Swords From the Desert

by Harold Lamb

  When the stranger had vanished among the rocks, she inspected his horse, a powerful bay stallion. It was a fine horse, and the girl moved toward it eagerly. It would be a prize to delight her father-but, more than that, it would be safety for Nadra, who had no illusions about the fate of young women found in the desert without armed men to protect them.

  The stallion, however, was on edge, with the scent of the panther and the sight of a robed woman carrying two goats. It wheeled away, snorting, when Nadra reached for the rein. And then a second man galloped up on a laboring pony, an armed servant of the first, apparently. Nadra dropped her goats and turned to flee, only to find the warrior of the tawny hair striding back toward her.

  Nadra darted to one side and fell heavily. The stranger had thrown his light lance, butt end first, in front of her. And before she could gain her feet he had lifted her bodily. Feeling the clasp of steel-like fingers under her knee, the girl lay passive, panting.

  "Look, Hassan," he laughed. "I have lost a panther and caught a girl."

  "Eh, master-"the attendant shook his head-"the panther would be less dangerous."

  They both spoke Arabic, but the one, noble-born, who held her, did not speak it as her own people.

  "0 man," she besought him softly, "do not dishonor me."

  Alan, Sicur de Kerak and baron of the marches, had little mercy in him. He rode with a loose rein to hunt or to war. They who followed him had more wounds to lick than gold to count. It was said of him that never had he turned his back upon quest or quarrel.

  He had grown up on the border, where were the outposts of the crusaders who held Jerusalem. It was the land of Outremer-Beyond the Sea. Sir Alan had never set foot within hall or hamlet of Christendom in Europe-all his days he had lived here, in Beyond the Sea. Many a night had he watched for the gleam of moonlight upon helmets. And so in time he had been sent to hold Kerak, the easternmost castle of the crusaders, the farthest watch post beyond the Jordan-a tower and a walled courtyard on a rocky height that the Arabs called the Stone of the Desert. It was his duty now to watch the caravan track to Mecca, to send word of any rising of the foe, and to hold Kerak safe if he could. If an attack came, he need expect no aid. Meanwhile, he amused himself with hawk and hound and riding after antelope.

  In spite of the protest of Hassan ibn Mokhtar, his sword-bearer, an Arab of the Hauran who had eaten his salt, Sir Alan had gone out that morning without other guard, along the southern trail.

  Now he looked down at the frightened girl in his arms, scrutinizing the smooth forehead under its tangle of dark hair, and the quivering lashes of the closed eyes.

  "And why not?" he laughed.

  "Because," she whispered, straining her head away from him, "I am daughter of a rail of the Banu's Safa. If harm comes to me, my father will hold blood feud against thee until the shame be finally ended with thy life."

  "0 girl, have I no enemies? Yea, Sultan Ibrahim and others have sworn to take my life, yet I live."

  "Then, by Allah, take ransom for me."

  "What talk is this?" Sir Alan smiled. A strange girl who, found wandering in the desert afoot, spoke of ransom like a baron taken in battle.

  "True talk." Nadra made up a tale without any hesitation. "Wait, and in an hour or so will come a kaid of the tribe who will bring a gray mare. A swift mare, worth more than that charger of thine. The mare he will give thee for me."

  "And what name will he have, this noble squire?"

  "Yarouk, son of Yahiya."

  "And what robe will he wear?"

  "A white robe, with a blue cloak."

  "Now I see well that I have caught a true houri of fairyland, who knoweth the secret of what is to be!" Laughing he unclasped the silk veil and drew it from her face.

  Among her own people, Nadra was not particular to keep her face covered. The tribe had never visited a strange city, and in the desert the better-looking girls liked to be admired. But never had a man snatched the veil from her. Swiftly her hand dropped, closed upon the hilt of the hunting knife in Sir Alan's girdle.

  Before either of the men could move to prevent, she struck with the knife, beneath her captor's arm. And she cried out angrily. The knife blade jarred against chain mail under the knight's surcoat. The next moment he gripped her wrist and took the weapon from her.

  "0 she-panther! 0 witch, destroyer of men!" Hassan exclaimed furiously. "Set her loose, lord, or give permission that I slay her. If you keep her captive, we shall eat nothing but trouble."

