Read Online Swords From the West by Harold Lamb - Free Book Online
Authors: Harold Lamb
Tags: Fiction, Historical fiction, Suspense, Historical, Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Short Stories, Adventure fiction, Crusades
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soft voice called to him:
"0 lord of swordsmen, what need hast thou of a little dagger? Give it back, I pray. In the garden of Mahmoud the Blind, the horsedealer-" the camel had passed with its screened hamper-"in Sarai."
Nial recognized Shedda's voice. He had kept the dagger, a slender thing of pliant steel inlaid with a gold inscription, in his wallet. And she dared ask for it!
"Nay," he called after the voice, "even an ass will not drink twice of bitter water."
Paolo Tron had faced serai thieves and tribesmen with cool courage; but now, with only the open road ahead of him, he became ill at ease.
"In two days," he told Nial, "we shall be over the rivers, if the ice holds."
They were coming out of the barren land to a rolling plain where villages nestled in the hollows, and Tron decided to push ahead of the others. The road itself became crowded. Trains of fur-laden sledges came in from the North, and immense herds of horses and cattle appeared out of the plain.
Once Tron's band had to draw aside when a high-pitched shout echoed down the line of caravans. Nial saw a rider go past on a white horse, dark with sweat and mud. The man was plying his short whip as a racer does to keep up a horse's pace at the finish. He wore no furs or armor and carried no weapons.
His stooped body was bound tight in oiled leather, and bands covered his forehead and mouth, while silver bells chimed on his girdle. With a cry, "Make way," and a thudding of hoofs, he was gone.
"A courier of the khan," Tron explained, as they turned back into the road. "He can take the road from a prince."
"He comes from the great khan?"
"Messer Nial, little know you of what lies before you. The great khan, Kublai, hath his city at Kambalu in the far land of Cathay, which is a year's journey to the edge of the world. Ha, so! 'Tis under the very rising of the sun, and no man of Christendom hath seen it, or hath lived to tell of it again."
"Yet Sarai-"
"Is the city of Barka Khan. He rules the Golden Horde, which is here upon the threshold of the East. Aye, he is master from Christendom to the Roof of the World, where even the valleys lie above the cloud level. But content you, young warrior. For if your king of England were here in this land, he might serve Barka Khan as Master of the Herds, no more. For the Tatars who came out of Cathay have overthrown all that lay in their path. They have divided into different Hordes. But in Sarai Barka Khan hath stored the treasures stripped from a hundred palaces."
"What manner of man is he?"
Tron glanced about him and shook his head.
"Guard your words! Even in Sarai there will be men who know our speech. They are the spies of the Golden Horde. As for the khan, he is a man of great courage, who is ever with the army. For the present he is away, at war with the I1-khan in the south. Yet men say that Barka Khan often rides through his lands with his face hidden. He listens to the talk in serais and taverns, and marks down here a man to be slain, and there one to be tortured for information. So it is well to see much, and say little."
At the bank of the first river the merchant reined in and pointed. The dark road led across a two-mile-wide sweep of glistening white. Ships drawn up for the winter on the far shore looked like specks. A line of men and beasts threaded over the frozen breast of the great river, all going east.
"The first," Tron muttered. "Already, perhaps, the ice hath gone out of its mouth, down in the heart of the sands."
And Nial knew that when the ice broke there would be no crossing the mighty stream for weeks.
"Nay, lords," quoth a high voice behind them, "this is the second gate, where the wise turn back."
On a shaggy riding camel, Mardi Dobro grinned at them, perched sidewise on a roped quilt. And he leaned down to hold out an empty begging bowl to them.
"Away!" Tron snarled. "I will pay nothing."
"Look beyond the gate, 0 lord of nothing. The wolves are sitting on their haunches, the
"0 lord of swordsmen, what need hast thou of a little dagger? Give it back, I pray. In the garden of Mahmoud the Blind, the horsedealer-" the camel had passed with its screened hamper-"in Sarai."
Nial recognized Shedda's voice. He had kept the dagger, a slender thing of pliant steel inlaid with a gold inscription, in his wallet. And she dared ask for it!
"Nay," he called after the voice, "even an ass will not drink twice of bitter water."
Paolo Tron had faced serai thieves and tribesmen with cool courage; but now, with only the open road ahead of him, he became ill at ease.
"In two days," he told Nial, "we shall be over the rivers, if the ice holds."
They were coming out of the barren land to a rolling plain where villages nestled in the hollows, and Tron decided to push ahead of the others. The road itself became crowded. Trains of fur-laden sledges came in from the North, and immense herds of horses and cattle appeared out of the plain.
Once Tron's band had to draw aside when a high-pitched shout echoed down the line of caravans. Nial saw a rider go past on a white horse, dark with sweat and mud. The man was plying his short whip as a racer does to keep up a horse's pace at the finish. He wore no furs or armor and carried no weapons.
His stooped body was bound tight in oiled leather, and bands covered his forehead and mouth, while silver bells chimed on his girdle. With a cry, "Make way," and a thudding of hoofs, he was gone.
"A courier of the khan," Tron explained, as they turned back into the road. "He can take the road from a prince."
"He comes from the great khan?"
"Messer Nial, little know you of what lies before you. The great khan, Kublai, hath his city at Kambalu in the far land of Cathay, which is a year's journey to the edge of the world. Ha, so! 'Tis under the very rising of the sun, and no man of Christendom hath seen it, or hath lived to tell of it again."
"Yet Sarai-"
"Is the city of Barka Khan. He rules the Golden Horde, which is here upon the threshold of the East. Aye, he is master from Christendom to the Roof of the World, where even the valleys lie above the cloud level. But content you, young warrior. For if your king of England were here in this land, he might serve Barka Khan as Master of the Herds, no more. For the Tatars who came out of Cathay have overthrown all that lay in their path. They have divided into different Hordes. But in Sarai Barka Khan hath stored the treasures stripped from a hundred palaces."
"What manner of man is he?"
Tron glanced about him and shook his head.
"Guard your words! Even in Sarai there will be men who know our speech. They are the spies of the Golden Horde. As for the khan, he is a man of great courage, who is ever with the army. For the present he is away, at war with the I1-khan in the south. Yet men say that Barka Khan often rides through his lands with his face hidden. He listens to the talk in serais and taverns, and marks down here a man to be slain, and there one to be tortured for information. So it is well to see much, and say little."
At the bank of the first river the merchant reined in and pointed. The dark road led across a two-mile-wide sweep of glistening white. Ships drawn up for the winter on the far shore looked like specks. A line of men and beasts threaded over the frozen breast of the great river, all going east.
"The first," Tron muttered. "Already, perhaps, the ice hath gone out of its mouth, down in the heart of the sands."
And Nial knew that when the ice broke there would be no crossing the mighty stream for weeks.
"Nay, lords," quoth a high voice behind them, "this is the second gate, where the wise turn back."
On a shaggy riding camel, Mardi Dobro grinned at them, perched sidewise on a roped quilt. And he leaned down to hold out an empty begging bowl to them.
"Away!" Tron snarled. "I will pay nothing."
"Look beyond the gate, 0 lord of nothing. The wolves are sitting on their haunches, the
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