Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (18 page)

At that sight the Arabs broke and scattered like a flight of birds. It was every man for himself and the Persians cut them down as they ran. In a trice the battle changed from a close locked struggle to a loose maze of flight and single combats that streamed out over the plain. Our charge had carried Sir Eric and me deep into the heart of the Persian host. Now when the Kizilshehrians broke away to pursue their foes, it left but a thin line between us and the open desert to the south.

We struck in the spurs and burst through. Far ahead of us we saw two horsemen riding hard, and one rode the tall black mare the Arabs had given Ettaire. She and her guard had won through, but the plain was alive with horsemen who flew and horsemen who pursued.

We fled after Ettaire and as we swept past the group that guarded Muhammad Khan, we came so close that I saw the boldness and fearlessness of his brown eyes. Aye – there I looked on the face of a born king.

Men opposed us and men pursued us, but they who followed were left behind and they who barred our way died. Nay, the slayers soon turned to easier prey – the flying Arabs.

So we passed over the battle-strewn plain and we saw Ettaire rein in her mount and gaze back toward the field of battle, while Yussef strove to urge her on. But she must have seen us, for she threw up her arm – and then a band of Kurds swept down on them from the side – camp-followers, jackals who followed Muhammad for loot. We heard a scream and saw the swift flicker of steel, and Sir Eric groaned and rowelled his steed until it screamed and leaped madly ahead of my bay, and we swept up on the struggling group.

The Arab Yussef had wrought well; from one Kurd had he struck off the left arm at the shoulder, and he had broken his scimitar in the breast of another. Now as we rode up his horse went down, but as he fell, the Arab dragged a Kurd out of the saddle and rolling about on the ground, they butchered each other with their curved daggers.

The other Kurds, by some chance, had pulled Ettaire down, instead of slashing off her head, thinking her to be a boy. Now as they tore her garments and exposed her face in their roughness, they saw she was a girl and fair, and they howled like wolves. And as they howled, we smote them.

By the Prophet, a madness was over Sir Eric; his eyes blazed terribly from a face white as death, and his strength was beyond that of mortal man. Three Kurds he slew with three blows and the rest cried out and gave way, screaming that a devil was among them. And in fleeing one passed too near me and I cut off his head to teach him manners.

And now Sir Eric was off his horse and had gathered the terrified girl in his arms, while I looked to Yussef and the Kurd and found them both dead. And I discovered another thing – I had a lance thrust in my thigh, and how or when I received it, I know not for the fire of battle makes men insensible to wounds. I staunched the blood and bound it up as best I could with strips torn from my garments.

“Haste in the name of Allah!” said I to Sir Eric with some irritation, as it seemed he would fondle the girl and whisper pet names to her all morning. “We may be set upon any moment. Set the woman on her horse and let us begone. Save your love-making for a more opportune time.”

“Kosru Malik,” said Sir Eric, as he did as I advised, “you are a firm friend and a mighty fighter, but have you ever loved?”

“A thousand times,” said I. “I have been true to half the women in Samarcand. Mount, in God’s name, and let us ride!”

IV

I gasped, “A kingdom waits my lord, her love is but her own,
A day shall mar, a day shall cure for her, but what of thee?
Cut loose the girl – he follows fast – cut loose and ride alone!”
Then Scindhia ’twixt his blistered lips: “My queens’ queen shall she be!”

– Kipling

And so we rode out of that shambles and to avoid any stray bands of pillagers – for all the countryside rises when a battle is fought and they care not whom they rob – we rode south and a little east, intending to swing back toward westward when we had put a goodly number of leagues between us and the victorious Kizilshehri.

We rode until past the noon hour when we found a spring and halted there to rest the horses and to drink. A little grass grew there but of food for ourselves we had none and neither Sir Eric nor I had eaten since the day before, nor slept in two nights. But we dared not sleep with the hawks of war on the wing and none too far away, though Sir Eric made the girl lie down in the shade of a straggling tamarisk and snatch a small nap.