  "Nay," replied Sir Alan, "first we will drink."

  They led the horses down the gully to a second clearing. Here, hemmed in by rock nests and brush, were a well and the shade of a few poplars. When the horses had drunk, Hassan loosed their girths and tethered them among the trees. But he tied Nadra firmly about the knees with a long rope.

  It was past the middle of the day-the shadows told her that-and the hot air quivered above the baked ground. By now, Nadra thought, the caravan of her people would be hours away. And Yarouk would be searching out grazing for the swift gray mare that was like the very blood of his heart to him. Once on a moonlit night Yarouk, the kaid, the young warrior, had sung outside her tent-"O heart of my heart"-Nadra knew every word of that song. But she had waited for his wooing, so that every man of the tribe should see the warrior sitting at her feet, beseeching her. She had waited ...

  And now this infidel lord with the lion's mane sat by her, eating barley cake and drinking thirstily. She had turned aside from the goblet they offered her ... this Lord A-lan was a man of steel-steel-like the clasp of his fingers, and steel-bound his body. He was like the sword he bore, unyielding.

  The brown kids leaped over her feet and thrust their heads against her. Nadra caressed them absently and refastened the veil about her head.

  Then down the gully came Yarouk, leading the gray mare with a saddled pony.

  "Salaam aleikum," he said, lifting his right hand to forehead and breast, so that even Nadra could see, when the blue cloak fell back about his shoulders, that he carried no other weapon than the ivory hilted dagger in his girdle. "I am Yarouk, son of Yahiya."

  "Upon thee also be peace," responded Sir Alan courteously, taking note of the white headcloth and the graceful horse that followed the Aral). "Sit, eat."

  "May Allah lengthen thy days." Yarouk seated himself carelessly a lance length from the knight. "Nay, I have no hunger. 0 lord, thou art far from thy tower."

  "As thou art from thy ka fiila."

  "By Allah, that is true. Yet this is not safe ground." Apparently he seemed not at all surprised to find Nadra lying under the trees; certainly he paid no attention to her. "I came back to look for some stray goats and a girl."

  Toward the end of the morning he had noticed that Nadra had left the caravan. Hearing that she had been seen under the date palms, he took out a saddled pony and, riding the mare he had picked up her tracks in the wadi and followed them into the gully. Seeing the three at the well, he had pondered for a moment ... the caravan hours away, and Sir Alan clearly making only a brief halt at the well ... Nadra bound and impossible to reach without alarming the infidels ... Sir Alan he knew as the devil of the Stone of the Desert; no other crusader would be within three days' ride of this place.

  So he waited, his dark eyes impassive, while Nadra's blood hummed in her ears.

  "Here are the goats," said the knight. "Take them. But the girl is mine."

  For an instant the Arab's lips twitched and the breath caught in his nostrils. "I say she is mine!"

  Hassan, who had satisfied himself that no other tribesmen were coming after the lone rider down the gully, moved forward and put his hand on his sword hilt, waiting expectantly for new trouble to come. Sir Alan's blue eyes gleamed. "Inshallah, if God please. But now she is mine, and how will you alter that? Will you give that mare for the girl?"

  For a moment the Arab warrior glanced at the mare's lifted head, with the long mane combed clean of thorns. "Yes," he said suddenly.

  S
ir Alan seemed not to hear. He thought of his bare room in the tower top, of the hours spent gazing into the fire while his men-at-arms rested over their cups and the hunting dogs crunched bones ... Nothing more than that to go back to, and at the end of it all in any case the slash of an arrow in his throat, or torture under the knives of his foes ... He had held her in his arms for a moment-in time she would forget her people. "And I also," he said, "prize the girl more than the horse."

  The veins stood out upon Yarouk's bare arms. "Then let the sword be between us. Give me this one's sword, and we will try the judgment of Allah!"

  Sir Alan smiled. "Nay, that would be no judgment between us! For if we cross swords I shall slay thee. Now go!"

  He had no wish to kill the younger man. And he knew the frenzy of excitement that seized upon those nomads when swords were drawn. With Yarouk he had no quarrel; on the other hand he had no intention of giving up the girl.

  "0 man," cried Hassan, "thou hast heard the command-"

  "Be silent, thou!"

