The rest of the men, knowing that all hope was gone, wheeled their horses away, then once more charged into the line of knights, screaming “Allahu Akbar!” – more a prayer than a battle cry – as one by one they died to slow the crusaders’ advance.
On both sides of the wall, there was silence.
On the top of the wall, the last of the archers had fallen under the rain of deadly arrows from the angels, and the last cries of agony had faded.
From the far side of the wall, there was only silence. The tramping sounds of thousands of feet had stopped. There were no war cries, no sound of armor and weapons and shield clashing against one another. No whinny of horses or talking of men.
In the street before the gate, Jibril could hear the men around him breathing. The mass of heavily-armored infantry stood ready, their long-bladed spears pointing at the gate.
The gate shook once, a gentle rattle, as if someone was pushing on it.
For the first time in two hours, Jibril stopped praying.
The gate exploded inward, shards of wood and steel flying through the air and piercing flesh whenever it found it. A few men cried in pain, and one fell, a length of wood like a knife protruding from his throat, but the rest stayed where they were, spears ready.
The dust cleared, and in the arch of the broken gate, the demon stood, clothed head to foot in black armor that hid nothing of her body, sword and whip in her hands, and a grin on her face.
Some men broke ranks, running away. Jibril did not spare them a moment’s thought. Fear clawed at him, too, threatening to overwhelm him. He had no doubt most of his men felt the same way.
At the north gate, he knew, his wives and children were running for their lives out into the harsh desert around the city, surrounded by as many guards as he could spare to help them stay alive.
I will not fail them.
“Loose!” screamed Jibril, and arrows shot out from the windows and roofs of the buildings near the wall, flying straight at the demon. She ignored them, strode forward a few steps and surveyed the men before her.
Nyx’s Aramaic was flawless. “I look forward watching you all die,” she said.
Black wings snapped open and Nyx flew up into the sky faster than any arrow could go. From beyond the wall, “Tribunal and Nyx! Honor and glory!” erupted from thousands of throats, and the crusaders charged in through the broken gates.
There was no hope of stopping them, Jibril knew as he and his men bore the brunt of the first wave. There were too many of them. Even as they died, impaled on the spears of Jibril’s men, thousands more pushed forward through the gate, driving the defenders back step by slow step, through sheer mass.
We will hold them, thought Jibril, judging the pace at which they were being forced back. We will hold them long enough to let the women and children escape.
“For God and Jerusalem!” Jibril shouted. “Allahu Akbar!”
His men echoed the cry and, despite the overwhelming numbers, began pushing forward again.
If we can drive them back to the gate, we can hold them off a few hours more.
A rush of wind, a scream of joy that tore through Jibril’s ears, and suddenly Nyx was there, flying through the formation of men, her sword and whip killing and maiming those around her as the sheer force of her movement knocked the defenders aside and broke their line. The crusaders cheered and surged forward. Jibril shouted and struggled to bring his men back together, retreating before the onslaught of the crusading army and Nyx’s continuous attacks from above.
Jerusalem held out for five hours.
Jabril and the other captains fought a thousand rear-guard battles, in streets and alleys, in homes and mosques and temples. But every time they sought to rally their troops, Nyx and Persephone and Ishtar were there, raining death from above with their arrows, with their swords, with their talons and teeth and the spikes on their heels. Behind them, the crusaders pressed forward, charging into every street in the city as the defenders fell back, invading the buildings and slaughtering whomever they found.
By sunset, the last of the resistance was in the governor’s citadel, and in the streets the soldiers and knights had turned from fighting to sacking and slaughter.
In the Dome on the Rock, at the top of the Temple Mount, Simon and Albert and a half-hundred knights and a hundred soldiers waded ankle-deep in blood as they slaughtered their way through the women and children and old men who had sought refuge there. The men were slaughtered first, both those who cowered and begged for mercy, and those who stood between the invaders and the women. Then the slaughter turned to sport, with the prettier of the women pulled from the crowd and thrown roughly to the ground, their skirts ripped off before each was raped by a dozen or more men. Other women, whose children the soldiers held with knives to their throat, took their clothes off and debased themselves, offering their bodies and their lives to the soldiers who held their children and who lied to them about how the children would be spared if they did what they were told.
Simon looked at the crowd of men surrounding the desperate, pleading, screaming women and children and laughed. He saw Albert grab a pretty young boy out of the crowd and drag him over to a pile of bodies.
“Hey, Albert,” Simon shouted. “We’re supposed to be killing them!”
“Don’t worry!” Albert shouted back. He bent the struggling boy over the pile of bodies and began cutting away his clothes with a dagger. “I will when I’m done!”
Simon laughed and turned back to the crowd of refugees, his own lust rising. He looked for a pretty girl to satisfy it, but they had arrived late and most of them were already screaming and writhing beneath multiple soldiers.
“You.”
The word was a command. It could not be resisted. Simon turned and saw Persephone, standing in the doorway, her armor gone and her white, glistening skin coated head to foot with blood.
“Come here.”
