Crusade

by Robyn Young

  Less than a mile away from each other, the two armies halted. In the empty expanse between them wind rustled and insects hummed. Both forces spread out on the plain, drawing quickly into practiced lines and sections at the calls of officers. Viewed from above, the armies made huge patterns on the ground, each a single mass of men, moving in formation. The wings were limbs stretching out from the torso that was the center, the extremities of each like talons, bristling with thousands of lances and spears, ready to curl out and lash at their enemy, ready to tear red rents through it.

  Baybars, mounted on his black warhorse, was poised on the crest of a shallow hill, slightly back and to the left of his army, with a company of one thousand Bahri. He watched Kalawun and the commander of his own regiment riding along the front lines, arranging the golden and blue center that was made up of Bahri and Mansuriyya troops, the strongest section of the Mamluk force. The right and left wings were composed of the remaining regiments, the Syrian troops and soldiers under the prince of Hamah, whom he had called to arms on the journey north, and Bedouin light cavalry. Pleased with the calm efficiency of his troops, Baybars turned his judging gaze on the enemy.

  It was a larger army than the one he had faced at Ayn Jalut seventeen years ago, and back then he’d had the advantage of surprise, the trap he had sprung for the Mongols in the hills proving lethally perfect. Now, the two titans faced each other on open ground, with little visible advantage to either side: the Mongols, born in the blood of conquest, sons of Genghis Khan, terror of nations and scourge of the Eastern world, against the slave warriors of Egypt, who had built their dynasty upon the bones of their masters and who, under Baybars, now commanded territory from Alexandria to Aleppo, the banks of the Nile to the Euphrates. But although the terrain did not favor the Mamluks today, something else did. Baybars could see it in the eyes of his men, could feel it in the drums’ determined rhythm.

  At Ayn Jalut, the Mongols had been invincible, undefeated in battle, unrivaled, unmatched. But no longer. The one man who had vanquished them now stood before them on the plain, brazen in their territory, a song in his heart and the blaze of ambition in his aging blue eyes. Furthermore, Baybars had heard word of trouble between the Seljuks and Mongols, who stood apart from each other on the field. His spies had informed him that the ilkhan no longer trusted his subjects, and it was rumored that the Seljuk pervaneh might not even fight. Baybars felt the wind tug at his cloak, and his horse stamped the ground, sensing his strained anticipation, but outwardly Baybars remained calm, giving no word of attack to his men. He would let the Mongols come to them.

  Shortly, a blare of horns ripped through the stillness. As it died away, the rumble of hooves took its place and the left wing of the Mongol force set out, moving in five lines, two composed of heavy cavalry bearing swords and lances, the other three made up of light horsemen, who wielded javelins and carried bows. The iron of their round, onion-shaped helmets and the tips of their spears reflected the smoldering sun, now rising, a ball of fire throwing its brilliance across the Plain of Albistan, from the river to the mountains. As they neared the Mamluk center, the Mongol light horsemen rode swiftly between the lines of the heavy cavalry and let loose arrows and javelins into their enemy. They were a swarm of mosquitoes who would strike then dart back behind the protective line of the cavalry, who were advancing on the Mamluks like prowling tigers. Their sting was lethal, and within moments, scores of Mamluk soldiers had fallen, javelins and arrows finding targets across the field, sweeping in past shields and armor to strike the exposed flesh of horses and men.

  Baybars, tension a hard knot inside him, gripped his reins and watched intently as his commanders shouted orders and the ranks closed tighter, shields clanking against one another to form a protective wall as the deadly rain continued. Within a short while, a thicket of arrow shafts and javelins had sprung up across the grass in front of the Mamluks. The Mongol light horsemen were called back by their officers, their job done, and now it was the turn of the heavy cavalry. The voices of Kalawun and the amir of the Bahri rose above the din, and with a cry of horns the two Mamluk regiments, the best of the best, went forward to meet the Mongols, hooves sending shudders through the earth. Lances were raised on both sides and locked under arms. Eyes found a target and fixed upon it, and prayers were chanted in the minds of five thousand men as the Mongol left wing charged into the belly of the Mamluk center, punching straight through it in a shock of iron, bared teeth and howls.