  Yarouk leaned his elbows on his knees. His eyes were closed but the veins throbbed in his temples, and Hassan waited for a moment when he could spring at Sir Alan with his knife. There was silence about the well, except for the slow breathing of the three men and the rustling of Nadra's garments as she moved uneasily. The gray mare lifted her head and paced forward daintily to nudge Yarouk's shoulder with her nose.

  As she did so, the Arab's expression changed. "Have you enemies who would seek you here, Lord A-lan?"

  "That have I. This is the land of Sultan Ibrahim, who would like well to roast me over a fire-" the blue eyes gleamed-"as he did one of my men."

  Yarouk edged closer to him. "Wallahi, speak softly or he may hear thee. There are men hidden in the rocks behind thee."

  But Hassan drew his bow from its shoulder quiver and strung it. "Fool!" he muttered, "Think ye to throw dust in our eyes with such talk?"

  "Look!" Yarouk whispered urgently. "By Allah-look at the mare, if ye will not turn." Sir Alan did look at the mare, as she flung up her head with ears twitching. If there were foemen among the boulders, screened by the brush, drawing closer while he sat in talk by the well, they would have bows and they would loose their arrows without warning. If he ran to the horses with Hassan, their backs would be turned to Yarouk ...

  Suddenly Nadra screamed, "Aida! "

  And Hassan dropped to his knees, whining. An arrow in his back, another in his neck. With the snap of the bows a yell burst from the rocks: "Yah ka fir!" Sir Alan threw himself back on the ground, reached for his shield as two more arrows flicked over him. Thrusting his arms through the straps, he sprang up, drawing his sword.

  The boulders behind the poplars seemed to be alive with men scrambling forward. Five-six-seven. Instinctively the knight made up his mind.

  Instead of standing his ground, he lowered his head, raised his shield and ran toward his foe. An arrow crashed against the iron shield and he leaped high. The first man, running swiftly, was taken by surprise and had no time to swerve. The edge of the shield struck the Moslem's throat and the pommel of Sir Alan's sword smashed down upon his forehead. He was thrown to the ground, unconscious.

  "Kerak!" Sir Alan shouted. "Come ye and taste the sword! "

  Two of them came-two who wore chain mail and bore leather shields and scimitars. They drew apart and darted in from the sides, the long, curved blades shining in the sun. One slash Sir Alan took upon his shield, the other grated upon the chain mail that sheathed his ribs. And he struck once, with full sweep of arm and sword ...

  "Bows!" screamed a voice. "Slay the devil with arrows."

  Sir Alan kept his head bent, his shield high and close to him, so that only his eyes could be seen between metal and metal. An arrow whipped between his legs, and he ran forward again so that they would not make a mark of him.

  But they had seen him strike once, and they dodged like hunting dogs at the sweep of a bear's paw. A thrown javelin thudded into the iron chains over his chest, the point of it grating against bone. He could not spare a hand to pull it out. A sword-tip raked his thigh and warm blood ran down into his shoe. With his sword he met the slash of a long scimitar and broke it, the steel tip, whirring off.

  "Yah Muslimin!" the same voice shouted. "Oh, Moslems!"

  It was the one who had thrown the javelin, and he came on now, with a swordsman at either hand. Sir Alan planted his feet, flung up his shield, and struck to the side. His blade caught an uplifted arm and swept on, while the severed forearm, clutching a scimitar, fell to the ground.

  But the third man-he of the javelin-was untouched, a stabbing spear gripped in both hands over his head. Fleetingly, Sir Alan glimpsed a jutting gray beard and slavering lips. And then the man stopped, rigid as if turned to stone in the act of slaying. From the gray beard protruded the feathers of an arrow, and Sir Alan saw that these red feathers were Hassan's-the shaft had come from the quiver of his dying sword-bearer. He dared not look behind him.

  Another arrow flashed over his shoulder and ripped into the shield of the third Moslem. The man shouted and turned to flee. He was not quick enough. Sir Alan leaped and struck ...

  "Div-div!" voices screamed in fear. "A demon-a demon!"

  And they fled.

  Then Sir Alan went back. Straight to Yarouk, where the young Arab, chanting with excitement, was stripping shield and armor and sword from the body of the graybeard.

