Storms of Retribution

by James Boschert

  Without even thinking about the consequences, Talon snatched his bow out of its scabbard and knocked an arrow. Still twisted half-way around in his saddle, he loosed the arrow at the man who had thrown the spear. The arrow went true, straight into the attendant’s throat. The man gurgled with shock and agony, then sagged in his saddle and toppled off the horse, which skittered sideways as his spur gauged its side. There was a stunned silence from everyone as they contemplated the dead man at their feet.

  “Murderer!” exclaimed one man.

  “No. He tried murder; this was justice!” Talon snarled. “A life for a life!” Talon’s anger was white-hot. He knocked another arrow and aimed it straight at Rideford.

  “If anyone moves in our direction or attempts to try another spear, you will die!” he called to the cluster of men. Even though they numbered about two hundred, there was a significant pause. Men reined in their mounts and looked to their leaders for direction. All knew without doubt that Talon meant exactly what he said. Rideford appeared to be unsure, but then collected himself and sneered. “Go back to that dog, Tripoli! You are cowards. God is on our side and we will prevail!”

  Talon glanced at Reza, who looked up at him with an agonized grimace. His normally dark features were grey with pain. “It tore my front to hell, but I think it glanced off my ribs. Didn’t go in…” he gasped in Farsi.

  “Can you ride?” Talon asked. He was nearly choking with rage and concern.

  Reza nodded and reached for his reins. Yosef helped him with them, and then to settle back into the saddle.

  “Take him away. We are going back to Tiberius,” Talon ground out to his men. “I shall follow. Hurry!”

  Yosef and the others rode close to Reza, supporting him when he slumped in his saddle. Dar’an tore a strip from his own tunic and tied it around Reza’s upper chest, then knotted it behind him. The cloth quickly became bright red. Talon watched them moving down the track that led north to Tiberius.

  “You are a fool, Rideford!” Talon called over to the hostile gathering of Templars and Hospitaliers. “There are five thousand of Salah Ed Din’s men down there, spoiling for a fight.” He waved his arm to the east just beyond the rise of the hill. “You have only a couple of hundred men. What do you hope to achieve by sacrificing them? None will live to tell the tale!” He glanced at the unhappy faces of the other leaders. Roger de Moulins, the master of the Hospitaliers would not meet his eyes.

  In the silence that followed Talon snorted with disgust.

  “Run away, you traitor, you coward! We will do God’s work without you. He will protect us!” Rideford bellowed.

  Talon glared at him. “Somehow I doubt he will. Is it not written, ‘Tempt not the Lord thy God?” he turned away contemptuously and settled his horse into a canter.

  As he turned, he heard something that would stay with him for a very long time afterwards. The Marshall of the Templars, Jacques de Mailly, entreated them against the idea of attacking the Arab host.

  Rideford rounded on him and declaimed, “Do you love your blond head so much to want to not lose it?”

  Jacques de Mailly finally lost his temper and spoke contemptuously to the Grand Master Rideford. “I shall die fighting as a brave man, but you! You will run away as a traitor!”

  With those words ringing in his ears, Talon reined in on the side of the hill where he could see the Arab army gathered around the water of the springs of Cresson. Some were mounted, while others were taking their ease. He could not see the Knights from this angle, but then he heard the trumpets blare from their location, and the alarm was raised by the Arab horsemen. There was much pointing and gesticulation within their ranks, but within a few moments they were all mounted, and almost as though they had rehearsed it they formed up to face the Christian knights, who were charging straight down at them.

  Talon could hear the muted battle roar of the knights as they hurtled down the slope. They made a fine sight, with their banners streaming behind them and their lances in a steady, disciplined line. “Beauséant! Deus lo Volte!” they shouted, as they crashed into the packed ranks of the Arabs. But then something strange happened, which surprised and shocked Talon. The Arab ranks give way, and the knights were swallowed up by the Arab cavalry. The only thing that indicated they were still alive was the swirl of activity in the midst of the mass of Arab riders. General Gökburi had lived up to his reputation and had swallowed up the Knights into a deadly trap.

