Swords From the West

by Harold Lamb

  Nial turned, plunging into the darkness among the piled-up treasures beyond. He stumbled against what seemed to be a pile of armor and stopped to listen.

  High over his head something wailed up skyward and dwindled to a faint, clear whistle. And he heard a pounding of feet and shouting below him.

  Even while he drew his sword from beneath his coat he frowned thoughtfully. The Tatars were not wont to make such a tumult, and it seemed to him he could hear weapons clashing far off.

  "'Tis a very breeding place of spells," he muttered, seeking through the darkness for an embrasure.

  Presently he came to one, a narrow slit for archers. And he stared out, amazed. Below him torches flamed and turbaned heads tossed. Steel flashed, and a great shout went up.

  "Yah Allah-il allah!"

  Down at the gate of the Altyn-dar massive iron thundered against wood. A ram, that would be. Nial saw one of the torchbearers below drop back with an arrow through his throat.

  "Now this," he told himself, "is neither spell nor hocus. Faith, I had no hand in it."

  Several Tatars with lights ran past without heeding him and disappeared down the stairs toward the entrance. Nial felt his way after them until he could look down upon the landing below.

  Here the officer and a score of guards were working their bows at the embrasures, while his gray horse jerked restlessly at its tether. Nial realized that the Moslems were attacking the Altyn-dar in force.

  "And so," he considered, "the fire burns hot and the pot boils apace."

  If the Moslems had invaded the palace height, his life would be worth little outside these walls. While within, the Tatars would not be long in discovering his disguise and making him prisoner. The Green Lion lay beyond his reach. He could have filled his belt with jewels from a chest, unheeded, for by now all the guards must be in the fight below him. But he had no mind to loot like a bazaar thief, and to be caught like one.

  Yet he did snatch up a shield, a heavy round shield embossed with silver, from a pile of armor on the landing. As he did so the gate of the House of Gold came down with a crash, and the Moslems outside roared in exultation.

  Thrusting his arm into the shield, Nial ran down to the lower landing. He need hide behind a mask no longer. Now he would have to fight his way out.

  The ramp was an inferno. Three deep the Tatars stood, shield to shield, across the inclined way, beating back the flood of Moslems that surged into the gate. Arrows hissed above them. Nial stopped short, seeing more Tatars trotting up out of the darkness on his left. They passed him on the landing and ran down into the fight. Nial had not seen them before among the guards and he thought they must have made their way into the Altyn-dar through another door. Loosing his horse and gripping the rein, Nial started down the other ramp, away from the tumult. If men were coming in, he might get out.

  He had his hands full with the shield and the rearing horse, and he had to thrust his way blindly among the warriors. Then, around a turning, he saw a gray half light and came to an open postern. It was a moment before he could drag his horse into the narrow opening, and another moment before he could get a foot into the stirrup of the restless beast outside. He saw that they were in a walled garden, through which the Tatars were passing from their barracks. The postern was hidden by trees, and the Moslems did not seem to be aware of it.

  Nial circled the garden, and the gray horse headed of its own accord out of a half-seen gate.

  When houses closed in around him, Nial found himself in a quarter of the city he did not know. He turned to the right, seeking Mahmoud's horse market. Rounding a corner, he came suddenly upon torchlight and din. The gray charger swerved violently and brought up against another horse.

  It was a Moslem's mount. Five other horsemen of Islam jostled each other and circled, to get at a solitary rider who had backed into an angle of the alley wall-a Tatar officer in a white camelhair chaban. Nial caught a glimpse of his lean, tense face, and the flash of precious stones upon the handguard of his long scimitar.

  The Tatar, who had no shield, wielded his sword with desperate skill. As Nial rode into the fight he tossed the scimitar from his right to his left hand, as the Moslems drew back for an instant, and slashed open the face of one of his foes. But his horse was bleeding, staggering with weariness, and he could not hold off five men for long.

  The Moslem beside Nial gave tongue.

  "Yah hail"

  He swung up his curved blade, and Nial thrust up his shield to meet a blow that numbed his arm.

  Before the Moslem could strike again, Nial had drawn his long sword.

