Beasts of the Seventh Crusade (The Crusades Book 4) (24 page)

When the cavalry crusaders arrived, they could easily see the shallow sandbar they needed to navigate. The cavalry officer who discovered the crossing went first, and Robert followed after him. One soldier, an amateur, accidentally steered his beast's front legs into the water, and they both overturned with a mighty splash. The man was in the water, pinned beneath the horse, whose legs had sunk into the muck of the river. By the time enough soldiers pulled the horse free, the man was a white corpse. They let him go down the river, and the rest of the cavalry crossed without incident.

"Make way for the king! Make way for the king!"

The call came from behind Robert's position, and he turned in his saddle, irritated at what he knew was happening: King Louis was crossing the ford with six of his bodyguards. Robert cursed under his breath. He was supposed to be in command of this operation; he was the ranking officer, the one whose name would be remembered through the ages. But now Louis was here, and Robert had no choice but to obey his monarch half-brother. Within a few minutes, Louis reached Robert's position.

"I must lead from the front, you understand," Louis said. "I must be seen by the men who would risk their lives on my account."

It was a lame explanation, but Robert was in no position to point that out. He and Louis both knew what was going on, and Louis was too embarrassed to say it outright. He was overruling his brother, taking personal command of the detail that would lead to a crusader victory.

"I will scout ahead, Louis. We do not want to be ambushed with only our cavalry on this side."

"Very well," Louis said, waving his hand. He was relieved to have Robert out of his face, staring at him with those shrewd, patricidal eyes.

Robert took more than half of the cavalry and galloped straight toward Mansura. Louis was going to order him back, to tell him to take only a few men and to be stealthy, but he thought better of it. He had already gone too far in alienating Robert by arriving without warning and effectively taking command. He could not call him back in front of his soldiers and correct him like a child, too.

Robert felt the wind in his face and the strength in his arms. His horse galloped rhythmically and Robert's body responded, adjusting to the familiar regularity of riding a horse and permitting his mind to roam freely. How could Louis try to steal his glory? It was appalling. Everyone knew Robert was the best cavalry officer in the entire army, and he was on the short list of possible successors to Louis, if he was killed or captured in Egypt. Robert had everything to gain, and Louis knew it.

"Riders ahead!" one of Robert's lieutenants shouted. Robert squinted his eyes and counted the figures riding toward them. Seven, eight . . . fifteen, sixteen—sixteen men. He had 300.

"Kill them all and keep one alive!" Robert shouted. "And look out for a stronger force! We are not done scouting, not yet."

The enemy stopped when they saw the charging Europeans, and they whirled their mounts around and rode away fast. Robert's men loosed a couple of arrows at the retreating, dark-skinned men, but none connected with flesh. Robert's blood rose. He was going to capture a prisoner and make a real contribution to the crusade, not like his prissed-up king, who only gave orders. "Capture them . . . now!" Robert shouted.

His men whooped in delight and leaned low over their saddles, to go as fast as possible. This was their specialty: chasing down scared men. They had practiced in Paris for years, hunting down animals, rogue Germanic tribes, and escaped convicts. Why should this be any different? Because they were trained Ayyubid warriors? Irrelevant.

The Ayyubids were fast and agile. They slipped around cacti and soggy spots in the sand like fish in the water, narrowly avoiding every obstacle without sacrificing any speed. Their pursuers were less sure, and several of them fell during the chase, snapping bones and cracking skulls. But the Europeans had the numbers, and each man wanted to be the one to present a bleeding, broken Egyptian to Robert, half brother of Louis.

The city of Mansura came out of nowhere. It was a massive, dark-red construction with high fences and towers facing every direction. It didn't take a practiced eye to see that the city was prepared for war. Tower guards were doubled or tripled. Unarmed citizens and peasants were nowhere to be seen. The main gate to Mansura was closed, but it opened slightly when the Ayyubid cavalry men approached, with the Europeans hot on their heels.

"No! Don't go in!" Robert yelled. It was too late. His men charged straight into Mansura, blowing past the gate guards, fixated on their prey. Robert couldn't leave them. He just couldn't. It was his idea to follow the damn cavalry. He had to see it through.

