The Spymaster's Protection

by S A Monk

  The military orders in the rearguard had been hit hard all day yesterday, and had already lost many men and horses. As Lucien came up to the circle of men around King Guy, he could see that his former brothers were in dangerously poor shape for the day.

  Conrad, who had been up for most of the night, as he had, caught his eye and nodded. Lucien offered up another quick prayer to God for his brother’s safety this day.

  They were all going to need God’s intercession. There was nothing the king could do except to tell his commanders to push forward and punch a hole through enemy lines toward the springs at Hattin three miles away. Punching holes through enemy lines was never a good idea when the enemy held the high ground and your own army was weakened by lack of sleep and water.

  There were a few other suggestions made by some knights and barons, but in the end, King Guy overruled them, as always, looking to his kingmakers for what they wanted. The kind of aggressive tactics needed to best a superior enemy who held all the odds in his favor were never accomplished by men of this king’s caliber, though.

  Lucien looked across the circle to Reynald de Châtillon, who was staring at him with a mirthless smirk on his grey bearded face. Lucien resisted the urge to touch his neck, where beneath his mail coif, his throat had been thinly cut, not enough to do damage, but enough to sting and possibly leave a scar.

  He wished he’d left more than a pin prick at the cur’s temple. He supposed he’d have to watch his back today around de Châtillon. Despite the fact that they rode in different divisions, they could end up fighting too close for comfort. Though it was tempting, Lucien had no plans to kill de Châtillon under the guise of battle. If the day went as Lucien thought it would, the swine would meet his due from the desert lord who hated him with vengeful vehemence.

  By the day’s end, Gabrielle might be free of her vile husband forever. God forgive him for wishing it so.

  King Guy and his commanders dispersed to their appointed divisions, and within the half hour, the army began forming up to march. On the hills to either side of them, Lucien could see Saladin dispersing his forces.

  From where he sat atop his large Arabian gelding, it appeared that the Blue Wolf was being sent to the rearguard of the Christian army again, along with a good portion of the sultan’s own center division. By strengthening Gökböri’s wing, it appeared the Saracen leader intended to hit the military orders especially hard right from the start. Lucien half-wished he could fight alongside his old friends, but he had no wish to face the fearsome Blue Wolf.

  As it was, Saladin’s nephew and very able young commander, Taqi al Din, was moving rapidly toward Raymond’s vanguard, of which Lucien was a part of again.

  Positioned to the left of the main dirt road that led to the Horns of Hattin, Raymond called out the order for his cavalry to line themselves up into an attack formation.

  Lucien reined his horse in beside the count, adjusted the nasal guard on his conical, flat-topped helm, and withdrew his long wooden lance into its couched position.

  The Lord of Tripoli bellowed out the traditional crusader war cry, “Remember the Sepulcher!” Trumpets sounded the call to arms, on both sides.

  Lucien and several knights around him jabbed their warhorses’ flanks with their spurs and charged forward with explosive battle cries. From habit, Lucien shouted, “Non nobis, Domine! Non nobis, sed Nominee Tuo da Gloriam!”

  They met the enemy half way up the long sloping hill. With their Christian lances braced for impact, they charged into the infidel’s mounted troops, leaving foot soldiers on both sides to come up behind their respective cavalries.

  The infidel’s scimitars were no match initially for the long Frank lances. Horses fell beneath the Saracens, creating a barrier that allowed the infantry time to dash through the melee to their enemy counterparts in the rear. The Christian knights spurred their horses to the left and right to cut back around for another charge.

  It was not an easy maneuver for everyone. Those mounted on the huge destriers, particularly the ones that were cumbersomely caparisoned, found it difficult to make such a tight turn and reform for another charge. Those on the more nimble, strong-legged Arabians managed the maneuver more quickly.

  Lucien and the few knights on the desert horses were back up the hill first. Lucien veered to the right, jumped over the obstacle of two dead horses and their riders, and charged into a knot of Saracens with his long broad sword raised high. Behind him and to the left, others chose their own targets. Between them, the infantry fought with poleaxes, maces, war hammers, and a few swords.

