1. Death
1098, Principality of Antioch, Levant
"Have I... survived?"
A question floated upwards like the gentle feather of a bird through the dust and smoked-filled air of a battleground in Antioch, a state in the Levant, temporary home to the Crusaders.
A home reduced to ash, bone and blood."... Or am I closer to death?" his thoughts were sluggish as if they were being pulled through a patch of muddy sand, of which granules trying their best cling upon what belonged to him.
He could not recall the last hour of his life. He could not remember that he was one of the last Crusaders who were struck down by the fearsome coalition of bandits, Muslims and Moors who had come sauntering through the desert hills immediately after an unexpected sand storm in the hours of dawn.
These heretics were swift, thorough and ruthless. The very least the young man could recall was his identity.
"Eustass, bastard son of Claudia Von Palad, a common brothel maiden... is this how you meet your end?" amongst terribly bent piles of blood-stained iron armour and torn chain-mail, beneath a comrades body, there he was, speaking to his own shadow.
He could not feel anything below his waist. In fact he could not feel anything besides the presence of sand, weighing heavily on his tongue and the dryness of his eyelids.
The shadow spoke back to him and informed that he had nearly been cut in half and there was not a grain in chance for survival.
It had been a dark-eyed man wearing a turban over his face who had swung through Eustass's body using an incredibly long scimitar blade. His body and armour must have been as soft as a bean stalk.
The entire regiment of Crusaders, 400 men, readying themselves to ambush the filth occupying the holy land of Jerusalem, were slaughtered by hordes upon hordes of heretics. Even Knight Captain Godefroid, who Eustass had been assigned to as an apprentice. He had been impaled by a spear very early on during the battle. What could not be killed or seized, was either left for dead or burnt.
None of them had a chance.
Was the capture of the Holy Land truly worth all this death? Was it worth his meagre sixteen years of life? A wave of bitterness washed over the remainder of his body. He was known as a mere fledgling, a bastard child, a weakling coward amongst his peers. And now he would die here, without any redemption. It was a dry pill to swallow. Eustass then prayed.
He thought of Jerusalem, the Crusaders, his Knight Commander, his mother... all the people who believed in the God of the Hebrews. All the people who believed in miracles.
His heart burned.
"I am glad that I no longer must walk the Earth. However my heart is heavy, Lord," Eustass coughed out muddy blood in defeating lament. "Were we not faithful servants? Are we not the chosen ones? I only wish I could have understood..." the light from his eyes faded and the words he had yet to utter never left the dry tomb that was his throat.
Eustass Von Palad, last of the Crusaders of Antioch, had died.
It had been an oddly cloudy day in the dry, harsh climate of the Levant. Nearly five hundred men had lost their lives and it seemed as if the sky itself was intending to weep.
For a moment, the clouds partly parted as the sun peeked through, shining over the bloody wasteland.
A mysterious voice boomed over the land.
"Gentle child... to burden your soul with such a responsibility is worthy of high praise. Since your conviction is precise and sharp... so be it."
*****
2. Cowardice
