“ Deus vult!God wills it!” shouted Arn as loud as he could, and his cry was repeated instantly back along the whole column.
Arn and the knights closest to him on either side slowly began to move forward as those farther back trotted up and out to both sides in orderly fashion. When the Templar knights now emerged from the woods it looked as though their center was standing almost still while two mighty wings of white-clad and black-clad knights were unfolded on both sides. When the whole force was arrayed in a straight line, the thunder of the horses’ hooves rose to a mighty rumble as they all increased their speed to a gallop over the last stretch of ground before crashing into the entire length of the enemy camp.
Few enemy soldiers had managed to mount their horses, and they were the first targets of the attacking Templar knights. At the same time the horse pens of the Mamelukes were attacked out on the flanks and the fences were trampled flat, while the enemy’s horses were stuck with lances so they would panic and direct their wild flight in toward the camp. The area soon became a chaos of panic-stricken horses and Mameluke soldiers running for their weapons or trying to escape the heavy cavalry of the enemy among collapsing tents and cooking fires that spread embers and sparks in every direction as they were overrun by the horses.
The gates of Ashkelon had been opened, and from there the king’s secular army now attacked from two directions toward the center of the besiegers’ camp. When Arn saw this he yelled to Armand de Gascogne to ride straight south with the flag so that all the Templar knights would follow along in that maneuver and make room for the royal army.
Soon the Templar knights were in tight formation and riding forward in a long phalanx right through the enemy army, slashing and jabbing and trampling everything in their path. The enemy soldiers never managed to recover from their fright and surprise, so they never understood that they were being attacked by such a small force. Because few of the Mamelukes had managed to mount their horses, they didn’t have a good overview, and so it might seem that an utterly superior enemy was leading the onslaught.
The battle turned into a bloodbath that went on until long after sundown. More than two hundred captives were then led in through the gates of Ashkelon, and the battlefield was left to the darkness and the Bedouins, who now appeared out of nowhere like vast numbers of vultures. The Christians closed the city gates behind them as if they wanted to spare themselves the sight of what would now take place all night long out there in the torchlight.
In the city’s largest market square Arn arrayed his troops and took roll call, squadron by squadron. Four men were missing. Considering the size of their victory that was a very low price, but the important thing for the moment was to find the fallen or wounded brothers. He quickly put together a squadron of sixteen men and sent them out with spare horses to collect the missing brothers for care or for Christian burial.
Then he went to the small quarter of the city reserved for the Knights Templar and examined his wounds, which were mostly scratches and bruises. He washed himself and asked where he could find the Grand Master. He found him waiting in the chapel dedicated to the Mother of God and together they offered prayers of thanksgiving because God and His Mother had given them a glorious victory. Afterward they went out to talk with each other.
They went up on the breastwork and sat down a short distance from the nearest guard post so that they would be undisturbed. Down below them in the city the victory celebration was in full swing except in the Templar quarter and in the grain store that had been put at the brothers’ disposal for the night. In those two buildings it was quiet and dark except for individual candles where they were tending to each other’s wounds.
“Saladin may be a great commander, but he couldn’t have grasped how many of you there were down in Gaza, or he wouldn’t have been content to leave barely two thousand men here to watch Ashkelon,” observed Odo de Saint Amand. That was the first thing he said to Arn, as there was not much need to discuss the day’s victory.
“All the knights stayed inside the fortress when he came to Gaza. There were only two of us with white mantles up on the breastwork,” Arn explained. “But he has more than five thousand Mameluke cavalry left. How are things in Jerusalem?”
“The king’s army is here in Ashkelon, as you can see. In Jerusalem, Arnoldo has two hundred knights and four or five hundred sergeants, and that is all, I’m afraid.”
“Then we’ll have to attack and disrupt Saladin’s army as soon as we regain our strength. And that will be tomorrow,” said Arn tersely.
“Tomorrow we probably won’t have the king’s army with us, since they’ll still be recovering from the aftereffects of this evening. Not from the battlefield, for they didn’t have to do much before we were victorious, but from tonight’s celebrating,” Odo de Saint Armand said fiercely.
“We won and they’re celebrating the victory. So we’re dividing the labor, as usual,” muttered Arn, at the same time smiling at his high protector. “By the way, I think it best if we do not proceed too hastily. If we’re lucky, not a single one of the vanquished soldiers trying to flee will make it through the Bedouins’ lines out there, so it will be a while before Saladin finds out what happened. That would be to our great advantage.”
“We’ll see tomorrow,” nodded Odo, getting up. Arn also stood up to receive the Grand Master’s embrace and kisses, first on the left and then on the right cheek.
“I bless you, Arn de Gothia,” said the Grand Master solemnly as he held Arn by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. “You can’t imagine how it feels to stand up there on the wall and see our men come out in an attack as if there were two thousand of us and not three hundred. I had promised the secular army and the king that you would arrive at the appointed time, and you kept your promise. It was a great victory, but we have a long way to go.”
“Yes, Grand Master,” said Arn quietly. “This victory is already forgotten. What we have before us is a very large Mameluke army. May God protect us yet again.”
The Grand Master released Arn and took a step backward. Arn fell to his knees at once and bowed his head as his most exalted leader disappeared into the darkness along the rampart of the fortress.
Arn rose to his feet and stood alone for a moment, looking out beyond the wall and listening to the occasional screams from the wounded. His whole body was aching, but it was a lovely warm and throbbing ache and except for a scratch along one cheek he was not bleeding. As usual, he felt the most pain in his knees, which had to absorb the impact when he rode into an enemy host on horseback or struck down a soldier by riding right over him.
In the days that followed, not much happened at Ashkelon. The Mameluke prisoners were chained and set to work digging graves for their dead comrades out on the battlefield. Now and then small groups of Bedouins would bring in new captives to sell, dragging them behind their camels.
The Bedouins also brought news of Saladin’s army. Contrary to what the Templars had expected, Saladin had not moved off toward Jerusalem; instead he had loosed the reins on his army and let them plunder the entire countryside between Ashkelon and Jerusalem. Perhaps he thought that it was better to plunder now, before his glorious victory. He was obviously confident that they would encounter no enemies out in the field; he knew that the enemy forces were safely bottled up inside their fortresses and behind the city walls of Ashkelon and Jerusalem. Once the hunger to pillage had been quelled in his army, he could take Jerusalem without risk that the holy city would be desecrated after his conquest. No matter what the reason for his course of action, this was still a mistake that he would regret in ten years’ time.