Swords From the West Read Online Free PDF Page B

tundras down to the southern sea-down to the shallow, tideless gray water of the Sea Gate.
    Here clear skies and a warm sun melted the snow. Reed-bordered lakes overflowed into the alleys of the Gate itself. And lines of galleys jostled like feeding dogs along the embankment of the caravan road. Out of these galleys swarmed men of all kinds-warriors striding under their gear and slaves bent under hemp sacks-to the bank where sable-clad merchants argued in many tongues and riders in wolfskins spattered them with mud, unheeded. The jangling bells of mules echoed the grunting of lines of camels kneeling for their loads.
    For this Sea Gate, as the newcomers called it, was the port of Tana. To the north and east of it stretched a new and limitless empire, an empire ruled by horsemen and filled with unknown treasures. The caravan road that began at Tana went by thousand-mile stages into the heart of Cathay.
    To Cathay where, in this year of the Leopard in the second cycle of his reign, the great Khan Kublai ruled all the Hordes.
    Mardi Dobro sniffed the morning air with relish and went down to the waterfront to begin his day's work. Being a shaman, he lived by his wits. He knew the tricks of conjuring and telling omens; he was an old hand at making or unmaking spells and writing prayers for the sick to swallow.
    In his soiled red robe, with a white bearskin pulled over his high shoulders, Mardi Dobro pushed through the tumult to a dry spot by a fire. His green eyes, framed in the tangle of his long black hair, seemed to take no notice of the men around him as he knelt and picked a glowing ember from the fire.
    "Ai-ha!" The watchers breathed expectantly.
    Without haste the shaman placed the ember on a bone, the cleaned shoulder bone of a sheep. As the ember scorched the bone, tiny cracks appeared around it.
    "0 lord of omens," someone asked, "what do the signs foretell?"
    From the tangle of his hair, Mardi Dobro had been watching the crowd that gathered as usual to the omen-telling.
    "Great powers are arising, unseen," he muttered, and waited.
    "Against whom?" asked the questioner.
    Mardi Dobro glanced at him and saw only a fat Tatar.
    "The powers," he explained, "are like snakes in the dark. They are moving against the feet of the Lord of the West and the East."
    "That is Barka Khan." The Tatar nodded.
    "They have poison in them, and they will strike him unless he slay them first."
    Behind the shaman a rider reined in for a moment. Mardi Dobro did not turn his head; but he watched the horseman move away and, without waiting to hold out his bowl for payment, he got to his feet and followed.
    The horseman passed slowly through the crowd, staring about him. He had the beak and eyes of a hawk, and his close-clipped beard flamed red. Mardi Dobro laid a hand upon his stirrup.
    "Ai, tura," exclaimed the shaman, "0 master, I have tidings for your nobility."
    He spoke in Arabic, seeing that this stranger was a Christian from the lands of the Franks, and a merchant. Most merchants knew something of Arabic.
    "Y'allah," cried the horseman. "Go on. I have naught for thee!"
    "But a woman! 0 master, I have seen such a girl-"
    "I have naught for girls."
    Mardi Dobro kept his grip upon the stirrup, shaking his great head reproachfully.
    "Yet the woman is of the race of your nobility. She is in the caravan of Yashim the Bokharian. She is beautiful as a white, swift camel. Look!"
    The stranger looked. He was, as Mardi Dobro had guessed, a merchant. He was also a rich man, owning four cargo ships and warehouses upon the Dark Sea,* being one of the astute Genoese who were gleaning fortunes out of the new Eastern trade. Although he traveled about alone and apparently without weapons, he had agents in every port and could summon an armed following with a word. The name of Messer Paolo Tron was known from Constantinople to Baghdad.
    He did not need to ask what girl Mardi Dobro meant. Yashim's caravan occupied a courtyard behind a wall, which served to