chapter TWENTY-NINE

 

 

 

 

If there was a battle cry, I could not distinguish it from all the other human tumult.

The pagan army poured through the rubble. Our knights collided with them, and the battle looked already won, our fighting men with huge square bucklers, against their small, round target-shields.

The lightly armored Saracens went down, reeds before a flood. Steel flashed pink and scarlet.

Hubert and I were in the second wave of the attack, immediately following the knights. Already Rannulf and Nigel were lost in the flood of mail and helmets, surging into the multicolored pagans, pushing them back. Stones crashed into the knights from above. We raised our shields, the bucklers clattering, edges overlapping.

A blizzard swept us—arrows, lead darts, spears and spearheads, pebbles and bricks. The wreckage of a city poured into us, lintel shelves, broken urns, and huge, chisel-finished corner stones. Burning embers and sizzling coals darkened the air. Our army was forced together, breath crushed from lungs. We could not go forward; we could not turn back.

I stood on something pillow soft, and looked down to see a bright blue blouse, and a beard and earring, gleaming teeth. Before I could see if the man was alive, wounded or stunned, the army surged forward. I told myself I did not hear a dozen feet crushing the blue blouse into the earth.

The knight ahead of me was held erect by the crush of men, fluid trickling from inside his helmet. We climbed over a mountain of rubble, slipping, clambering, the stones jagged, the sunlight blinding.

My past, my future, consisted of this breathless climb. The rocks were slippery with red soup and broken teeth. I heard—or sensed—a cry, and reached back to offer Hubert the head of my hammer. He gripped the iron, and I pulled him up and over a jagged chunk of black rock.

Crusader knights slashed with the swords, each Christian struggling to win a space. The real danger was from the flanks, arrows and quarrels ripping the wool tunics that covered our mail.

Rannulf cut a Saracen giant across the face. All along the line Christian knights crumpled as bricks the size of Easter loaves crushed a shoulder, flattened a helmet.

The only battle cry I could discern was the high-pitched ululation of the Mussulmen. The crescent swords carved pieces from the wounded knights who stumbled into their line.

A signal passed through the defenders. One moment they fought cautiously, loath to counterattack. And then they rushed forward, into us.

I struck a brilliant red shield with my hammer, brought down a Saracen, and before I could hesitate I kicked him, bellowing and digging hard with my foot.

Hubert struck a scimitar from a fist with his broadsword, but he slipped on a smear of blood. I stood before him, shielding Hubert with my body. I was yelling wordlessly, the sound tearing my throat. I punched at Hubert’s assailant with the head of my hammer, and the man flailed with his crescent sword. I punched him in the beard with my weapon, and he fell back.

Someone sliced the chain mail of my collar, the steel grating against the iron links. The force of the blow was so strong color left my vision, all the blood and the battle flags gray in an instant.

The taste in my mouth was gall—my liver, the organ of courage, filling me with anger. I heaved my shield upward to fend another blow. My assailant squinted with the strain of delivering another blow, a man with a henna-red beard. He shifted his attack, lunging at my face, at my eyes. I lifted my hammer.

I brought it down with my full strength, and the man was gone.