  "Friend or foe?" Sir Alan asked, sword in hand.

  "Look!" cried Yarouk. "Look, it is the king of the vultures, the scavenger of the caravans. He is slain-Ibrahim the sultan, the accursed, who followed after my people this day with his swordsmen. By Allah, this is his sword and now it is mine!"

  "Didst thou slay this Ibrahim with an arrow?"

  "Nay-" the Arab, in his fever of exultation, hardly heard- "I watched, knife in hand. It was a stray shaft. It was his fate. Ha-there are rubies in this clasp."

  "It was an arrow from Hassan's bow."

  "Do the dead bend a bow? What foolish words. Look!"

  By the well Hassan's body lay outstretched, a cloak thrown over its head. Beside it sat Nadra, tying up her goats with the rope that had bound her legs. Near at hand a bow lay on the ground. Uneasily she lifted her head as the two men approached.

  "0 girl," said the knight curiously, "did thy hand speed the shaft with red feathers that struck the chieftain?"

  Her eyes luminous with excitement, she nodded.

  "But why? It gave me life."

  "Truly, I feared for thee. If they had cut thee down, harm would have come to us."

  Leaning on his sword, Sir Alan looked down at her.

  "And how," asked the knight softly, "could you come hither and shoot arrows from a bow when you were tied upon the ground beneath yonder trees?"

  Nadra shifted uneasily. "Eh, I untied the rope while I played with these little kids, when Yarouk came-"

  "What is this?" The Arab gave heed at last. "Thou wert loose and free when we talked? And thou didst not flee? We could have escaped, thou and I."

  "I know-but, 0 Yarouk, I longed to hear what thou wouldst say. If thou hadst not valued me more than the gray mare I-I-"

  Her voice faltered. Here she stood, the young veiled girl, the voiceless servant of the men of the Banu's Safa, who had sat for hours at the threshold of her father's tent, longing for a single glance from Yarouk. And she had dared speak boldly to Yarouk before a strange infidel lord who was certainly a hero. "I would have gone with this unbeliever," she whispered. "He wanted me."

  Yarouk's breath hissed in his teeth. "Thou, Nadra!"

  But that day Nadra had been carried off by a man of steel. Yea, more, she had struck him with a dagger, and then had slain her father's foe, the sultan Ibrahim. By reason of her, Yarouk's arms had been loaded with spoil. If she did not speak now, when would she have the courage again? She stamped her foot and tossed back the black mane of her hair. "Yea, I, Nadra!" she cried all in a breath. "By Allah, this one is more of a man t
han thou-herder of mares. While thou didst stand shouting like a horse boy, he ran against seven. While thou didst sing about that bold heart of thine, he took me in his arms-"

  She stopped, panting. And Yarouk stared at the girl he had never seen before-at this new Nadra with a will and a voice and a defiant beauty. Then he stepped forward, his arm went out, and he struck her with his open hand across the face.

  His brow dark as if with fever, his eyes burning, Yarouk picked her up and carried her to the gray mare. He flung Nadra over the back of the mare behind the saddle.

  "0 girl," he said between set teeth, "be still. Tonight thou shalt be a woman and the wife of Yarouk."

  Fleetingly Nadra glanced down at him, and laughed a little from sheer joy. She had seen his eyes. When he turned back for the bundle of armor, she slipped down and retrieved her goats that were tumbling about the cord she had put upon them. With them under her arm she climbed back into her seat.

  Sir Alan watched, motionless, leaning upon his sword.

  A few moments later Yarouk turned in the saddle to look back at the well where the kites were dropping from the sky toward the bodies, and the solitary crusader, limping about his task, was piling rocks upon the dead Hassan.

  "Wallahi-he is a man," Yarouk said.

  But Nadra had looked back more than once. Now she tightened her arms about Yarouk's waist and laid her head upon his shoulder.

  "But a man of steel unfeeling," she said contentedly. "And thou, 0 warrior, art lord of my heart."

  Sakhri was loyal to her lord and, moreover, obedient. She was also lovely, as many Circassian girls are-tall, with a tawny mane of hair and long, drowsy eyes that slant up in the corners, strong-bodied and a little indolent-like healthy animals and still capable of unchanging devotion to the men who buy them.