A Tafur screamed, dropped his mace, and swiped at his greasy black hair. His hands dislodged a pale little scorpion, but instead of tumbling to the floor, it dropped down the back of his tunic. By the time his comrades got the garment yanked up and the creature brushed away and crushed, he had half a dozen swelling bumps on his torso to match the one in his scalp.
The Frenchman whimpered. Adalric took his head between his hands and looked him in the eyes. “I know it’s painful,” he said, “but a normal scorpion can’t kill a man. You’re going to be all right.”
“It wasn’t one of the ones eating the rat,” the Tafur replied in a high, breathy voice. “It jumped on me from the ceiling or the wall. Why did it do that?”
“The commotion frightened it,” Adalric said. “Go upstairs and rest.” He raised his voice: “The rest of you, search the cells!”
The hunt soon rousted out several more common scorpions, prompting him to wonder just how many the fortress harbored altogether. Up until now, he’d seen his refuge as small, but he was starting to appreciate just how many dark corners and hidden recesses it contained. There could be scores—
He scowled to chase such fears away. Small pests weren’t the problem. The one big scorpion was, and surely it couldn’t evade them for long. They’d catch it before the morning was through and, rid of the distraction, refocus on the real menace: the Turks beyond the walls.
As it turned out, the big scorpion wasn’t hiding in the dungeon. Leaving Faramund’s party to search the aboveground portions of the keep, Adalric led his men to the stable.
The outbuilding smelled of grain and leather. The company’s several riding horses and the mules that drew the wagons stood in the stalls. One of the latter heehawed a greeting or perhaps a demand for breakfast.
Adalric directed the search of the stable with the same cautious thoroughness as before, and when it revealed more common scorpions, the men assailed them viciously. Then horses whinnied, and donkeys brayed. The Tafurs looked frantically about.
The surviving enormous scorpion was advancing from the far end of the building where it had evidently hidden during the night. Or at least Adalric assumed this was the same creature, but if so, it had grown in just the few hours since their previous encounter. The arachnid that had eluded him had been, at most, the size of a small dog. Claws and stinger poised, mouthparts gnashing, multiple pairs of round black eyes staring, this one was as big as a boarhound.
Tafurs cried out and crossed themselves. Someone threw a hand-axe that glanced off the scorpion’s segmented shell, leaving a scratch but nothing more.
“Spread out!” Adalric said. “Attack from all sides!” Peering over the top of his shield, he stepped forward to meet the creature head on. Someone had to.
His advance provoked the scorpion into scuttling faster. But before it could close, it listed drunkenly to the left, and then the legs on that side of its body buckled beneath it. It heaved itself up again, attempted to walk, and then all eight legs gave way.
With a roar, the Tafurs charged. It sought to fend them off, but clumsily, as if its pincers and sting had grown too heavy for it. Its shell crunched as weapons smashed and stabbed through to the flesh beneath.
When it was certain the scorpion was dead, some men cheered. Others fell to their knees to give thanks to God. The noise drew Faramund and his Germans.
Faramund gave Adalric a nod. “Nicely done.”
Adalric moved close enough to reply without the men overhearing. He didn’t want them to feel he was belittling their victory. “It wasn’t difficult. The scorpion was sick.”
Faramund shrugged. “The important thing is, this particular problem is over.”
“Right,” Adalric said. Even though the taut, edgy feeling inside him had yet to go away.
The pole hung on the horizontal slung from several ropes. Zeki gave it an experimental push and found that even a single man could easily swing it in its cradle. That confirmed what his eyes had already told him.
“It’s too light to break open the gate,” he said.
The carpenter spread his hands. “My lord, it’s the heaviest pole I had to work with.”
Zeki indicated the peaked roof built atop the ram. “And this doesn’t stick out far enough. An enemy on the wall could still hit one of the men underneath.”
“Captain, if you had specified exactly… shall I begin again?”
“If you can’t make a proper ram, what good would it do?” Zeki took a breath. “I apologize. I know you did the best you could.” He handed the villager a little drawstring bag of clinking silver dirhems and walked back outside where the bright heat of the day was giving way to twilight.
Ibrahim was waiting for him. “I infer from your expression,” the sorcerer said, “that the carpenter failed to produce a serviceable device.”
Zeki sighed. “As you predicted.”
“If you recall, I also explained it doesn’t matter if your troops can’t get inside. Our strategy is to force the infidels out.”
Our strategy. Zeki resented the implication they were now co-commanders. Especially since the more repulsive aspects of last night’s conjuration had heightened his suspicion the wanderer’s magic was something a pious, sensible man should shun.
Yet Ibrahim truly had worked a marvel even if aspects of it were unsavory, and it was now plainer than ever that Zeki needed a marvel to avoid becoming a laughingstock in Antioch. So he buried his distaste beneath a smile and said, “I’ll ask you what you asked me when first we met: how is that going?”
The hair covering the scholar’s mouth stirred. For an instant, Zeki imagined leftover scorpions crawling around in there. But Ibrahim’s next words suggested he’d prefaced them with a sigh forceful enough to puff out his mustache.
“Not as well as I might have hoped,” the sorcerer said. “The Franks went on a scorpion hunt. They didn’t find all the creatures I sent to plague them, but they killed some.”
Zeki nodded. “At least you have some left. Enough to still make a nuisance of themselves, I hope.”
“Yes, but the situation is more complicated than that. I watch through the scorpions’ eyes and compel them to do my bidding. That taps my strength. I made two of the creatures grow to enormous size, and that takes even more power. Indeed, the giants need recurring infusions of magic simply to enable them to walk, let alone threaten the Franks. Nature didn’t intend their frames to support the weight enlargement imposes on them.”
Zeki frowned. “Are you telling me you ran out of strength?”
“To my sorrow, yes, and at a key moment. One of the giants stood a fair chance of killing the infidel captain before his followers slew it in its turn. Instead, it collapsed, and the Franks overwhelmed the poor thing with little more trouble than farmers slaughtering a goat.”
“Then your effort has run its course?” Zeki wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or relieved.
The tufts of hair under the sorcerer’s nose stirred again, this time as he laughed. “Hasbinallah, no! Please forgive me if I worried you. I was merely trying to explain that I require new vitality to continue.”
Zeki swallowed. “Does that mean you want to kill one of the remaining prisoners?”
“Both, I think. Perhaps then I won’t run short of power again.”
“I… don’t know if I should allow that.”
Ibrahim’s cocked his head. “Why not? You were being just, were you not, when you condemned the first infidel to death? Aren’t the other two guilty of the same crimes?”
“You told me the first one was going to die anyway.”
“Painfully, and it seemed merciful to spare him. But as a soldier, surely you would agree that war does not always afford us the luxury of kindness.”