Under the baking summer sun, Frank clerics herded an endless line of prisoners into the creek’s sluggish flow. Dusty and dejected, prisoners went in on one side; muddy and defeated, they came out on the other. On the far bank, they sank to their knees before priests administering oaths, one of allegiance to the God of the Christians, and the other of fealty to Charles, before being led off to rough food and crude shelter.
But it was better than the alternative.
In the distance, something mechanical clattered and groaned beneath a thick cloud of smoke that rose from a mud-and-clapboard building. Even the Franks gave the place a wide berth. The prisoners whispered among themselves and speculated. Only a few ventured a guess as to what lay within, and those speculations lacked confidence, fueled only by rumors heard from drunken seamen relating frightened tales on stormy nights. A few murmured prayers to the god of their homeland, rather than to He whose water still dripped from their hair—secretly grateful that for them the war was finally over.
John, finally able to bear the sun once more, ventured out of the doorway of the smoky shack and shambled to the river with an empty bucket. Kennick stood at the water’s edge, watching the Greek’s progress and wrinkling his nose in disgust. Turpin stopped on his way to the baptisms and noted the look on the marchman’s face.
“In all my days, Bishop,” Kennick said, clearing his throat, “I’ve never smelled anything so vile.” He spat as if it would help clear the stench away.
Turpin touched the four corners of the cross on his breast with a nod. “Rocks that stink this badly? Surely God meant this for the damned!”
Kennick grinned, his peppered beard bristling, and slapped Turpin on the back. “Something to look forward to!”
Inside the crude work shed, Roland spoke with Leo while the Greek shaped and bent copper tubes with curious tools. To Roland it looked like a senseless, twisted mass. Leo held the tangle before his eyes and squinted at it critically. With a satisfied grunt, he fitted it to a nipple on a cauldron burbling thick sulfurous smoke.
“The last shipment of oils arrived two days ago,” Roland said. “And the smith finished the metalwork you required. When will the device be ready?”
Leo sat back on his heels and finally focused on the champion.
“We’ve not tested it,” he replied. “It needs a trial run to ensure the entire apparatus is sound.”
“But men are dying,” Roland insisted. “We’ve no reinforcements coming to fill the ranks. We must make it ready before the caliph intervenes. If he succeeds in bringing shiploads of troops up the river, the siege will crumble.”
John returned with the bucket. “It’s a dangerous thing you require of us, my lord,” he offered. “I see the men dying myself—every day I do—but many more would die, and even more if this explodes while pulling it through the camp.”
Roland took the bucket from his hands and lifted it over the jumbled parts to set it next to the cauldron. “I understand that. But we must take the city. They continue to range from the northern gates and disrupt our supply lines. We must retake Carcassonne so we can move on to Saragossa.”
Leo and John exchanged glances.
“We will prepare the weapon, my lord,” Leo agreed, though John’s face visibly tightened. Leo rose and crossed the workshop to a simple table littered with documents. He shuffled about until he found a sheaf of vellum sheets. “Here,” he said, handing them to Roland. “This is the shell that will house the weapon, to keep it protected from missiles and the like. All the measurements are included.”
Roland examined the document—the page covered with lines and numbers that frankly meant little to him. “We’ll get men working on this immediately.” He stepped out of the workshop eagerly.
“God protect us from our own handiwork,” John muttered to Roland’s retreating back.
Alans searched on foot through the forward units until he found the Tournai men laboring under Ganelon’s supervision. With picks and shovels, the men strengthened the earthen fortifications that would eventually ring the city and plug the gaps in the Frank line. Between them and the city walls stood brush screens that obscured their activities from the archers stationed in the crenellations. Even so, an occasional random shaft whistled through the air, the missive of some bored bowman.
Alans waved to Ganelon, but the count frowned and gestured for his men to continue their work.
