In twenty years of soldiering, William had never seen such horror. Such.. indefatigable brutality.
The ground rumbled. Before him lay a horde. Hundreds upon thousands of Seljuk Turks, saddled on fresh horses, striking down from the heavens with a swarm of arrows, as if from God himself.
William barely had a moment to raise his shield as the cloud slammed down upon himself and his friends, the poor men of the Peasants Crusade. Unlike William, most of them didn’t even have proper swords.
Dozens lay bleeding now. Screams.. so many screams.. William hoisted his shield, striking off the arrows that had stuck into it with his blade. Then the horses struck the peasants meager semblance of a battle line. Blood poured from the swords edge, dripped from the arrow tip. Somewhere, the line of defenders broke.
All the while, William stood his ground. The first Seljuk soldier he came against fell from his horse in the chaos. William fell upon him with righteous fury, cleaving him from shoulder down to his abdomen. The man crumpled, never to see his family again.
But the Christian men were routed. They fled, fearing pain, fearing death, fearing to look upon the face of God Himself on Judgement Day. William watched the great Walter Sans Avoir himself fall to a storm of arrows, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies. He’d never stood a chance.
And William stood his ground.the next soldier he fought had been hardly a man. He’d flinched at the threat of the iron blade in William’s hand, and in that brief moment of weakness, William struck him down with a blow to his chest. William felt the boys ribs collapse.
It wasn’t until after the nightmare of the Seljuk army had passed him by, that he noticed the arrows in his belly, in his leg. Blood soaked his tattered armor, and dozens of cuts covered his knuckles, wrists, and face.
William died, just a few hours later. He had almost made it back to the camp, hoping to find Peter the Hermit there, triumphant in some glorious return, with a host of Byzantine knights at his back.
No such host existed, and the few survivors of the Battle of Civetot ended up miles away, hiding in an abandoned castle until the Byzantines came to their rescue.
Peter never returned.
If you enjoyed this story and feel up for a bit of a Halloween spook, you can read a quick short story I published yesterday, right here.