  Flushed, with glaring eyes, the Moslem pressed upon him, whirling high the short scimitar. Instead of guarding himself, Nial thrust with all his strength, the point of his straight blade passing through the other's thick beard and grating against bone. The man reared in his stirrups and came down against the wall when Nial jerked out his sword.

  For the moment he was free and could have drawn out of the fight. But if he did so, the lone Tatar was doomed. Already the Moslems were baying like hounds before a kill.

  "0 dog-taste thou of death!"

  And Nial went into the fight again. A Moslem wheeled to meet him, on his shield side. Nial was slashed on the hip and felt the frame of his shield snap. As the Moslem drove against him, knee to knee, Nial smashed his broken shield into the panting face. Drawing back his sword, he thrust through the man's ribs, and the rider of the black horse laughed beside him.

  Then Nial's horse, flicked by a saber, reared frantically, trying to turn against the wall. He grasped at his reins, slippery with blood, expecting to be slashed with steel. But only two men remained to face the gallant Tatar and, as Nial reined his horse forward again, they turned and fled. Through the sweat that dripped into his eyes he saw that both were wounded.

  The Tatar of the white chaban looked at him curiously and smiled.

  "Ahatou!"

  He said something else, pointing to the alley behind them. A Tatar mounted patrol had halted to peer in at the fighting. The rider of the black horse wheeled to meet them.

  But Nial had no wish to be questioned by the Tatars. He galloped into the darkness after the two wounded men.

  Behind the lattice of the house of Mahmoud the Blind, Shedda crouched in fear. The night was full of new sounds and perils, and she listened as heedfully as any animal in a cage.

  Men were looting the horse market, while Tatar houses burned. A distant wailing of women told of other plundering. A boy rode by on a soldier's horse with a sable cloak over his knee, shouting with all his lungs:

  "Allah bath opened the gates of plunder. 0 brothers, come forth!"

  A beggar hurried beneath the balcony, clutching a silk dress. There were dark stains upon the silk. At the corner he ran into another thief. There was an oath and a blow, and one of the shadows screeched. The alley men were out with knives to snatch what they could.

  Anxiously the girl looked toward the palace height. The torches thronging into the House of Gold looked like fireflies at that distance. She knew the Moslems must have forced their way in; and if they took the House of Cold they would have in their hands the treasure of the khan. Such a victory would bring new allies out of the rabble, and all Sarai would be looted.

  "Yield thyself, 0 red she-tiger," a mocking voice cried up at her. "We know thou art the slave of the pagan khan. Verily, Yashim longs for thee. He will prepare needles to take sight from thine eyes that were the eyes of the khan who now lies slain in the mud."

  Stifling an exclamation, Shedda drew back from the lattice. Two men had stopped beneath the balcony. She heard them pass around the corner and enter the courtyard, and she wondered if they had been taunting her idly, or if they had come in search of her. To flee out of the house into the streets would be madness. She burrowed among the cushions and held her breath to listen.

  Hoofs clattered on loose stones below, and someone shouted. Steel clashed once, and footsteps hastened away. Then the courtyard became sile
nt.

  "0 Shedda," a deep voice called, "I have come hither for thee."

  The girl wrapped her khalat about her and hastened down the stair. Here was a shield for her, and a strong arm to strike for her. She greeted him softly.

  "0 lordling Ni-al, I was in sore need of thee." Then she caught her breath, peering up at him. "What is this? Hast thou changed thy shape?"

  "Aye," said Nial.

  Shedda saw no sign of the Moslems. Nor was any one else with the tall Christian. And the girl felt that, by changing his shape, this man with the long sword in his hand had become grim and purposeful.

  "Why hast thou come for me?"

  "I gave thee a promise." Nial threw the rein over the head of a horse he had seized on the way. "I saw the talisman, the dagger that bears the sign of the khan. Knowing that thou didst serve the khan, I feared for thee, alone among the Moslems."

  "Death is near us." The girl caught his hand in hers, as a frightened child might have done. "What can we do?" A moment before she had known terror, and the chill of it was still about her heart.

  "We can go from here."