  Sickened, Talon turned his mount away and galloped after the riders ahead of him. They had to hasten now, as the Arab army would soon be on their way home, and Tiberius was along their route. Anyone caught on the road would be killed in the prevailing tide of bloodlust; or worse, taken prisoner. He could not let that happen to his men. He had a puddle of bile in his stomach from what he had witnessed, but also a deep concern for his brother. He prayed that Reza would live.

  He soon caught up with his men. Talon rode up alongside Reza, who was being held in the saddle by Yosef and Dar’an riding on either side of him. “How are you, Brother?” Talon asked. Reza looked up, his face grey with pain and loss of blood, and grimaced. “Hurts a little, and I am dizzy,” he muttered.

  “We must get him into the citadel before he loses more blood,” Talon told his men. “The Arabs are bound to come soon. They have just slaughtered the Templars.”

  “Have those people ever listened to good advice?” Junayd asked.

  “Few if any of them seem to learn, much less possess any common sense, Junayd. The Arabs, on the other hand, have learned how to deal with the Templar charge. I just witnessed it. If any of the knights survive they will be very lucky indeed,” Talon grunted.

  “It is urgent we stop the bleeding,” Junayd interrupted them. Reza had slumped in the saddle, his head hanging close to the pommel. Blood was caked on his legs and clothing. The city was within easy ride, but Talon knew that to hurry too much would jar Reza’s wound and make matters worse. He turned and stared back along the track. A small brown cloud of dust was rising on the slopes to the south west. That indicated horsemen, and they were coming towards them. The Arab army was going home.

  “Hang onto the saddle with all your strength, Brother. We have to hurry,” he said to Reza, who merely nodded. The others also looked back and saw the reason for Talon’s concern. They were in danger of being captured. “Come on, Lord!” Junayd called to Reza, and kicked his horse into a canter. The other men did the same, pulling Reza’s unwilling mount with them. Yosef slapped it on the rump with his whip.

  The distance to the city shrank, but not fast enough for Talon. “Go ahead of me, and hurry. Get inside the gates!” he called, and dropped back to the rear. “You too, Yosef,” he said, when his faithful follower made to stay with him. Yosef reluctantly rejoined the others ahead. Taking out his bow, Talon knocked an arrow on its string while continuing to canter behind his men. Only a few hundred paces to go now for Reza, he told himself, and watched with relief as the gates began to open to receive the riders. The duke’s men had ridden forward and shouted the alarm to those on the walls.

  But it would not be long before the advance guard of the Arab army caught up with them. The scouts had seen them and increased their speed. Talon twisted in the saddle while allowing his horse to continue cantering towards the open gates, judging the distance between him and the furiously galloping riders behind. The distance rapidly closed to two hundred paces, then a hundred and fifty. There were about fifty horsemen. In one fluid motion he raised his bow and loosed an arrow. It sped into the sky and briefly vanished; then a thin, dark streak made its descent and struck a rider somewhere in the middle of the group, who threw up his arms and fell. The arrow was so unexpected that the rider tumbled off his horse and was trampled before the other horsemen realized what had just happened. They slowed in confusion. Already another arrow had arced into the sky, and another man fell from his horse with a cry, clutching his side.

  Talon faced forward and saw his horse had reached the very g
ates to the city. The sentries were shouting down at him from the battlements to get inside and to hurry up about it. He needed little persuasion and kicked his mount through the opening, then heard the crash as the huge wooden gates slammed shut behind him, cutting off the yells of rage from his pursuers. Just before he dismounted, he noticed Lord Raymond on the battlements above the gates.

  The Count waved down at him. “You appear to have cut it a little fine, Talon. Impressive archery!” he called.

  Talon wasted no time. “Do you have a physician here, Lord?” he demanded.

  The Count nodded and pointed to the area of houses near to the citadel. “There is one there who is very good. What has happened, Talon?”

