Beasts of the Seventh Crusade (The Crusades Book 4) (25 page)

"For France!" he screamed. The crusaders charged, leaving Artois, the best killer, a wide space for a duel with the leader of the Ayyubids. The Egyptian men, bravery in their veins, copied the crusader charge, leaving Qutuz to deal with Artois alone.

They met in the center of the river. The two men could not have been more different in appearance. Artois was a giant, white bruiser from France. He carried a battle axe, a sword on his hip and enough armor to cover his groin and abdomen.

Qutuz had lupine features and reddish skin, a necessary inheritance from the hard men who lived in the desert. He had four golden daggers, a polished saber, and a rope around his waist, which he used as a last-resort ligature.

"After I kill you, those pretty daggers are mine!" Artois yelled, knowing the Egyptian warrior couldn't understand his words. They were ten feet apart, and Artois waited for the Egyptian to strike first.

Qutuz moved like lightning. He rushed Artois and ducked at the last moment, avoiding Artois' axe strike and slicing a ribbon of flesh off his leg. Artois yelped in pain and bounced back, eyeing the Egyptian with a tad more respect.

If Artois wanted to win, he knew he had to strike first. He stalked Qutuz, trying to get close enough to end the fight with a single blow. Qutuz shuffled his feet and moved laterally, reading Artois' body movements. Inspiration struck Artois; he threw his axe at Qutuz. It was an attack neither of them was expecting, and the blade flipped through the air and caught Qutuz on the upper arm, drawing a fountain of blood. Qutuz dislodged the axe and it dropped in the gory water.

Qutuz responded by throwing one of his golden daggers. He was renowned for his accuracy with the blades, but that accuracy was always found in training, when the ground was dry and you weren't tired and bleeding. Artois surprised Qutuz by ducking under the dagger, and it kept flying, striking a random Ayyubid warrior in the neck and killing him.

"C'mon, you bastard!" Artois yelled.

Qutuz had never had so much trouble killing a man before. He knew he must get close and end the fight with his daggers, so he waded in, avoiding Artois' sword strikes. As he was about to bury his dagger in the man's neck, Artois dropped his sword and grabbed Qutuz by the arms. He lifted him up and threw him face down into the river, driving his knee into the man's back.

"I learned this from the king's bodyguard!" Artois yelled to no one in particular. Qutuz was slippery, though, and he kicked Artois' legs and spun out of the potential drowning. He kept spinning and was soon back on his feet. He grinned. Artois had dropped his sword and Qutuz still had two daggers. Qutuz took a quick inventory of the battle around him. His men had lost, somehow, and he was the only Ayyubid still standing. Death didn't matter to him, though. He just wanted to kill one more man.

He charged Artois again, and Artois met his momentum with his own, sending the two warriors sprawling in the water. Qutuz flailed under Artois' weight, and he brought his fingers up, clawing at Artois' eyes, trying to blind him. Artois tucked his chin and grabbed the rope around Qutuz's waist. Before Qutuz knew what was happening, Artois looped the rope around his throat and squeezed. Artois flipped Qutuz over on his back and kept the ligature tight, while still holding his head underwater. Artois killed him like that, drowned him like a river rat. He stood up from his handiwork, shaking and pale.

"I learned that from my uncle Christof!" Artois roared. To the other crusaders, he looked like some sort of river demon, and they shied away. The battle was over, the Ayyubid warriors dead or retreating. The river was secure, for now.

King Louis brought his entire army to the crossing. He decided they would hold the crossing for a day, regroup, and then advance toward Cairo. Again, his procrastination was derided by his commanders, but Louis had a taste of real battle that day, and he was disturbed.

Chapter Twenty-Six

THE AYYUBID REINFORCEMENTS arrived under the command of Shajar. After learning of Qutuz's death in the river, he took a more practical, economical approach to fighting the crusaders. He spread his men along the canal, loosely, and attacked the crusaders in spontaneous waves. They peppered the crusaders with arrows, launched surprise cavalry charges, and never surrendered an inch of their land.