  It was a melee to rival any tournament, only much deadlier. One of the mounted Saracens who challenged Lucien met his assault with a great spiked starburst. At the end of a heavy linked chain, it whistled through the air in lethal circles. When it hit his shield and sent it flying, Lucien ducked under the spiked ball, guiding his well-trained mount with his knees to come up alongside the infidel’s horse. From his belt he withdrew his long misericord. With sword in one hand and the long dagger in the other, he waited but a moment, then leaned in and used both to deliver two death blows, one under his opponent’s unprotected left arm, into his side, and one under his chin, into his skull.

  It took longer to disengage his blades, but as soon as Lucien shoved the body aside, he whirled his horse around, leaned down low, and scooped up his shield off the ground.

  Raymond called for another charge, but the third one was less effective as the ground became heavily littered with dead horses and dying men. Seeing the futility of breaking through at Taqi al Din’s densely reinforced position, the count ordered what was left of his division back down the slope to aid the king’s central regiment.

  For a while, the controlled charges of the Christian army seemed to be working. Raymond’s reinforcement helped them come close time and again to breaking a hole in Saladin’s multiple lines of cavalry and infantry. They drove back the sultan’s initial attacks, but lost many men and horses in the process. By the time they came near the crest of a long rise in the terrain, the cool blue waters of Lake Tiberius could be seen in the distance by all. Scattered groups of desperate Christian soldiers began to desert and run toward the vision of relief.

  Fighting within the main force alongside the count, Lucien saw many of the foot soldiers heading off toward the water, and shook his head in dismay. It was really too far away to do them any good, and the enemy soon cut down any who tried to escape. There was no chance of getting to the springs at Hattin, either. Taqi al Din was firmly in control of the road which led to the springs. His troops were positioned at the top of the hill and at the foot of one of the Horns, while the center of Saladin’s force was arrayed between the two Horns, firmly blocking the main road, which led up and over to Tiberius. Gökböri and his rear division stood between the right Horn and the way back to Tur’an.

  For all their fighting, it didn’t look to Lucien as if they had truly gained much ground. They had diminished the size of Saladin’s army, but that was all it seemed they’d done. It was no wonder the poor bastards who had started to run had finally cracked. And, by God, that damnable thistle brush was still being burned! Higher up the slope, where he had been earlier, with Raymond’s division, he hadn’t noticed it so much, but near the king, on the flat side of the hill, it was suffocating. The temperature was rising, tormenting men already parched and weak. Soon the sun would be at its zenith. It was beginning to look like the end to Lucien.

  Trying to remain as optimistic as he could, he formed up for another charge, this time from the center. War cries were shouted all around him as the cavalry attacked the enemy lines once again. The screams of dying horses rent the air as wave after wave of arrows were sent volleying towards them. The sky became dark with their numbers, but for the most part, they failed to penetrate the heavy armor of the chivalry. Nevertheless, they decimated the horses and the foot soldiers.

  Defending with his steel shield and carving a swath with his mighty broadsword, Lucien foug
ht his way as deep into the infidel line as he could, cutting down men as he went. The fury of the charge sent the blood racing through his veins, lending him extraordinary strength and renewed vigor.

  All around him, it was pandemonium. A panorama of death and destruction. The desert rang with the clash of swords and the shouts of men. Baring his teeth, he braced himself against blows that, for the most part, simply slid off his well-protected body. His primary objective was to stay seated. Men who fell were quickly cut down by the sweeping arc of scimitars. Others who fell from their horses often found themselves pinned and crushed to death beneath mounts that were mercilessly gored.

  Lucien clashed swords and shields with enemy after enemy, maneuvering his horse and his weapons with battle-hardened skill born of too many years and too many fights.

  It seemed as if he fought for hours, non-stop, with no end in sight. Wave after wave of infidels came at them. When he was given a moment of respite to look around, he found he had only progressed a few feet. The remainder of the king’s army was not much better off.