“What do you want?” Ganelon snapped. He grabbed a water skin and sloshed a swig around his mouth, spat it out, then took a longer pull. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and eyed Alans more closely. It was then he noticed a strangely humble look on the usually haughty face of the southern noble.
“I seek a man who’s lost much in this debacle,” Alans said.
Ganelon didn’t try to stifle a mocking laugh. “Weren’t you one of the loudest voices for this war?”
Alans shifted uncomfortably. “Do you remember long-ago days when we were young?” He stared past Ganelon to the distant wall. “We chased with Charles to Italy on his glorious mission to free the holy city. None of us imagined that Rome would throw open her gates in just a matter of days! Why, I remember the stink as the Romans thronged the streets to greet us.”
Ganelon chewed the edge of his mustache. “The Saracens have more to lose than the Lombards, I suppose.”
Unnoticed, the youth, Julian, found a task closer to the conversation. He bent his back to drive the shovel blade into the summer-hardened earth.
Alans clenched his fists. “They force us to batter down every wall! We waste men in siege instead of using them to hold lands entitled to us by conquest! Surely Charles knows we’re bleeding our strength in a wild goose chase!”
A sudden cry marked the luck of an enemy archer. Guinemer hopped into the ditch, pushing men aside to check the fallen soldier’s wound.
“Look where he takes counsel,” Ganelon mused, ignoring the moment’s chaos. “From a general who washes the streets in our own blood, and the slut of his loins who warms his bed.”
“Surely God has abandoned us.” Alans genuflected to ward off evil.
“If He was ever with us,” Ganelon hissed.
As night extended her shroud across the contested field before the city, a hush fell over the Frank army with the passing creak and groan of the massive contraption that crawled through their lines toward the gate—a large, bulbous wooden frame covered with stretched hides soaked in muddy creek water. At the forward end, a steel cover glinted in the red twilight, roughly worked into the shape of a frightful hell-beast with a gleaming maw jostling on its hinges. Smoke billowed and formed a dark smudge above the war machine, bolstering the impression that this fiery serpent crawled from the apocalyptic pit. Its wheels turned slowly with every heave from the men inside it, and with each measured step, the horrific creation inched forward.
Beneath the dripping hides, sweat-soaked men strained at push-bars extending from a cart beneath the Byzantine machine. Gritty cloths covered their faces to keep out the rank oily smell overlaid with choking dust and the stench of wet skins. Many glanced nervously with every whistle and pop at the winding copper tubes and kettles above them, fearful of the brew bubbling within the cauldron at the heart of the monstrosity. Further down the Frank lines, Charles rode with his entourage to the foremost trenches to gain a better view of the operation.
Shouts rang out from the city walls. Saragossans hastily repositioned on the imposing gate, a strong barrier bound in iron and topped with towers and murder holes steaming with vapors. From the battlements, arrows rained down on the machine’s thick hide that bristled with the spent shafts. When it finally neared the gate, hot pitch spewed from the wall. Flame erupted, engulfing the shell. But the machine rolled onward.
The Frank army held its collective breath when the wagon butted with a muted thump against the gate.
Within the bowels of the monstrosity, Kennick and Otun grabbed the bellows’ handles and bent their strong backs to the work. The entire contraption rocked with their effort, and the piping groaned with the increased strain.
“Keep going! More pressure!” Leo shouted over noise from the assault above them. He was covered in thick felt garments allowing only his eyes to show. Those eyes darted from the bellows to valves and to indicating glasses.
“Ready! Now!”
At the head of the machine, Roland and Oliver, similarly garbed, threw open the steel snout and lifted their shields overhead. Leo stepped under their protection holding a tube the size of a man’s head connected by a stitched hose of leather and gut to the depths of the contraption. His eyes crinkling in what must have been a mad grin at his shield-bearers, Leo braced his feet widely and turned a brass lever atop the nozzle.
