Werewolf the Podcast: Save us from Saladinn (Episode 220)

We are with our mighty four as they now travel to the Crusades: William Marshall, Percy, Gervais and Fenrir Werewolf soul. They see the Count de Perigord and do the decent thing after being under the scrutiny of Gabriel the Archangel.

We find our cast faced by the forces of Saladinn. They are attacked, and the battle goes badly, but the great man himself comes to save them. 

Please check out Odin Apparel for amazing Viking-themed kits and our T-shirts. Preorder it now at this link.

https://odinapparel24.myshopify.com/collections/werewolf-a-serial-killer-podcast

The Old Man's Podcast:

The writing duo speak to the Old Man himself. Go check us out on his award-winning Podcast.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-old-mans-podcast/id1595940192?i=1000708626677

Grendel Press, our horror genre partner

https://grendelpress.com/

Grendel's very own cool Podcast.

https://grendelpress.com/sinister-soup. 

Buy us a coffee at this link right here:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Werewolfwil

Buy a book about werewolves. Here it is, straight from a fang-filled mouth.

Il Lupo

Greg's first Werewolf book. Brilliantly written characters in an incredible story. 

https://books2read.com/ILLUPO

A Werewolf's Story

https://amzn.to/3BjXoZu

Werewolf the Colouring Book.

What should I do this evening? Why not sit and do some Wonderful Werewolf colouring?  Red may be a theme.

https://amzn.to/40k93l6

Facebook Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/werewolfthepodcast/

Greg's X profile:@SempaiGreg

Werewolf the Podcast:@AWerewolfsStoryWil

Intro partnership with Grendel Press.

https://grendelpress.com/

Outro partnership with Grendel Press.

https://grendelpress.com/

Transcript

The dust cloud rising to the east was the first warning.

A pale haze shimmered above the scrubland, where the road twisted like a dying serpent toward the heat-bolied hills.

Gervais, his surcoat bleached white by the sun, raised a mailed fist.

'Hold.' The column lurched to a halt—knights in rust-spotted hauberks, Gascon spearmen squinting under leather caps, a handful of Templar sergeants with the red cross slashed across their breasts.

Gervais spat from beneath his helm.

'Something smells wrong.' He told me. 

Fenrir Wolf Soul ran from our side out into the dust to the left of the path we were on. 

As he ran, I began to hear the horses' hooves through his ears as the soul flew deeper into the dust cloud.

Then the wind shifted, and the dust resolved into shapes.

Horsemen. Dozens of them. No—hundreds.

They came not in ranks, but as waves on a loose, swirling tide, their hooves kicking up a storm of dirt behind them. 

The morning light glinted off lance tips and the curved bellies of short, vicious bows.

'Turks,' spat the Wolf Soul into my mind.

'Turks!' I yelled to the anxious footmen and knights, as I loosened my sword in its scabbard and lifted my helm to my head before raising my shield from its place in my horse's tack.

Bastard danced beneath me. Not with the anxiety of the other horses but with the excitement for the fight. He was a real bastard, was my wonderful steed. 

A heartbeat later, the air screamed.

The first arrows fell like a steel curtain. Rattling on the armour, the shields and the stony road

A knight's bellow was cut off as one shaft punched through his coif, the point bursting from his throat in a spray of red liquid. 

Blood spurted from his neck, coating my armour and blinding me for a moment before I wiped it clean as he fell from his steed.

Horses reared in shock; a pack mule bolted as another bolt thumped into its rear. 

It spilt sacks of grain as it ran and yelled its anger at the injury. 

It bucked its way across the road and dragged its handler, who fell backwards to another shaft that buried itself in his chest. 

'Shields!' Gervais roared, but the command was lost in the chaos.

Thankfully, most of the men who accompanied us on the road were seasoned veterans and knew the drill. 

The Gascons crouched behind their bucklers, while the knights—those still mounted—swung their kite shields up just in time. 

'Thock. Thock. Thock.' The sound of arrowheads biting oak and the screams of men and horses as they were punctured.

Gervais and I sat on our destriers next to each other as the arrows struck. Our eyes met as we leaned in behind the shields that absorbed the incoming projectiles. 