King Louis had all his forces at the canal's crossing, but he refused to push farther south. The Ayyubids were expecting that, he said, and they should be patient. His commanders wondered if he was hoping for a truce, to avoid more bloodshed, or if he was truly delusional. Surely, they thought, the Ayyubids were benefitting more from the stalemate than they were. The answer came in the form of an Ayyubid charge on a cold January morning, 1250.

The three Coquets were eating lunch next to the canal that morning. Artois wore a new gold epaulette on his shoulder, a gift from the king after his heroics in the river. Raul was the father of the hero, and men came from every part of the army to bless Raul, to thank him for raising such a strong son and bringing him to save French lives in Egypt. Raul was always quick to point out that he had two sons, the other one a skilled surgeon and brave fighter, but there were dozens of men with those qualities. Artois was special, they said, one of a kind.

"What do you suppose that shiny trinket is worth?" Francois asked with a mouthful of fish.

"Three or four livre, I should think," Raul said.

"I won't sell it. This is a reminder, and I will treasure it always. Besides, there are more riches to be had from the Arabic corpses we shall soon create!" Artois said. He was drinking cold soup and some of it flew out of his mouth, landing on Francois' cheek.

"Shut your mouth while you eat, you big ox," Francois said, wiping his face.

Artois opened his mouth to reply, but a series of horns across the river cut him short. There was an infantry regiment stationed over there, to repel brave Ayyubids who might try an attack, and no one moved.

"I'll talk while I eat and eat while I lay with a whore!" Artois said to Francois, laughing and spewing more food.

"You can kill men. Congratulations," Francois said, as he stood and walked away. It was disgusting to him. Not Artois' lack of meal etiquette, but the way that other common men esteemed Artois, the way they venerated him because he was born two sizes too big and with an insatiable appetite for violence. Artois' qualities were not something Francois worshipped. Why should he? There were men, like Henry, who could save a life that no other man could. There were women, like Olivia, who always put others first, who self-sacrificed because they knew that love and compassion were what made life worth living. In Francois' mind, men like Artois were the antithesis of those virtues; they were strong and aggressive, hardly qualities to boast about.

"Get down!" Artois said, running toward Francois. Seeing his older brother running toward him, full speed, Francois did the only sensible thing he could: he ducked. A hail of arrows flew over his head and Artois was there a moment later, holding a broad shield up and protecting Francois. "Retreat! Get back!" Artois screamed, and then he drew his sword and ran toward the river.

"What's happening?" Francois cried, but Raul was there a moment later, pulling Francois away. The trumpets of the crusade started blaring, and men took up the cry all over the camp.

"We're under attack! We're under attack!"

"Retreat! Fall back!"

"Move! Move!"

The crusaders infantry pulled back to its side of the river. Artois was in the center of the line, and the Europeans looked formidable, impenetrable. But across the river was a force of Ayyubids that dwarfed the Seventh Crusade, and they were formed densely; a wrecking ball of Egyptian blood, flesh, and steel. With a guttural cry, they charged across the river.

The trumpets blasted again, three long, mournful notes. It was the command for a general retreat. The infantry backed away from the river, and the rest of the camp backed up with them, pulling north.

"What about Artois?" Francois asked, carrying his sack and weapons. Raul's face was strained, he carried Artois' gear as well as his own, and he grimaced.

"Artois knows what he's doing."

The familiar sound of Artois' battle cry could be heard above all the other noises, and Francois knew his brother was plying his trade, again. He briefly remembered that Artois had saved his life, again, and he cursed the gods for their cruel sense of humor.

The same scene played over and over for the next two months. The Ayyubids, as soon as they received reinforcements from Cairo, rushed the crusaders. The crusaders, suffering from their long tenure in the desert, retreated every day. The Ayyubids pushed them farther north under the mastery of Shajar.

Shajar used tactics from the books of Caesar, Alexander, and Augustus to defeat the crusaders. He launched night attacks, employed decoys, ambushed supply lines, and made examples of captured crusaders. Some of his captives were crucified, others were castrated, and all were eventually killed. The horror of knowing what might happen to them took the heart of many crusaders, and they needed little encouragement to retreat back to the coast, back to Damietta.

