The Saracen’s face registered the pain for the briefest of moments as the spiked ball crushed through his hair and skull. Then the man’s head exploded, spattering blood and brains on all around them. Simon grinned, despite the injury to his shoulder. He wheeled his horse free of the press and rode out, his bloody shoulder screaming with pain.
From the west he heard soldiers crying, and a horn sounding.
The towers had reached the wall.
On the wall, Jibril watched as the towers grew closer. The defenders’ arrows had taken their toll on the men hauling the towers, but it seemed no matter how many they cut down, there were always more to take their place.
At this rate they’ll be able to walk up the walls on the bodies of the dead, he thought, as the tower grew closer. He could see his men, nervously waiting, watching as the tower grew near, knowing that in moments they would be fighting for their lives.
“Steady!” he shouted. “Grapples!”
A dozen men tossed hooks out at the towers, hoping to pull them over to the side and take them from their deadly course. The defenders were prepared, and tore off the hooks before the ropes on them could be pulled tight.
The towers trundled ever closer.
Beside Jibril a man screamed, victim of a chance arrow that made it past the battlements. The long shaft had sunk into his neck and blood spurted from him like water from a pump. Jibril shook his head in disgust and turned away. The man was dead and didn’t know it yet. Another victim of the infidels.
We will crush them all, he thought. We just need to hold out two more weeks.
“It opens!” screamed one of the defenders, and the weighted drawbridge on the front of the tower plunged down onto the wall and the infidels, led by a dozen knights, charged forward.
Instantly the wall was a slaughterhouse. The knights who charged out had been picked for their size and strength, and they fell on the smaller defenders like the wrath of God, smiting with steel that hacked through armor and flesh. Brains and blood and intestines made the wall into a slippery mess, and the screams of the dying were nearly louder than the cries of battle.
Jibril charged forward, leading his own handpicked men, equal in size and ferocity to the invaders. Ahead of him he watched first one, then two, then half-a-dozen men dying, from ripped-open stomachs or crushed skulls or from swords cuts that sent heads flying. Jibril screamed his own war cry, “Allahu Akbar!” and charged forward.
He met the first knight shield to shield, and the force of Jibril’s charge was enough to send the man staggering back in the bloody mess on the top of the wall. Jibril ducked beneath the blade the man swung at his head and thrust his own curved sword up under the man’s hauberk, ripping into the man’s leg and tearing open the artery. Jibril twisted the blade and pulled it out at the same time he drove his shield into the other man’s once more, sending him skidding back to fall over the bodies of those he had killed.
Jibril didn’t bother cutting the knight again. The blood spurting from the man’s leg meant that he would be dead fast enough, and Jibril had others he needed to kill. One giant of a knight was holding off three of Jibril’s men by himself, using a mace to deal devastating blows.
“Spears!” screamed Jibril, and a two more squads of his men charged forward, wielding their wicked dariyah – twelve-foot long spears, whose last three feet were all blade. They stabbed out at the infidels’ vulnerable legs and faces, driving them back. The big one with the mace swung hard, smashing two of the blades with one blow. Jibril leapt into the space left from the suddenly disarmed spearmen and hacked down and across with his sword. It hit the big man’s wrist, biting through the chainmail and into flesh and bone. Blood spurted, but the arm was not severed. Jibril shoved hard on his blade, cutting further through the screaming man’s wrist even as it freed Jabril’s weapon. The man tried to stumble back, but Jibril followed, hacking sideways across the man’s face. The knight’s eye exploded as Jibril’s blade ripped through it. He fell to the ground, screaming and clutching at himself.
“Drive forward!” screamed Jibril. “Drive forward and kill them all!” He stepped back as his men streamed around him. “Where are my flames? Where is my fire?”
He had his answer a moment later when six men, each carrying flaming pots of oil, charged forward. The infidel knights saw them too and redoubled their attack, but it did them no good. One by one they fell, and the long spears kept others from leaving the siege towers to attack the battlements.