  He lifted her into the saddle of the other horse, and while she pulled a heavy veil over her head and long hair, he mounted the tired gray charger. Through the dark alleys he led the way to Tron's quarters. But the chamber was empty, without a sign of the merchant.

  Nial did not want to take refuge behind a door. If the Moslems became masters of Sarai, nothing was more certain than that they would hunt down all unbelievers, and he knew what the sack of a city meant. Better to try his luck with Shedda in the open.

  In the courtyard the girl greeted him excitedly.

  "Listen! An arrow has called."

  That part of Sarai was nearly quiet, and presently Nial heard very faintly the long drawn whistle that had startled him in the Altyn-dar. It rose into the air, dwindled, then sounded clearly again.

  "A Tatar arrow, a whistling arrow," she explained eagerly. "A summons to rally, to come together."

  She urged her horse out into an open space, where frightened Armenians huddled like sheep around a bearded priest, waiting for misfortune. Shedda peered over the housetops and cried out. High on the palace height a white ball of light shone.

  "The great lantern is lighted. And Barka Khan has come. Akh! He is here now." She clapped her hands eagerly, and the shaggy heads of the Armenians turned toward her fearfully. "0 ye People of the Book," she cried at them, "now there will truly be fighting."

  They looked at her, voiceless with new fear, but Nial made up his mind.

  "Take me to this khan of thine," he said.

  "Aye, what else?" Shedda was aglow with hope, and he wondered a little at that. "Now thou art a Tatar, Ni-al, and the khan loves a good swordsman. Come!" And they put their horses to a gallop, for speed was the best safeguard. She explained, "The light is over the dome of the House of Gold, and there the noyons of the Horde will gather at the signal. I know a way into the dome that leads not through any gate. This way!"

  No one tried to halt them because the girl chose narrow streets where only men on foot were seen, and these gave way readily to two galloping horses. When they passed the cemetery, the girl reined in her horse and entered a garden.

  They tied the tired animals in a clump of cypress, and Shedda slipped through the cypresses to the hillside beyond, where white marble appeared in the dark earth.

  "This is a door known to few, only to those who bear the Lion or the Falcon. But that is a thing beyond thy knowing, my lordling." She laughed and pressed against one side of the marble with her hands. "Why, it is open. One has gone in before us. Come, thou."

  Impatiently she caught his hand and led him into darkness, until she paused to feel about the wall on one side.

  "Here should be a lantern. What art thou doing?"

  Nial was cutting the cord that secured the paizah about his neck. He cast the bronze tablet into the mouth of the passage behind him.

  "I threw away a cord that might have strangled me."

  The girl's soft fingers touched his face and felt for his arm.

  "We must be quick. Here is dry flax and steel and flint. Canst thou make it light?"

  Sheathing his sword, Nial took the implements and began to strike sparks. He was rid of the paizah, and his Tatar dress could cause no harm now if he were brought into the House of Gold by this girl who knew the secret of the hill passage. When the flax broke into flame, she held out a hand lamp, shaking it to make sure there was oil in it, and lighted the wick.

  "Now we will find the khan," she promised, smiling.

  And when Shedda smiled, with her veil thrown back over the red-gold mass of her hair, she was lovely beyond belief. Excitement brightened her clear eyes and brought the color into her cheeks.

  "Aye, lead the way."

  But Shedda laughed, running ahead, the scent of flowers hanging in the air behind her. Nial had to quicken his pace to keep up with her.

  The passage ascended steadily, turning often. Its stone walls rumbled faintly with echoes of trampling feet outside. Nial noticed that wet tracks of a man's riding boots went before them. A Tatar wearing high heels had passed that way within the hour.

  "Now are we in the House of Gold," Shedda called to him, "but none can see us. Those who are trusted by the khan come in this way, and only the watchers under the dome know of its inner door. They do not speak."

  Lifting the lamp, she nodded at the massive foundation walls of a square chamber into which the tunnel had led them. From one corner a spiral stair led up, winding into a passage so narrow that Nial had to turn his shoulders to enter. Shedda tripped ahead of him, around turn after turn, until she stopped at a door of heavy wood.

