Storms of Retribution

by James Boschert

  He himself felt some trepidation as he raised his arm and dropped it to signal the crews. All eyes were on the first mangonel, which jumped as the arm swung viciously upwards to thump noisily into its stop bar. For a terrible moment Talon thought the rock was coming straight at him, and everyone on the battlements instinctively ducked or lurched to the side. But the stone arced overhead with a soft whistle and with good clearance to plunge down into the sea to the left of the causeway, about half way along its length. A small column of water rose where it had landed. There were noisy cheers and some cheerful jeers from the observing idlers.

  “We have to practice, but that was a good start,” Talon remarked to Yosef, who was standing nearby. He gave instructions for the crews to fine tune the mangonels so that they could drop large rocks onto the surface of the causeway almost every time. A grizzled old Italian who had once been a soldier was put in charge and clearly enjoyed the role. Before long, the mangonels were as accurate as they were ever likely to be.

  This activity was not lost on the Arab army. They responded with shots fired from their remaining trebuchets, now safely out of range of any further forays by the Christians, but their effectiveness against the walls was much reduced. More often than not, the rocks that they hurled at the city fell into the sea, merely wetting the jeering defenders on the battlements.

  Greek Fire would be a huge deterrent to the average warrior running along the exposed causeway, so Talon asked the Italians to investigate supplies, and if none was to be found, to try to make something like it. He was gratified to hear that there was a warehouse almost full of barrels of the viscous, sticky material. He promptly put a party of men to work preparing medium-sized earthenware jars, with a couple of knowledgeable merchants to direct the process.

  “Why do we not try one out, Lord?” an impatient Italian demanded.

  “Surprise,” was Talon’s curt answer. “Be patient. They will draw close again before too long. Then we will use it.”

  He was not wrong. One morning a couple of days later, he and his now cleaner crew were preparing for shield wall practice when they heard shouts. They hurriedly donned hauberks and helmets, seized weapons, shields and bows, then rushed as fast as they could for the battlements, leaving Talon to limp along with the help of Brandt. Once there he found the Count already at the ramparts with his lieutenants.

  “Ah, Lord Talon!” he called out with a cheerful wave of his arm. “Now we have a chance to see how effective the mangonels will be.”

  “What is going on, Lord?” Talon asked, as he glanced down at the feverishly working crews of the catapults.

  “Your Sultan friend has grown tired of staring at us and has sent a large force. It is already nearing the causeway,” the Count responded. He was clearly eager for a fight and strode ahead of the limping Talon towards the parapet nearest the gates. Hurrying as fast as he could despite the ache in his leg, Talon caught up with the Count. He was relieved to note that the crews of the mangonels seemed ready and that Giovanni, the old crew master, was coming up the stairs.

  “God’s Blessings, my Lords,” he called up.

  “Gods Blessings, Giovanni. Your men are ready?” Talon responded.

  “Oh yes, Lord,” the old man called back with some pride. “Whenever you say the word.”

  “Very well. Have the Greek fire made ready. I want to use it today.”

  Giovanni beamed. “Yes, my Lord. It is prepared.”

  “Good,” Talon nodded and turned his attention back to the ramparts. His two archers were standing at the ready with their bows strung. They grinned at him. Talon was amused by how much more comfortable his men seemed after their forced bath. Fleas and lice were mostly gone, and they looked refreshed, despite the miserable diet they were all now forced to live upon.

  The banners were fluttering defiantly in the sea wind, and the ramparts were becoming crowded with armed men waiting for the enemy to attempt to climb the walls. Talon could see dark clusters of men forming up beyond the causeway in preparation for an assault. The ruins of the burned trebuchet had still not been cleared away, and the rotting carcasses of horses lay on the road among the rocks that had struck them. It was already an obstacle course for the attackers, after which they would have to clamber over the rough rocks and slippery glacis before they could even place ladders against the walls. He didn’t envy the Arabs at all.