Artois was the only soldier to fight every day. Whether the attack came in the darkest of night or in the fullness of daylight, he was there, standing in the center of the rearguard. His presence brought courage to scared men and fortitude to a crumbling expedition. His gallantry did not go unnoticed by the king and his generals, and Artois was made into a hero of the Seventh Crusade. Accolades were piled on him, until Francois thought he might drown under the sheer weight of them all.

Francois fought alongside his brother twice. The first time, Artois hardly took his eyes off Francois and he was, in turn, ineffective. The second time, Francois received a small cut to his chest, and Artois personally carried him to the medical tent. The other men started to complain of Francois' presence, and he decided to just stay with Henry and tend to the new batch of wounded warriors that came in each day. It was frustrating. He wanted to fight, to kill, and be recognized as Artois was, but it was just impossible. He couldn't hope to match Artois' skill in killing.

"You should love your brother," Henry said, one evening after one of Francois' rants.

"I do love him, but I hate what he is. Do you understand?"

"He saved your life, and your father's, more than once. He didn't choose to be a killing machine, but he is. Is he really so unbearable?"

"He is a moron!" Francois said, regretting the words immediately. "He saved my life, yes, and he is a great warrior. But he is not a man who can build, or imagine, or learn to love peace. If he was not my brother, I would fear him," Francois said. He had finally admitted to someone that Artois scared him, made him uncomfortable, unsure of the fragile, beautiful things that he thought were precious. What was a great poem or a delicate flower worth if it could be trampled under the boots of violent men?

"I will pray for you, Francois," Henry said, though he did not believe in God.

The cold desert wind blew the flap of their tent open, and three men stood there. Well, two stood while they supported the one in the middle. His face was young, no more than seventeen. Too young. He wasn't crying out or moaning in pain, although two arrows had pierced the left side of his body.

"Bring him in, lay him down!" Henry ordered, pulling an extra cot from the wall and setting it up. The soldiers laid the boy down.

"He snuck out there, ignoring his father's wishes," one of them said. "He is the son of a wealthy captain."

Henry and Francois made eye contact. Saving this boy's life could be profitable. They used a knife to cut his shirt off, and Francois broke the two arrows that were jutting out of him. His lips were bluish and his forehead damp, cool. He still had not made a sound. The two soldiers who brought him leaned close, eager to see what the doctors would do.

Henry pulled a flask of alcohol and let it trickle into the boy's mouth, and then he dumped half of it on the arrow wounds. He took a knife and carved around each arrow head, trying to ensure they left no pieces of wood inside the boy.

"If you leave even a small piece of wood or dirt, it can fester and cause an infection," he said.

"Are they using poisoned arrows?" Francois asked the soldiers. They shook their heads "no" in unison.

"Hold him down, Francois," Henry said. Francois sat on the boy's chest and pinned his arms, though there was no resistance. Henry twisted the arrow as he pulled it out, and it came free with a wet splash of blood. Henry did the same to the other arrow, but the boy was becoming paler; his fingertips were turning blue, too. Francois looked closely at the boy's neck. His windpipe was deviating to the side, and his upper chest muscles were contracting with each breath. Francois knew from his texts that those muscles were accessory, and were not normally used for respirations.

"His lung collapsed," Francois and Henry said at the same time. Francois pressed his ear to the boy's left lung. There were no breath sounds, though he couldn't be sure over the moans of other patients and the cries of battle outside.

"He's not getting air," Henry said to the confused-looking soldiers. He leaped up and opened his medical pack. He had a hollowed-out sliver of wood with a point on the end. The point had a tiny hole in it, and the other end was open. It looked like a reed from the marshes that had turned brown.

"I'll get one shot at this," Henry said. He felt the boy's ribs and found a large enough spot to stab him. Henry plunged the point of the wood deeply into the boy's lungs, and a whoosh of air came out. The boy coughed and gulped for air.

"Well done," Francois said. The two soldiers who brought the boy in were wide-eyed.

"We'll leave this in for an hour, and if he's okay, we'll try to extract it and patch the hole. He's lucky to be alive," Henry said. "I have to get my piercer back, though, it's the only one I have."

Francois couldn't resist speaking to the boy, "Why did you charge into battle? What were you thinking?"