We smiled and laughed at each thud and shudder, thankful with each strike that we were not dead. 

'The first rain I have seen in two months, and I wish not to get wet.' Gervais said in comforting bravado.

Then the charging Turks split their force like a river parting around a rock; they streamed past the column's flanks at full gallop, their bows singing a song of death. 

Was it a feint? A trap? We had no time to think. 

A young squire, eyes wild with fury and blood lust, spurred his horse at them. 

'No, you fool...!' I managed to say before...

Too late.

The boy made it ten paces before the hidden line of Mamluks struck. They'd been waiting in the dead ground, their lances levelled. 

'...Never mind.' I said to the air.

The squire's horse went down screaming its chest the centre of the lancers' aim, and the Mamluks rode over horse and him, their blades rising and falling like butchers' cleavers.

Now the real killing began.

In the camp of the Count. 

Gervais, Percy, Fenrir and I wandered to the camp of the Count. 

'So you can see me now.' Fenir was talking to Gervais, who, after his meeting with the angel and the Devil, could now, for some reason, see the giant Wolf's soul.

'Yes.' Said the Knight. 

'That's strange.' Said Fenrir as he shook his head. The Wolf looked thoughtful. As though he was trying to consider why this was. 

'I have to say...' Gervais continued. '...you are nowhere near as impressive as I thought you would be.'

There was a moment of silence as the Wolf's soul and the man stopped, meeting eyes. The Wolf's soul was so large that they were at eye level, and Gervai was not a short man. The stare continued. Neither flinched nor blinked.

It was a distinct instant of awkwardness, it was. Then they both laughed as they returned to walk with Percy and me. 

'Can you see me, Percy?' Asked Fenrir.

Percy turned to look at the Wolf.

'No.' He smiled. 

Again, laughter from the four of us. Brothers, we were whatever our shape.

We were met at the camp boundary by a group of soldiers. 

We raised our hands and showed that we had no weapons and no armour. 

The Gascons died first.

They had locked their tiny shields, taking heed of their superiors, a bristling wall of spears, but the Mamluks came like a tide of iron and malice. 

Another well-aimed lance took the first man high in the chest, lifting him off his feet as he clutched at the shaft before it snapped, and he fell back behind his fellows, his body flailing.

The Gascon's line inevitably buckled as they were hit with what seemed like a giant hammer of humans. 

The curved swords of the Mamluks rose and fell, and the desert air filled with the wet, hacking sounds of butchery and violence. 

Men screamed as they were cleaved asunder. Some roared in anger, while others cried out for their mothers. Most just fell and died. 

I saw the Templars fight to form a wedge, Arnulf at its tip, his sword already dark to the hilt. His surcoat was spattered in gore. I could see the bloodlust in his eyes. This was what he lived for. Killing heathens.

For just a heartbeat, the Templars held their ground. They even started to push the attacking foe back, walking over the dead and injured Mamluks that had fallen at their feet. 

The wedge's precision and the Templars' disciplined tactics were beyond the Mamluks' capabilities. 

Then a Turk's arrow took Arnulf in the eye, and the wedge collapsed like a shattered door. With no leader, it was... It was not a fight. It... It was a massacre. I turned my eyes away and swore an oath to remember Arnulf in my next vigil.

'For fucks sake!' Yelled Gervais as he watched the Templars being butchered. 

We fought to aid them. We tried to get to them, but the enemy were too numerous. For every one we cut down, another two came on.

'To the rocks!' Gervais eventually bellowed in anguish whilst pointing his battle-bent and blood-slicked blade toward a jagged outcrop. 

A handful of us knights—maybe twenty—heard him. We fought our way toward it, making our way over the dead, our breath ragged. 

A young sergeant, his face a mask of blood, dragged his wounded brother with him as unravelling guts dragged in the dust.

Gervais and I took position as the rear guard of our little group, willing to sell ourselves for...

The enemy let us go.

They turned to torturing those who were still living and fallen. Their cries did no more than anger me while we watched the... 

Gervais removed his helmet and wiped his face. Smearing the coating of grimness and grime that was presented. He had an arrow sticking deep within his thigh.

