mountain stream, which narrowed into a deep channel as it approached the town. As they neared the water, Yusuf dismounted, and John also slid from the saddle. They ran to where the water flowed under the wall. Yusuf was about to jump in when John grabbed his arm. ‘What if the passage under the wall is barred?’
‘Uwais!’ Yusuf called, and a mamluk ran forward. ‘Go!’ The mamluk plunged into the stream and disappeared under the water. John counted to a hundred; Uwais did not reappear. He glanced at Yusuf.
‘He must have made it,’ Yusuf said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’ Yusuf plunged into the water.
John took a deep breath and jumped in after him. His armour pulled him down in the cold water. The current was pushing him towards the wall. He could see Yusuf just ahead. Then John passed under the wall and everything went black. As the current pulled him along, he reached out and felt the slick side of an algae-covered stone tunnel. The next moment he slammed into something, knocking some of the precious air from his lungs. He reached out in the darkness and felt crisscrossed lengths of iron; a grate was blocking the tunnel. John’s hands moved along the grate until he came to a limp, unmoving form – Uwais, or Yusuf. Someone grabbed John and began to pull him back against the current. Suddenly a mamluk slammed into them both, knocking them on to the grate. Another mamluk piled into them, then another. John was growing short of air. He tried to scramble past the mamluks when he felt an elbow slam into his jaw, then a foot hit him in the stomach. In their panic to escape the tunnel, the men were only getting in each other’s way. More mamluks came down the tunnel, making matters worse. There was no going back.
Desperate, his lungs burning, John twisted around and pulled his dagger from his belt. He began to chisel frantically at the mortar that held the grate in place. He felt a small piece of mortar float loose, and redoubled his efforts. He could see spots floating before his eyes in the darkness now, and it was all he could do not to open his mouth and breathe in the water. A chunk of mortar came free. Then another mamluk slammed into John, pinning him to the grate and knocking his dagger from his hand. John felt for it in the darkness, but the dagger was lost. His temples were pounding, and he could hold his breath no more. He started to open his mouth. But then several more mamluks slammed into the mass of men and the grate gave way.
John tumbled through the black tunnel, pushed ahead by the current, then he saw daylight above him. He managed to crawl up the side of the channel and broke the surface, gasping for breath. He pulled himself from the water and lay on his back, his chest heaving and blood pounding in his ears. Yusuf’s face appeared over him.
‘This is not the time to rest, John.’ He held out a hand and pulled John to his feet.
‘You’re not even breathing hard,’ John gasped, his hands on his knees.
‘I’m used to holding my breath,’ Yusuf replied as he went to help pull another mamluk from the water.
John looked about him. The wall stretched away in either direction, with a twenty-foot space of hard-packed earth separating it from the houses of the town. A dozen mamluks had already dragged themselves from the river and were helping to pull out their comrades. John could hear the shouts of men fighting in the distance.
‘Follow me, men!’ Yusuf shouted.
John drew his sword and followed Yusuf as he ran up the steps to the top of the wall and then sprinted along it. They rounded a corner, and the city gate came into view. There was no sign of Turan, but outside the gate, Qaraqush and his men were still fighting. Inside, there were at least a hundred Franks, some standing on the wall and firing arrows, others massed behind the gate. They were focused on Qaraqush’s men beyond the wall.
‘ Allah! Allah! Allah!’ Yusuf cried as he neared the Christians.
Behind him, John heard the mamluks take up the cry. The Frankish defenders on the wall looked over in alarm. The nearest archer turned and fired, but the arrow flew high. Yusuf impaled the man with his sword and shoved him aside. The next defender had drawn his sword. He slashed at Yusuf, who ducked the blow and came up under it, slamming his shoulder into the man’s chest and knocking him off the wall. Further along the wall, the remaining defenders were grouping behind a wall of shields, blocking off the stairs that ran down to the gate.
