Storms of Retribution Read online

  “So, what have you seen?” he demanded. He leaned over the parapet and peered eastwards.

  “Yonder, Lord.” Gandar, an old retainer and warrior of Raynald’s, pointed south towards a low dust cloud.

  “Someone had sharp eyes,” Raynald commented through a full mouth, and he tossed the remains of the fowl over the edge of the walls. He could just make out a cloud of dust quite some distance away, but little else in the shimmering heat of the day. Although it was late autumn, the heat remained in this region until well into November.

  “It’s quite a large caravan from what we can make of it, Lord,” Gandar told him, shading his eyes from the glare.

  Raynald nodded. The dust cloud attested to a sizable caravan making its way along the road, more of a well-worn track, two leagues to the east of his castle. He stared ruminatively at the dust, then smacked his hand down on the wall.

  “Tell the men to get mounted up,” he said. “We are taking them.”

  The men let out whoops of glee and rushed off to see to their mounts. He himself sauntered down to the courtyard and joined them at his leisure. The caravan would be the usual lumbering camel train and could not run away from his fast horses.

  When all were ready he lead his eager horsemen out of the castle gates at a trot.

  The people in the caravan were not prepared for an attack. The truce that had been agreed between the Christian Count Raymond de Tripoli and the Lord Sultan Salah Ed Din in 1185 was still in effect. A few soldiers walked or rode alongside the long train of camels to defend them from skirmishes with the Bedouin, who respected no one and certainly not truces. With the Christians, however, the merchants assumed they would abide by the terms and allow them free passage unharmed across the Oultrejordan.

  They were tragically mistaken. When the Egyptian guards noticed horsemen galloping towards the caravan they did not immediately take alarm. Only when they saw the raised weapons and the hard faces did they sound a belated warning. There was immediate panic. The warning, however, came far too late, and the armed footmen could do little but form a protective line facing the danger, knowing full well how inadequate would be their defense. They screamed invectives at their cowardly mounted companions who wheeled their horses and fled the scene leaving their own cloud of dust behind.

  Raynald and his men, seeing how thinly manned the caravan was, fanned out to engage them in a line abreast and charged full on into the Egyptian soldiers, running them down. The screaming and terrified foot soldiers could do little against the ferocious attack of the horsemen, who roared jubilant battle cries as they thrust their spears into the luckless men. The horsemen then drew their swords and went after those who had survived the charge, cutting them down without mercy. In the dust and turmoil of the initial attack some of the Egyptians even knelt on the ground, begging for mercy.

  “No quarter!” shouted Raynald. “Kill the armed men! We’ll take the rest prisoner for slaves.”

  His men obliged him, dismounting and striding up to their victims, then either beheading them or running them through with their swords. The screams and groans of those wounded but still alive filled the dust-laden air, along with the shouts of glee as Raynald’s men saw what a huge prize they had won.

  Raynald, intoxicated by the stench of fear and blood, rode up to the terrified merchants, who fell to their knees along with the drovers. He was filled with the bloodlust now and chopped at the outstretched arms of a merchant in expensive clothing who had had the temerity to beg for mercy. The man fell back with a scream, clutching at the stump of his severed arm. Raynald laughed as he tried to estimate his gain. This was a rich haul indeed!

  There must have been nearly fifty camels, all heavily laden with goods, but something else had caught his eye. There were women in the very center of the caravan, perched on several of the camels which were still held by terrified and cowering drovers, who did their best to calm the frightened creatures and prevent them from tipping their human cargoes into the sand. The women’s screams became shrieks of terror and outrage when Raynald signaled his men to haul them off the camels.

  The rapine began. Amid the wreckage of the skirmish, with a pall of dust hanging over all, with the dead lying everywhere and the prisoners looking on in horror, the men of Kerak took the women, oblivious to their wails and pleading. Raynald was sitting on his horse, laughing, when two of his men brought a heavily veiled figure towards him that struggled and fought against them.

