A Crusader with System in the Middle Ages

”Loki’s bird, a treacherous thing.” Lagman stared at the Red Kite circling in the air, then looked at Eric. ”My uncle used to say that when a Red Kite speaks to a man, that man will find his doom. That’s what the Witch from the next valley told him.”

”Red Kites can talk?” Belem asked. ”I’ve heard crows can.”

”There are many kinds of language,” Lagman replied.

The sky was pearly gray, with nothing but the distant Red Kite.

”The sky is getting dark. If we can’t find those Arabs, we need to find a place to rest,” Eric said.

Eric blew his horn, signaling them to move on and ordering the scouts ahead.

After marching for a while, they saw Priest John. He had his arm around the shepherd boy with the long name, comforting him in a low voice.

The Shepherd Boy was convulsing. His snot-streaked face, twisted in agony, turned to Eric. He could barely make a sound, weeping silently.

”His friends,” Priest John said mournfully, gesturing to a pile of corpses.

Eric took a closer look.

They were small bodies, wrapped in tattered, weathered clothing around tiny, broken bones.

Children. Dozens of children.

”This was a silk workshop,” Priest John said with a sigh. ”John Assanis used to work at these wheels, drawing the silk from the cocoons—all the thread-pullers were boys—but he ran away because the boiling water burned his hands too badly. He never came back, but he heard the Monastery had been attacked by this Faruk, so he wanted to see for himself.”

He paused and patted the boy’s shoulder. ”He thought he would come with an army to save everyone, like a hero. He didn’t expect this. I imagine he didn’t expect them all to be dead.

Poor child.

consumpsit vires fortuna nocendo.

Qui facet in terra, non habet unde cadat,” Brother John chanted in Latin.

If a man is already on the ground, he can fall no further.

”The three Fates have never exhausted their power to bring pain. Even after Ragnarok, they still possess limitless ability to torment the world of men,” Lagman murmured, looking at the Shepherd Boy.

The Shepherd Boy fell to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Then he collapsed completely, his shoulders shaking, and Eric heard him cursing the Arabs in Greek.

”Get him up. We’re leaving.”

Eric said, his tone colder and harder than he’d intended, because the death of those small lives filled his nostrils with an acrid smell.

Priest John bent down and pulled up the child who was still twitching in anguish. He coaxed him to his feet with soothing words as Eric and the Knights left the place of death.

An hour later, with the sky now completely dark, Hook Eye ran back to report a farm ahead beside a stream, just as the wind grew colder and darkness closed in like black water.

”There are dead people there, too,” he added.

This made Eric’s heart sink. It meant they had only traded one place full of corpses for another, and with night falling, they couldn’t go any further. They also couldn’t be sure if there were enemies nearby.

The farm was a ruin, but the outbuildings were the most heavily damaged, built almost entirely of twisted pine. The main building had lost its roof, but its thick walls were still intact, though blackened by smoke.

Surrounding it were flat fields. At first, he thought it was an olive grove, but these trees were different; they looked like skeletons in the twilight. There were also the shattered, burnt remains of wooden racks, like those used for smoking large quantities of fish, except these weren’t grates but solid trays.

Hook Eye nudged a desiccated corpse with his foot, and a rotten arrow shaft snapped with a hiss. ”Two bodies here, not many. I guess the others might have fled to the Church, thinking it was safer.”

Hook Eye muttered, making a gesture to ward off evil. Eric asked Priest John to pray for their Christian souls and soothe their spirits, since they had no choice but to spend the night here.

Eric ordered a bonfire lit. He didn’t like the idea, but on balance, being surrounded by so many bodies was making the men uneasy. No one liked sitting next to strange corpses in the dark.

Stories about wandering spirits were quite popular among Frankish minstrels, despite the Church’s routine prohibitions.

When a knight was about to relieve himself on the spot, Eric finally decided to light the fire.

The firelight drove away the darkness and fear. The hot food helped, too; the Shepherd Boy had already cried himself to sleep.

An hour later, people even started joking.

”Alright, listen up. What’s always sweet and sticky, makes you feel like a hero, but by the next morning, you find you’ve become a fool with bees in his head?”

A Knight nicknamed ’Horsefly’ told the riddle about mead.

”That riddle was moss-grown when I was a boy. A newborn in Bayeux knows it,” Belem said loudly, walking toward the fire. ”You idiot. You incompetent fool. How dare you sit there, with your nose like an ass, and give us such a pathetic riddle.”

But the Knight from Bayeux nicknamed ’Horsefly’ had a retort ready.

”What can cut a man but not kill him?” he demanded. Everyone turned to look at the Knights, who began scratching their heads.

”Lord Belem’s tongue,” ’Horsefly’ said smugly, and everyone roared with laughter.

”Better, much better,” Belem laughed, his tone turning friendly. He pushed someone aside to squeeze into a spot by the fire. ”Got any more like that, you little shit?”

Listening to them, Eric slid down against a wall, leaning his head back. He felt the faint heat of the bonfire and listened to the surrounding sounds and laughter.

When he closed his eyes, the image of a sword burned behind his eyelids.

An unknown time later, a thunderous banging sound pulled Eric back to the bonfire, where the wood had burned down to embers.

Men scrambled out of the building and headed toward Hook Eye—the last sentry of the night—who was banging a rusty iron wheel with the head of his spear. Those wearing chain armor struggled to pull it on over their heads.

Some of the Tuscan and Genoese Crossbowmen on duty had already formed up, their crossbows loaded.

”What’s happening?” Eric asked, bleary-eyed, as everyone stood armed and ready.

Hook Eye just pointed.

On a distant hillside, blending in with the gray-green scrub, a dozen horsemen sat on their mounts, watching them.

”They just appeared,” Hook Eye said, ”at daybreak.”