The first oil pot flew and smashed against the side of the tower. Flames leapt up, but did little damage.
“Get them inside!” Jibril screamed. “Follow me!”
He charged again, breaking the line of the struggling knights. Soon each infidel was surrounded and being hacked to pieces by a half-dozen of Jibril’s defenders. Jibril kept driving forward, jumping onto the tongue of the siege tower and cutting at the men there. The ones that rose to meet him were sliced open or thrown from the tower to fall into the seething sea of humanity below.
“Now!” screamed Jibril. “Now!”
He jumped back and five more flaming vessels flew past him into the maw of the siege tower. Two broke on the top level. The other three tumbled down into the depths of the tower and erupted into flames there. Smoke began billowing from the tower and the men inside began screaming and fighting one another, desperate to escape the agonizing death they faced.
“To the other tower!” Jibril yelled. “We will steal the victory from the infidel dogs and drive them back to the sea! Allahu Akbar!”
From the back of his horse, Simon watched the first tower burning.
“Swiving dogs,” he cursed. “Bastards. Shit-eating scum.”
Tentatively he tried moving his shield arm. The sword that had pierced him had not ruined the joint. He was still fit for fighting and the sight of the burning tower infuriated him. He looked to the other tower and saw that it was stuck in place, twenty feet from the wall. Simon cursed and kicked his heels into his horse’s sides. The beast charged forward.
Through the ranks he rode, passing by soldiers stepping grim-faced towards the front line, going around blood-soaked stretchers bearing crying, mutilated men back to the tents. Together Simon and his horse pushed forward until they were behind the tower.
“You there!” he shouted at the nearest knight. “What the hell is going on? Why isn’t that damn thing at the wall?”
“Ditch!” shouted the man back. “The front wheels are mired!”
“Well, get it out of there!” shouted Simon back. They’ve already fired the other one and this one…”
His words were cut off as a flaming pottery vessel plunged from the wall above and shattered between the two of them. Flaming shards sprayed everywhere, making men cry out and bat frantically at themselves as their tabards caught fire.
“Hooks!” someone screamed from above. “Ware the hooks!”
On the wall, Jibril grinned with violent joy, even as he gasped for breath. He had run from one end of the walls to the other, preparing to lead the defenders in repelling the second tower. Now he saw that it was unnecessary. The ditch they had dug weeks before and filled with sand was doing its job admirably. The front wheels of the huge siege tower were hopelessly mired, and even now the defenders were raining arrows and flaming vessels filled with oil down upon the attackers. Better still, the hooks were getting closer, nearly snagging the vulnerable sides of the tower, despite the best efforts of the defenders. All it would take was one to catch and….
“Arrows!”
Even as the scream came, the air below turned black with flying shafts. Hundreds of arrows raked the battlements as the attackers sought to keep the defenders under cover while they rescued their precious tower. Most men ducked out of the way. A few unlucky ones were pierced through, arrows cutting through the chain mail or driving into unprotected faces.
Jibril ran forward and grabbed one of the hooks. His men immediately surrounded him, making a wall of shields to protect
Jibril while he readied his throw. The hooks were heavy and attached to chains that ran ten feet from the hook to a thick, sturdy rope. He waited as the next volley of arrows rained down over all of them, then stood and swung the hook hard and fast, whipping it out and snagging the side of the tower. He pulled it tight in a second, then ran down the wall, stretching the rope tight and screaming, “Pull! For the love of God and Jerusalem! Pull!!!”
A dozen men, then two dozen, grabbed the rope, heedless of the arrows coming down, and began pulling. On the tower, the infidels hacked desperately at the chain with axes, but the defenders rained their own arrows back, and threw vessel after flaming vessel at the side of the tower, keeping the defenders back and lighting the hides that covered the outside of the tall tower.
More men joined on the rope, heaving it as hard as they could. Some died as arrows from below pierced their bodies or skulls, leaving the wall beneath them a slippery, bloody mess. More of the defenders grabbed the rope, pulling ever harder.