Robert ducked his head and entered the city. The change in atmosphere was instantaneous. The suffocating smells of thousands of bodies, human and animal, pressed close together. The outraged yells of the Ayyubid officers, rallying their warriors to handle the Europeans, who still numbered in the hundreds. The ground was different, too, and Robert's horse stumbled on the loose gravel. Robert pulled on the reins and tried to slow the beast, but the animal reacted violently and bucked, throwing Robert through the air.

He hit the ground in full armor, and his breath went out of him. There was a sharp pain in his ribs; he had likely broken several of them. He tasted blood on his lips and he saw his men, being pulled from their horses by angry Egyptians and stomped to the ground. A few hundred men had no chance inside an enemy stronghold, and Robert felt rough hands hold him down. Something was noosed around his neck, and then all he knew was darkness.

"Where did he go?" Louis yelled at a grizzled sergeant. It was the fifth time Louis had asked, and the sergeant just shook his head and looked at the ground, aware that they both knew the answer.

"I don't know, my king."

"How far is Mansura from here?"

"Our scouts estimate twelve miles."

"Would he go there? Was he ambushed by a larger force? These are the things I need to know . . . now!"

The sergeant wanted to wrap his hands around the king's throat and tell him to forget about Robert. Robert was gone, likely dead or under torture. All he could do now was retreat across the river and bring the main body of his force to the crossing. It had been foolish to let Robert go scouting in the first place. The man was a hothead and would likely attract the attention of the main Ayyubid force.

War drums froze every man's heart. The crusaders used trumpets and whistles for their battle calls. The Ayyubids used drums. There was a darkening on the horizon, the shadow of thousands, tens of thousands, of warriors. Heavy infantry made up their center, archers were on the wings and the cavalry rode close to the crusaders, watching them with cold eyes. Their skin was red and their uniforms black.

Louis could imagine how they looked to the massive Egyptian Army. They were a force of 150 cavalry, packed tightly against the mighty canal, alone. They were outnumbered and scared. They were fatigued from the crossing and had an inexperienced leader.

"Retreat! Go back across the water!" Louis roared, pushing past his men. He leaped off his horse and tore his purple robe when it snagged on his saddle. He landed in the mud and stood. His crown fell off. Louis swore, picked up the golden trinket and jammed it onto his head. If he was going to die, it would be as the king of France. Louis left his horse and ran to the sandbar, and he walked across quickly, already hearing the sounds of battle behind him.

Arrows landed all around him. The cold water at his ankles was persistent, pulling him down, scaring him out of his wits. Louis fought on, knee-deep in the river mud and already exhausted.
I should have trained my fitness with the men,
Louis thought, and then, a darker thought;
I should have killed Robert years ago.

Louis made it back safely, just as two units of infantry arrived. Louis practically dove into their protection, and they held up their shields to prevent a stray arrow from taking the monarch's life. More cavalry made it back across, but their numbers were depleted to almost nothing. Most were injured, being carried by their comrades away from the massacre.

"Hold the crossing! Lay boards! Hold the crossing!" Louis screamed from the middle of his line. His infantry officers looked at one another dubiously, and they plunged into the river, meeting the Ayyubids halfway. The battle quickly became a strange affair. Only the men in the middle of the river could perform direct combat, and their comrades behind them could only watch, waiting for the men in the middle to die and fall into the water, to be replaced.

The engineers arrived with the long-boards. If the infantry could simply capture the far side of the bank again, they could secure the boards and hundreds of men could cross at once, instead of two or three at a time. The boards were passed to the front and the Europeans made a final push, butchering the Ayyubids and reaching the far bank. Still under a furious assault, they laid the massive boards down and more soldiers rushed onto them, eager to join the fight.

The first two long-boards broke under the weight of flesh and metal, sending dozens of warriors to watery graves. The third long-board was dislodged by an Ayyubid countercharge, and more crusaders died. Five more boards were quickly laid, and they held strong while the Europeans charged across, eager to avenge their fathers, brothers, and sons.

"Why are we still fighting? Must I do everything myself?" Qutuz asked his second-in-command.