  Within moments, the air turned red around the tangle of men and the fighting grew savage. Horses screamed as lances plunged into them, tearing skin and sinew. Men stabbed and hacked at one another, were thrown from their saddles, died in the churned up earth, trampled and crushed. Quickly, the numbers of dead mounted and slowly, the Mamluks were pressed back, their ranks breaking up as the howling Mongols forced their way through in a bloody barrage of whirling swords and thrusting lances.

  On the hill, Baybars rose in his saddle, his sharp gaze picking out the pattern in the Mongols’ attack. The heavy cavalry were pressing deep into his own troops, and he saw the danger to his weaker right wing, a short distance behind on the field. Immediately, he drew one of his sabers and lifted it high. “To me!” he roared.

  And with that call, the sultan swept down from the hillside, followed by the Mamluk elite, as another blare of horns rose from the Mongol lines and their right wing advanced to meet the Mamluk left.

  Baybars and the Bahri were a scythe through the Mongols as they entered the fight, refreshing the troops already engaged, breathing new fire into their spirits. Kalawun and the sultan met in the fray as the rest of the Bahri and Mansuriyya came together, tightening the ranks. The sultan and the commander were pushed together and fought side by side, swords hammering at the enemy, faces grim and bloodstained in the morning light. All sections of each army were soon in the fight, with the exception of the Seljuk force, who seemed to be guarding the back of the Mongols’ lines, preventing the Mamluks from sweeping around and attacking them from the rear.

  The battle was brutal and bitterly fought. The Mamluk center buckled, threatened to scatter, then pulled tight again. Gradually, painfully, the Mongols were repelled. Tatawun, a huge figure in the midst of his men, arms lathered in gore up to his elbows and a gash on his forehead streaming blood into his eye, roared a new command across the heads of his soldiers. One by one, the scattered Mongol cavalry began to dismount and closed into knotted groups, forcing the Mamluks to do the same and to fight them one on one. Lances were cast aside and swords were drawn, and the piles of the dead rose around the living.

  But the Mamluks refused to give quarter, and despair gradually began to muddy the determination in the eyes of the Mongol soldiers.

  After almost three hours of intense fighting, it was over. Tatawun, captured and defeated, gave the call of surrender, and all around the field exhausted Mongol survivors laid down their arms, vanquished once again by the might of Baybars and the Mamluks. The pervaneh and his Seljuk troops didn’t heed the order and fled the field before the Mamluks could reach them.

  More than nine thousand corpses, at least seven thousand of them Mongols, littered the Plain of Albistan. Men—brothers, sons and fathers—were reduced to a bloodied mass of meat in the fields. And as Baybars surveyed the devastation he had wrought upon his enemy, the battle lust faded from his eyes and the knot of tense anticipation inside him disappeared, leaving a hollow space that wasn’t filled by the victory spread redly before him.

  28

  The Road Outside Mecca, Arabia 15 APRIL A.D. 1277

  A whistle sounded on the air. Garin stared up at the rocks above him and saw one of the Cypriot soldiers pointing east toward Mecca.

  “Someone’s coming,” said Amaury, behind him. Garin moved cautiously around until he could see the road ahead, keeping close to the rock face that jutted into the track, forming a bottleneck in the valley. Sure enough, in the distance, partially obscured by the rising sun, was a single point of motio
n. After a few moments, he realized that it was a camel, being ridden fast along the road.

  “Is it them?” called Bertrand, crouched behind rocks on the opposite side of the track. With him was another of the Cypriots. Two more were stationed on a ridge above, bows primed. Lying like a dead snake across the track, camouflaged against the sand, was a twisted length of hemp, bartered from the Bedouin camp their khafir had taken them to last night.

  Garin shielded his eyes. “There’s only one . . . No wait, I can see two riders.”

  “But is it them?”

  “How can it be, if there’s only two?” replied Garin shortly. He frowned at the beast, which was getting closer. Rapidly. It was moving at a terrifying pace, making great, lolloping strides, throwing dust into the air behind it, the riders on top seeming to lurch and roll, as if they were clinging on for dear life. Garin strained his eyes against the glare. Both riders were wearing black robes, but the head of the one in front was bare. Garin began to pick out features. “I think it’s Will,” he called to the others, slipping out of sight before he was spotted.