  One slapped the struggling figure across the face, which loosened her veil; the soldier tore the rest of the expensive cloth away. As it fell, Raynald could see that they were holding a woman of exceptional beauty. Slight and of olive complexion, she was about twenty-four years of age. The two men stopped in front of Raynald, and one said, “Found her on one of the camels near the center of the caravan, Lord. Could be important. She was attended by some servants. We killed them, and here she is!” He gave a raucous laugh. The men were clearly excited by their find and the prospect of a great ransom, but Raynald grunted and dismounted, his eyes fixed on the woman before him.

  “I’ll take her. She’s mine.”

  “But—” the man didn’t get to continue. Raynald back-handed him with a mailed fist across the face. With a startled shout the man staggered back, spitting out a tooth and wiping blood off his dirty beard. He released his hold on the woman and instinctively reached for his sword. The woman began to thrash at the other man with her free arm but could not break free. She let out a whimper, not of fear but of outrage.

  “I said she’s mine!” Raynald bellowed. Although his eyes were locked onto the struggling woman, he still held his bloody sword ready. He seized her by the other arm. “Get hold of some of the others. There are plenty to go around. Go!”

  The men slunk off without a word to join their celebrating comrades, and the plundering continued.

  Raynald dragged the struggling, screaming woman towards some low bushes, leaving his men and his horse behind. There was only one witness who was not captured nor badly wounded, who made his escape into the desert. He would take the dread tale north to Damascus, arriving at the palace of the Sultan, Lord Salah Ed Din, two weeks later.

  _____________

  Chapter 1

  The Messenger

  The messenger runs, not carrying the news of victory, or defeat; the messenger, unresting, has always been running, the wind before and behind him,

  across the turning back of earth.

  —Eleanor Wilner

  On the island of Cyprus, on a bright spring afternoon that was warm and almost cloudless, three young men were diving in the deep waters of the harbor entrance, looking for octopods to tease. While they were diving, splashing and shouting exuberantly to one another, they were being observed by the villagers working with the day’s catch on the piers. Several young women were also watching their activities with interest. Their eyes took in the bronzed lithe bodies of the youths who themselves, aware of being observed, fooled about, showing off their swimming prowess to the giggling maidens. It was not often that the youths from the castle came to the harbor to enjoy the water.

  Rostam was thoroughly engrossed with one octopus in the deep water, which had managed to squeeze itself into a small fissure and would not be persuaded to come out for any reason. The boy dived repeatedly, trying to coax the shy creature out from its lair. Finally, running out of air and patience, he released the morsel of sardine he had been tempting it with and kicked himself back up through the crystal clear water to join his waiting companions, leaving a trail of air bubbles behind him.

  The moment Rostam left for the surface the creature detached itself from its refuge, seized the piece of fish, then jetted itself further along the rocky bottom. It insinuated itself into the depths of another crevasse, where it assumed the mottled color of the rocks around it, rendering it almost invisible to the casual searcher.

  Rostam swam towards the two boys perched half-naked on the rocks on the east side of the channel. It was
one of those rare times when Rostam and his older companion Junayd had been allowed to do what they wanted instead of training under the sharp eye of Rostam’s uncle, Reza. Andreas, a younger Greek boy from the village was exclaiming and pointing towards the distant castle perched high on the mountains to the south.

  “What is happening?” Rostam asked, taking deep breaths as he clambered over slippery rocks, then out of the water to join them. The former calm of the harbor front changed abruptly, replaced by a great deal of activity as men poured out of the small barracks and the eating houses and began to run towards a galley that was moored against the quayside some fifty paces away.

  “There is a signal from the castle, Rostam. They must have noticed a ship coming this way.”

  Rostam glanced quickly towards the castle and noticed the trail of smoke left by one of the signal rockets that his father used to alert the harbor folk to possible danger from marauders, or any strange vessel. He felt a rush of excitement.

  “Come on, we’ve got to get to the ship before Captain Guy leaves us behind!” he exclaimed.