Simon did. The Angel grabbed him and in a moment they were in the air, moving faster than Simon would have thought possible. Another moment and they were on the roof, overlooking the burning, blood-soaked city and hearing the screams of the raped and the dying. Persephone shoved him down to the ground, pushing up his armor and reaching between his legs. Her touch electrified him, making him gasp with a greater pleasure than any he had ever known.
She smiled, her razor teeth gleaming white amidst the bloody mess that covered her, and mounted him. “Satisfy me, warrior.”
The last of Jabril’s men died in the citadel.
The governor’s wives and children had escaped, Jibril was sure of that. All that was left were the servants, mostly women, whose cries he could hear through the walls as the soldiers raped them. He stood, alone, his sword raised, his back to the wall, in a semicircle of crusaders. They taunted him, jabbing out with their blades, never letting him come close enough to strike back. Still he turned where he stood, fending off their attacks and cutting back when he could. He had been cut a hundred times. Small cuts that oozed blood and sapped his energy. He knew there was not much time left for him.
I die for Jerusalem, he thought. I die for those who escaped, and I pray they will remember me.
He raised his blade, preparing one last charge, one last battle cry before his death.
“Hold.”
It was a quiet word, spoken gently, and because it came from the mouth of the dark Angel, it was enough. The crusaders fell back. Nyx walked through the room, her black armor, black blade and whip clean of blood, despite the many men she had killed on this day of slaughter. Her movements were slow, almost seductive as she crossed the floor to where Jibril stood, his sword still raised, watching her.
“There is a room down that corridor,” she said to the crusaders, “where you will find both the governor’s money and his concubines. Go.”
They went, cheering and running as each man sought to be the first to claim one of the prizes that awaited them.
Nyx looked at the Captain, his blade still raised
, his eyes on her. “Oh, come now,” she said in her perfect Amaraic. “You don’t really think you can fight me?”
Jibril, Captain of the footmen, defender of Jerusalem, looked at his sword, then at the creature before him. There was no way to beat her, no way to stop what she and the crusaders were doing. He lowered the blade to his side. “No,” he said. “But I can die honorably.”
“You could,” agreed Nyx, smiling at him. It was a gentle, comforting smile. “Or you could live.”
The laugh that escaped Jibril’s lips was short and sharp, almost a bark, and born of astonishment, not humor. “How?”
“Be mine.” The armor dissolved from her body, leaving her naked. Her body was a work of carefully sculpted perfection. Her white skin had no flaws, no blemishes. Her form was sculpted muscle and flesh, designed to taunt any man who looked on it. Her long, straight black hair flowed like a river over her shoulder, covering one perfect breast. “Be my warrior. Be my captain, and lead my crusaders forward.”
Jibril could feel his body responding to her form, could feel her eyes piercing deep into his mind, into his soul, calling him to give himself to her, body and soul. Of their own volition his lips began moving, and prayers began pouring out of him in a whisper.
Nyx cocked her head to one side. “Really? Do you really think that will do you any good whatsoever? Do you really think that your God will come to you and help you?” When Jibril kept praying, her hand lashed out at his face, knocking him down and against the wall. “Answer me! Do you think your God cares the slightest bit for your soul?”
Jibril had to wait a moment for his head to clear before he could speak, and even then he did not answer. Instead, he struggled to his feet while Nyx watched, amused. He had to brace himself against the wall to stand, and when he finally managed it, Jibril could barely keep from keeling over from dizziness.
“Answer me,” Nyx said again, her voice once more a caress. “Why do you pray when you know your God will not answer? Since his son left the earth he has not fulfilled one prayer. He has not come to rescue a single man from misery or danger.” She gestured around the room. “Look at your men. They all prayed to God, and not a single one of them was spared.”
Jabril’s eyes followed Nyx’s hand, which so casually waved at the corpses on the ground. They were his finest. His best warriors and his bravest fighters. They had held formation and fought wave after wave of the crusaders. They had held their ground even as Nyx and Ishtar and Persephone had come at them again and again, slaughtering their comrades and scattering the other soldiers.
We should have won, thought Jibril. We held Jerusalem, and we threw them back, and we should have won.
He raised his eyes from the slaughtered men around him and found Nyx standing so close he could feel the Angel’s warm breath against his neck. She took another step closer, pressing her body to his. Every fibre of his flesh responded, and her hand dropped below his waist. He gasped at the pleasure it brought him.
“You are better than them,” she whispered as she stroked him. “You are not just a soldier. Not just a blind fool carrying out orders. You are a leader of men. A leader beyond your governor or even your king, beyond even your prophet. You, Jibril, are worthy to lead my army. To lead my crusaders. To guide them forward and take not just Jerusalem but the world, and to make them bow down under my banner.”
Jibril gasped again, his knees threatening to buckle. Nyx’s other hand landed on his chest and pushed him backwards, pinning him against the wall as the pleasure exploded through his body.
“Forget your governor,” said Nyx. “His head is on a pike at the front of the citadel. Forget your men, they are gone where no commander can reach and will not listen any more. Forget your king and your prophet with their false promises. I can give you true immortality, and bring you to a paradise beyond any you have imagined.”
Jibril was gasping now. The pain in his body, the hundred small cuts, were forgotten. All that he could feel was the closeness of her body and the pleasure she was giving him.