  “My brother is sorely wounded, and we must get him to a physician. Not one of those useless leeches, is he?”

  Count Raymond noticed the activity around Reza and said shortly, “No!” He glanced briefly at the departing Arab horsemen, then ran down the steps to the courtyard.

  “Bring him along at once, and treat him with care or you answer to me!” he called out to his men-at-arms. Attendants ran to do his bidding, and Reza was carefully eased from his sweating and nervous animal onto a portable pallet, then carried hurriedly after the duke, who was striding rapidly off towards the aforementioned house.

  The physician was a wizened old man with a long beard, his hair pulled back into a pony tail. He wore a loose, plain cotton robe that looked like the Egyptian thobe worn by the fellaheen. The first thing Talon noted was that the man’s clothing and hands were clean. This was a good indicator, he decided. A Leech would have had blood-stained clothing and filthy fingernails and hands.

  The Count greeted the physician politely and gestured towards the recumbent Reza, who was gritting his teeth with the pain and on the edge of passing out, even though the attendants had been very careful with him.

  “This man is in my care, Artemus. I want you to keep him alive,” the Count commanded.

  “I never guarantee people their lives,” was the laconic answer. “But we shall see what we can do, Lord.”

  “God willing, you will manage,” the duke responded, apparently unoffended. “We will leave him in your good hands.” He glanced at Talon. “I shall be on the walls when you are ready. Join me as soon as you can.”

  The old man waved the attendants to place Reza on a long wooden table, then gestured for them to leave. They hurried out. Artemus leaned over Reza, took his pulse, and then reached for some scissors. He carefully snipped the crude bandage and let it fall away to expose the bloody chain hauberk. “We must get him out of this and the rest of his clothing underneath,” he rasped to Talon in French.

  They lifted Reza up to a sitting position and as gently as they could undid the straps and eased his hauberk over his head. Reza gritted his teeth and at one point groaned out loud, but they managed to take off the cumbersome chain mail, then eased him back down into a lying position. He gave a deep sigh of relief.

  The doctor wasted no time snipping off his under shirt. Having removed the bloody garment, he examined the exposed ugly rip in his chest. It was still seeping blood, so he dabbed at the entrance of the wound with a clean cotton cloth and then examined Reza’s chest more closely.

  “Good, it’s not pulsing,” he murmured to himself. He peered myopically at his patient’s rib cage and pressed with his long fingers in a couple of places, making Reza wince and grind his teeth.

  “Tell me he isn’t one of those awful Christian Leeches you keep telling me about?” Reza asked Talon in Farsi.

  “I think he is Christian, but he appears to be more like one of those Byzantine doctors, and the Count seems to trust him. I’m just a little worried about his eyesight,” Talon told him with a tight grin.

  Reza rolled his eyes, then jerked and yelled as the doctor’s probing fingers struck a nerve.

  At that moment the doctor looked up. “What are you speaking? It isn’t Arabic.”

  “No, it is Farsi, but we can speak Arabic if you insist,” Talon told him.

  “I don’t really care,” was the terse reply. “Now, I have to clean this wound or it will become infected.”

  Talon began to respect the matter-of-fact way the man went about his business.

  “Go ahead, Master Physician,” Reza replied. “Get it over with.”

  “Good. Then let’s get started,” Artemus said.

  Leaving Dar’an with Reza, Talon and Yosef joined the Count on the battlements overlooking the main road that went past the city. The Count had already been alerted that the army of cavalrymen was on its way north to Damascus.

  “There must be nearly five thousand horsemen!” the Count commented, as he watched the triple ranks of the Arab army trotting along the road, raising a cloud of dust as it moved. Among them, linked by ropes and chains, were many of the peasants who had not been able to flee after the Templars had been destroyed.

  “I cannot see for the dust. What are they brandishing on their sp—” he didn’t finish his sentence, as the horror of what they were witnessing became apparent.