  "We are under the dome," she whispered. "I can hear the noyons talking, so we are safe, 0 my lord of battles."

  Setting down the lamp, she turned to Nial, so close that her fragrant hair brushed his cheek, and her eyes caressed his. Swiftly her parted lips brushed his cheek, and she smiled as if rewarding a child. Then she lifted her hand and struck the bronze knocker upon the door four times, then thrice slowly.

  Steps approached the door, a lock clicked faintly, and the passage was flooded with white light. Nial and Shedda entered the very heart of the treasure house. And the girl drew from her breast a bronze tablet smaller than the one Nial had discarded, bearing on it a falcon's head. At sight of it two tall Chinese guards bowed and stepped back.

  "Al!" Shedda cried. "The khan is not here."

  There were officers standing at embrasures, and boxes of messenger pigeons by the walls. Couriers came and went by other doors, and the place was tense with the suspense of battle dimly heard in the night. Sharp exclamations echoed under the immense dome that formed the walls and roof of this lofty post of command. The white light came from a ball of malachite or painted glass hung under the summit of the dome, and Nial saw that this summit was an opening to the sky. Perhaps astrologers used the dome, or messenger pigeons came in through the aperture, he conjectured; but Shedda was too occupied in listening to the rapid talk of the Tatars to explain. No one heeded him for the moment, and he went to an embrasure to look out.

  Far down the palace height, beyond the wall, a line of torches flared and shifted. Masses of Tatar cavalry moved downward against the light, and volleys of arrows flickered from them. They were outnumbered by the mobs below them, but they were gaining ground. Fighting was going on in the cemetery. The Moslems had been driven out of the House of Gold, out of the palace height.

  Nial watched, until the torches broke up into little groups in the alleys of Sarai below him, or died out, and the roar of conflict dwindled to a murmur.

  "Barka Khan did that." Shedda, at his elbow, had guessed his thoughts. "In the moment when Yashim and his friends were in the very treasure house, he came and took command and led an attack. Even the watchers of the Green Lion took up arms to follow him. Look!"

  She led Nial to the center of the floor and pointed down through a square
aperture. Then she cried out, bending down to see more clearly what lay below. Nial peered over her shoulder.

  The white light above him penetrated through the aperture to the floor below. Directly under Nial stood a black marble shaped like an altar, and sprawled out before it lay the body of Paolo Tron the Genoese, the tufted end of a great arrow projecting from his chest. One hand clutched the base of the marble, and his teeth gleamed through the tangle of his red beard.

  "Thy companion! " The girl shivered and turned to speak to one of the Chinese archers. "He says that Tron ran into the chamber of the khan's jewels when the Moslems broke into the upper floor. An emerald called the Green Lion was kept upon that marble, twice guarded. If a thief approached it, by stepping upon the stone before it, he released a spring that let the emerald fall into a cavity below the marble stand. And these Cathayan bowmen keep watch over the khan's jewels. They are ordered to shoot down anyone unknown to them who enters that room. They say Tron searched about the marble as if mad-"

  One of the Chinese caught her arm and drew her back, while Nial stared down at the dead merchant. So Tron had come himself for the great emerald, and since he had come with the Moslems, he had known of the attack to be launched upon the House of Gold. But he had not warned Nial. He had feared that the Tatars would make off with the khan's jewels, or that the Moslem onset would fail, and he had sent Nial ahead to carry off the emerald.

  Nial's brain was weary, and his wounds in forearm and thigh ached. He saw that Shedda was staring at him strangely, while the Tatar officers were crowding around him. Some of them spoke to him, but the girl thrust her way to his side.

  "0 Ni-al," she cried, "these watchers of Cathay say that thou didst come earlier in the night and try to take the emerald. Others say thou didst show a shir-paizah at the gate. How-"

  One of the officers brushed her aside and growled a question at the Christian. When Nial did not answer, he reached out and tore open the throat of his coat. Finding no trace of the paizah, he snarled and reached for the Christian's sword. But Nial was not minded to give up his weapon. He sprang back and set his shoulders against the door of the passage by which he had entered. He felt behind him and pushed against the door, but found that it had been locked.