‘We must open the gate!’ Yusuf cried and jumped from the wall, straight into the Frankish knights massed below. He landed on top of a knight, and both of them fell sprawling. As Yusuf plunged his sword into the fallen man’s chest, another knight behind Yusuf raised his blade to finish him.
‘Crazy bastard,’ John muttered and leapt from the wall. He landed on top of the knight behind Yusuf, tackling him. John rolled off the man, but before he could get to his feet, he saw a sword flashing down towards his head. It was stopped at the last second by Yusuf’s blade. John stabbed out, dropping the attacker. ‘God forgive me,’ John whispered, but he had no time to dwell on what he had done. He sprang to his feet and stood back to back with Yusuf as more Franks closed in. John parried and lashed out, fighting desperately to keep the men at bay. He glanced to the wall above, where the mamluks were blocked by the Franks. John saw one mamluk try to jump down, but the knights below were ready now. The mamluk landed on the point of a Frankish sword.
‘We’ve got to get to the gate!’ John shouted.
‘Right!’
Inch by inch, they made their way forward, fighting in perfect tandem, each blocking when the other was exposed. Finally, they reached the gate, pressing their backs against it. ‘What now?’ John asked. He dodged an axe blow, and the weapon embedded itself in the wood beside his head. John thrust his sword into the man’s chest, dropping him, but another knight took his place. His sword sneaked through and glanced off the chainmail on John’s side. Another knight slashed John’s leg, and he gritted his teeth in pain. ‘We can’t hold out much longer!’
‘We won’t have to,’ Yusuf shouted.
A loud cry of ‘ Allah! Allah! Allah!’ went up behind the knights, and a moment later Turan and his men slammed into the Franks, who turned away to face the new threat. John struck down the man before him and found himself with no one to fight.
Yusuf grabbed his arm. ‘Help me remove the bar!’ John nodded and put his shoulder to the heavy oak log that held the gate shut. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, he heaved. The two men barely managed to raise the bar out of its brackets, then dropped it on the ground with a thud. A second later, the gate ground inward as Qaraqush pushed his way in, followed by the rest of the mamluks. The Franks began to retreat. John stood aside as the mamluks flooded through the gate and pursued them down the main street of the town.
When all the mamluks had poured past, Yusuf walked over to John and clapped him on the back. ‘We did it!’
John looked about him at the men he had killed and shook his head. ‘The crusader’s oath I swore had three parts,’ he muttered. ‘I was to make pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to protect the people of the kingdom from the Saracens, and to aid my fellow Crusaders. I failed to reach Jerusalem, and now I have betrayed my oath twice over.’
Yusuf frowned. ‘I am sorry, John.’
‘It was them or you. I made my choice long ago.’ John wiped the blood from his sword. ‘The priests say those who die fighting the Saracens will go straight to heaven. Where shall I go when I die?’
Yusuf stood in the dusty central street of Banyas and watched as a dozen men with axes hacked at the beams of a wooden house and then pulled them loose. Nur ad-Din had sent the men, who would use the wood to build the first of the catapults necessary for besieging the citadel. John sat nearby, leaning against a wall in the shade as he rested his bandaged leg. The rest of Yusuf’s men had spread out through the town. Nur ad-Din had given them until midday to loot before the rest of the army entered. Yusuf looked to the sky. Their time was almost up.
Turan approached from a side alley, his face set in a grim line. ‘We have found little, Brother. The Christians left nothing of value when they fled.’
‘Then we shall have all the more riches when we take the castle,’ Yusuf replied.
A high-pitched cry, cut suddenly short, came from their right. It sounded like a child’s voice. ‘What was that?’ John asked, rising.
‘Sounds like the men have found something,’ Turan said.
John was already heading in that direction, his hand on his sword. Yusuf followed. They passed through an alley and out into another street. From a house across from them, Yusuf could hear a woman cursing in Frankish, and then the loud wailing of a child. John rushed to the house, and Yusuf followed.
In the centre of the home’s single room three mamluks were crouched over a red-haired Frankish woman.