  “Those are the heads of the Templars and Hospitaliers, my Lord,” Talon murmured. “I wonder how many lived to tell the tale. If any.”

  “I hope that one of those heads belongs to Rideford,” the Count snarled. “What an utter waste!”

  They watched in stunned silence as the Arab army rode past. It was very clear that there could not have been very many survivors from the engagement; there were too many bloody heads being carried on spears by the triumphant horsemen. The long, unkempt beards hanging down from the pallid faces and the blank, dead eyes made for a ghastly spectacle. The Arabs roared their contempt as they rode by city.

  “We will be back for you, Christians,” they chanted.

  They finally disappeared with their gristly trophies, dragging their wailing prisoners behind them into the northern foothills, leaving a pall of yellow dust hanging over the road. During the long silence that followed, the men on the battlements avoided one another’s eyes. Finally, the Count turned to Talon, his face pale and his lips tight.

  “Did you witness this… this massacre, Talon?”

  Talon looked him in the eye. “I watched its commencement, Lord. I could not stay to watch its conclusion.”

  “Had you warned them of these people and their numbers? Who was there? Was Ibelin present? Why didn’t he stop them?”

  “Yes Lord I did. Lord Ibelin was not there, but Roger de Moulins, the Master of The Hospitaliers, was, as was Jacques de Mailly, and both tried to reason with Rideford, but he would not listen. Even the Archbishop of Tyre tried, to no avail. No one could prevail upon Rideford to leave well alone! He is quite mad, my Lord.”

  Talon went on to tell the Count what had been said, and how Reza had been wounded. The Count listened to him in tense, fuming silence until he had finished.

  Talon’s anger surface at the last. “Rideford was a complete imbecile! I hope he went down with his men. They did not deserve to be led by such a man!”

  Raymond was just as angry. “The arrogant, stupid fools! They do not realize what they have done!” He gave a ragged sigh and began to cough. It lasted some time, and when he stopped and wiped his mouth, his features were haggard.

  “The truce we negotiated is at an end, Talon, and we are now at war! They attacked men who were under my protection. The Sultan may even be lead to believe I arranged a trap for his army, in defiance of all the laws of hospitality! Curse those zealots who come to this land and know nothing of its ways. God help us all now!

  The Count pounded the underside of his fist onto the stone battlements. He stared out at the lingering dust cloud, just beginning to take on a shade of red from the setting sun. He groaned then, and put both hands to his face, resting his elbows on the stone. He rubbed his eyes with his finger tips as though to obliterate the image of what they had just witnessed.

  “We are surely lost… unless… unless the King can be persuaded to lead an army and fight Salah Ed Din i
n a place of our own choosing,” he muttered.

  “The King and his remaining army are in Jerusalem,” Talon reminded him.

  “Yes, and he is quite unaware of what has just taken place. I shall send a messenger to him today.”

  “And what will you do, Lord?”

  “I have no choices left!” the Count cried, waving his hands in a gesture of acute exasperation and resignation. “I must join the King, and we must all fight for our lives and our lands,” he finished, then looked at Talon. “I assume you will be coming with me?” it was a question.

  “My friend, my brother, is grievously hurt. I would take him back to my home and to a physician who is one of the very best. If anyone can bring him back to full health, it is she.”

  “A woman?” The Count sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, Lord, a woman.” Talon shook his head and smiled at the surprised count. “The Byzantines of Constantinople train women to be physicians who are every bit as good, and in some ways better than men.”

  The Count was a man of the east who knew and respected the Arab physicians, but he still shook his head in amazement.

  “Can you not stay with me and send him home with your attendants?” The Count put his hand on Talon’s arm and gripped it. “Talon, I need… I need someone I can trust. Someone whose judgment and level head I can rely upon when I go to Jerusalem, and then later when we come upon the Arab army. Jerusalem is a nest of vicious and very stupid vipers, and I have few friends there other than Ibelin. Will I have to beg you?” His eyes pleaded with Talon, and Talon became aware of how hard the Count’s decision to join the King’s army had been.