Snowdrifts and naked rocks were one and the same as they slowly circled, breath steaming with each panted curse, each seeking an opportunity to bring this struggle to its bloody conclusion. Still, the two men who faced off on the winding trail to the crag-set village of Kurram paid little heed to wind, cold, or sunlight. And a mockery it was, for the sun’s rays did nothing to allay the knife-edged cold, which cut through leather and wool and thick cloth to freeze flesh and stiffen beards. Ruptures in the leaden sky-a sky that promised little succor from the long winter at the Roof of the World-allowed mocking glimpses of blue heavens and golden light. The rasp and slither of steel died away, the sound lost to a wind that howled over snow-clad ridges, pouring into the passes and sheltered valleys of the high Afghan mountains.
Bringing medieval Cario, the true jewel of the Arabian Nights, to exhilarating life, full of intrigue and thunderous battle, Oden resurrects one of the Ancient World's most beautiful and beguiling countries. In this lighting-paced epic, bestselling author Scott Oden masterfully blends history and adventure in the style of Robert E. He holds the power of life and death over the warring factions of the Muslim world – and decides to come to the Caliph's aid. There is an old man who lives on a remote mountainside in a distant land. And the scent draws her enemies in like sharks: the swaggering Kurd, Shirkuh, who serves the pious Sultan of Damascus and Amalric, the Christian king of Jerusalem whose greed is insatiable and whose knights are hungry for battle.Īnd yet, all is not lost. In the crowded souks and narrow alleys, warring factions employ murder and terror to silence their opponents. In the shadow of the Gray Mosque, generals and emirs jockey for position under the scheming eyes of the powerful grand vizier. On the banks of the ageless Nile, from a palace of gold and lapis lazuli, the young Caliph Rashid al-Hasan rules as a figurehead over a crumbling empire.
"I am al-Hashishiyya," he said to the glittering-eyed devil. His attention remained fixed on the long blade in his fist, on its pommel of yellowed ivory carved in the shape of a djinni's snarling visage.
The Assassin paid no heed to his quarry's death throes.
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