An hour’s rest and we rode on again, slowly, to save the horses. Again, as the sun slanted westward we paused awhile in the shade of some huge rocks and rested again, and this time Sir Eric and I took turn at sleeping, and though neither of us slept over half an hour, it refreshed us marvelously. Again we took up the trail, swinging in a wide arc to westward.

It was almost nightfall when I began to realize the madness that had fallen on Muhammad Khan. There came to me the strange restless feeling all desert-bred men know – the sensation of pursuit. Dismounting I laid my ear to the ground. Aye, many horsemen were riding hard, though still far away. I told Sir Eric and we hastened our pace, thinking it perhaps a band of fleeing Arabs.

We swung back to the east again, to avoid them, but when dusk had fallen, I listened to the ground again and again caught the faint vibration of many hoofs.

“Many riders,” I muttered. “By Allah, Sir Eric, we are being hunted.”

“Is it us they pursue?” asked Sir Eric.

“Who else?” I made answer. “They follow our trail as hunting-dogs follow a wounded wolf. Sir Eric, Muhammad is mad. He lusts after the maid, fool that he is, to thus risk throwing away an empire for a puling girl-child. Sir Eric, women are more plentiful than sparrows, but warriors like thyself are few. Let Muhammad have the girl. ’Twere no disgrace – a whole army hunts us.”

His jaw set like iron and he said only: “Ride away and save thyself.”

“By the blood of Allah,” said I softly, “none but thou could use those words to me and live.”

He shook his head. “I meant no insult by them, my brother; no need for thou too to die.”

“Spur up the horses, in God’s name,” I said wearily. “All Franks are mad.”

And so we rode on through the gathering twilight, into the light of the stars, and all the while far behind us vibrated the faint but steady drum of many hoofs. Muhammad had settled to a steady grinding gait, I believed, and I knew he would gain slowly on us for his steeds were the less weary. How he learned of our flight, I never knew. Perhaps the Kurds who escaped Sir Eric’s fury brought him word of us; perhaps a tortured Arab told him.

Thinking to elude him, we swung far to the east and just before dawn I no longer caught the vibration of the hoofs. But I knew our respite was short; he had lost our trail but he had Kurds in his ranks who could track a wolf across bare rocks. Muhammad would have us ere another sun set.

At dawn we topped a rise and saw before us, spreading to the sky-line, the calm waters of the Green Sea – the Persian Gulf. Our steeds were done; they staggered and tossed their heads, legs wide braced. In the light of dawn I saw my comrades’ drawn and haggard faces. The girl’s eyes were shadowed and she reeled with weariness though she spoke no word of complaint. As for me, with a single half hour’s sleep for three nights, all seemed dim and like a dream at times till I shook myself into wakefulness. But Sir Eric was iron, brain and spirit and body. An inner fire drove him and spurred him on, and his soul blazed so brightly that it overcame the weakness and weariness of his body. Aye, but it is a hard road, the road of Azrael!

We came upon the shores of the sea, leading our stumbling mounts. On the Arab side the shores of the Green Sea are level and sandy, but on the Persian side they are high and rocky. Many broken boulders lined the steep shores so that the steeds had much ado to pick their way among them.

Sir Eric found a nook between two great boulders and bade the girl sleep a little, while I remained by her to keep watch. He himself would go along the shore and see if he might find a fisher’s boat, for it was his intention that we should go out on the face of the sea in an effort to escape the Persians. He strode away among the rocks, straight and tall and very gallant in appearance, with the early light glinting on his armor.

The girl slept the sleep of utter exhaustion and I sat nearby with my scimitar across my knees, and pondered the madness of Franks and sultans. My leg was sore and stiff from the spear thrust, I was athirst and dizzy for sleep and from hunger, and saw naught but death for all ahead.

At last I found myself sinking into slumber in spite of myself, so, the girl being fast asleep, I rose and limped about, that the pain of my wound might keep me awake. I made my way about a shoulder of the cliff a short distance away – and a strange thing came suddenly to pass.

