Dreamer: A Prequel to the Mongoliad

DAMIETTA, 1218

“Pull!”

The crier was a haggard Frisian named Edzard, a bald man with a tangled beard and a voice that reminded Raphael of surf battering against a cliff. He limped, and sitting on a horse pained him, but aboard a ship, he moved with a supple grace. He stalked up and down the line of the massive raft, howling at the men.

“Don’t stop, you miserable sons of tavern wenches,” Edzard shouted at them. “This river hates you. The infidels hate you. God even hates you for being weak. Pull!”

The company — three hundred strong, a mixture of Frisian Crusaders, Templars, Hospitallers, and Shield-Brethren — huddled beneath a canopy of waterlogged skins, their only protection from the Greek fire hurled at them from the walls of Damietta. Their vessel, a ponderous construct created by lashing two boats together, moved sluggishly in the violent waters of the turbulent Nile. The sheer size and weight of their floating siege tower was the only reason the river had not already claimed them.

The city of Damietta sprawled to the east of the eastern fork of the Nile. Seizing the city was a critical goal in the conquest of Egypt — it would give the Crusaders a much-needed stronghold in Muslim territory — but the assault was complicated by the difficult terrain that surrounded the city. From the north, east, and south, Damietta was protected by the sprawling saltwater lagoon of Lake Manzala — an impenetrable maze of shallow pools and shifting mud. Attacking from the west was the most prudent route, but any force had to cross the Nile in order to assault the thick walls. In the past six weeks, the river had gone from a turbid impediment to an inchoate elemental fury.

The Crusaders were not without means. They had crossed the Mediterranean to assemble an army on Egyptian sand, and they had a number of boats at their disposal. The captains of the boats were loath to brave the river, though, for not only was the channel treacherous and mercurial, but they also had to weather a storm of stones and fire from the mangonels and trebuchets atop the walls of Damietta.

As a final deterrent to any crossing, the Muslims filled the river with a swarm of their own rafts and boats and barges. This argosy was restrained by a number of heavy chains strung from the walls of the city to the foundation stones of a narrow tower that squatted on a spike of rock jutting from the river. The islet stood close to the western shore, though not close enough to effect a crossing from the western bank. The only way to reach the tower was by boat.

The Crusaders had already lost several ships in an effort to storm the river-based citadel. The boats were too exposed out on the treacherous river as they struggled to maneuver into a position where they could mount an assault. The defenders of the tower had a ready supply of Greek fire, and the catapults atop Damietta’s walls had a seemingly endless supply of heavy rocks.

After battering themselves against the stronghold for two months, the Crusaders had finally devised a new solution — one that was either more catastrophically foolhardy than their previous efforts or a stroke of divine inspiration.

The floating siege tower had been the idea of Oliver of Paderborn — a slender man who was more a scholar than a soldier. He had been quietly observing and recording the previous efforts, and it was his opinion that the crux of the Crusaders’ trouble was the upper level of the tower. When the boats off-loaded their assault force at the base, the defenders simply poured Greek fire and a rain of arrows on the men below. In order to give the men on the ground a chance, the Crusaders had to take the upper floor first. Oliver’s solution was a two-decked raft — a floating siege tower that could be grounded against the islet. The force on the upper deck could lower a makeshift bridge and attack the battlements directly.

“Port oars back!” Edzard screamed, and the men on that side strained with all their collective might to shift the boat. They were floating sideways in the river, a wallowing pig carcass caught in the heavy rush of the Nile. They had to get the boat turned or the bridge on the upper deck would not reach the tower. And in order to do that, they had to hit the tiny spire of rock head-on; otherwise, Oliver’s design would be a deathtrap. Those who weren’t burned outright by the Muslim’s liquid fire would likely drown in the raging river.

The last time Raphael had been in water this tempestuous had been during his order’s initiation trial. The Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, the infamous Shield-Brethren, remembered their Grecian origins. They still held dear the symbol of the shield and the goddess whom they protected with the same. When the young initiates were ready to prove themselves worthy, they were taken down into the stone caves beneath Petraathen, the order’s mountainous fortress. Handed an aspis — the heavy shield of their forebears — and directed to swim in a swift underground river, they were presented with a choice.

The ones who chose swiftly and without fear became knights of the order.

Many of those who failed to decide drowned. A stern reminder of the swift brutality of the battlefield.

Raphael and two dozen of his fellow Shield-Brethren had been chosen to lead the initial assault on the top of the tower. As soon as their floating barge struck the islet, the pair in front were to cut the ropes holding the bridge upright. The bridge was a series of planks lashed together. Two men, crowded together, could go abreast. They would have very little room to swing their swords. Once the boat grounded against the islet, they would have to rush across the bridge quickly. They had to reach the tower before the defenders could knock the bridge away. Or burn it.

There were gaps in the hide cover on either side of the bridge, and as the barge turned laboriously in the river, Raphael saw the mottled stone of the tower swing by.

The Templar and Hospitaller commanders had argued with Calpurnius, the master of the Shield-Brethren company, as to the membership of the team that would lead the upper-floor assault. Calpurnius had listened calmly to both men’s arguments and then asked one question. “There will be no horses on this boat. How will your knights fight?”

Edzard screamed at the men on the starboard side, threatening to throw them overboard if they didn’t match the pace of the port team.

The man crouching next to Raphael shivered and looked like he was about to vomit. His name was Eptor and he was a year younger than Raphael. A farmer’s son, his family lived less than a day’s travel from Petraathen, the stronghold of the Shield-Brethren. He, Raphael, and a dozen others in this company had all taken their oaths together. The Fifth Crusade was their first fielding as knights of the order.

In addition to the sword and shield carried by each of the Shield-Brethren, Eptor had a flail to which he had added several extra lengths of chain, as if to mirror the chains that spanned the river. It was a farmer’s weapon, more useful for threshing grain than killing infidels, and Raphael was more nervous about being struck by an errant chain than a Muslim sword. Eptor clung to it, though, like a child hanging onto a protective totem.

The boat swung back to port, and the stone wall of the tower hove into view once more. The barge shuddered as the Nile lifted the heavy boat and hurled it directly at the tower.

Calpurnius had blessed each one of the Shield-Brethren, loudly proclaiming that God would protect each of them from the arrows and stones of the Muslim infidels. As he had clasped each man to his chest, he had whispered a private evocation of the Virgin in their ears. She will be waiting for you, he had said. As she does all of those who take up arms in her name.

The boat quivered beneath them like a horse about to expire. Overhead, something struck the hide roof, and the water-soaked leather hissed and steamed. A roaring noise like the howl of angry demons made the men flinch, and long black fingers of ash began to smear through the protective cover.

Eptor started to moan, his face slick with sweat.

Raphael shook his head, trying to catch the other man’s gaze. Eptor, caught up in the shame of his terror, refused to look at Raphael.

Raphael grabbed the chain of the other man’s maille and hauled him close. They were going to cross the bridge together. He needed Eptor to not panic. As the hide roof began to smoke and crumble to fiery ash, he put his mouth close to Eptor’s ear and began to shout the Virgin’s Prayer.

The deck lurched beneath them as the boat collided with the rocky spur that supported the chain tower. Wood splintered far beneath them, and the tenor of the river changed as water began rushing into the shattered hull. “Attack!” Edzard screamed.

The ropes holding the bridge were cut. The narrow crossing fell, bouncing as its end collided with the rough ramparts of the tower. The men surged forward, eager to cross the exposed bridge.

There was no more time for prayer.

Take up your arms, my brothers, and fight.

She will be waiting for us.