  “Where are the rest of them?” asked Amaury.

  “I don’t know.” Garin shook his head, troubled. “Something must have gone wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Bertrand sharply. “We do it anyway. Whatever’s happened we’ll get answers from them.”

  Garin looked over at him. One end of the hemp rope, which was looped slackly around a jagged pillar of rock before him, was curled through his fists. Garin nodded.

  Bertrand met Amaury’s gaze as hoofbeats began to drum the air and the two of them gripped the rope, easing off the slack.

  The hoofbeats grew louder, echoing off the rocks that closed in on both sides. An arrow thumped into the sand behind Garin. The signal from the scout above.

  “Now!” hissed Bertrand.

  Together, he and Amaury wrenched on the rope, which snapped taut around the rocks and became a stiff line, a foot above the ground. The Cypriots braced themselves. Barely seconds later, the camel thundered through the bottleneck, straight into the waiting rope. Its front legs hit the barrier at tremendous speed, throwing it forward and hurling the two riders from the saddle.

  Will was the first to hit the ground, throwing out his hands as he landed hard, sending up a shower of dust and grit. Robert crashed down a second later, rolled over and over, then lay still. The camel collapsed, its saddle torn off by the impact. Dazedly, it tried to sit up, but its legs buckled beneath it. Will lay stunned, the impact reverberating through him like a bell, summoning little knots of pain that flared when he tried to move. He cried out as hands gripped his arms and hauled him up. He tasted blood and sand. Slowly, his eyes focused and he saw four men in a circle around him. A fifth was holding him up. All of them wore Bedouin robes and kaffiyehs. What he wasn’t expecting was the clear, precise Latin that issued through the black mask of one of them, a brawny figure.

  “Where is the Stone?”

  Will blinked. For a moment, he could say nothing and the question came again. Finally he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The brawny man strode forward and slammed a fist into Will’s stomach. Will gasped and tried to double over the pain, but the man holding him wouldn’t let him. He coughed out the blood that was in his mouth and hung there weakly, trying to force air into his lungs, a feeling of solid constriction running through his stomach all the way up into his throat.

  “Where is it?” repeated the man.

  Will dragged in a breath, then met the man’s fierce gaze. He shook his head. “I ... don’t ... know,” he breathed, forcefully.

  The man came in again, anger lending more power to his punch.

  This time, Will took longer to recover. Through his streaming eyes, he glimpsed one of the figures moving over to another, a short, fat man. Leaning in, the figure whispered something.

  “Wait,” the fat man called as the brawny man drew back his arm for a third strike. “Use his friend.” The fat man pointed at Robert who was lying motionless.

  Will struggled vainly as the brawny man went to Robert and kicked him onto his back. Robert’s arm was bleeding heavily, clotting the sand around him. His burka had slipped from his head in the fall, uncovering his face, which was ashen and slack. Will felt a stab of horror as he saw him, thinking he was dead; then he was flooded with relief when Robert’s chest heaved. His relief was short-lived as the brawny man drew a sword from the belt slung around his hip.

  “Tell me where the Stone is, or I’ll kill him.”

  The words were spoken coldly, bluntly and without any shred of a lie.

  Will knew that he was beaten. “We were caught,” he said through gritted teeth, “in Mecca. We had no chance to take it.”

  “Where are the others from your party?” asked the fat man.

  “Dead,” replied Will in a low voice, not taking his eyes off the brawny man, who still had the tip of his sword poised over Robert’s shuddering chest. “Or they soon will be.”

  “We’ve got to get it,” said the brawny man, turning to his companions. “We’ve not come all this way for nothing. I’ll not leave without it. We go into Mecca and we take it ourselves!” He lifted his head as a whistle came from the rocks above the track.

  Will saw three more figures scrabbling down from a ridge.

  “What is it?” shouted the fat man.

  “Riders coming out of the city,” panted one of the men, as he jumped the last few feet. “Fast.”

  The brawny man swore bitterly. He looked at Will. “Who are they?”

