Brother Julius ran then. The other pilgrims were clambering over the ruins of the old fort as arrows struck sparks from the broken stone. The riders—a dozen Saracens in billowing desert cloaks—rode toward them like the horsemen of Saint John. They yipped and yelled and laughed as they fired their last volley of quarrels and then they hooked their crossbows over their saddle horns and drew their swords with a rippling wave of silver.

Brother Julius tried to leap over a fallen pear tree, and the skeletal fingers of a branch snagged the hem of his robe. The cloth caught fast and Julius fell flat on his face with a whooomph! Sand puffed up, filling his nose and mouth. He rolled onto his side, gagging and coughing.

Behind him he heard shrill screams and the sound of pain-filled voices pleading to God even as sword blades cut into them. Brother Julius closed his eyes and tried to mutter a prayer between fits of coughing. Soon the screams stopped but the dull-wet sound of steel on flesh continued for almost a full minute.

Then there was silence.

Brother Julius tried to crawl away, but he heard the crunch of a foot on the sand beside his head and he looked up into the face of one of the killers. The man had dark eyes and black hair that fluttered in the breeze. He had a thin mustache and a spiked beard on the point of his chin. He was not smiling; instead a look of sadness was painted over his features. And his face … there was something terribly wrong about his face.

“Make your peace with God,” said the killer.

The clothes were Saracen, as were the armor and fittings. Even the decorations on the horse that stood nickering behind him were of Saracen make. But the man spoke in French.

“W—why … why are you doing this?” demanded the monk. “I don’t understand. For the love of God—why?”

The killer raised his sword. “It is for the love of God that we do this. And may God have mercy on all our souls.”

The sword flashed downward and Brother Julius felt himself detaching from the heat and the sand and his own flesh. He felt himself falling into darkness, into mystery.

*   *   *

The swordsman placed a foot on the monk’s chest and pulled, tearing his blade free from where it had wedged deep in the bone. Then he dropped the weapon on the sand by the monk.

He turned and looked at his companions. Two of them were busy with the task of cutting off the heads of the pilgrims. They were laughing as they worked, tossing the heads like children playing with toys.

“Stop it!” growled the swordsman, and the men froze in place, their smiles disintegrating from their faces, their eyes instantly ashamed. He plucked at his robe with disgust. “Do you wear these and then forget who you are?”