Red Blades of Black Cathay (English Edition) - Robert Ervin Howard Preview : The singing of the swords was a deathly clamor in the brain of Godric de Villehard. Blood and sweat veiled his eyes and in the instant of blindness he felt a keen point pierce a joint of his hauberk and sting deep into his ribs. Smiting blindly, he felt the jarring impact that meant his sword had gone home, and snatching an instant's grace, he flung back his vizor and wiped the redness from his eyes. A single glance only was allowed him: in that glance he had a fleeting glimpse of huge, wild black mountains; of a clump of mail-clad warriors, ringed by a howling horde of human wolves; and in the center of that clump, a slim, silk-clad shape standing between a dying horse and a dying swordsman. Then the wolfish figures surged in on all sides, hacking like madmen. "Christ and the Cross!" the old Crusading shout rose in a ghastly croak from Godric's parched lips. As if far away he heard voices gaspingly repeat the words. Curved sabers rained on shield and helmet. Godric's eyes blurred to the sweep of frenzied dark faces with bristling, foam-flecked beards. He fought like a man in a dream. A great weariness fettered his limbs. Somewhere—long ago it seemed—a heavy axe, shattering on his helm, had bitten through an old dent to rend the scalp beneath. He heaved his curiously weighted arm above his head and split a bearded face to the chin. "En avant, Montferrat!" We must hack through and shatter the gates, thought the dazed brain of Godric; we can not long stand this press, but once within the city—no—these walls were not the walls of Constantinople: he was mad; he dreamed—these towering heights were the crags of a lost and nameless land and Montferrat and the Crusade lay lost in leagues and years... Red Blades of Black Cathay by Tevis Clyde Smith and Robert E. Howard The Rajah’s Grandmother by Frank Belknap Long, Jr. William by S.B.H. Hurst The Dragoman’s Revenge by Otis Adelbert Kline The Kalgan Road by William Doughty Rondeau Oreintale by Alice I’Anson The Merchant of Basra by Dudley Hoys Scoundrels by Night by Richard Kent The Giant by Hung Long Tom The Slave of Justice by E. Hoffman Price Della Wu, Chinese Courtezan by Frank Owen For the Sake of Enlightenment by Coutts Brisbane