  “Mamluks. They are coming for us. If you know about the Stone then you’ll know why. You’ll also know what they’ll do to us, and to you, when they get here.”

  The man swore again.

  “We have to leave,” said the fat man, going to him. “It’s over.”

  The brawny man flicked his sword at Will, who stiffened. His eyes were filled with defeated rage. He swept it back as if to strike.

  “Don’t!”

  Will looked to the source of the muffled shout and saw that one of the figures had stepped forward. The brawny man glanced around and the figure shook his head. Hissing through his mask, the brawny man sheathed his sword, then turned and ran.

  Will slumped to his knees as the man holding him let go and followed the others across the track and up a slope where the mountains sucked themselves back from the road. The men reached a series of stony columns that protruded from the rock face with some sort of trail, just visible, leading behind them. Within a moment, they vanished from sight.

  Scrabbling over to Robert, Will touched his clammy brow. “Robert?”

  Robert’s eyes drifted open. He groaned through bloodied, swollen lips. To their left, the camel lay snorting in pain. Will staggered to the bottleneck. He could hear hoofbeats. There was nowhere to hide. Two riders were approaching fast. Behind them, in the distance, there were more, dust clouds rising thick around them. Will drew his falchion in desperation. “God, give me strength.”

  The first of the riders emerged from the bottleneck. Will stared in disbelief. It was Zaccaria, his face and clothing blood-spattered. Behind him came one of the Shias.

  Zaccaria pulled his horse up roughly as he saw Will. “Get on!” he shouted, as the beast reared.

  Sheathing his sword, Will ran to Robert and hefted him up. Zaccaria grabbed the half-unconscious knight by his clothes and hauled him over the saddle in front of him, then kicked the beast away as Will vaulted up behind the Shia.

  “Kaysan?” shouted Will, grabbing the back of the saddle.

  “Dead,” replied the Shia bitterly, slamming his heels into the beast’s flanks. “All dead.”

  MECCA, ARABIA, 15 APRIL A.D. 1277

  Ishandiyar winced, the sword cut on his leg, close to the old wound he had sustained at al-Bira, stinging hotly. “Well?” he asked of the two Mamluk soldiers who rode up to him.

  One of them shook his head. “I’m sorry, A
mir, we couldn’t catch them. I left several men in the village searching for them in case they tried to hide there, but I think they must have fled into the hills.”

  Ishandiyar’s voice was gruff. “Well, they are dead anyway. If the desert doesn’t kill them, the Bedouin will. Call the others back. We will stay here tonight. But I believe the immediate danger has passed.”

  The soldiers bowed and turned their horses away down the street, which was busy with morning traders and workers, many of whom were looking curiously at the group of Mamluks outside the Haram Mosque. Ishandiyar limped back inside the building, away from their inquisitive stares.

  The courtyard of the mosque was bathed in sunlight. The sharif of Mecca was there, talking somberly with some of his guards. The bodies of three dead guards and five dead Mamluks were laid carefully in the shadows of the arcade. Close by, unceremoniously dumped, were the corpses of eight of the attackers. Already, flies were making interested passes over the bodies. Ishandiyar looked over at the Ka‘ba. Servants were on their hands and knees around the temple, scrubbing blood from the tiles. His eyes moved to the Black Stone, sitting darkly, silently in its place, and he felt relief like sweetness inside him. He had fulfilled his promise to Kalawun, and to Allah. The Stone remained unharmed. It had been a hard journey and a tense wait, and he and his men had accosted several groups of pilgrims over the last few days in the mosque. But when he had seen the two figures, tall for women, move up to the temple with that pannier, he had known they were the ones.

  He crossed to where the pannier stood. The stone that had been inside it was on the ground, being studied by two of the mosque’s mullahs. “What is it?” he asked. “Do you know yet?”

  One of the mullahs looked up. “A copy, we believe, Amir. Nothing more. Perhaps they planned to put this in place of the real relic that they might escape unnoticed?”

  Ishandiyar remained silent. Kalawun had said that the Christian knight who warned him of the theft also had a plan to prevent it. He wondered for a moment if some of the men he had killed were allies, but he didn’t dwell on this. Kalawun was right; it was their responsibility to keep the Stone safe. That they had done so was all that mattered.