'Gervais, you have an arrow in your leg, so you have.' I pointed at it with my blade. 

He smiled, looked at it. 'Oh, so I have.' He said before replacing his helmet, laughing and breaking the shaft of the bolt with his free hand.

The Mamluks had let us go. Not from mercy, but calculation as the Turk archers circled us, arrows nocked, while their heavy cavalry regrouped. 

We turned and joined the pitiful few that had made it to the outcrop.

The rocks offered cover, but no escape was possible. Gervais asked for each man to shout out.

'Call your name if you are not dead!' He yelled.

Under thirty voices were heard. 

'Shit'

More than half our column lay in the dust behind us, their corpses already being attended to by laughing tribesmen and scavenging beasts of the earth and air. 

Soon enough, the dead's possessions and their flesh would be stripped to leave just sun-bleached bone. 

A brave knight's surcoat fluttered in the hot breeze as a Turk yanked it free from his body. They laughed and waved it in our direction as his men jeered.

We watched bitterly. Nothing was said. Only the horses shied as we held. To hold was hard, in our hearts but not in our heads, we charged those bastards as they did their corpse harvest.

One Gascon was brought to the edge of the field by two Maluks. We could see he was injured. He dragged a leg and held his chest. 

The soldiers who brought him cast him to his hands and knees and shouted at us in their heathen tongue as they kicked at the man as he tried to get up from the ground. We could hear the heavy blows in the now sultry silence, as they landed on the poor wretch. 

I prayed he would die soon.

A bitter thing to pray for.

Eventually, the beaten man tried no more to raise himself. He just lay in the dirt. 

One of the Mamluks stabbed him in the thigh with a blade. No response. 

He kicked the dead man and spat on him before wiping his knife on the brave Gascon's clothing whilst he stared at us with pure hate. He paused, then turned back with his fellow to the remains of the battlefield behind him.

Then the arrows flew again.

This time, there were few shields left to stop them.

Captain Demos of Limassol was sitting behind his board in a tent. He was eating what seemed to be the remnants of an unlucky chicken.

We had been ushered in by his men, who left us to meet him alone.

He sat and continued eating while looking at us, then removed the thigh from his mouth and spoke.

'Hmm! You are back?' 

'That bird you eat looks as lucky as the Brave Cock.' I told him.

'Ah, you noticed that then.' He laughed as he dropped the cleared bone to his dish with a clink.

'It was difficult to ignore.' I told him.

'Your lord has a thing for hanging and gutting folk, does he not?' I asked him.

He leant forward, wiping his hands on his dirty tunic, and then steepling his hands before him. 

'The Brave cock was not so at his death. He pissed himself as he fell. Sadly, not, to his death. Sadly for him, that is. I enjoyed the castration and the subsequent gutting.' He pulled a dagger from his belt and looked at it with fondness before grabbing an apple and slicing a chunk off, transferring it to his mouth.

'Susequent.' Said Percy. Obviously impressed by this horror show of a man's eloquence.

'What is it you wish?' The Captain asked.

'We have orders to pull out in the morning. Your returning army has been spotted by our scouts. We will be gone before they arrive.'

'Makes sense.' I told him, and he nodded in response. 

'I would like to talk to the Count.' I said.

'I would like to tell him what happened with his father and Em.'

The man who sat before me looked at me in surprise. I could see he was weighing me up as he took another slice before stabbing his blade into the tabletop and staring hard at me... I must have passed the test, whatever that test was, as the moment broke, and he rubbed his hands over one another while he gave a little laugh. 

'Okay.' He said, rising to his feet with a smile.

'I look forward to seeing his face when you trespass on him.' He said, waving his hand to invite us to walk before him from the tent.

'Trespass.' Repeated Percy. He was impressed with the Captain's fine vocabulary.

'Thought you'd like that.' He said to Perc as we left, giving him a wink.

The arrows came again.

This time, there was no shield wall left to stop them.

A knight beside me—some Flemish brute with a broken nose and a surcoat stained by old wine—took the first shaft through his breast plate with a thunk. 

