Swords From the West by Harold Lamb

Mahmoud the Blind, Shedda crouched in fear. The night was full of new sounds and perils, and she listened as heedfully as any animal in a cage.
    Men were looting the horse market, while Tatar houses burned. A distant wailing of women told of other plundering. A boy rode by on a soldier's horse with a sable cloak over his knee, shouting with all his lungs:
    "Allah bath opened the gates of plunder. 0 brothers, come forth!"
    A beggar hurried beneath the balcony, clutching a silk dress. There were dark stains upon the silk. At the corner he ran into another thief. There was an oath and a blow, and one of the shadows screeched. The alley men were out with knives to snatch what they could.
    Anxiously the girl looked toward the palace height. The torches thronging into the House of Gold looked like fireflies at that distance. She knew the Moslems must have forced their way in; and if they took the House of Cold they would have in their hands the treasure of the khan. Such a victory would bring new allies out of the rabble, and all Sarai would be looted.
    "Yield thyself, 0 red she-tiger," a mocking voice cried up at her. "We know thou art the slave of the pagan khan. Verily, Yashim longs for thee. He will prepare needles to take sight from thine eyes that were the eyes of the khan who now lies slain in the mud."
    Stifling an exclamation, Shedda drew back from the lattice. Two men had stopped beneath the balcony. She heard them pass around the corner and enter the courtyard, and she wondered if they had been taunting her idly, or if they had come in search of her. To flee out of the house into the streets would be madness. She burrowed among the cushions and held her breath to listen.
    Hoofs clattered on loose stones below, and someone shouted. Steel clashed once, and footsteps hastened away. Then the courtyard became silent.
    "0 Shedda," a deep voice called, "I have come hither for thee."
    The girl wrapped her khalat about her and hastened down the stair. Here was a shield for her, and a strong arm to strike for her. She greeted him softly.
    "0 lordling Ni-al, I was in sore need of thee." Then she caught her breath, peering up at him. "What is this? Hast thou changed thy shape?"
    "Aye," said Nial.
    Shedda saw no sign of the Moslems. Nor was any one else with the tall Christian. And the girl felt that, by changing his shape, this man with the long sword in his hand had become grim and purposeful.
    "Why hast thou come for me?"
    "I gave thee a promise." Nial threw the rein over the head of a horse he had seized on the way. "I saw the talisman, the dagger that bears the sign of the khan. Knowing that thou didst serve the khan, I feared for thee, alone among the Moslems."
    "Death is near us." The girl caught his hand in hers, as a frightened child might have done. "What can we do?" A moment before she had known terror, and the chill of it was still about her heart.
    "We can go from here."
    He lifted her into the saddle of the other horse, and while she pulled a heavy veil over her head and long hair, he mounted the tired gray charger. Through the dark alleys he led the way to Tron's quarters. But the chamber was empty, without a sign of the merchant.
    Nial did not want to take refuge behind a door. If the Moslems became masters of Sarai, nothing was more certain than that they would hunt down all unbelievers, and he knew what the sack of a city meant. Better to try his luck with Shedda in the open.
    In the courtyard the girl greeted him excitedly.
    "Listen! An arrow has called."
    That part of Sarai was nearly quiet, and presently Nial heard very faintly the long drawn whistle that had startled him in the Altyn-dar. It rose into the air, dwindled, then sounded clearly again.
    "A Tatar arrow, a whistling arrow," she explained eagerly. "A summons to rally, to come together."
    She urged her horse out into an open space, where frightened Armenians huddled like sheep around a bearded priest, waiting for misfortune. Shedda peered over the