Galloglass Book One the Templar Page 20

  I took a mouth full of stew and chewed a moment. I did not realize how hungry I was. Roger tossed me another loaf of bread and as I tore it apart, I said, "We retreat east, back the way we came but instead of moving north we head south. You meet us below their camp. As soon as you drop us off, you head back out to sea and then make your way there so as to be ready when we come."

  Roger shook his head. "You realize it will be like kicking an ant hill. Mamluks will be running everywhere."

  "That is why I am only taking twenty-five men, most of them Turcopoles. They will be dressed as Mamluks. They speak Arabic. There should be mass confusion and into this I hope to slip away."

  De Flor tore into his bread while thinking. After a few moments, he asked, "How many Turcopoles did you bring with you from Acre?"

  "Nearly a full company, why?"

  "Have them all on board when we leave tonight. There is a small inlet perhaps a mile south from where we now sit. The road from here to Acre runs atop a slight rise that overlooks the inlet. The water there is deep enough for me to bring my galley nearly on shore. We use your bowmen to cover your retreat. There is nothing like a shower of arrows falling out of the dark to dampen a pursuit."

  I couldn't help laughing. It was a good plan. Our chances of success were not great, but the attempt had to be made. I finished my meal and then clapped Roger on his back as I stood. "I will be at your galley at midnight along with my men."

  "Where to now?" he asked.

  "My cell. I need sleep."

  He nodded as three of us made our way out of the hall. "Adolfo, Henri, to the barracks?"

  The Templar shook his head. "Chapel. I need to pray."

  Henri shook his head. "Time enough for that. I need sleep."

  "Two things then," I said to Adolfo. "Before you go, can you find de Vendac and let him know we are going tonight?"

  "Of course, but you said there were two things?"

  "When you go to the chapel, ask the Blessed Mother to pray for me. Maybe she will hear you. I seem to have run out of prayers."

  He flashed me a grin and nodded. "Certainly, but you need not have asked. I have been praying for you for some time, my friend, and so has our Blessed Mother."

  Adolfo left Henri and me there, standing outside the Templar hall contemplating his words while he made his way across the compound to the Chapel. I am not godless, though there have been times in my life when the Lord has been quite distant. This was one of those times, and it was comforting to know that there was someone in my life who could reach out and presume to touch the Hand of God even if I could not.

  Fourteen

  We went ashore later that night with little problem. What moonlight there might have been was obscured by clouds scudding across a purpled night sky. My men and I crossed the sands from the beach with no trouble. We formed into groups of five and then struck inland, traveling over a mile before we struck south. My Turcopoles were extraordinary scouts. They guided us to the rear of the Mamluk camp without incident. From there it was slow going.

  Mamluk sentries were spread out roughly fifty yards apart in two separate picket lines. Using a fold in the ground, we got close enough to slit the throat of one in the first line. We then were able to kill the next because of a low wall built to pasture goats from a nearby village. Using it to conceal our approach, we garroted the sentry and penetrated their perimeter. From there it was simply a matter of walking through their camp in ones and twos as unobtrusively as possible and making our way toward the siege engines.

  Once inside the Mamluk camp, the problem was how to gather together without arousing suspicion. There were twenty-five of us spread out over roughly two hundred yards and the longer we waited, the greater the chance became that we would be discovered. I had left my sword in Tripoli for fear it would give me away, but I still carried my hammer, tucked into my belt and hidden by a fold of cloth. Rather than waiting, I motioned to Adolfo and Thomas and then walked up to the edge of the fascines that protected the first trebuchet.

  A Mamluk spearman emerged from the shadows and told me to halt. I spread my hands and replied, "Al salam alikum."

  The guard relaxed and in that instant, Thomas appeared from behind, slipped a garrote over his head, and throttled him. I pulled my hammer loose and ran for the opening in the fascines that led to the trebuchet. Another Mamluk was just stepping through, calling for his companion, when I hit him in the forehead. He dropped like a felled ox at slaughter time, and I was past him and into the pit where the machine was operated. One of the slaves who was being used to arm the sling with rocks had just dropped his load and looked up when I appeared. He moved away quietly as one of the overseers, whose back was to me, screamed something at him and raised his whip. I hit the Mamluk with my hammer and his days of cruelty came to an abrupt end with his brains leaking out of his ears.