“Forget them all,” she whispered.
A spasm of pleasure racked his body, nearly driving away the last of his sanity. His mouth fell open wide. He gasped in a breath and answered.
“No.”
Nyx stopped. She stepped back, her eyebrows going up and her head cocking to the side in surprise. Jibril, released from her hand and the pleasure it brought him gasped first in shock, then disappointment, then relief.
“Why not?” said Nyx.
“You are beautiful,” said Jibril. “You are lovely beyond the words of the poets. You are strong and powerful and your touch…” he shuddered again, then gasped in one deep breath after another until he had control over his body and his words. “Your touch is that which men dream of, even in the arms of their wives.”
Nyx did not move. Her serpentine eyes did not blink. “But?”
“You might have convinced me to turn my back on God,” he said. “On the words of the prophet and on my king and on all the vows that I have made, but…” Jibril raised his empty hand and pointed at the many corpses on the ground. “These were my brothers. They were my friends and my cousins and my men and I could not, and I would not, forget them. Ever.”
“Then you die.”
Jibril shrugged, the gesture easy and careless. “Insha’Allah.”
It was the fastest move he had ever made. A flick of his wrist and a short pistoning of arm from elbow and shoulder. And despite his wounds, despite his exhaustion and despite the speed of the demon Angel in front of him, it worked.
His scimitar drove through Nyx’s body for two-thirds of its length.
Nyx looked down on the wound.
It hurt.
It would not kill her. It would barely do more than inconvenience her, and then only for the time it took to pull the blade free. But it hurt. And it raised a cold, white rage in her that flashed out through her eyes.
Jibril was smiling.
“I will give you agony,” said Nyx, her voice sliding down to become a sibilant hiss. “I will give you pain the length of which you have never dreamed.”
“I know,” said Jibril.
“I will make you scream as you have never screamed before. You will void yourself like a frightened child and you will beg for the mercy of death.”
“I know.”
“And when I eventually give you death,” she said, stepping close again and once more grabbing him. This was not a caress. This was jabbing pain that threatened to overwhelm him. He ground his teeth together, willing himself to not cry out for as long as he could. “When I release you from the bonds of this world, you will not go to Heaven. You will not sit in a paradise and bask in the presence of your God. No!
“For I know what you have done with your life, Jibril. You are a soldier, and you have murdered and raped and pillaged and tortured. And for that, Jibril, no matter why you did it, no matter for what cause you did it, for that you will go to Hell.” Nyx’s eyes blazed red, and in them Jibril’s saw the fires and tortures and agony that awaited him after death. Nyx pulled the sword from her body as she watched fear and horror chase each other through Jibril’s expression. “And In Hell, Jibril, I will come to you, and what will happen there will make your suffering on earth seem as a moment of joy.”
Jibril saw the truth in her eyes, saw what was going to happen to him and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was true. He knew also that there was no escape from it. Not now. Not with all his men dead and his beautiful city lying in burning ruins around him.
“And in Hell,” he said in pain gasped breaths. “In Hell, I pray God will grant me dreams of my Jerusalem. Insha’Allah.”
With his own sword she sliced his genitals from his body, and held them up for him to see.
Jibril, Captain of the elite infantry, defender of the wall and hero of the fall of Jerusalem, began screaming.
Two days later, as the sun was setting behind grey clouds and a cool breeze was blowing from the n
ot-too-distant sea, Nyx walked through the south gate and stood outside the walls of Jerusalem.
All the gates of the city were open and lines of women and children with broken, weeping eyes and damaged flesh passed in and out of them, dragging body after body. The city stank beyond all reason, and Nyx had ordered the it cleared. Every now and then a bored crusader would grab one of the women or girls or boys and rape them while the other crusaders laughed. The victims seldom even cried out anymore, just silently accepted it as part of the humiliation of being a defeated people, and grew ever more broken, ever more despondent.
Tribunal, all I have done, I have done for you, Nyx prayed to herself as she watched a boy get prodded back to his feet at sword-point. The boy tried his best to cover himself again and limped back into the line of people dragging out the bodies. That would have bothered me, once.
It didn’t bother her now. Her prayers to Tribunal had gone from hourly to near-continuous, and with those prayers came the continuous feed of His strength and His hatred. She hated the humans with a passion almost as intense as Tribunal’s had been. To see a young one abused no longer meant anything to her. They’ll be wiped from the face of the earth soon enough. Let them suffer while they wait.
She sensed that there was something hollow inside her, something missing, but she didn’t know what. And every time she prayed to Tribunal, the feeling passed to nothingness.
I will release the slaves soon, Nyx thought. I will command them to worship me, and to spread my glory. Those that do so will go free, and the rest can be used and slaughtered as the crusaders will.
She smiled at the thought.
Egypt would be coming soon, bringing all its might to face the crusaders. Nyx had no doubt her crusaders would destroy them. For now, this part of the world belonged to her, and none would wrest it away any time.
A single ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, shining on Nyx and filling her with a warmth far beyond that of mere heat and light, and she heard Tribunal say, “You have done very, very well, my love.”