Medieval Gacha Lord-Chapter 86: Saladin Arrives

Chapter 86: Saladin Arrives

On the distant horizon, dust billowed. On the walls of Kerak Castle, the garrison moved back and forth, their expressions tense.

Saladin’s grand army, without any warning, had crossed the border between the two kingdoms this very morning and was now bearing down on Kerak.

Holy Fire flags and a sea of men kicking up dust blotted out the sky.

The terrifying sense of pressure made everyone in Kerak tense. They knew very well that given the past actions of their lord, Count Raynald—plundering Zoroastrian merchant caravans, massacring Zoroastrian civilians, attempting to defile Zoroastrian holy sites in Nejd—if the city fell, no one would survive.

Though Saladin was known for his benevolence, his iron-fisted methods never lacked for bloodshed.

’Creeaak—’ A dozen armored sergeants strained at the windlass, raising the heavy drawbridge, completely ignoring the scattered groups of refugees who had already reached the vicinity of the gate, fleeing with their families.

"Please, open the gate! Let us in!’

"Our village has been completely massacred! Those Saracens won’t let us go!"

"Limur! I’m your uncle! These are all relatives and neighbors who watched you grow up! I beg you, show some mercy, delay raising the drawbridge for a moment!"

"Can you bear to watch your own kin and friends die like this beneath the city walls?"

The people crowded beneath the walls, pleading. On the ramparts, some showed expressions of pity, but no one dared to stop the sergeants from raising the drawbridge, because this was Count Raynald’s order.

Moreover, the enemy’s light cavalry troop was watching from within an arrow’s shot. If they dared to lower the drawbridge, these cavalrymen would immediately charge forward recklessly to seize it.

The defending sergeants and conscripted soldiers bustled about like industrious worker ants, piling round stone balls with smoothed-off edges beside the trebuchets. These small trebuchets mounted on the city walls could launch the stone projectiles in the nets at one end simply by cutting the ropes holding the counterweights.

The Saracens called this type of trebuchet the "Furious One" and equipped their armies extensively with it. The largest among them was said to be able to hurl a two-thousand-pound boulder, capable of collapsing city walls.

Large cauldrons were set up on the walls, filled with black burning oil; once poured down, they could easily destroy a siege ladder.

Others carried wooden buckets filled with sand and water, stacking them before the battlements to prevent accidental fires.

Carts transported Kerak’s pre-stocked bricks and stones, piling them in the gatehouse tower above the first city gate. After the enemy breached the first gate, the defenders in the gatehouse could hurl stones down from above to prevent the enemy from opening the second gate.

It had to be said, Kerak, which Raynald had managed for many years, was indeed a formidable fortress, filled with enough supplies to sustain a thousand defenders for half a year. It couldn’t be easily broken by any means that the Saracens might have.

Raynald, clad head to toe in armor, his livid face now filled with fury, gritted his teeth. "Damn it! I knew Saladin would choose Kerak as his target! He hates me, sees me as his lifelong nemesis! He would give up Jerusalem just to have my life!"

Countess Stephanie, her face resolute, this knightly woman dressed in battle attire, her tall and robust frame no less than any male knight’s, said, "This is our honor, Raynald. We and the infidels are mortal enemies. The more he hates us, the more glorious we should feel."

Raynald burst into laughter. "Exactly, Stephanie! Let Saladin hate me! I will make his grand army return in defeat here! By then, the entire Kingdom will be shaken by my achievements!"

After laughing, Raynald again looked somewhat nervous. "Stephanie, have the messages requesting aid been sent out?"

Stephanie looked helplessly at her somewhat neurotic husband and nodded. "Yes, they were sent out the very moment the scouts finished their report."

Raynald slapped his hands together. "Right! We also need to send someone to our little neighbor’s place! I remember he trained a decent unit of armored sergeants. Have his castellan immediately send all his troops to reinforce Kerak!"

Stephanie asked doubtfully, "Those Jorgklusburg defenders, will they agree to abandon their own castle to come to our aid?"

Raynald said with great confidence, "They will understand what’s important! Once Kerak is breached, that pitiful, dilapidated fortress of theirs, which looks like a gust of wind could blow it down, won’t be able to withstand the infidels’ attack at all! But as long as Kerak holds, even if some scattered Saracen troops slip through, at most they can only plunder a few villages."

