Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/294

 prayers and offers of money flooded from his quivering lips. In the midst of his begging he flung his stout body forward, seeking to upset the kul, his hand clutching for the precious knife. Aravang stepped back swiftly and Abbas reached the knife—only to sink down upon it, his skull shattered by a blow from the log driven down with all the kul's weight behind it.

Then Aravang took up the body of his enemy in his arms and strode over the massed wood, limping under the hurt of Edith's wandering bullet, but inexorable in his purpose.

He staggered forward among frantic horses toward a group of Tartars who had flocked together in the center of the courtyard, while the struggle ebbed about them in the moonlight. He stepped over bodies that writhed on the stones and pushed aside unheeding a Sayak girl who was moaning out her life, a bayonet in her breast "Sayak!" he heard the battle cry of the tribe: "Sayak!" The darkness under the parapets was rife with sound and movement as scattered Tartars and Alamans sought vainly for leaders and gave back under blows from swords that they could not see.

"They are devils!" cried one. "Flee—flee!"

Aravang headed toward where he could see two robed Sayaks standing and a third kneeling. Beside them a figure lay prone on the floor. As he approached, the kul heard the kneeling Sayak speaking very quietly. "Taman shud (it is finished)," Iskander was saying, swaying upon his knees. "Ohé, my enemy is slain by my hand … as I have sworn … it has come to pass."

Then Aravang saw that the body on the stones was