God is great

The scent of saffron, turmeric and cinnamon pervades the air, overlaying the acrid stench of human waste seeping through the narrow streets. The hot dusty air stings my face as I watch the orange lights twinkling in the darkness; a hellish reflection of the cloudless sky above. Warmed by the fires, their prayers carry across the plain; a melodious adoration to the God of theirs that our Pope says cannot exist. For three days they have been gathering at the base of the mountain, a sprawl of darkness that cloaks our land while we ready ourselves for the assault. We have dug our ditches, and reinforced our walls. Tomorrow they will come.

I walk the wall, my words and touches all that remain to aid those that stand on watch. Stefan, the youngest of us pleads to me with silent eyes to make it better, to make it go away. I clasp his shoulder and quietly remind him that with God on our side, there can be no outcome other than to hold. Do I tell him the tales my father told me? Of the heroes that stood face to face with the Saracens, always weaker in number but stronger in faith. No. Such lies can help no man now. I have seen with my own eyes what favours God bestows on men. A death is no glorious ascension, no parade of angels to carry you to Him; it is a dark and lonely place of blood and gore, of screams and pleading, a single broken stone in the pathway of bodies that praise His name. I settle with my back against the wall to sleep. To die quickly is all we can hope for now.

The thunder wakes me and for a moment, as I stare into the beauty of the still blue sky I am serene and at peace. Again the crashing in the cloudless sky and the shouts around me pull me to my feet. The seething mass that marches towards us across the once empty plain brings a hopelessness that threatens at once to overwhelm. A galaxy of crescent moons shining bright against the morning sun. Shaking away the terror, I pull on my armour and ready myself for battle. Below me, men scatter in all directions, barricading the gate, herding families to shelter away from the walls, the adrenaline a physical force that drives them forward and dams the fear from seeping to the surface.

The sunlight fades and as I turn, I see the thousands of black shafts silently gliding towards us, a brooding flock of feathers with steel beaks. Like the start of a rainstorm, a single shaft thuds into a wooden shield followed by another and another until steadily the torrent flows all around us. We shrink below wood and stone and close ourselves to the screams that echo around us. The crash of metal upon stone brings me out of cover and I shout for oil as the first of the grappling hooks bite into the parapets. The smell of burning flesh is one that leaves a residue, which clings, sticky and black within your mind for the rest of your life. Skin burnt over years by the desert sun turns red and raw as the molten liquid drips from their bodies.

A commotion from the Eastern wall turns me from the horror beneath to find that these people have learned well over the years. Towers, fully four stories high trundle towards the wall pushed by a winding snake of willing men. Tactics we employed to bring us this city now thrown against us to recoup that, which was theirs. I call the order to soak arrows and ignite and pray that God will forgive me for what I unleash. The flaming heads pepper the hide covered structure and the individual fires reach to each other with fingers of flame to join hands in a wall of heat that engulfs the wooden tower and fans billowing black smoke into the throats of those that wait upon it. Coughing and screaming they jump to the ground, shattering bones as they land burning and broken among their own.

I feel a motion beside me, and duck as the whisper of a curved blade parts the air where seconds before my neck had been. My nose explodes in pain as a shield crashes into my face and I fall to the floor face to face with what once had been Stefan; his unseeing eyes, accusing. I scramble to my feet aware that I know not from which direction the attack came. Bodies all around me struggle and hack at each other, unintelligible grunts more akin to animals than humans fill my ears and I realise that I’m screaming. Screaming with hate, fear and with something deep within me that only now I can allow to surface, to carry me through this primeval chaos. I reach for a man who has his teeth in someone’s cheek and smash my forehead into his eye, ripping him from his bloody victim. I tear at his face and thrust my sword into his stomach, pulling at the purple tubes that spew from the gaping wound. The blade catches against something within and I pull a knife from my belt, stabbing into anything that comes near. I lose myself in a world of venom and violence until finally, I see that the bodies I attack are unmoving and all around me is quiet.

I wonder whether the blood I taste is mine as I clean the mess from my face. I look around at the sea of bodies, unrecognisable from one another. Within that tangle of flesh are friends and enemies, sons and fathers, worshippers of Christ and devotees of Allah. So far apart in life they now sleep together in death.

Allāhu Akbar. God is great.