Adventure Magazine Cover — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

THE WOLF MASTER 73 the pass swelled in volume, and strange words came to the Cossack’s ears: ‘‘At-a—come and seel The night birds await thee! Many have come! Come thoul”’ That was the cry of the night wind. “Oho-ho-o! What lies beyond the Gate? A grave. She will ride to the end of the road, but af ill befalls thee, what of her?” Such was the warning roar that came up from the fall. “She will lead thee astray—wait and see. We have seen her before and we know—”’ ““Fool—she trusts thee. Turn back! What hope is there for the blind?” Then the wind’s note changed swiftly to the clang of war cymbals and the monotone of the fall to the mutter of drums. The Cossack heard the clashing of shod hoofs on stones, the snapping of standards, the creaking of great wagons drawn by yoked oxen, and the roaring battle shout of riders. The pass was filled with moving shadows and sound. Under the space of starlight above him gleamed the weapons of a host. He heard the snarling of laden camels, the snorting of horses, and the clang and clash of shields. This, he thought, must be the Golden Horde coming up from its city. And surely he heard a deafening shout: “Make way—make wayl Khan of all the Hordes!’’ He comes, the IRDY sprang up, his limbs chilled K and stiff. He peered around him and saw that the line of sky be- tween the rock walls was gray. The roar of the fall had dwindled to a whisper and the fitful wind was no more than a mocking whimper. At his side the horses were stamping and snorting, and Nada, roused by. his sudden movement, lifted her head and smiled at the dawn drowsily. “Tf such be the watchers,”’ the Cossack thought, ‘‘at the gate, what will be the folk of the city?” Before now he had slept on the upper slopes of a mountain range, and at such times dreams had troubled him; breathing had been difficult, and the fire had acted strangely. Whether all this were caused by evil spirits—dreaded by the Tatars—or by the wind and the cold of the heights, he neither knew norcared. The night was past, the day at hand. “Did you hear the cymbals and the drums, White Falcon?” the girl asked. almost at its highest point. “Aye.” “The Tatars say that is the Horde, marching through the gate. When they hear it, down below, they are afraid.” “Nay, little Nada—it was the wind, and the thunder of the fall.” “Listen!” She smiled at him in the gloom of the gorge. ‘Now the voice of the fall is only a little voice, and the wind barely stirs.” ‘“‘Then it may be that the city is near, and the guards upon the wall sound cymbal and drum at the dawn hour.”’ “Do they drive camels through the pass at that hour? Nay, this is the gate!” She pointed at the sheer rock walls, now growing gray, and Kirdy saw that the pass fell away, to the east. They had camped The thought struck him that Otrépiev and the Muscovite might have turned back and passed them during the night and the two horses, clat- tering among the stones, might have made the uproar. But this he did not believe. A man like Otrépiev would not have passed a fire with- out investigating, or a half dozen ponies without trying to seize them. Also, the Cossack was certain that a horse coming up the pass—a living horse with a rider would have roused him from his stupor. If it had been a dream, Nada would not have heard the same sounds, and his ponies would not have been aroused and restless before the first light. No, he had listened to the passage of an armed host, an array not of mortal men but of ghosts. And it was this Horde of the dead that the Tatars feared. Whence came it, and whither did it ride? What matter? The dead were the dead. “They paid us no heed!” Nada mused. “Ai, Kirdy, it was surely a warning.” By now the light was strong enough for him to look closely into her eyes, shadowed by weariness and yet bright with a kind of fever. And he groaned, clutching both hands upon his belt. They were at the gate of the Earth Girdle; beyond might be a barren land where food could not be hunted down. In his anger, a few nights ago, he had ordered Nada to ride on, with him. Better for her, if she had struck him down with the yataghan! Better, perhaps, if she had kept at Otrépiev’s side. “Go back, then, little Nada,” he said cComiclbooks C© S|