Below, the tower began to creak and tip.
Above, floating silently in the clouds, invisible to the mortal eyes below, Nyx looked down on the chaos and carnage below, and frowned.
“Well, this isn’t going well,” said Ishtar.
Nyx’s eyes flashed red and she glared at Ishtar. Ishtar smiled back, knowing that her mistress was going to be far too busy to deal out punishments – for the near future, anyway.
“Fools, the pair of them,” said Persephone, looking at the battle.
“Which pair?” asked Ishtar. “For I see many fools below.”
“Their commanders!” Nyx was seething. “They could have been inside by now!”
“Then you will have to punish them for their failures,” said Ishtar, and in her voice was a lustful, greedy desire. She looked at Nyx. “And when will you do that? I, for one, am getting very bored, just floating here in the clouds.”
“Soon,” hissed Nyx. “Very, very soon.”
“Goddammit!” screamed Simon, watching from below as one of the front wheel of the tower dug ever-deeper into the sand. “Get off of there! Get everyone off!”
Another vessel of oil hit the ground and split, sending fire everywhere and splattering the armor on Simon’s house. The animal screamed and reared, and Simon had to fight to hold his seat, sawing the reins hard to try to regain control. He could feel something ripping in his shoulder, and had to crush his teeth hard together to keep from yelling in agony.
Above, the first of the tower’s support beams split.
Simon pulled harder on the reins, forcing his horse to turn. He dug his spurs into the beast side hard enough to draw blood, and galloped away, knocking soldiers aside as behind him the tower began to topple.
For the men inside at the top, there was no hope, only agony as the tower raced toward the ground, crushing bones and ripping open flesh. For the men below, death was just as fast, and just as painful. Broken timbers pierced bodies, cutting some men in two and impaling others so they remained, stuck in place, blood and guts exploding from their bodies as the timbers rammed through them. Around them, dozens of others died as bodies, weapons, timber and fire fell on them from above. The soldiers’ last hope of victory fell away and they scrambled desperately away from the wall, any hope of an orderly retreat lost as they tried to escape the slaughter around the tower.
“Allahu Akbar!” shouted Jibril, watching the infidels running away from the wall. Men around him echoed the cry until it was taken up the entire length of the wall. Below in the streets he could hear shouts of victory and joy. Jibril grinned. The men on the wall started dancing and cheering. Jabril gave them a few moments of victory, then shouted out, “Back to your places! Back to your posts! Everybody!”
The men, still jubilant, did as they were told.
“Listen closely!” shouted Jibril, his voice spreading down the length of the wall. “And tell the others! This is a victory, but this is not the end! The enemy may return again, and we will not have them overrun us while we are celebrating! Man your posts and stay until relief is sent! We will send food and drink and tend to the wounded! I will go to the governor, and let him know that today, his people did their city proud!”
The men around the wall cheered, and thousands of other throats took up the cry. The battle was won, and while victory was not complete, surely it was only a matter of time before the infidels were destroyed.
“Now,” said Nyx.
Simon Benart and Albert de Giroie stood beside their horses with two hundred other knights, watching as their commanders raged at one another. Beyond them, they could see the remnants of the army stumbling away from the walls, harassed by defenders’ arrows and loads of small stones and pottery shard flung by the Saracen’s catapults.
A thousand men, thought Simon. We’ve lost a thousand men today. He looked at the two commanders, fighting about whose fault it was. Stupid bastards.
“I told you!” screamed Godfrey of Bouillon. “I told you we would fail! I told you it was a fool’s plan!”
“It was not a fool’s plan!” screamed back Robert Curthose. “You were the fool! Your men drove the tower right into the ditch! Your men lost us this battle!”
“Your men were already running like the cowardly dogs they are!” shouted Godfrey. “Your tower was in flames!”
Above, there was a noise. Faint and high-pitched, a whistling sound. Simon glanced up, but could see nothing.
“You dog!” screamed Robert. “You stinking lump of pig shit! You dare blame me for this? We could have taken the walls today and you blame me for your failure?”
