Plague of Angels (31 page)

Jibril ran forward and grabbed one of the hooks. His men immediately surrounded him, making a wall of shields to protect Jibril while he readied his throw. The hooks were heavy and attached to chains that ran ten feet from the hook to a thick, sturdy rope. He waited as the next volley of arrows rained down over all of them, then stood and swung the hook hard and fast, whipping it out and snagging the side of the tower. He pulled it tight in a second, then ran down the wall, stretching the rope tight and screaming, “Pull! For the love of God and Jerusalem! Pull!!!”

A dozen men, then two dozen, grabbed the rope, heedless of the arrows coming down, and began pulling. On the tower, the infidels hacked desperately at the chain with axes, but the defenders rained their own arrows back, and threw vessel after flaming vessel at the side of the tower, keeping the defenders back and lighting the hides that covered the outside of the tall tower.

More men joined on the rope, heaving it as hard as they could. Some died as arrows from below pierced their bodies or skulls, leaving the wall beneath them a slippery, bloody mess. More of the defenders grabbed the rope, pulling ever harder.

Below, the tower began to creak and tip.

Above, floating silently in the clouds, invisible to the mortal eyes below, Nyx looked down on the chaos and carnage below, and frowned.

“Well, this isn’t going well,” said Ishtar.

Nyx’s eyes flashed red and she glared at Ishtar. Ishtar smiled back, knowing that her mistress was going to be far too busy to deal out punishments – for the near future, anyway.

“Fools, the pair of them,” said Persephone, looking at the battle.

“Which pair?” asked Ishtar. “For I see many fools below.”

“Their commanders!” Nyx was seething. “They could have been inside by now!”

“Then you will have to punish them for their failures,” said Ishtar, and in her voice was a lustful, greedy desire. She looked at Nyx. “And when will you do that? I, for one, am getting very bored, just floating here in the clouds.”

“Soon,” hissed Nyx. “Very, very soon.”

“Goddammit!” screamed Simon, watching from below as one of the front wheel of the tower dug ever-deeper into the sand. “Get off of there! Get everyone off!”

Another vessel of oil hit the ground and split, sending fire everywhere and splattering the armor on Simon’s house. The animal screamed and reared, and Simon had to fight to hold his seat, sawing the reins hard to try to regain control. He could feel something ripping in his shoulder, and had to crush his teeth hard together to keep from yelling in agony.

Above, the first of the tower’s support beams split.

Simon pulled harder on the reins, forcing his horse to turn. He dug his spurs into the beast side hard enough to draw blood, and galloped away, knocking soldiers aside as behind him the tower began to topple.

For the men inside at the top, there was no hope, only agony as the tower raced toward the ground, crushing bones and ripping open flesh. For the men below, death was just as fast, and just as painful. Broken timbers pierced bodies, cutting some men in two and impaling others so they remained, stuck in place, blood and guts exploding from their bodies as the timbers rammed through them. Around them, dozens of others died as bodies, weapons, timber and fire fell on them from above. The soldiers’ last hope of victory fell away and they scrambled desperately away from the wall, any hope of an orderly retreat lost as they tried to escape the slaughter around the tower.

“
Allahu Akbar!
” shouted Jibril, watching the infidels running away from the wall. Men around him echoed the cry until it was taken up the entire length of the wall. Below in the streets he could hear shouts of victory and joy. Jibril grinned. The men on the wall started dancing and cheering. Jabril gave them a few moments of victory, then shouted out, “Back to your places! Back to your posts! Everybody!”

The men, still jubilant, did as they were told.

“Listen closely!” shouted Jibril, his voice spreading down the length of the wall. “And tell the others! This is a victory, but this is not the end! The enemy may return again, and we will not have them overrun us while we are celebrating! Man your posts and stay until relief is sent! We will send food and drink and tend to the wounded! I will go to the governor, and let him know that today, his people did their city proud!”

The men around the wall cheered, and thousands of other throats took up the cry. The battle was won, and while victory was not complete, surely it was only a matter of time before the infidels were destroyed.