  “Prepare for the attack!” the Count bellowed. Trumpets sounded on the walls to warn the population that an attack was imminent, and bells began to peal out. Men nervously adjusted their straps and tested their blades. Brandt drew his axe and hefted it, a grin of anticipation on his bearded face. In the distance, they heard an answering call from the enemy trumpets signaling the beginning of the assault.

  Talon stood a little off to the side of the Count, leaving him to observe the enemy through narrowed eyes. Clearly he was estimating the odds as he watched the enemy’s movements. Soon men were swarming along the causeway, racing towards the city of Tyre, the prize they needed so urgently.

  “Take the men on horses,” Talon instructed his archers, who willingly lifted their bows.

  The effectiveness of the bowmen was soon clear to everyone on the walls. They were downing horsemen one by one. There was an urgency to this attack, as though the Sultan might have decided to throw everything he had in a bid for success. The crowd of screaming men kept on coming. When they were almost in the range of the mangonels, Talon called down to Giovanni. “Ready?”

  Giovanni nodded and raised his arm. “Wait…wait… Now!” Talon called. Giovanni dropped his arm and the men on the ramparts heard three loud thumps in rapid succession. Almost simultaneously, three earthenware jars, smoking from their openings, soared overhead and arced down towards the crowded causeway. The pots exploded onto the stonework and spattered their liquid contents everywhere.

  The Greek Fire burned hotter than flaming oil, and it stuck to any clothing, or flesh, it touched. Screaming, yelling men ran in all directions, trying to get away from the hellish flames. Many jumped into the sea, while others cringed back, trying to escape the way they had come. But still more men were pushing them forward towards the walls. So still they came on, but with a great deal less enthusiasm than before.

  The men carrying ladders had not been affected by the flames, and once they had clambered over the difficult ground they leaned these against the walls, struggling to hold them in place while other men climbed. The defenders managed to break most, or pole them off so that men clutching the ladders fell backwards, screaming, to the rocks below. Some determined soldiers actually made it over the ramparts, only to meet with a solid line of quickly raised shields. The shield wall men closed on their attackers remorselessly, putting what they had painstakingly practiced to work, pushing the interlopers back against the wall and stabbing them to death. Their bodies were then tossed over the walls to fall upon others below.

  The defenders on the ramparts also had Greek Fire pots put together by the enterprising merchants, which were brought up by eager and excited boys. These were tossed over the walls to light up the rocks below and burn alive anyone so unfortunate as to be in the immediate area. The noise of the screams and shouts, combined with the regular thump of the mangonels and the clash of swords and shields, was deafening.

  Gradually, as their casualties mounted and there was little progress, the enemy began to loose heart and reluctantly began to withdraw. Talon likened it to a tide of flashing steel that had washed up to the very tops of the walls only to recede, leaving behind the dead and wounded.

  His respect for the Count grew as he observed Conrad and his men in the forefront of the fights for the battlements. He allowed the impatient Brandt to join the defense. The Saxon created havoc wherever he went with his bloody axe. Even Talon himself and Yosef were involved, as scuffles on the battlements surged back and forth. Talon was very glad that he had his little band of men about him on these occasions, because they dealt with any of the enemy rash enough to
come near with protective ferocity. His leg wound was still a real liability.

  The Arabs were harassed all the way along the causeway by the arrows of the Welsh archers and the Genoese mercenaries, leaving even more dead and wounded as they fled back along the narrow road. At the half way point their retreat was harried by rocks tumbling out of the sky from the mangonels. Gradually the noise of the retreating army faded, and on the battlements there was a quieter moment, broken only by the snap of the banners still flying defiantly and the groans of the wounded below the walls.

  The Count called over to Talon. “We will need to collect arrows and spears and armor from below. Anything of value. Can your men take care of this?”

  Talon nodded

  He turned to Brandt, who had rejoined him bespattered with other people’s blood. He had looked a lot cleaner before the battle; he wore a new tunic under his hauberk that Yosef had obtained somehow. Talon knew better than to ask from where. Brandt’s beard was also trimmed, but he had insisted on keeping his long blond braids. Talon shook his head. The huge man was enjoying himself far too much.