"The Europeans are heavy, my lord. They are fighting furiously; the men are doing their best."

"Come with me, we will show them how it's done," Qutuz said. He handed the reins of his horse to an attendant and jogged to the front of the battle. He was the high commander in Mansura, while Shajar was still four miles upriver, staring at the white men across the murky canal. Qutuz flexed his wrists and felt the power there. He had been fighting with blades since he could walk, and he had only lost once, to his father, when he was eleven. It had been the first time his father fought him like a grown man, and Qutuz had done the same thing to his sons when they came of age.

Qutuz never charged in recklessly, he never threw caution to the wind. Battle and victory were not about bravery or numerical superiority. Victory came from skill, timing, and the appropriate application of strength at the correct time. Whether he was in a one-on-one or a battle of thousands, Qutuz never forgot the lessons of war he learned as a child. With his wits completely about him, he strode out onto the long-boards, to push the crusaders back with the sweat of his own brow.

Artois was on the long-boards. He had left his unit when he heard the rumors of fighting on the ford, and now he was single-handedly keeping the Seventh Crusade alive. The Ayyubids gave him a wide berth along the battle line, and with good reason. Artois had already killed fifteen men. When they held back and tried to fence with him, he beat their cheap weapons down with his heavy axe, and then he cleaved their brains. When the Ayyubids got close, Artois simply threw them into the river, laughing at the sheer joy of it all. This was life!

The Egyptian's battle demeanor changed. They shrank back, and Artois surged forward, his comrades taking courage from his presence. But the Egyptians weren't retreating; they were consolidating, merging into a tight band of warriors on the bank. In their center was an older man, almost too old for battle and Artois saw the Ayyubids looking at him for orders.

They made eye contact. Despite the churning river, flying arrows, screaming and bleeding men, wild horses, and snapped long boards, Artois and Qutuz made eye contact. There was a moment of feral recognition, of two alpha predators that were hungry for blood.

Qutuz raised a fist and spread his fingers. The men around him dispersed immediately, forming a jagged line along the river's bank. They crouched and raised their weapons, and Artois held up a hand to the crusaders.

"Hold! Wait!" Artois shouted. The crusaders stopped as if the king had given the order, and they all looked to Artois, their eyes reverent of the big warrior. One battle-crazed crusader looked at Artois, saw no official rank, and charged the crouching Ayyubids. None of the crusaders followed him, though they watched him meet his fate.

Qutuz saw the lone figure running straight at his position, and he gave quick orders to his men to stand back. He had a long dagger with two golden handles; one at the bottom, the other halfway up the blade. The Christian martyr, for that was how Qutuz perceived the enemy, leaped through the air, his blade aimed at Qutuz's throat. The master of thousands of hours of practice saw the attack coming immediately, and he smoothly stepped aside, plunging his blade into the man's abdomen. The dagger went all the way through the man's back, and Qutuz grabbed the golden, upper handle of the dagger and pulled it the rest of the way through.

Artois saw the crusader die. The motion was almost too quick for his eyes to follow; one minute he was flying through the air, and then the Egyptian leader was pulling his blade completely through the man's body. He had surely died before his face crashed to the dirt.

"Keep the others busy," Artois growled, "That old bastard in the middle is mine."

"Who are you to give orders? I am Captain Bellackia of the Second Infantry in Paris!" a cavalryman yelled at Artois, steering his horse face-to-face with the big man. Artois looked at the captain and saw no blood on his blade. He shied away, pretending to be ashamed. Captain Bellackia beamed for a moment, and Artois pushed the horse's head aside and grabbed the captain by his shoulders. He pulled him off the horse and dropped him in the water. His axe was resting on the captain's chest a moment later.

"And I suppose you're going to kill them?" Artois gestured at the Ayyubid line. Captain Bellackia shook his head nervously, and Artois took his axe off the man's chest, "If you're not going to kill them, why don't you just let me do my job? Is that okay, Captain Blacklie?" Artois said, botching the man's last name. He waited for the captain to try and arrest him, or charge the Ayyubid line, but he did neither. He walked his horse back to the shore, and Artois raised his axe high.