“Now,” said Nyx.

Simon Benart and Albert de Giroie stood beside their horses with two hundred other knights, watching as their commanders raged at one another. Beyond them, they could see the remnants of the army stumbling away from the walls, harassed by defenders’ arrows and loads of small stones and pottery shard flung by the Saracen’s catapults.

A thousand men,
thought Simon.
We’ve lost a thousand men today.
He looked at the two commanders, fighting about whose fault it was.
Stupid bastards.

“I told you!” screamed Godfrey of Bouillon. “I told you we would fail! I told you it was a fool’s plan!”

“It was not a fool’s plan!” screamed back Robert Curthose. “You were the fool! Your men drove the tower right into the ditch! Your men lost us this battle!”

“Your men were already running like the cowardly dogs they are!” shouted Godfrey. “Your tower was in flames!”

Above, there was a noise. Faint and high-pitched, a whistling sound. Simon glanced up, but could see nothing.

“You dog!” screamed Robert. “You stinking lump of pig shit! You dare blame me for this? We could have taken the walls today and you blame me for your failure?”

“I blame you for all our failures!” screamed Godfrey back. “Every loss we have suffered has been the result of your stupidity! Every time our army has suffered, it has been from your decisions!”

The noise was louder now, and this time Simon recognized it. It was the rush of wind past the wings of a hawk, stooping down on its prey. Simon had heard it once before, when one of his falcons had struck a pigeon near the wall Simon had been standing on. There had been a rush of air and a flash of color that went by so quick, Simon barely had time to register the noise before the falcon had slammed into the pigeon and spiraled down to the earth in a tangle of blood and feathers. He had never forgotten the sight or sound.

He looked up, and saw them. Three of them.

“Albert,” he elbowed the man beside him, and pointed up.

Albert looked, then gasped.

They were bigger than hawks, bigger than eagles, and they were coming down faster than any bird Simon had ever seen. “Dear God.”

Down, down they came, straight down from the heavens, streaks of silver and white and black, moving faster than any creature Simon had ever seen. Albert swore and crossed himself, and around them the other nobles and knights turned their eyes upward, away from their screaming commanders, to the blurs in the sky that dove down toward them. Instinctively they stepped back, clearing a wider and wider space around the commanders.

They are women,
thought Simon.
Women with wings.

Dear God, they are Angels.

When the three hit the ground, the earth around them exploded. The force of the blast made the earth shake for a half-mile around them. The cloud of sand that blew up around them blinded everyone, and the wind burst around them with a force that blew every knight and noble to the ground.

When the dust cleared, they saw them for the first time. White flesh, smooth and naked and perfect; enough to raise the lust of every man in the circle. White hair that flowed down their bodies. Silver eyes with serpent pupils, unblinking even in the dust. Black feathered wings that spread twenty feet wide behind them.

“Are they Angels?” gasped Albert. “Are they from God?”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

“What do we have here?” said Nyx, her voice quiet and intimate and reaching every man of the crusader army.

“Failure,” said Persephone, looking at the two commanders who lay, stunned at their feet. Her voice, though it was no louder than Nyx’s, travelled just as far. “Failure of a most holy mission.”

Robert Curthose and Godfrey of Bouillon dragged themselves to their feet, eyes still glazed and ears ringing from the force of the angels’ landing.

“Unacceptable,” said Nyx. “Ishtar, if you please.”

Ishtar vanished in a streak of wings and white flesh. Soldiers flung themselves to earth as she whipped past overhead. On the walls of Jerusalem there were cries of shock and horror as she cut through the air by the wall. Wood cracked, and the air hissed and split, and then the earth shook again and dust clouds spewed across the land as she as she landed before Nyx. In each arm she held a twenty-foot long length of burnt, jagged wood. She looked at the two commanders and smiled. Then, with a fierce motion, drove both pieces of wood five feet into the hard-packed earth.

“You,” said Nyx, advancing on Robert. “You chose the wrong tactic. You let the enemies of Christ defeat you.”