  Dear God! They were now fighting at a standstill; moving nowhere, for the most part! How long could they keep this up? Like those around him, he soon grew exhausted. Sweat drenched his clothes inside his mail and poured down his face inside his helm. It did nothing to cool or refresh him. He wanted to reach for his water skin, but dared not.

  To his left, he saw Count Raymond rally a group of mounted knights for another go at Taqi al Din’s forces on the hilltop. There was no way Lucien could break free to answer his friend’s call to charge once again up that damnable hill. He was literally surrounded by mounted Saracen aggressors, as was the bulk of the Christian army.

  When his concentration was not completely needed on his enemies, he caught glimpses of the count as he made an admirable dash up the slope. He rode with nearly two score cavalry this time, no infantry following behind. The speed they managed to gather was very impressive for men and horses that had fought for hours.

  Desperation and rage drove them toward Saladin’s nephew’s line of mounted troops. Praying that they would finally make it, Lucien withdrew from the melee to watch his friend’s gallant charge. Other men did the same, including the king, himself, who was fighting with a group of knights that included Reynald de Châtillon and Armand Chaumont. They were positioned on a plateau to the right, near the three tents that had been erected for the wounded.

  On the left, beneath one of the Horns of Hattin, Raymond and his knights gave a furious war cry just as they charged into the infidel line. To everyone’s shock, instead of attempting to hold, Taqi al Din simply opened his ranks and let Raymond and his mounted regiment hurtle through. Just as quickly, the infidel cavalry closed ranks again. Once beyond the saddle of the Horns, the Christian cavalry was prevented from rejoining their brethren below. They had just been effectively eliminated from the battlefield!

  The spirit seemed to go collectively out of the men left behind. A multitude of infantry troops ran up a long rise, over which the blue waters of Lake Tiberius could be glimpsed. Lucien groaned, for he knew the certain outcome of such a move. Saladin’s troops cut them brutally down with a volley of arrows that again nearly blackened the sky. Within minutes, it seemed, nearly all were dead, heaped upon the hillside, one upon the other. Like those around him, Lucien looked on in horror.

  The king rode down from his position, and to his credit, rallied spirits by joining in the center of the battle, though he was virtually impregnable because of the ring of men who formed a circle around him to protect him. But his presence spurred the exhausted, demoralized troops into streaming up the hill again, toward the wide swath of land between the Horns of Hattin.

  The cavalry, center and rear, banded together around the three tents, of which the king’s red tent was the center one, at the foot of the Horns. King Guy and the bishops tried to get what was left of the infantry to come back down and join them, but they were bound and determined charge after their dead brethren and make another attempt to break through enemy lines as Raymond of Tripoli and his men had done.

  Lucien supposed many of them did not know that Raymond had been let through.

  King Guy shifted his cavalry to the southern Horn, which gave them more room to continue their mounted charges against Saladin’s forces. It was then that Taqi al Din began sending his own charges down the hill.

  In the middle of one charge, the Holy Cross, the scared symbol the Christians took into battle, was captured from the two bishops who rode with it. Both clerics were quickly killed and the holy relic fell into Taqi al Din’s hands. Its loss had a tragic effect on morale.

  The Muslim army took advantage of it and attacked ferociously from all sides. The infidel infantry battered the unhorsed Christian knights, and after a bitter struggle, those who were not killed or thrown down the slopes surrendered. Then Saladin ordered Taqi al Din to charge the remaining mounted Latin knights as they made their last stand on the southern Horn.

  The Franks managed to make two final counter charges. Lucien rallied himself and his horse as his unit came dangerously close to engulfing the great Commander of the Faithful.

  They were swiftly driven back, though, as the capture of Saladin was thwarted. After that mad assault, swarming tides of enemy soldiers converged on them, defeating every effort the Christians made to break through to the summit. Wave after wave of screaming, blade-swinging Saracens moved across their skirmish lines, into their ranks, followed mercilessly by volleys of arrows, taking their horses out from under them until most of the knights, including Lucien, were forced to fight on foot.