One moment I was alone among the rocks, the next instant a huge warrior had leaped from behind them. I knew in a flashing instant that he was some sort of a Frank, for his eyes were light and they blazed like a tiger’s, and his skin was very white, while from under his helmet flowed flaxen locks. Flaxen, likewise, was his thick beard, and from his helmet branched the horns of a bull so at first glance I thought him some fantastic demon of the wilderness.

All this I perceived in an instant as with a deafening roar, the giant rushed upon me, swinging a heavy, flaring edged axe in his right hand. I should have leaped aside, smiting as he missed, as I had done against a hundred Franks before. But the fog of half-sleep was on me and my wounded leg was stiff.

I caught his swinging axe on my buckler and my forearm snapped like a twig. The force of that terrific stroke dashed me earthward, but I caught myself on one knee and thrust upward, just as the Frank loomed above me. My scimitar point caught him beneath the beard and rent his jugular; yet even so, staggering drunkenly and spurting blood, he gripped his axe with both hands, and with legs wide braced, heaved the axe high above his head. But life went from him ere he could strike.

Then as I rose, fully awake now from the pain of my broken arm, men came from the rocks on all sides and made a ring of gleaming steel about me. Such men I had never seen. Like him I had slain, they were tall and massive with red or yellow hair and beards and fierce light eyes. But they were not clad in mail from head to foot like the Crusaders. They wore horned helmets and shirts of scale mail which came almost to their knees but left their throats and arms bare, and most of them wore no other armor at all. They held on their left arms heavy kite shaped shields, and in their right hands wide edged axes. Many wore heavy golden armlets, and chains of gold about their necks.

Surely such men had never before trod the sands of the East. There stood before them, as a chief stands, a very tall Frank whose hauberk was of silvered scales. His helmet was wrought with rare skill and instead of an axe he bore a long heavy sword in a richly worked sheath. His face was as a man that dreams, but his strange light eyes were wayward as the gleams of the sea.

Beside him stood another, stranger than he; this man was very old, with a wild white beard and white elf locks. Yet his giant frame was unbowed and his thews were as oak and iron. Only one eye he had and it held a strange gleam, scarcely human. Aye, he seemed to reckon little of what went about him, for his lion-like head was lifted and his strange eye stared through and beyond that on which it rested, into the deeps of the world’s horizons.

Now I saw that the end of the road was come for me. I flung down my scimitar and folded my arms.

“God gives,” said I, and waited for the stroke.

And then there sounded a swift clank of armor and the warriors whirled as Sir Eric burst roughly through the ring and faced them. Thereat a sullen roar went up and they pressed forward. I caught up my scimitar to stand at Sir Eric’s back, but the tall Frank in the silvered mail raised his hand and spoke in a strange tongue, whereat all fell silent. Sir Eric answered in his own tongue: “I cannot understand Norse. Can any of you speak English or Norman-French?”

“Aye,” answered the tall Frank whose height was half a head more than Sir Eric’s. “I am Skel Thorwald’s son, of Norway, and these are my wolves. This Saracen has slain one of my carles. Is he your friend?”

“Friend and brother-at-arms,” said Sir Eric. “If he slew, he had just reason.”

“He sprang on me like a tiger from ambush,” said I wearily. “They are your breed, brother. Let them take my head if they will; blood must pay for blood. Then they will save you and the girl from Muhammad.”

“Am I a dog?” growled Sir Eric, and to the warriors he said: “Look at your wolf; think you he struck a blow after his throat was cut? Yet here is Kosru Malik with a broken arm. Your wolf smote first; a man may defend his life.”

“Take him then, and go your ways,” said Skel Thorwald’s son slowly. “We would not take an unfair advantage of the odds, but I like not your pagan.”

“Wait!” exclaimed Sir Eric. “I ask your aid! We are hunted by a Moslem lord as wolves hunt deer. He seeks to drag a Christian girl into his harem – ”