Act XI: The Promised Land (15)
fifteen
The knight found his squire in the pouring rain. Daoud had survived, his face covered in mud. "My lord, where are we going?" he shouted through the raindrops. "Half of the peasants you recruited are gone, but with the soldiers Lord Sancho brought from Constantinople, we can make up for it!"
Yakov felt a chill run down his spine, as if bats were gripping his hair through chainmail. "North," he shouted hoarsely, "to Ramree and Lud. There's plenty more there."
Daoud nodded and ran off to lead the group through the rain. Yakov found another horse—its owner was probably dead, whether Christian or not was unknown. He mounted the horse and led the remaining troops out of the terrible muddy swamp littered with corpses.
Ramree and Lud were very close, sharing the same road leading to Jerusalem. Countless men, dark-skinned and disgraced, along with South African slaves, were fleeing the city towards the vast desert. Yakov felt neither sorrow nor joy at this sight. In the past, at times like this, he often felt as if a bell-like shell shielded him from his surging emotions, allowing him to remain detached and escape the vortex—but now, he felt as if he were that shell itself. A shell shouldn't have any emotions; a shell is an indestructible, lifeless thing. Yakov, like a lifeless thing, gazed at the two dilapidated fortresses along the road.
“These are all the people we have,” he said calmly and ruthlessly. “The Ibelin army will go and take back Ramre first; we’ll go to Lud.”
No one contradicted him, and no one offered him advice. Everyone behind him was like a docile lamb, waiting for him to choose the path forward for them.
Yakov led his soldiers onto the ruined streets. The fortress was deserted, the gates wide open, and the warehouses had been looted by the scattered guerrillas. All the surviving citizens stood on the street, staring blankly at them. These people, struggling to survive at the bottom of society, knew best the army's purpose. The crescent moon and the Arabic language were terrifying, but even the red cross on Yakov's uniform did not easily dispel their fear.
The Blood Slave simply looked up, surveying the city—all cities were similar, built of yellowish-white bricks and stones, the same color as the dusty, sandy ground. Numerous archways and tarpaulins on the city walls blocked out the sky. Yakov's army moved through palm and date palm trees, killing a few ragtag soldiers and capturing a few slaves, before soon reaching the city center.
There was no city lord, only a bishop's steward. In the city center stood a sturdy church, surrounded by a monastery, not much different from the countless churches, large and small, he had seen on his pilgrimage to Yubi. Yakov pushed open the church door and profanely spurred his horse onto the cross on the ground. Those ornate and orderly mosaic murals and statues of saints, after seeing so many, all looked the same; even the chandeliers hanging from the dome were nothing special.
Daoud obediently closed the gate behind him, shooing away all irrelevant people. Yakov dismounted, drew his blood-stained longsword, and walked to the bishop cowering before the altar.
“This city is mine now,” he said, his chapped lips moving.
“This city belongs to Lord Ibelin and is not under the jurisdiction of the Knights Templar…” The bishop raised the cross necklace from his chest, attempting to use this symbol to awaken a shred of conscience in the Knights Templar before him. “I… I thank you for driving away the army of the [illegible]…”
“I say this city is mine.” Yakov snatched the cross from his hand and easily ripped the beaded chain from the man’s neck. “This city is mine, and it belongs to my master.”
"Who is your master?!" The bishop raised his slender wrist to cover his face, not daring to look him in the eye.
Yakov looked up. His gaze swept over all the brightly colored portraits of saints. Each one in the portraits looked like a mannequin, expressionless, just like him. In the very center of the wall was a warrior slaying a dragon, yet even the warrior's face showed no fear or joy, as if his soul had been drained away, leaving only a lifeless shell in the world.
Yakov thought that all saints are this ruthless, and that's how they should be.
He untied his headscarf and took off his rain-soaked iron hat.
Yubi's arrival eclipsed all that gleamed. The vampire emerged from his head as a cloud of black mist, spreading his wings—wings that had grown even larger than when Biakov first saw them, stretching out almost to blot out the sky, obscuring all that was sacred. He hovered in mid-air, his body cold, before slowly descending to the stone floor.
Yakov took off his dirty, blood-soaked Red Cross cloak and wrapped it around him, so that he would at least have some clothing to cover himself. But Yubi didn't care at all, and just carried it loosely.
"This city is mine now?" He turned around, his red eyes gleaming.
“Only this bishop disagrees.” Yakov stared grimly at the immobilized bald old man. “Do you want me to kill him?”
“Don’t do that, Yakov.” Yubi turned back and leaned closer to the bishop. “I can turn him into a blood slave too.”
"...Let him decide for himself."
After their cruel words, the two men both awaited the bishop's reply. The poor old man, trembling, collapsed beside the altar where the image of the crucified Jesus hung. His wrinkled hands groped around, as if searching for something of faith to shelter him—but alas, he found nothing.
He cried out like a baby with his mouth open, tears welling in his eyes.
“Master.” The bishop immediately apostasyed. “From now on, you are my master…this city, this country, this world are all yours.”
Yubi looked at him in surprise, watching those vine-like hands touch her feet.
“Yakov, look,” he turned around with a smile, “I don’t have to do anything, and power is already in my hands!”
Yakov's heart felt as cold as if it had sunk into an ice cave. It was so cold and numb that even the etched pain was overshadowed.
Tbc.
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