  “Brandt, we will want a defensive line to protect the others while they collect weapons. Take your men and as many knights of the Orders as you can muster and form a shield wall to block off the causeway.”

  Brandt grinned hugely and hurried off. To the watchers on the walls, it became apparent that volunteers far outnumbered the men needed. Finally Brandt and his chosen men slipped out of the gates and raced for the causeway, across which they formed a solid wall of shields: two shields high and three lines deep.

  Talon noted with deep satisfaction that most of the men of the shield wall were from the two Orders, dedicated horsemen who would not usually fight on foot. Would miracles never cease, he wondered? With an eye on the distant end of the causeway, Talon told his archers to be ready for trouble. He didn’t expect a second assault at this point, but it paid to be careful.

  Meanwhile, men and boys who were not to be denied the opportunity to be useful were scrambling about beneath the walls collecting arrows, spears and other weaponry. Some were dispatching the wounded, or removing chainmail from the dead, as well as any other items of value they could plunder. The Count had ordered that there were to be only a few prisoners. Most were to be killed.

  Talon glanced up; there was a shouted warning from men on the towers, who now pointed towards the end of the causeway. A large group of horsemen were racing down the causeway from the direction of the Arab army. Their obvious intent was to destroy the men on the ground and gain some form of victory at any cost.

  “Watch out, Brandt!” Talon shouted. Many others yelled the warning from the wall. “Caradog and Dewi, do your work well,” he instructed his two archers.

  The horsemen were past the center of the causeway so quickly that the stones thrown from the mangonels landed behind them and splashed into the sea without doing any harm. The horsemen charged headlong with lowered lances against the dense line of shields. Fortunately, Brandt and his men were ready for them.

  Had the horses been the heavy Destriers the Franks and the Orders used, it could have gone very badly for the men on the ground. As it was, the horses were the light cavalry so favored by the Arabs, and although it looked as though they might succeed to the tense men lining the walls, and the line did give a little, the men of the shield wall withstood the forceful charge.

  Then Brandt and his Saxon companions began to use their long-handled axes with devastating effect, so that gradually the line straightened and the long spears could do their work. Try as they might, the horsemen could not get close enough with their mounts to do any real damage after that.

  As soon as a man began to turn away, a spear would be thrust out from the wall to pierce the side of his animal, bringing it down screaming, and then the rider was butchered as he tried to get up. All the while, arrows were falling among them from above, taking a toll and making their situation intolerable. Still, there were casualties on Brandt’s side as well.

  While the fight on the causeway was in progress, the men who had been collecting discarded weapons and armor raced for the gates, their arms full of booty. Brandt, cognizant of the danger of reinforcements coming to the aid of the Arabs, shouted for an orderly retreat.

  Brandt tossed his shield to another, then scooped up one of the wounded men, one of the Hospitaliers, and pointed to one of the dead nearby. His Saxon comrades seized the dead man by his arms and feet and chased after Brandt, who had thrown the wounded man over his shoulder like a sack of corn and was loping back towards the gates.

  To Talon it was no surprise to see Brandt carry the man so easily; He himself had been carried without noticeable effort by the huge man; but the men on the battlements who witnessed it were clearly impressed.

  “Dear Lord,” one of them said, “but I am so very glad that those Saxons are on our side! Look at the giant. He makes it seem effortless, and the man still in his chainmail!”

  “They work for the Lord Talon here,” another commented in a low voice that yet carried. “They will not leave our wounded, nor our dead, to the tender mercies of the enemy. May the Good Lord bless them!”

  Talon was pleased to hear the exchange. He had had begun to sense a change in attitude towards him recently, and this confirmed it. Previously, he had been only too aware of the surreptitious crossing of breasts when he passed and the signs to ward off evil made by the guards on the walls.