  In moments the pit was full of Turcopoles. We found olive oil in a keg near one of the nearby tents and doused the wooden base and the sling ropes of the machine. I made sure not to use all of the oil and sent the other men to the next trebuchet. Taking a torch from one of the holders in the pit, I lit the war machine in several spots, making sure the fire was well started before leaving.

  As the flames from my machine began to leap above the height of the fascines surrounding it, the first alarums began sounding. I could hear someone blaring on a trumpet and yelling in Arabic that Franks were in the camp. Another of the trebuchets blazed up, the heat of its fire making me step back.

  Beside me, Adolfo parried a spearman who lunged out of the dark. As the spearman drove his point forward, Adolfo, who had been standing with his sword pointing before him in the middle guard, rotated his hands and his hips to the right, deflecting the spear blade coming in. With little room to strike, he forced his blade down to cover the top of the spear shaft and then rotated his hips back to his left. The motion was short and very powerful. The spearman's momentum along with the whipping action of Adolfo's hips took his blade along the shaft and through the man's arms, just above the elbow. The Mamluk screeched and stumbled forward, to stare horrified at two stumps pumping blood. Raising them up in wonder, he collapsed to his knees and then toppled forward, dead.

  Moments later, more Mamluks appeared. I looked back to where the other war machines stood and realized they were not burning. Thomas sprinted up beside me gasping for breath and shaking his head. "Too many! There are too many guards. They have been alerted and are swarming up from their camp behind the machines!"

  We were out of time. Arrows were already fluttering out of the dark to land nearby as the flames from the two trebuchets grew higher. If we stayed, we would be slaughtered. I nodded and pointed to the south. "Go. Take what men are nearby. Open a path for us to the south."

  "Lord?" he asked.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. "Do it now, while there is still time. I will call those who are left to me. We will be right behind you."

  Adolfo pointed to the third trebuchet where a desperate struggle was now taking place. Several of my Turcopoles were down and five or six more were in the process of being surrounded and cut up. I pulled my dagger with my left hand and strode forward, my hammer swinging loosely in my right. Adolfo took up his place behind me and to my left, and we moved together into the fight.

  We hit the Mamluks at the same time. My hammer caught a man in the base of his skull and hurled him forward into the path of two others. Adolfo decapitated the first Mamluk who turned to him and continued on in one fluid motion moving from cut to guard to cut. Men literally fell away from him like wheat before a thresher.

  I turned a spear thrust with my hammer and then lunged inside the warrior's guard to drive my dagger into his throat. In seconds the fight was over. The Turcopoles who were left gathered up their injured comrades and followed us south away from the flames.

  The Mamluk camp was chaos as hundreds of men swarmed toward the flaming war machines. A Mamluk emir appeared out of the dark and demanded to know what we were doi
ng. Thomas stepped forward and answered that we were taking the wounded to the infirmary. The emir was uncertain, yet it was dark and we were dressed as Mamluks. More of his guard floated out of the dark, and I was certain things were about to take a very bad turn.

  "Brothers, the confusion has turned thy heads and sent thee in the wrong direction." He pointed to the east. "The hospital is over there, God be praised."

  "Allah be Praised, thou art right. The direction of the infidel attack has us turned around," responded Thomas.

  The emir nodded and watched as the Turcopoles quickly shifted and made off in the direction indicated. As Adolfo began to turn into the shadows as well, the Mamluk stepped forward and placed his hand on Adolfo's arm. "Who is your hundred commander? I do not know thee?"

  Adolfo did not understand the emir's words but his meaning was clear. Smiling he turned into the Mamluk commander, grabbing him by the throat as he did so. The emir's eyes bulged as Adolfo punched his dagger into the Mamluk's chest, twice in rapid succession.