“I blame you for all our failures!” screamed Godfrey back. “Every loss we have suffered has been the result of your stupidity! Every time our army has suffered, it has been from your decisions!”
The noise was louder now, and this time Simon recognized it. It was the rush of wind past the wings of a hawk, stooping down on its prey. Simon had heard it once before, when one of his falcons had struck a pigeon near the wall Simon had been standing on. There had been a rush of air and a flash of color that went by so quick, Simon barely had time to register the noise before the falcon had slammed into the pigeon and spiraled down to the earth in a tangle of blood and feathers. He had never forgotten the sight or sound.
He looked up, and saw them. Three of them.
“Albert,” he elbowed the man beside him, and pointed up.
Albert looked, then gasped.
They were bigger than hawks, bigger than eagles, and they were coming down faster than any bird Simon had ever seen. “Dear God.”
Down, down they came, straight down from the heavens, streaks of silver and white and black, moving faster than any creature Simon had ever seen. Albert swore and crossed himself, and around them the other nobles and knights turned their eyes upward, away from their screaming commanders, to the blurs in the sky that dove down toward them. Instinctively they stepped back, clearing a wider and wider space around the commanders.
They are women, thought Simon. Women with wings.
Dear God, they are Angels.
When the three hit the ground, the earth around them exploded. The force of the blast made the earth shake for a half-mile around them. The cloud of sand that blew up around them blinded everyone, and the wind burst around them with a force that blew every knight and noble to the ground.
When the dust cleared, they saw them for the first time. White flesh, smooth and naked and perfect; enough to raise the lust of every man in the circle. White hair that flowed down their bodies. Silver eyes with serpent pupils, unblinking even in the dust. Black feathered wings that spread twenty feet wide behind them.
“Are they Angels?” gasped Albert. “Are they from God?”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t…I don’t know.”
“What do we have here?” said Nyx, her voice quiet and intimate and reaching every man of the crusader army.
“Failure,” said Persephone, looking at the two commanders who lay, stunned at
their feet. Her voice, though it was no louder than Nyx’s, travelled just as far. “Failure of a most holy mission.”
Robert Curthose and Godfrey of Bouillon dragged themselves to their feet, eyes still glazed and ears ringing from the force of the angels’ landing.
“Unacceptable,” said Nyx. “Ishtar, if you please.”
Ishtar vanished in a streak of wings and white flesh. Soldiers flung themselves to earth as she whipped past overhead. On the walls of Jerusalem there were cries of shock and horror as she cut through the air by the wall. Wood cracked, and the air hissed and split, and then the earth shook again and dust clouds spewed across the land as she as she landed before Nyx. In each arm she held a twenty-foot long length of burnt, jagged wood. She looked at the two commanders and smiled. Then, with a fierce motion, drove both pieces of wood five feet into the hard-packed earth.
“You,” said Nyx, advancing on Robert. “You chose the wrong tactic. You let the enemies of Christ defeat you.”
“It would have worked,” protested Robert. “If Godfrey’s tower had not been stuck it would have…”
“Silence!”
The word shook the air, sending men across the field to their knees. Robert was blown back and knocked over by the force of it. In a single motion Ishtar grabbed him and pulled him on his feet. Nyx advanced on him.
“You failed to take the Holy Land from the followers of God,” she said. “You failed your men, you failed your savior and you failed me!”
In a motion to fast to see Nyx grabbed Robert and threw him into the air. She followed him up, caught him as he was coming down and stared into his face. “You are doomed to Hell, Robert Curthose. And I will come for you there!”
She flipped him in the air, sending him twisting him twice in circles before raising him up and slamming him down, impaling him upright, a foot deep, upon the sharp, pointed end of one of the stakes Ishtar had created.
Robert Curthose’s screams echoed the length and breadth of the battlefield to the walls of Jerusalem where the defenders watched in horror. Men abandoned the walls, seeking to hide. Others fell to their knees. Muslim and Jew alike began praying desperately.