  Many of the light cavalry were down in a struggling mass of horses and men, while those still mounted retreated far enough away to reconsider the situation. The men of the shield wall paced backwards until they were close enough to the gates to turn on a sharp order as a group and bolt for safety. When a number of reckless riders decided to give chase, they lost even more men to the deadly shooting of the Welsh archers.

  The gates slammed shut while exuberant men cheered wildly down in the courtyard, and then the cheering began all along the battlements. Some defenders shouted abuse at the few remaining and chastened horsemen, who hastened away towards their own army, leaving their dead and wounded to their fate. The bells began to peal as news spread of the success of the defenders.

  “You have done well, Lord Talon,” the Count beamed at him. “Thanks to you, we have a fighting force to be reckoned with, even if some of them have terrible looking arses,” the Count remarked with a grin, jerking his thumb at some men along the parapet. A number of the defenders had lifted their tunics and bared their backsides to the retreating enemy.

  “That will give the ‘Sultan’ something to think about, I dare say. Thanks be to God, we survive to live another day!”

  “He will soon have to leave, my Lord,” Talon remarked.

  “How so?” The Count frowned at him.

  “His main objective is Jerusalem, and I am very sure he has not lost sight of that. He will want to take the holy city before it is reinforced from nearby castles. Therefore his time here is limited, even though he would dearly like to take us before he does leave. If he knew how few we were he might become more determined to finish this before he moves on.”

  The Count nodded somberly. “This is what you believe, Talon?”

  “Very much so, Lord,” Talon responded. “And if he succeeds in taking Jerusalem, he will not neglect Tyre for very long thereafter.”

  “Pity those lords and the King didn’t listen to the likes of you and the Count of Tripoli when they should have,” the Count said. His tone was bitter. “All of this could have been avoided. If he does leave, then I intend to cut that causeway with a large ditch. We’ll see how he deals with that when he comes back, as you say he will.

  “I agree, Lord. It should be cut,” Talon said.

  “I could wish for some allies to help us with this struggle,” Conrad said, as he leaned against the parapet and stared out at the distant army. “No point in calling upon the Byzantines for help, I suppose?”

  “I doubt it, Lord. There is little love lost between the Empire a
nd the Latins since Manuel died. Besides, they have their hands full with the Bulgars in the North and the Turks, who are gaining ground every year. Andronikos made overtures to Salah Ed Din, and Isaac in Cyprus has also.”

  ‘You have a castle there, do you not?”

  “Yes, Lord. And Isaac has tried to take that too, but with no success thus far,” Talon told him with a grin.

  The Count snorted with amusement, but then became thoughtful.

  “That leaves the Normans of Sicily. But I know William; he is bent upon other schemes and will not help. His wife is Joan, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Richard’s sister. It would be nice if Richard could show some interest.” Conrad sounded rueful.

  “It is a question of time, Lord,” Talon stated. “There is no time left for this kingdom. The best we can hope for is to retain Tyre. All else, I fear, is gone, or soon will be.”

  Conrad gave him a long hard look, but then nodded his head slowly in agreement.

  “Then we are alone, for the time being at least. We shall have to see to it that we do not lose Tyre.” His jaw set.

  “I intend to send the Archbishop of Tyre to Europe to appeal for help. He isn’t doing much good here, and his troupe of attendants are useless for anything besides eating our precious food. He has instructions to take the dire news and persuade those miserly kings to pay with men and coin for a new crusade.”

  Talon had already heard about this plan. The ship would sail into the European waters with black sails and images of the desecration of the true cross. His respect for the Count grew. This man was a politician as well as a fighter.

  *****

  Later in the afternoon, when Talon was resting on the bed—his leg was again playing him up—he called his men over. They certainly smelled cleaner since their bath, Talon noted, and there was less scratching. The Welsh seemed even more attached to each other, and Brandt had gained confidence. Brandt had been petting the little dog, which still didn’t have a name other than ‘Dog’, and he brought it over with him. It struggled free, to land on the bed, much to Brandt’s chagrin and Yosef’s horror.