  The boys seized their clothes, bows and other weapons, then leapt from rock to rock to the stone quayside and ran pell-mell to join the sailors who were themselves rushing to join their ship. Captain Guy was short with anyone who dallied. They ignored the villagers, who had their own concerns. There were very few to be seen, now that the alarm had sounded.

  “Ah, there you are, Rostam,” Captain Guy shouted as he caught sight of the boys racing towards him. “Hurry or I’ll leave you behind!”

  His men were already casting off, and the rowers were standing ready at the oars, while others began to push the boat away from the quayside with long poles.

  “You can’t leave me behind, Captain Guy, I am your navigator!” Rostam laughed at his nautical mentor.

  “Humph! I am sure I am not too old to steer a ship out of this harbor without your help, you young whelp!” the captain called back affectionately.

  “Can I come with you?” Andreas panted, as they raced towards the ship. He was younger than even Rostam, but he was almost as tall and was very strong. Junayd called back, “Only if Captain Guy says yes.”

  Guy, a huge, burly man with a shaggy greying beard, grinned; the young men were eager as hounds to get to some kind of action. It had been quiet for months now. “Get on board! You too, Andreas, but don’t get underfoot or I’ll throw you back into the sea!”

  Andreas laughed excitedly. This was the first time he had been allowed to join Rostam and Junayd on such an adventure. The youths tossed their clothes and other weapons onto the moving deck, but held onto their bows as they leapt with athletic agility onto the galley to land easily on the deck.

  “Best arm yourselves, just in case. We don’t know who it is,” Guy called down from the afterdeck as the youths collected their battle gear and ran below. Guy turned his attention back to his ship and the maneuvers necessary to sail the sleek galley out to intercept the visitors. Listening to the bellowed orders on the deck above, Rostam and Junayd hurriedly donned mailed shirts and leather trews.

  “Here, wear this!” Rostam thrust a breast plate and a thick leather jerkin at Andreas.“You’ll need your bow. Come on!”

  Not wanting to miss anything, they grabbed their bows, quivers and swords, then piled back into the busy waist of the galley to rush up the steps and join Guy on the steering deck. There was indeed a visitor, in the form of a large ship about three leagues northeast of their port. Guy watched the vessel with close attention as it came towards them.

  “Rostam, Junayd, you two go forward and make sure those idiots don’t do anything stupid with the Scorpions,” he ordered. “Andreas, you stay here with me.” He was referring to the two enormous bow-like devices that Lord Talon and his close companion Lord Reza had installed in their ships. While the weapons had proven to be lethal against enemies, not many of the men who served Talon knew how to use them, nor had the nerve to do so.

  Leaving Andreas hopping about with excitement on the steering deck under Guy’s care, Rostam and Junayd ran forward, dodging the busy crew members and other obstructions. Within minutes they had not only assumed command of the two frightening weapons but had readied them for an encounter. Rostam called over to the men hovering around.

  “We need some oiled coverings, hurry! The sea is sending spray all over us.” He worried that the Chinese powder, compacted into a tube along with its fuse, might get damp. The men hurried off, glad to be away from these menacing weapons that they knew little about.

  The two eager youths peered forward. They could now see the intruder was a cumbersome ship of the Latin kind.

  “I don’t know how those things stay afloat, let alone sail anywhere,” Junayd said in a disparaging tone. Their own sleek galley cut through the water like a knife. The Latin vessel, under all sail, lumbered directly towards their own ship. It dipped and rolled in the comparatively calm seas whereas the sleek galley rolled only slightly by comparison. The strange vessel was apparently on a course towards their harbor, but that would not be unless Captain Guy allowed it passage.

  Within a very short space of time the other ship was close enough to hail. It shortened sail to bring it closer and Captain Guy called over, “What ship, and what is your business?”

  “We sail with the seal of Count Raymond of Tripoli! Who are you and why are you in our way?”

  “You must present proof before I allow you passage to our harbor. Orders of Lord Talon de Gilles!” Guy roared back.