He made a wet, gurgling sound, exactly like a man drowning in his own blood, which he was, before toppling forward into the dust. 

Two arrows punched into my beautiful destrier's chest, and my beloved Bastard screamed, his great body shuddering beneath me.

He did not buck and try to throw me. He was far too disciplined for that.

I somehow managed to swing myself down just as he collapsed, my boots kicking up dirt as I rolled clear. 

They would pay for this. 

I held my head to my horse's ever so briefly, as I cut his throat to save him from the pain. I thanked him, I did.

The arrows were through his chest and lungs. A long and painful death if left him, he would have. It was a bitter loss. One I would exact a payment in flesh for, if I had the chance to, so I would.

Gervais was already on his feet, his sword gleaming wet and red in the harsh sunlight.

'Form up!' he bellowed. 

'Backs to the rocks!'

The surviving soldiers obeyed and fell into rank, though there were pitifully few left. The Gascons were... gone. 

The Templars were almost... gone. Only a handful of battered men-at-arms and a few bloodied knights remained, their faces streaked with sweat, gore and strife, so they were. 

We pressed together, the few recovered shields overlapping to cover us as best they could, our blades bristling outward like the spines of a cornered beast. Which is what we were.

The Turks circled us, their horses kicking up dust, their laughter was as sharp as the arrows they loosed. 

They knew we were finished. But a cornered wolf bites hardest, so they stayed beyond us, poking their fun. 

They were playing carefully with us.

'Steady,' Gervais growled, his voice low. 

'Make them pay for every bastarding step.'

The first Mamluk came in fast, his curved sword flashing. 

I met him with a brutal upward cut, feeling the steel bite deep into his ribs. He screamed, his horse veering away, but another rider took his place instantly. 

A lance smashed from nowhere into our party. It scraped across my shield, the force of it numbing my arm. I retaliated with a backhanded slash that slid up the shaft, opening a man's face from cheek to chin. 

He reeled, clutching at the ruin of his features, before a man-at-arms spear took him in the gut and hurled him from the saddle.

But for every one we killed, many more pressed.

Gervais fought like a man possessed, his wounded leg forgotten, his sword a blur of steel. 

He gutted one rider, reversing his spin, and then hacked the legs from another's horse, sending the man and beast crashing into the dirt, where another knight's mace crushed his skull. 

Gervais roared exultant.

But even a bear like Gervais couldn't hold forever.

An arrow took him high in the shoulder, punching through mail and padding. He grunted, staggered, but didn't fall. Instead, he laughed—a raw, wild sound and dragged it out of his body. 

'Is that the best you dogs can do?' He yelled as he fell to one knee.

The Mamluks didn't understand his words, but they understood defiance. They hated it and respected it.

Another horseman charged, his lance aimed straight for Gervais' chest. It would be a killing blow.

'Come on, you filthy heathen pig!' He roared at the lancer, offering his chest to the man as a target.

I stumbled forward and somehow managed to deflect the strike of the horseman at the last moment. 

I had lunged badly, and my sword deflected the point just enough to send it scraping across Gervais' breastplate before I stumbled and fell to my face.

I was prone and thought I was going under the rider's horse, but Gervais instantly repaid the favour by burying his blade in the rider's thigh, pinning him to the horse as if nailed there.

Unfortunately, he did not have time to reclaim his blade, so he grabbed the girth and saddle of the horse and somehow managed to wrestle the kicking and biting beast into the dirt while he screamed his fury. 

Gervais, the animal and the man went down into a complicated pile, where I finished its rider with a thrust through the spine as Gervais let go of the horse that regained its feet and shot from the fight. 

But it wasn't enough.

They came again. And again.

Our number shrank with every breath. Men fell, gasping their last, their blood soaking into the thirsty earth. The rocks at our backs, once our salvation, now felt like the walls of a tomb.

Gervais turned to me and smiled. 

'At least we left that bastard Percy somewhere he will never write one of his awful songs about this.' He told me.

I stood before the Count of Perigord. The younger.

He was sitting in his throne-like throne on his dias in his sleepwear. He did not look amused at this disturbance ot his sleep.

