They started to slide the bar back, and then voices clamored from outside. Some of the cries, he thought, were Turkish soldiers shouting orders although he failed to catch the gist. Others were people were wailing for help or wordless shrieks of terror.
The men opening the gate looked up at their commander to see if he would countermand his order. Faramund turned to him as well. “Did someone come to rescue us after all?”
“I don’t know,” Adalric replied.
He could dismount, ascend to the battlements, and look around in an effort to determine what has going on outside, but he begrudged the time it would take. His men were ready now. By the sound of it, the enemy was dismayed and distracted now. He shouldn’t let the moment slip away.
“We’re still going out!” he shouted. “But watch me when we do! If I change the plan, I’ll signal! Otherwise, do what I told you before!”
The men on the gate pulled it open as fast as its bulk would allow. Adalric kicked his stallion into motion. Shouting the names of Christ, the Virgin, and various saints, his fellow Tafurs rushed out behind him.
A few arrows flew at them. One whizzed through the space between Adalric’s horse’s neck and his own torso. But despite the cover of which they’d availed themselves, he could tell most of the Turks were turning away from the fortress. At least some were abandoning their positions and advancing into the village.
“They’re running away!” a Tafur cried.
“It’s a miracle!” another shouted.
It wasn’t. The Turks had turned to contend with an immediate threat. But that didn’t mean Adalric shouldn’t seize the opportunity that afforded. In all likelihood, it was another company of Crusaders attacking the Muslims, and if the Tafurs joined in, they and their allies could grind the enemy between them.
He brandished his lance over his head. He was about to sweep it forward to order a charge when a Turkish archer scrambled from behind a barricade constructed early in the siege and ran straight at his Tafur foes. He was more terrified of something at his back than he was of them.
An instant later, the something climbed over the barrier and scuttled in pursuit. It was a coppery scorpion with a thick body the size of one of the Tafurs’ now-abandoned wagons. Its pincers snapped shut on the archer’s head, and blood squirted out around the edges. The arachnid dropped the corpse with its pulverized skull and crouched over it with mouthparts gnashing.
Adalric’s stallion balked, and he would have reined it in if it hadn’t. His men likewise froze, their martial fire chilled like his own.
Faramund spurred up even with him. “The attackers aren’t Bohemond’s men!’ the man-at-arms declared, and Adalric resisted a mad impulse to laugh at the most unnecessary statement anyone had ever uttered. “The Turks’ witchcraft has turned against them!”
“Apparently so,” Adalric said, and then a little girl raced out into the open. No doubt she was running away from one enlarged scorpion, and when she discovered her flight had brought her into proximity with another, she froze. Abandoning the body of the man it had just killed, the boxy arachnid pivoted in her direction.
Adalric had to spur his horse three times, but then it charged. As the scorpion neared the little girl, he thrust his lance into its flank.
The creature wheeled in his direction. His steed danced backward in an effort to evade it, and he yanked the lance from the puncture it had made.
The scorpion’s sting whipped in a horizontal arc. He caught the stroke on his shield, but the bludgeoning force of it all but knocked him out of the saddle. As he struggled to recover his seat, pincers reached for him.
Faramund galloped in and plunged his lance into one of the round black eyes. An instant behind him, other Tafurs stabbed and swung their weapons. Someone managed a mortal blow, and the arachnid fell down thrashing.
Faramund turned to Adalric. “What were you thinking?”
Adalric hesitated because he wasn’t sure himself. During their time trapped in the fort, he’d come to hate the scorpions, but there was more to his fury than that. “She was a child.”
“We’ve seen scores of dead children since we set out and are apt to see plenty more. But anyway, you saved her. Now let’s get out of here and leave the scorpions and the Turks to one another.”
Feeling like a fool, Adalric said, “I don’t think we should.”
“What are you talking about? The Turks are the enemy! Muslims who resorted to witchcraft to try to kill us! Whatever befalls them now, they brought on themselves!”
“The soldiers, perhaps, but the scorpions are likely to kill the villagers, too.”
“Again, filthy Muslims! Our task is to fight for Christ!”
“If you’re fighting for our Lord, don’t you see the Devil in the scorpions? They’re more his servants more than any ordinary Turk could ever be!”
“Whatever they are, if you try to lead the men against them, they won’t follow. Not when they have the chance to escape with their lives.”
“If so, I won’t blame them.” Adalric turned toward the other Tafurs, many of whom had indeed hung back, staying clear of the most recent battle. “Brothers! Demons are killing women and children! I believe God intends us to put a stop to it! If you agree, help me! If you don’t, Faramund will lead you back into the desert!”
With that, Adalric trotted his horse toward the nearest street. After a moment, he glanced back. He was afraid to, fearful he’d see that no one at all had chosen to join him in his folly. But he needed to know what he had to work with.
The sight behind him made him weak with relief. Many Tafurs were fleeing, but a score were courageous or crazy enough to accompany him. Faramund cantered up to ride beside him.
“I thought,” Adalric said, “you were going to march the other half of the company to Antioch.”
“You pointed them in the right direction,” Faramund replied, “and I can’t have people saying you spat in Satan’s eye while I turned tail. Look there!”
As they negotiated a dogleg in the street, the scene ahead came into clearer view. Several Turks stood in a line shooting at another scorpion with a body the size of a cart, this one slate gray with a tail that switched from side to side. The front of the creature bristled with shafts that had seemingly done only superficial harm. A scissoring mouthpart snagged the fletched end of one such arrow and snapped it in two.
Adalric groped for the proper Turkish words. “Make way!”
Startled, the archers looked around. One drew, but the man next to him grabbed him, prevented him from loosing, and shoved him to the side. The rest of the Turks moved of their own volition, clearing a path up the center of the street.
Adalric spurred his steed into a gallop. Faramund and the other horsemen pounded after him. Presumably the Tafurs on foot were bringing up the rear.
The creature balked when it realized opponents were running at it. Perhaps, given the choice, it would even have fled, but if so, the same power that had grown it to monstrous size compelled it to stand fast. Pincers reached and, guiding his stallion with his knees, Adalric urged it to the right. The claws clashed shut off target.
His lance plunged into the spot where the arachnid’s stubby head emerged from its body, deep enough that it wouldn’t readily come out again. Hoping to recover it later, he let go and rode on down the creature’s flank.
Behind him, shrieks rang out, a man and horse screaming together. Adalric turned his stallion. The scorpion had grabbed a Tafur and his steed, thrown them to the ground, and was indiscriminately pinching both. The effect reminded Adalric of playing with clay as a child and pressing two lumps into one.