Swords From the West Read Online Free PDF

face of the Tatar.
    No one was between him and Subai Ghazi.
    The Tatar chieftain might have pulled back among his men; instead, he reined forward, his broad face alight with eagerness. His scimitar flashed down at the knight's uncovered head. But the long blade parried his cut, and Subai Ghazi half wheeled his rearing horse, to take Sir Bruce upon the left hand.
    And then he flung himself back, only warding with a desperate twist of his wrist the point of the long blade that leaped at his throat.
    Before Subai Ghazi could recover his seat in the saddle-before anyone could come between them-Sir Bruce caught the Tatar's right forearm in the mailed fingers of his left hand and thrust back. Subai Ghazi's knees bent, and his shoulders were forced down to the rump of his horse. Under the red coat his massive body tensed and strained against the arm that held him helpless on his back. He slipped his feet from the stirrups and would have slid to the ground, but in that instant the point of Sir Bruce's long sword darted down through his beard, through the skin under his chin-and stopped, with half an inch of steel in his throat muscles.
    Subai Ghazai's big body lay passive. The Tatars who had been about to cut down the solitary swordsman checked their horses. Blunt fingers released taut bow cords slowly. A warrior on foot stepped forward and grasped the reins of the white horse, holding him quiet, lest he swerve or rear.
    "Two lives for thine, Subai Ghazi!" Sir Bruce said deep in his throat. "Mine and the khanim's!"
    "Ahai!" the Tatar grunted. Blood was trickling from his beard.
    A flashing thought had stayed the knight's hand. He held the life of Subai Ghazi in his fingers. If he freed the savage chieftain, there was a chance that Subai Ghazi might release the girl and himself-without him she would be lost. Somewhere he had heard that Subai Ghazi's word would stand.
    The green eyes glared up at him malevolently, and the muscles in the Tatar's throat worked. Suddenly he gave his answer in his own way. He spat weakly toward the tense face above him, and growled a single word "Strike!"
    A clamor of amazement, rage, and sorrow burst from his followers. Then there was utter silence. Sir Bruce had lifted his sword and sheathed it in its scabbard.
    "Subai Ghazi bahator," he smiled. "A brave man, thou."
    The Tatar, who had once sworn that he would never yield to a foe sat up in the saddle, found his stirrups-took up his reins and lifted the scimitar that he still grasped. Curiously he gazed at his foe, indifferent to the blood dripping down his beard.
    "Thou hast sheathed thy sword!" he exclaimed. "Thy head is bare-and," he added grimly, "I did not pledge thee life!"
    "Nay," Sir Bruce assented gravely, "but now thou art witness that my word is true. This woman is mine. Would I stand between thee and-a gift?"
    Sir Bruce smiled, because he had played his last stake and the game was out of his hands.
    "Kai!" the Tatar growled. "The dog -born dog in Tana sent out to me another man's wife. Veil thy wife and go!"
    At the end of that night sitting on a height by the pavilion where Marie slept, Sir Bruce kept watch over a camp deserted by all but the horses. He looked back into the darkness along the way they had come. Leagues distant, against the faint glimmer of the sea, a point of flame rose and sank. Smoke drifted against the stars.
    Subai Ghazi had galloped far that night. And now at dawn, in Tana, the red cock crowed.
    Sir Bruce needed no guide to follow the edge of the sea, over the dry steppe. With Marie at his side, he rode through the barren land where only the eagles of the sky and the wild marmots watched them-until the girl saw a long dust line moving across their path, and in the dust the nodding heads of beasts. "The caravans!" she cried.
    "Aye, the caravans." The eyes of Sir Bruce kindled and he smiled. "And now yell be after coming home-wi' me."

     

The winter's blanket of snow lay deep on the land. It stretched from the frozen