  The emir's guard hollered in outrage as their commander died before their eyes. I caught a sword blade with my hammer as it descended toward Adolfo's head and turned it away. Adolfo, still holding the body of the emir upright, shoved him backward into an oncoming Mamluk's path. The man tripped and stumbled forward only to be impaled as the Templar pulled his sword and thrust it through his mid section. It was then that I truly appreciated Adolfo's ability with weapons. Like me, he had left his greatsword in the barracks and armed himself as a Mamluk to complete his disguise. Using sword and dagger, he now launched himself at the Mamluks who were appearing out of the dark like moths to a flame.

  The guard I was fighting spun away from me to get distance and launched a horizontal cut at my stomach meant to cut me in two. I leapt back, but his blade tip scoured across my mail hauberk. Fortunately, the links held, but the blow was enough to drive the wind from me. I staggered back as the Mamluk pressed onward. I caught an overhand blow on my hammer and turned it once again while sliding my left foot forward. Desperate, I shouldered into him and daggered him under the chin as he tried to separate himself.

  Adolfo had taken on two more guards and killed them both with ruthless efficiency. The rest fled back into the dark allowing us to escape. We found Thomas several hundred yards south of the camp in the dunes that led to our rally point. Of the twenty-five men I had taken into the camp, only five had managed to make their way to here.

  "Come, we cannot stay," I said. "De Flor will be waiting and the Mamluks will have mounted patrols searching the area. Thomas, take us out of here."

  The Turcopole grinned and then slipped away with us following single file. The jingle of harnesses forced us to ground twice more, but God was with us as what little moon there was became obscured by clouds racing out of the west. De Flor was as good as his word. He and Henri were waiting with a boat on the beach at the appointed hour. Two other boats full of Turcopoles covered our escape with their bows. We slipped away as the Mamluks who had caught our trail appeared out of the dark and rode down onto the beach. I laughed at the frustrated cries of our pursuers as we pulled away through the surf. Moments later we were aboard de Flor's galley and were within the walls of Tripoli before the sun rose.

  Fifteen

  I was in the Templar chapel, reciting the Angelus and giving thanks for my survival, when Marshal de Vendac found me. He touched my shoulder as I knelt and motioned me up. "Come, you need to see this."

  I followed him to the top of the tower near the main gate. As the sun slid over the mountains to the east, its orange rays inched their way across the coastal plain before the city to reveal a row of ten crosses just beyond the frames of the Mamluk trebuchets. On them were the crucified forms of my captured Tucopoles, writhing in agony.

  "God forgive me," I said. As a soldier, I understood that I was responsible for the lives of the men in my command. Yet no one can be prepared to see those same men displayed before him in one of the cruelest forms of torture imaginable.

  "What happened?" asked de Vendac.

  "We were forced to retreat before all of their war machines could be destroyed. The alarum had sounded. Mamluks were pouring through their camp, drawn by the flames. We retreated through the confusion to a point outside their camp. I waited there for a short while and when no one showed, I took those who were there with me to the boat. Had I waited longer, I was sure we would have all been captured."

  "That is what Sergeant Thomas and Brother de Bergamo told me as well. There is nothing for God to forgive. Yours is not the hand that hung those men upon a cross."

  "There are those among us who will not be as forgiving, lord."

  "And they are not in command. I wanted you to see this so that you understand the nature of our foe. They are every bit as cruel and fanatical as we are. In this struggle there will be no quarter. Had you any doubts, the vision of those men should dispel them."

  I left the wall and returned to my quarters. Exhausted, I slept but was troubled by dreams of blood and fire. Some hours later, after a quick meal in the commandery's kitchen, I returned to the wall. The trebuchets that were not destroyed had once again begun their incessant bombardment. The Mamluks were now concentrating their fire on the two largest towers of the city's defenses. Heavy rocks pummeled both the Tower of the Bishop and the Tower of the Hospitallers so that they began to crumble before our eyes.