'Have you come to gloat, you bastard.' He said. 

'I know your army is on its way back and that you have come for terms. I know that Tancervilles' allies are coming from the South and that we are effectively trapped. So what is it you want? Take me and let my people go.' He smiled. This was very brave.

'Well, I offer no terms.' 

The Count laughed and nodded. 

'I would expect no more after my behaviour.' He said

'Actually, I came to tell you the truth of what happened to your father and your beloved sister.' 

The Count offered me a confused look.

'I know what happened.' He said. 

'Oh, no. That was what you were told.' Said Gervais.

'Yes, we were there and saw it all, and after speaking to my new friend, the Angel Gabriel, I am incapable of lying.'Said Percy.

Both Gervais and I looked at him bemused. He instantly gained the colour of the perceptibly embarrassed.

'Verily, I'm going to do my best.' He said defensively and then smirked.

The Count spoke.

'I am here, you realise.' He said.

'Right, the long and short of it is that your father fired the quarrel that killed your sister.' I told him.

He looked at Gervais and then Percy, who both nodded in response.

He raised his hand in supplication. 

'Would you swear on the bible?' He asked.

'Yes, we would.' Said Percy, leaning forward.

'It also means a lot more, the swear that is, because of me meeting the Archangel Gabriel...' We all shushed him.

'If I were to believe you...' Started the Count but was interrupted by Percy.

'Although William did cut your sister's head off and take it back as a trophy,' he added.

Gervais turned to him and gave him a look that I was glad I did not get.

'Why don't you shut the fuck up, Percy?' He told the man.

'For that, I am genuinely sorry. I have already committed to the crusade to try to make up for this shortcoming in my honour. I have promised to fight to retake Jerusalem and kill Saladinn himself. I can never atone for what I have done to you, but I hope that you will allow me to commit myself to the Lord's work. I leave this as your decision. If you want to take me hostage or prisoner, then I would understand. If you wish to take my life, I will allow it.' I took to my knees before the man and bowed my head. 

The Count stood up from his seat and walked forward towards me.

I felt him reach down, and he held my shoulder as he brought me up from the floor and patted me on the back.

'We tried to kill you, you Bastard. It will be interesting to see if the Muslim forces can do better.' He laughed.

'Please go and do as much damage to them as you can.'

The air was thick with the stench of blood and sweat. 

The Mamluks tightened their noose around us, their curved blades glinting like crescent moons in the dying light. Gervais spat into the dust, his sword trembling in his grip. 

'Well,' he muttered, 'Is this a good way to die?'

Then the wind shifted.

A cold mist coiled across the battlefield, slithering between the fallen, twisting like a living thing. The Turks hesitated. Their horses shied, nostrils flaring at a scent older than fear.

Fenrir's voice echoed in my mind, not as words, but as a hunger.

'Let me in.' He growled.

I opened my arms.

The mist surged forward, a black tide that poured into my mouth, my eyes, my veins. There was no pain—only power. Mail burst apart. Steel buckled. The last thing I saw as a man was the widening whites of a Mamluk's eyes.

Then the Wolf stood. Blazing fire for eyes.

I was no longer a knight.

I was Werewolf.

The first Mamluk died mid-scream. 

One moment, he was raising his scimitar—the next, my claws split him from groin to gullet, his entrails slapping wetly against the dust. 

His comrades froze, their faces slack with disbelief.

I rushed forward.

A lance scraped across my flank, but the wound sealed before the steel could withdraw. 

I seized the weapon, yanked—and the rider flew from his saddle like a child's toy. His spine shattered against the rocks before he could even cry out.

The Turks broke.

They had faced knights, had shattered crusader lines—but this? 

This was no man. This was the beast from their darkest tales, the shadow that howled in their nightmares. A Djinn, a Demon.

Their arrows might as well have been rain as I plucked them from my healing flesh. Their swords were turned by my pelt? They felt like twigs against a storm.

I moved like smoke, like slaughter given form. A Mamluk sipahi swung at me—I caught his wrist, crushed it to pulp, then tore out his throat with my teeth. 

Fenrir and I revelled in this bloody work.

