in tatters, ebony skin laced with crimson.

  “Izz ed din!” he screamed, clinging to the flying mane with both hands. “Izz ed din!”

  “Here, fool!” roared the Sudani, catching the other’s bridle and hurling the horse back on its haunches.

  “Othman is dead!” shrieked the man above the roar of the flames and the rising thunder of the onrushing kettle-drums. “The Turks have turned on us! They slay our brothers in the palaces! Aie! They come!”

  With a deafening thunder of hoofs and an earth-shaking roll of drums, the squadrons of mailed spearmen burst upon the square, cleaving the waves of carnage, riding down friend and foe alike. Izz ed din saw the dark exultant face of Es Salih Muhammad beneath the blazing arc of his scimitar, and with a roar he reined full at him, his house-troops swirling in behind him.

  But with a strange war-cry a rider in Moorish garb rose in the stirrups and smote, and Izz ed din went down; and over the slashed bodies of his captains stormed the hoofs of the slayers, a dark, roaring river that thundered on into the flame riven night.

  On the rocky spurs of Mukattam the herdsmen watched and shivered, seeing the blaze of fire and slaughter from the Gate el Futuh to the mosque of Ibn Tulun; and the clangor of swords was heard as far south as El Fustat, where pallid nobles trembled in their garden-lapped palaces.

  Like a crimson foaming, frothing, flame-faceted torrent, the tides of fury overflowed the quarters and gushed through the Gate of Zuweyla, staining the streets of El Kahira, the Victorious. In the great Beyn el Kasreyn, where ten thousand men could be paraded, the Sudani made their last stand, and there they died, hemmed in by helmeted Turks, shrieking Berbers and frantic Cairenes.

  It was the mob which first turned its attention to Al Hakim. Rushing through the arabesqued bronze doors of the Great East Palace, the ragged hordes streamed howling down the corridors through the Golden Gates into the great Golden Hall, tearing aside the curtain of gilt filigree to reveal an empty golden throne. Silk embroidered tapestries were ripped from the friezed walls by grimed and bloody fingers; sardonyx tables were overthrown with a clatter of gold enamelled vessels; eunuchs in crimson robes fled squeaking, slave-girls screamed in the hands of the ravishers.

  In the Great Emerald Hall, Al Hakim stood like a statue on a fur-strewn dais. His white hands twitched, his eyes were clouded; he seemed like a drunken man. At the entrance of the hall clustered a handful of faithful servants, beating back the mob with drawn swords. A band of Berbers ploughed through the motley throng and closed with the black slaves, and in that storm of sword-strokes, no man had time to glance at the white rigid figure on the dais.

  Al Hakim felt a hand tugging at his elbow, and looked into the face of Zaida, seeing her as in a dream.

  “Come, my lord!” she urged. “All Egypt has risen against you! Think of your own life! Follow me!”

  He suffered her to lead him. He moved like a man in a trance, mumbling: “But I am God! How can a god know defeat? How can a god die?”

  Drawing aside the tapestry she led him into a secret alcove and down a long narrow corridor. Zaida had learned well the secrets of the Great Palace during her brief sojourn there. Through dim spice-scented gardens she led him hurriedly, through a winding street amidst flat-topped houses. She had thrown her khalat over him. None of the few folk they met heeded the hastening pair. A small gate, hidden behind clustering palms, let them through the wall. North and east El Kahira was hemmed in by empty desert. They had come out on the eastern side. Behind them and far away down the south rose the roar of flames and slaughter, but about them was only the desert, silence and the stars. Zaida halted, and her eyes burned in the starlight as she stood unspeaking.

  “I am God,” muttered Al Hakim dazedly. “Suddenly the world was in flames. Yet I am God – ”

  He scarcely felt the Venetian’s strong arms about him in a last terrible embrace. He scarcely heard her whisper: “You gave me into the hands of a black beast! Whereby I fell into the clutches of my rival, who dealt me such shame as men do not dream of! I guided your escape because none but Zaida shall destroy you, Al Hakim, fool who thought you were a god!”

  Even as he felt the mortal bite of her dagger, he moaned: “Yet I am God – and the gods can not die – ” Somewhere a jackal began to yelp.

  Back in El Kahira, in the Great East Palace, whose mosaics were fouled with blood, Diego de Guzman, a blood-stained figure, turned to Es Salih Muhammad, equally disheveled and stained.

  “Where is Al Hakim?”