  Two days after our raid on the Mamluk war machines, the top floor of the Tower of the Bishop collapsed, killing a dozen defenders. Worse, the foundation cracked. Templar and Hospitaller engineers shored it up, but all agreed it was simply a matter of time before the rest of it came down. The Tower of the Hospitallers was not in much better shape. To make matters worse, the Mamluks had filled in a section of the dry moat and brought up a sow, or roofed wooden shed, on wheels. Within the shed was a ram. In addition to the rain of projectiles from the trebuchets, the constant pounding of the ram quickly took its toll.

  Three days later, I was in the training yard in the Templar compound watching some of our brothers working at weapons practice. Nearby, the service at Sext had just been completed in the chapel when the alarum on the Tower Gate began to sound. The alarum was to be sounded only if there was a general assault or some other type of danger that would require all hands on the wall.

  I hurried to the armory and gathered up my gambeson, hauberk, and helm along with my hammer and shield. My sword and dagger were always with me, however, I left my chausses, figuring they would only slow me down. As l was leaving, I noticed a heavy bladed war spear in a rack and on impulse picked it up as well. The other knights and sergeants not on duty were arming themselves as well.

  De Gaudin was waiting in the yard with several sergeant brothers and a number of my Turcopoles as I emerged from the armory. There were no other Templar officers near, so I was forced to approach him. "Brother, do you know what is happening?"

  For once the bastard had no smart come back or condescending remark. In fact, he was all business. "The Mamluks have forced a breach in the Tower of the Hospitallers. As we speak, Marshal de Clermont and the Hospital are holding on, but we must hurry or they will be overwhelmed!"

  "Then we should go. The rest can follow as they can. Have you sent anyone to inform the Prince?"

  "I sent messengers to both Prince Amalric and Captain de Grailly to bring what they can."

  "Good, they should be able to bring more than we have here. They were rotated off the wall yesterday." I pulled on my gauntlets and asked, "Marshal de Vendac? Is he on the wall?"

  De Gaudin shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. He was not at Mass." I wondered at that but said nothing as the commander led the way out of our compound. By then there were over thirty of us, mostly sergeants and Turcopoles. Besides the commander and myself, there were only two other knights. The rest were on the walls, dead, or in the infirmary. Both Adolfo and Henri were already on the wall as well. I caught sight of Rolf hobbling out of the infirmary as were several oth
er of the walking wounded. He waved me on, and I did not wait. We hurried out of the commandery at a trot and quickly worked our way through the streets from the harbor area to the wall.

  Thankfully we arrived in the midst of a lull in the fighting. Both sides had stepped back to lick their wounds and catch their collective breaths. The Tower of the Hospitallers was shattered and had collapsed upon itself, killing most of the men inside. A mound of stones and debris twice the height of a man had spilled out into the street and was covered in corpses. The wall itself, where the tower had stood, was rent with a gap wide enough to ride a horse through. Motes of dust swirled in the sunlight that lanced through the opening of the wall. On top of the mound, shields interlocked in a wall of flesh, stood those Hospitallers and Templars who had held the breach for the last hour and survived. Beyond them I could hear a mullah inciting the Faithful with a renewed sense of urgency as he recited verses from the Al Fath, The Surah of Conquest. In response I heard a voice, calm and crystal clear, call out, "Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritu Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et simper, et sacculorum. Amen!"

  Marshal de Claremont stumbled down the mound to greet us as we arrived. "MacAlasdair, are there no others coming?"

  I pointed at de Gaudin and said, "The Commander sent word to Prince Amalric and Captain de Grailley before leading us here. Hopefully they are already on their way."

  On the other side of the wall, I heard an imam cry Allah Akkbar, thrice. I pulled my coif over my arming cap and tied it off, opting not to wear my helm. "No time to talk. The Mamluks are upon us!" I waved the men with me forward, not waiting for de Gaudin, and scrambled up the mound in time to hear the impact of shields slamming together and the crunch of bones giving way to hammers, axes, and swords.