The blood was hot, metallic, alive. 

Another lman lunged with a dagger. I ripped his arm clean off and beat him to death with it while I laughed at his terrified expression.

I roared on into the fray, and the desert air filled with the wet, tearing sounds of men being unmade, and through the red haze, I heard Gervais roar: 

'With me!'

The surviving soldiers, half-mad with battle lust, charged into the fray.

No longer prey—now hunters. A spearman drove his weapon through a fleeing Turk's back, pinning him to the earth like a butterfly. 

Arnulf's remaining Templars fought with the cold precision of men who knew God had sent them a miracle—or a monster. They were grateful for either at this point. 

Gervais limped to my side, his sword dripping. He eyed me—not with fear, but with a feral grin. 

'Took you two long enough,' he spat.

I growled, low and deep. The sound sent the last Mamluks scrambling over their own dead to escape.

We let them run.

For now.

Then, a noise began to build like a storm.

The dust cloud on the horizon did not rise—it swallowed the sky.

A sea of banners, black and gold, fluttered like the wings of carrion birds. Drums and horns throbbed, a sound like the heartbeat of the earth itself. 

The remnants of our broken band—beaten knights, gasping sergeants, and the few spearmen still standing—staggered back, shields raised against arrows that had not yet flown.

'For fucks sake. How many more miracles do we need in a day, ya Bastard.'  Gervais spat. As he laughed and raised his head, speaking to the heavens.

The Mamluks, who had been fleeing moments ago, now turned, their terror replaced by savage grins, and then fell to their knees, kowtowing to the approaching army.

They knew what that banner meant, and unfortunately, so did we.

Saladin.

The Sultan's army rolled forward, like an inexorable tide. 

Archers in loose white robes, their bows like the bent fingers of giants. Heavy cavalry, their lances a forest of steel. And at their centre, a man on a grey mare, his turbaned helm gleaming in the sun.

Saladin himself.

He reigned in just beyond bowshot, his dark eyes sweeping the field—the corpses, the shattered knights, the lone figure walking forward to greet him naked but unbroken amidst the carnage. Me

For a long moment, silence.

Then Saladin laughed.

It was not the cruel laugh of a victor gloating over the doomed. It was the sound of a man who had seen too much of war to be surprised by its horrors.

'Ya Allah,' he said, shaking his head. 'A demon in the desert.'

Gervais, ever the diplomat, bellowed back: 'Aye, and he's ours, so piss off!'

The Saracen ranks stirred, blades half-drawn—but Saladin raised a hand. Still smiling.

'You fight well,' he called, his voice carrying across the dead. 

'But now you are few, and I am... many.' He smirked and gestured behind him, where his army stretched to the horizon. 

'Please, lay down your swords and I will almost definitely not kill you.'

A murmur ran through our ranks. The Templars glared, their fingers tightening on their hilts. The Spearmen looked ready to collapse where they stood.

Gervais glanced at the wolf soul and me. 

'Can you turn again? Now would be bloody ideal.'

I tried. Fenrir stirred—but the Wolf soul just stared at the Sultan.

'He can see me.' The wolf soul told us.

Saladin saw my moment of shock. His smile deepened. 

'Especially not the demon,' he added, as if amused by the absurdity of the moment. 

'I would speak with it.'

I looked at Gervais, and we shared a shrug.

'We surrender.' He yelled as he threw his sword into the dirt between him and the Sultan.

So we surrendered, not with dignity, but with the grudging practicality of men who knew a hopeless fight when they saw one. 

Swords clattered into the dust. The Saracens moved in, binding our hands—though none dared approach me until Saladin himself dismounted and strode forward.

Up close, he was smaller than I expected. Lean, sharp-faced, his beard streaked with grey. But his eyes were like flint.

'You,' he said, studying me. 'What are you?'

I bared my teeth. 'Hungry.'

Another laugh. 

'Good. Then you will eat at my table tonight.' He turned to his men. 

'Chain the others. But this one...' A nod at me. '...only ropes. Strong ropes.'

As they dragged us away, Gervais muttered: 'I told you not to growl at him, you idiot.'