With a ghastly echoing roar, wet flames belched out, engulfing the gate in liquid hellfire that clung to the massive timbers. Sulfurous smoke billowed upward, blinding enemy soldiers who scrambled madly across the ramparts to escape the rising inferno. Leo angled the tube toward the heights and arced his stream of flaming death after them. Along the wall and across the top of the gate, even the slightest splattering turned men into human torches, many of whom desperately flung themselves from the heights to end their anguish, screaming until they hit the ground.
Charles gasped at the horrific vision before him. Just visible in the conflagration, a few defenders recklessly stood their ground, dumping water over the wall, but the flames roared upward without abatement until the gatehouse walls cracked. Heat rose in a rippling billow and obscured the horrible suffering on the battlements.
“I’ve seen this,” Charles whispered, crossing his chest with sharp, quick motions. “It is my nightmare before my waking eyes. Dear God, forgive us for what we do.”
Flames clawed from the gate to the battlements, and men continued to die. Stone blackened and cracked while iron fittings flared white-hot. Wooden catwalks shriveled and collapsed. Timbers and ash rained down on the shell as the pipes and the cauldron began to rattle and hum.
Leo nodded vigorously to Roland, all he could do in his thick garb to indicate his excitement. Moral regrets were apparently lost in the rushing power he wielded. He shifted his feet to strengthen his stance and gave the gate another blast.
Then a rivet burst, and Leo faltered. Within his heavy shroud, his eyes grew suddenly wide with fear.
Another rivet pinged into the flames.
“It’s going to blow!” he shouted over the noise. He shut the valve, dropped the cherry-red nozzle on the ground, and lunged back to Kennick and Otun still pumping madly at the bellows.
Roland urgently waved the other men away. “Get out! Now! Get out!”
The crew spilled from beneath the covering and stumbled back to the Frank line. Half-hearted missiles from the farther walls whistled past them. Roland pushed Leo on ahead then turned to others who stumbled behind. Ignoring the sulfur stinging his eyes, he shouted at them to hurry along.
An explosion rocked the ground.
Brimstone hurled upward then plummeted back down in a fiery rain. A few steps behind the champion, a ball of flaming muck struck Kennick’s shoulders and burst across his back. He stumbled, beating at the flames, angering them more. They spread to his sleeves and with a flare engulfed him in living fire. He shrieked.
Roland launched toward his friend, but Leo tripped him, throwing his body across the knight’s. Roland spat a mouthful of dirt and wrestled out from under the Greek’s scant frame while Kennick screamed and writhed.
Leo snatched at Roland’s garments, tangling him up again. “You can’t save him!”
“Let me go!” Roland hammered him with his fists. “God damn you, let go!”
Kennick slumped to the ground and twitched in a sickening display of agony.
“You cannot put it out!” Leo clung to Roland, gasping to continue. “He was dead when it touched him!”
Roland sobbed, the fiery air stinging his lungs and the stink of burnt flesh filling his nostrils. Balls of fire continued to strike the ground around them. Kennick’s body lay where it fell, now nothing more than a pile of blackened ash.
The war carried on indifferent to the champion’s grief.
The flames burned through the night, no longer needing the Greek fire to sustain them, and by dawn the city gates collapsed and took down the gatehouse wall.
The wails of the defenders rose above the roaring flames, and the Franks advanced.
Over the next days, bandons of soldiers entered the smoldering ruins, moving house-to-house and street-to-street in maneuvers perfected in alleys of Barcelona to root out remnants of Saragossa’s demoralized forces. Those they found they dragged in chains to either the muddied streams for rites and peace oaths, or to the chopping block. Roland led heavily armored cavalry in pursuit of Marsilion’s straggling lancers across ruined acres of wheat, cutting them down in relentless skirmishes to the very shadows of the Pyrenees.
Ahead of the chaos, Blancandrin directed a full-scale retreat, frantically driving his army around the mountains and across the summer-scorched peninsula toward Saragossa.
At his heels, the Oliphant sounded the victory yet again.
AOI