  Embattled, dehydrated, and sweating profusely under the scorching mid-afternoon sun, Lucien withdrew the sword on his back to wield a blade in each hand, one pointed left, one pointed right. He was besieged from all sides as he battled attackers that formed a circle around him.

  After a while everything seemed to move in slow motion as the sounds of men engaged in similar desperate conflicts receded to a deafening clang of metal upon metal. In great sweeping arcs of his swords, Lucien cleared a path around him, leaving bodies littered at his feet. Amazed that he still had the strength to stand, he side-stepped the dead until he found himself back to back with his comrade and friend, Brother Conrad.

  Blood dripped off their weapons in a spray of red as they cut down the enemy together, moving with a macabre grace that was born of the deepest of survival instincts and countless encounters with the enemy. He and Conrad had fought side by side for years, and Lucien was glad to have him here now, at the end.

  Their superior strength, skill, and training kept them standing and fighting while others all around them collapsed and fell. The bloodlust raged, fed by the sweet sickly stench of battle gore and the adrenaline of killing. In some part of Lucien’s brain, he knew the battle was lost. To his side, in the distance, he saw the king’s red beacon of a tent collapse as Saracens rode in and severed the ropes that held it aloft.

  Beyond that, he was aware of a group of men, led by Lord Balian and Reginald of Sidon, escaping from the rearguard. But the Templar standard had not fallen. The black and white Beauseant still fluttered in the wind. The knights of both military orders continued to fight, nearly all on foot now. To the bitter, bloody end, as always. It was inbred in every man who had ever fought as a Templar.

  He and Conrad found no shortage of infidels willing to die under their blades as they stood almost dead center in the middle of the battle field. Sweat poured off Lucien, blurring his vision, but he was fighting on instinct now; the point in any prolonged battle where you fought until you dropped of sheer exhaustion.

  Inside his chain mail, his skin was on fire. His legs had gone numb long ago. He had stopped stepping from side to side as a result. Both arms began to quiver, quaking with the exhaustion that was now quickly rising to defeat him. His muscles twitched and burned and strained with every swing of his fine Damascene steel blades. It would not be long now, he knew. He could feel it in Conrad, too.
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  The enemy was relentless in their repeated assaults. A never ending succession of blade-wielding Saracens came at them. Their swords began to wound, not kill. From his peripheral vision, Lucien saw a great bear of a man come in with another starburst. Swinging it with an arm the size of a tree trunk, the Saracen aimed for their heads. The blow hit them both on their shoulders and took he and Conrad down to their knees. Lucien caught himself with his hands, then rolled to protect his friend, who had completely collapsed.

  Raising his gauntleted arms to block the next blow, he saw an uplifted sword silhouetted against the blindingly bright yellow sun. A shadow fell over him just as he braced himself for the killing strike. It was Gökböri, the Blue Wolf. He looked enormous against the glaring sun at his back.

  “Cease your fighting, Lucien de Aubric. The battle is lost. Your king has surrendered.”

  Lucien rose to a more upright position, shaded his eyes as he looked around, and saw that it was true. The exhausted Christians, what was left of the knights and fighting monks, had thrown themselves onto the ground. Except for the decimated infantry, there were not nearly as many killed as Lucien had feared. Many were beginning to rise and being taken captive by the enemy.

  The Blue Wolf gave him one last look, then turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER 23

  As soon as the Saracen commander walked away, Muslim soldiers came to drag Lucien and Conrad away. Along with the rank and file of both military orders and their officers, they were herded up the hill to Saladin’s encampment. When they reached it, they were immediately stripped of their weapons, armor, and surcoats, then each had his hands tied with leather strips behind his back.

  Overhead the sun was beginning its slow descent to the western horizon, but there were still hours of the relentless heat and sweltering temperatures left in the interminable day. Lucien had already noticed that the secular knights, including the king and his entourage, were being detained in a different area of the camp. None of them seemed to be receiving the rough treatment the military orders were. Most of them were being placed under an awning. Lucien assumed they were deemed important enough to be ransomed.