Adventure Magazine Cover — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WOLF MASTER that the tribesmen might well have named her so—the Lily. Because her hair, stream- ing over her shoulders from the narrow pearl- sewn filet on her forehead, was light as ripe straw. Upon this lightness of loose hair and the fair forehead of the girl the candle flames glowed, flickering when the wind swept the hall in tiny gusts. It was as if the splendid head of Nada were a moon, shedding light into the dim room. When Kirdy looked at her, he was troubled; the skin of his head and shoulders tingled, and words left his lips. In all his life he had not beheld a girl like this. “Toghrul,” she said clearly to one of her followers, “bind me this—foeman. Take him and bind him.” The two tribesmen drew their short hangers and came at Kirdy from either side, the one called Toghrul loosing a coil of woven horsehide at his girdle. “Q Ak-Sokol,” he began persuasively, “thou hast heard the command. Hold forth thine arms and be bound.” Kirdy had risen from his bench, and after a swift glance at the youth’s face Toghrul wasted no more words but cast a loop of the coil at his head. He saw that their dis- tinguished guest did not intend to let him- self be taken. Kirdy slipped aside from the rope and struck the tribesman in the chest, so that Toghrul stumbled and stag- gered back, barely saving himself from falling into the fire. Meanwhile Kirdy had wheeled toward the door, only to find the other leaping at him. Again he dodged, but this time the flat of a heavy blade struck him over the ear and he saw red. The dim room swayed, the firelight filled the air and the whisper of the wind became a roar. Ripping open his mantle, he drew his long saber—that had been hidden until now—with a sharp slith- ering of steel. He parried the second cut of the agile gnome and locked hilts. A second later the hooked scimitar flashed into the straw and the man caught at his wrist witha groan. Upon the other servitor Kirdy leaped, and held his hand because Nada stood between them, her arms outstretched. “‘Hai-a, my Cossack!’’ She cried softly: “The sword reveals the man. So does a Cossack leap and strike.” She came forward to look closely at the blue steel blade with its half-effaced in- 2I scription, and a word sent her two followers back into their shadow. “T thought that you were a Cossack when you came to the sleigh, because you walked with along stride. And your whip! Here, at the table, I doubted; but now there isno doubt. Can you use a sword?” Without replying, Kirdy slipped the weapon back in its scabbard, which he held ready for use. “You can!’’? Nada’s lips trembled in a smile. “I prayed to the holy angels that they would send me a sword. I will not give you up to the Muscovites, but you must serve me.”’ “O divchina, [am neither spy not servitor. As you say, I am of the Siech, free-born. I came to the city of the White Walls to slay a traitor. An oath has been sworn.” For a moment she pondered. ‘And when youhaveslain thisman? Kai, that is like a young warrior of the south—to follow a feud blindly, like a falcon that takes no notice of anything except its quarry.” “Then I go upon the snow road again, to the south.” Nada drew a bench to the fire and seated herself, leaning chin on hand, frowning a little. “You said you came from the Sha-mo! I know it is true—you have no skill at lying.”’ “Aye, so. My grandmother on my mother’s side was a princess of the Yakka Mongols, of the line of Genghis Khan. There was I born. But now I go to the Cossack Siech.”’ “Then you will need wings, O White Falcon. Because at midnight the city gates were closed, and now are guarded. None is suffered to pass out. So my men tell me.” Kirdy nodded without excitement. He never bothered his head about future diffi- culties, and he only wondered whether he could trust Nada to keep his secret. “We have shared bread and salt,” she said as if answering his thought. “We are peo- ple of the steppe and this is not our place. I do not know if we will pass again, alive, through the gates.’”’ Her eyes, wide and brooding, were bent on the fire. ‘O White Falcon, have you ever felt the storm wind rising, far off, on the plains, when the black clouds mount up against the sun and the cattle become mad with fear? Kaz, that has come upon me.” Co LOOOLK C© S|