  “What matter?” laughed the Turk. “He has fallen; we are lords of Egypt this night, you and I! Tomorrow another will sit in the seat of the caliph, a puppet whose string I pull. Tomorrow I will be vizir, and you – ask what you will! But tonight we rule in naked power, by the sheen of our swords!”

  “Yet I would like to drive my saber through Al Hakim as a fitting climax to this night’s work,” answered de Guzman.

  But it was not to be, though men with thirsty daggers ranged through tapestried halls and arched chambers until to hate and rage began to be added wonder and the superstitious awe which grows into legends of miraculous disappearances, and through mysteries invokes the supernatural. Time turns devils and madmen into saints and hadjis; afar in the mountains of Lebanon the Druses await the coming again of Al Hakim the Divine. But though they wait until the trumpets have blown for the passing of ten thousand years, they will be no nearer the portals of Mystery. And only the jackals which haunt the hills of Mukattam and the vultures which fold their wings on the towers of Bab el Vezir could tell the ultimate destiny of the man who would be God.

  The Outgoing of Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer

  The fires roared in the skalli-hall,

  And a woman begged me stay –

  But the bitter night was falling

  And the cold wind calling

  Across the moaning spray.

  How could I stay in the feasting-hall

  When the wild wind walked the sea?

  The feet of the winds drew out my soul

  To the grey waves and the cloud’s scroll

  Where the gulls wheel and the whales roll,

  And the abyss roars to me.

  Man the sweeps and bend the sail –

  We need no oars tonight,

  For the sharp sleet drives before the gale

  That dashes the spray across the rail

  To freeze on helmet and corselet scale,

  And the waves are running white.

  I could not bide in the feasting-hall

  Where the great fires light the rooms –

  For the winds are walking the night for me

  And I must follow where gaunt lands be,

  Seeking, beyond some nameless sea,

  The dooms beyond the dooms.

  The Road of Azrael

  I

  Towers reel as they burst asunder,

  Streets run red in the butchered town;

  Standards fall and the lines go under

  And the iron horsemen ride me down.

  Out of the strangling dust around me

  Let me ride for my hour is nigh,

  From the walls that prison, the hoofs that ground me,

  To the sun and the desert wind to die.

  Allaho akbar! There is no God but God. These happenings I, Kosru Malik, chronicle that men may know truth thereby. For I have seen madness beyond human reckoning; aye, I have ridden the road of Azrael that is the Road of Death, and have seen mailed men fall like garnered grain; and here I detail the truths of that madness and of the doom of Kizilshehr the Strong, the Red City, which has faded like a summer cloud in the blue skies.

  Thus was the beginning. As I sat in peace in the camp of Muhammad Khan, sultan of Kizilshehr, conversing with divers warriors on the merits of the verses of one Omar Khayyam, a tent-maker of Nishapur and
a doughty toper, suddenly I was aware that one came close to me, and I felt anger burn in his gaze, as a man feels the eyes of a hungry tiger upon him. I looked up and as the fire-light took his bearded face, I felt my own eyes blaze with an old hate. For it was Moktra Mirza, the Kurd, who stood above me and there was an old feud between us. I have scant love for any Kurd, but this dog I hated. I had not known he was in the camp of Muhammad Khan, whither I had ridden alone at dusk, but where the lion feasts, there the jackals gather.

  No word passed between us. Moktra Mirza had his hand on his blade and when he saw he was perceived, he drew with a rasp of steel. But he was slow as an ox. Gathering my feet under me, I shot erect, my scimitar springing to my hand and as I leaped I struck, and the keen edge sheared through his neck cords.

  Even as he crumpled, gushing blood, I sprang across the fire and ran swiftly through the maze of tents, hearing a clamor of pursuit behind me. Sentries patrolled the camp, and ahead of me I saw one on a tall bay, who sat gaping at me. I wasted no time but running up to him, I seized him by the leg and cast him from the saddle.

  The bay horse reared as I swung up, and was gone like an arrow, I bending low on the saddle-peak for fear of shafts. I gave the bay his head and in an instant we were past the horse-lines and the sentries who gave tongue like a pack of hounds, and the fires were dwindling behind us.

  We struck the open desert, flying like the wind, and my heart was glad. The blood of my foe was on my blade, a good steed between my knees, the stars of the desert above me, the night wind in my face. A Turk need ask no more.

  The bay was a better horse than the one I had left in the camp, and the saddle was a goodly one, richly brocaded and worked in Persian leather.