Thirsty Blades By OTIS ADELBERT KLINE and E HOFFMANN PRICE [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales February 1930. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Illustration: "Then something cast its shadow over him."] The side entrance to the _caravanserai_ was closed. Well then, back down the alley, and around the corner to the main gate. But when Rankin turned to retrace his steps, he saw that it might be a long way from there to any other place. For to his right and left were blank walls; at his back, a closed gate; and in front, a crescent of drawn blades was closing in on him. Behind the six advancing swordsmen rode their commander. He reined in his Barbary stallion, stroked his beard--henna red, as Rankin could see plainly in the white moonlight--and settled back to enjoy the spectacle. "Click-click-click!" mocked the hammer of Rankin's .45 as it fell on a succession of empty chambers. The red-bearded chief smiled. And Rankin knew that more than his own carelessness was responsible for the unloading of that revolver. Someone had worked fast and skilfully as Rankin reclined in the _souk_ that afternoon, smoking a _narghileh_, sipping bitter Abyssinian coffee, and pondering on how to extricate the lady Azizah from the peril that was descending from the mountains of Kurdistan. Shoulder to shoulder the assailants advanced. Their steps were deliberate, now that they were certain rather than hopeful that the .45 had not been reloaded. Six lean swordsmen from the desert, grim phantoms whose curved blades gleamed frostily in the moonlight; curved scimitars whose drawing cut shears from shoulder to hip with one swift stroke. Rankin drew his scimitar, cursed the disguise that had forbidden his favorite saber, and came on guard. The six paused a moment in their advance. _One_ of them, they knew, must close with their prey, while the other five hacked him to pieces. And the sentence of that _one_ was written; for their victim's frenzy would not be tempered with any hope of escape. _One_ of them was even now a dead man.... One ... two ... three paces.... Rankin dropped his point and laughed. The line wavered. It takes courage to assault a madman. A long, fierce lunge, and a deadly swift flicker of steel; and Rankin withdrew from the mêlée, on guard again. That sudden assault from beyond probable striking-distance had caught them off balance; _one_ of them was even now a dead man, shorn half asunder. Then they closed in. Rankin's footwork saved him, and during that instant of grace, his blade again hit deep as he evaded the charge. _"Mashallah!"_ gasped the red-bearded chief as he spurred his horse a pace forward.