Harold Lamb

“ And what Avak had taken to be a cross was in reality the two-foot hilt and the wide cross-bar of a sword slung in its leather sheath upon his shoulders.
“He carries himself with pride,” thought Avak. “Ai, what a blade. The thawad will rejoice in this captive.”
The stranger had halted for good reason. Out of a mass of young firs appeared five Georgians, come to learn the meaning of Avak's signal that had been heard in the huts of Nakha; four warriors armed with boar spears and simitars, and Shotha Kupri, broad as a bear, with high shoulders and limbs shaped and knotted by climbing cliffs. ”

“ Avak could not be certain, in that ever-changing mist, whether the stranger was alone or followed by others. So the shepherd flung back his head and howled like a wolf—a quavering cry that was carried far up-wind. Then he took his dog between his knees and crouched down in the laurel growth that screened him from the road.
When he heard leather-shod feet crunch the hard snow he peered out of his covert and beheld the stranger close at hand. Then Avak knew beyond doubt that this was no Georgian. The man of the wolf-skin cloak was taller than the race of mountaineers, and spare in build. ”

“ Avak could hear nothing except the rush of the wind, but when the mist lifted for a moment he saw a man coming up the road—a tall man wrapped in a wolf-skin cloak, who strode steadily through the drifts and paused at times to study the tracks upon the trail. ”