Raynald stood on the city wall, incessantly stroking the cold, rough stones, his face flushed with excitement. "Come on, Saladin! I know you’ve always considered me your nemesis! Then let us have a proper, grand battle!"

***

On the desert outside the castle, white, square-topped tents were pitched in a palm grove.

Roaming Saracen light cavalry had already swept through all the nearby villages; the emptied houses were now filled with soldiers conscripted from various tribes.

At the edge of the grove, accompanying artisans and serfs were felling trees, assembling scaling ladders, siege carts, siege towers, and enormous counterweight trebuchets.

In the very center, surrounded by all the tents, within an exceptionally tall pavilion, a king clad in exquisite golden scale armor, wearing a black turban, sat upon a gold-inlaid throne, listening to reports from the chiefs of various tribes.

His was a face that couldn’t be called handsome, but was by no means ugly or mediocre; it left a deep impression at first glance. His cheeks were lean, bearing a scar said to have been left by an assassin kept by the Old Man of the Mountain.

Behind him hung a massive map, upon which two red lines, like sharp Arab straight swords, plunged directly into the heartland of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Clearly, this was Saladin, monarch of the Ayyubid Dynasty, who had risen from Egypt, now unified most of the Arab regions, and whose prestige in the Zoroastrian world was in no way inferior to that of the thousand-year Sasanian Empire.

The chiefs and lords of the various tribes gradually dispersed. Only Saladin and his younger brother, Sayf al-Din, remained in the tent.

Saladin suddenly remembered something and inquired, "Adil, Kerak is the fief of that oath-breaker, correct?"

Al-Adil was also Sayf al-Din’s actual name; Sayf al-Din was just the easier to use for the Crusader nobles.

(Note: His full name is "al-Malik al-Adil Sayf ad-Din Abu-Bakr Ahmed ibn Najm ad-Din Ayyub", quite a mouthful isn’t it?)

"Indeed, my King."

"Raynald..." Mentioning this person, even a monarch as composed as Saladin felt a wave of heartfelt disgust.

Count Raynald, after becoming the lord of Kerak, had once undertaken a major endeavor: organizing a navy, intending to sail south and attack another Zoroastrian holy site in Nejd, thereby extorting a large sum of money from them.

Although his plot did not succeed, his offense against the holy site had greatly enraged the Saracens.

This greedy, despicable, utterly shameless villain, devoid of any knightly spirit, was now a thorn in the side of many Saracens.

Al-Adil said gravely, "My King, within three days, I will surely breach this castle and present you with the head of Raynald, that villain who once offended the holy site and repeatedly attacked our kingdom’s merchant caravans."

"No, a feint is enough." Saladin looked at his younger brother and beloved general, and said solemnly, "I do indeed hate this despicable and shameless oath-breaker, but do not forget our objective is to retake the Holy City. The generals of various tribes and chieftain leaders gathered under my banner were all invited by me in the name of Jihad. Although there are more than twenty thousand combat soldiers in total, our core troops directly loyal to us number less than ten thousand. Al-Adil, my empire is not a monolithic bloc. We cannot afford to lose too many troops here. Otherwise, we might not even see the walls of Jerusalem before having to retreat in disgrace. That King of Kings residing in Ctesiphon is just waiting to see me return defeated."

Saladin often claimed to have hundreds of thousands of troops under his command. This was indeed true, but that figure was the sum total distributed throughout the entire Ayyubid Kingdom, including local garrisons, armies loyal only to local lords, and a large number of laborers who could be conscripted as cannon fodder.

For a long expedition, further limited by supplies, even with more than half of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s forces deployed north, Saladin’s thirty thousand men (including some military servants) still did not possess an overwhelming advantage.

***

Hey guys, quick heads-up.

If you’re a visual person or just tired of trying to remember every single character there is (Believe me I get it), I’ve updated the Auxiliary Chapters.

Dropped in some maps and a character glossary for your viewing pleasure. Check it out if you feel like it. No pressure. (But it might make the story make a lot more sense. Just sayin’.)