  Rostam and Junayd could observe the ensuing conference on at the afterdeck of the other ship. Several men in chain mail and wearing dark cloaks stared back at them.

  “I wonder who they are?” Junayd said.

  “They look very like Christian soldiers. See, some of them bear the Christian cross on their tunics,” Rostam observed. “However, I am not taking any chances. They are all armed to the teeth and helmeted. Make sure your bow is ready.”

  “I am sure I could take down any one of them at this range, especially that big fellow,” Junayd remarked, indicating a very large blonde haired man standing amongst the others on the strange deck, as he reached for his weapon. The intruding ship was now only about a hundred paces away, rising and falling in the waters. They had lowered their mainsail.

  “I want proof as to who you are!” Captain Guy called out again. He cut an imposing figure, braced comfortably on the deck, rocking with the movement of his ship. A soldier who had an air of command about him stepped over to the rail of the other ship. He took off his helmet to show greying hair that was bound at the back of his head.

  “I am Sir Matthew D’Aix; I am a vassal of the Count Raymond of Tripoli. I bear letters for Lord Talon de Gilles.” He waved what looked like a roll of parchment in the air. “It is urgent and imperative that I speak to Lord Talon,” the knight shouted.

  Guy, who appeared to be pondering the words, glanced along the deck to where Rostam was standing. Finally he nodded assent, but then he called over. “Take up station in front of us. Anchor in the middle of the harbor; I shall be watching,” he warned.

  Rostam grinned. Guy knew what one of the Scorpions in the bows could do. One false move and Rostam would be ordered to light the fuse and release the spear that would inflict a mortal wound on the other ship.

  They turned about while the other ship began the two-league passage towards the harbor. The men on the other vessel took Captain Guy at his word and sailed their cumbersome ship directly towards the harbor. There was no sign of any threatening behavior on their decks, but the men on Guy’s ship stayed alert. This was a well-practiced operation for them.

  Within an hour the visiting ship was anchored in the calm waters of the harbor and its passengers were standing on the stonework of the quayside. Captain Guy took Rostam, Junayd and Andreas along with him to halt in front of the small group of newcomers. They looked askance at him and his three attendees, as though they had expected a more elaborate reception.

  R
ostam, lithe and dark from hours in the sun, and his very Arab-looking companion Junayd, were not exactly the kind of people they had expected to greet them. However, Captain Guy was, so it was to him that the leader addressed himself. He was a large, well-built man, clearly a warrior, but no longer young. The scars and lines on his weathered face were indicators of time long spent in the sun and dust of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. His chain hood was settled around his shoulders and he did not wear his helmet, although the two men accompanying him did so. The coat of arms sewn onto his tunic just above the red cross was unfamiliar to Rostam, even though his father and his father’s old friend and retainer, Max, had schooled him in the elements of heraldry. It resembled a crude image of a mounted knight holding up a banner.

  The knight in question still held the parchment in his mailed hand. It was clear that this was a well secured missive, with a red wax seal and ribbons tying the roll together.

  “I am Sir Matthew. To whom am I talking?” he asked in a gruff tone, although he was civil enough.

  Guy stepped forward. “Captain Guy, and this”—he gestured for Rostam to come forward—“is Lord Rostam de Gilles. The son of Lord Talon.”

  Sir Matthew gave Rostam a surprised look, followed by a more penetrating stare from his blue eyes. He saw before him a youth of about sixteen who stood straight and tall, wearing a fine-linked chain hauberk that had seen better days. The youth was burnt dark brown but had light-colored hair, bleached by sun and salt, and in disarray from his swimming. The youth stared back directly, without any indication of apprehension, with curious hazel eyes.

  Sir Matthew gave a perfunctory bow and asked, “Sir, is your father here that I might discharge my duty and give him a message from the Count of Tripoli?”

  Rostam half turned and pointed to the distant castle perched high on the top of the mountain behind them. “I shall take you to him, Sir,” he said in slightly accented French. “We can provide horses for you and your men.”