Dagger Through the Moon

I am Darien, magician to the D’Ibelins; son of Jared, magician to the D’Ibelins before me; and grandson of Deter, magician to the kings of the Aquitaine. Can anyone deny my powers after the Horns of Hattin? But, no, no one but me knows of what really happened there in miracle of the stronghold of Belvoir. And that, perhaps, is as it should be. But as I glide across the sky, I look at that brand on my belly of the dagger through the moon and I wonder if the sacrifice was worth the victory.

My master, Hugh d’Ibelin, had been reluctant to include me in the company of horsemen who rode out to parley with the great Saracen chieftain, Umar ibn al-Hakam, almost the peer of the incredible Saladin. But, thanks to my visions, I knew better than Hugh what was at stake, and I had to be there to make eye contact for the magic to work—and I had to be riding the great white steed. The lives of all of those under siege within the walls of Belvoir depended on that, although none but I knew that, or would ever know that.

Weeks before there had been another such parley, one that didn’t go nearly as well as this one must if we were to survive. Umar, astride his legendary white stallion, had demanded our unconditional surrender. And Hugh d’Ibelin, desperately counting on relief led by his suzerain, guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, the Levant, and Cyprus, was trying to play for as much time as possible. He tried to negotiate terms, but, with a laugh, the magnificent beast of a man, Umar, standing head and shoulders above all of his retinue, swept his beefy, hairy arms out wide to bring our attention to the many thousands of Saracen soldiers investing our redoubt on the Horns of Hattin—as if we were not aware of the sea of hateful unbelieving faces ourselves—and boomed out in a commanding and fearful voice that he saw no reason why he need negotiate at all, that he could sweep us away as quickly as a wave from the nearby Mediterranean could sweep away a grain of sand. Hugh huffed that, in that case, why were we even parleying—that both he and Umar knew that many of his forces would be needlessly sacrificed in any attack on the imposing stronghold of Belvoir. Hugh did say, however, that he would contemplate Umar’s terms, but that he was wary of Umar’s reputation for great treachery and cruelty.

While Hugh was making this blustery speech, Umar’s eyes had roamed about those Hugh had brought with him and they had fallen on me—and I knew, without using any of my magician powers, that he fancied me. That was the way that Hugh himself had looked at me when he took me into his retinue.

"Perhaps then, you will be comforted enough to consider the terms wisely and quickly, if we exchange pledges of safety—temporary safety," the Saracen chieftain offered.

"What pledges might you have in mind," Hugh asked, trying to keep the triumph out of his voice. He had no illusions that Umar's forces couldn't easily take Belvoir in it's present condition. But Umar obviously didn't know how dire conditions were in Belvoir now. And any time given to Hugh to stave off attack was time well invested in seeing the lances of Guy de Lusignan's forces appear over the sand hills to the south."

"I would suggest mutual hostages. Nay, honored guests. Say my second son Ahmad for that young man over there? We exchange our pledges briefly for you to come to your senses on surrendering unconditionally." The great and terrible Umar had singled me out. This, much to Hugh's relief, having thoughtlessly included his own first-born son in our retinue.

"Done," Hugh declared and hurriedly pushed me forward lest Umar think twice of the true situation.

As I was being led away astride my horse into the far-flung Saracen encampment and Hugh and his new charge, Ahmad, were racing back to the false safety of Belvoir, I soon saw why Umar had struck this improbable bargain. As we breached the first hill beyond the valley surrounding the Horns of Hattin, I saw that massive structures the Saracens could use to easily mount the walls of Belvoir were being constructed just out of sight of the crusaders' stronghold. Perhaps no more than a week's time and these structures that would tower over the walls of Belvoir and allow Saracen archers to rain death down into the stronghold from relative safety would be completed and ready to be rolled into place. Umar also was buying time to conserve his forces. And it was possible that Umar had better intelligence on the nearness and intentions of the Lusignan reinforcements than Hugh did.

My worst fears of Umar's intentions and appetites were realized that night, when all considerations of my status as an honored pledge of safety were thrown to the wind. Not long after dark I was brought to the tent of the great Umar and stripped and left there standing in the intoxicating smoke from bronze incense burners on thick oriental carpets at the foot of his silk- and fur-covered massive bed. The half-drunk hulk of a Saracen chieftain waved a flock of comely women from his bed and rose off the divan, his manhood huge and throbbing, and took hold of me and knew me as no man other than Hugh d'Ibelin had known me in hours of vigorous and deep-plowing ravishment. The man was insatiable and ever ready. Thrice he entered me in the first hour alone—once in a gagging attack deep down my throat with that monster tool of his, once like a bull on heat from the rear on the carpet beside the brazier, and finally, in a slow, languid discovery and mining of every nook and cranny of my passage as I lay on my back on the rich trappings of his bed with my legs thrust wide to accommodate his rock-solid weapon.

My greatest fear was that I would be put to the sword immediately thereafter if I didn't perish first from the thrusting of that broadsword between his legs, so, for self-preservation, I feigned deep passion for him almost from the beginning of his onslaught. And, if truth be known, after the first moments of the pain of never having been known in such thickness and depth before, I was able to take pleasure in what he could do to me with that magnificent body of his. Hugh's tastes had been highly refined and expansive, and I had learned much of the art of pleasing a man with my body already. I must admit, though, that the Saracens had refined these techniques much farther and that Umar had me in positions and within waves of moaning pleasure that I had never known before. At one moment he was making exquisite love to my body in positions I had never even imagined in my most debauched wantonness, and at the next moment he was brutally possessing me like a rutting animal.

I must have pleased him greatly, because, except for that one brief period that will forever be branded in my soul as it was branded on my belly, he kept me in his tent and in his bed and belabored and possessed by his huge cock for the next three days. The one instance of terror and excruciating pain was when he called for burly guards who dragged me away and branded me on the belly with Umar's own signature, a crescent moon being pierced by a Saracen dagger. I was marked now as his. And not only as his property but as his sex slave, someone he had fully known and possessed. Everyone in the Crusader world as well as the Saracen world would know and understand what this meant whenever they saw that mark.

By the early hours of the fourth day, my youth and inventiveness in matching his love making, much to his surprise and delight, had ascended over him, and he slept the sleep of the drunken drugged and sexually exhausted. All this time the guards at the door had stood there, silent, watching every thrust of Umar between my butt cheeks and into my mouth, every cry of his enjoyment of me. They were forced to stand there, stolid and silent, but I could tell by the rising of their cocks that they were no less aroused by me than Umar had been.

So, pretending to be the lustful wanton, after Umar had been satiated into unconsciousness, I swung my hips saucily over to the guards of the entrance curtain and enticed them into feeding their lust on my body in a shared fuck on the oriental carpets at the foot of the bed, taking me in turn, one from the front and the other from the rear. Out of panic and determination, I outlasted both of these as well, and when they had nodded off, their thirst for my body satisfied and slackened, I stole out of the tent and, as an intended message and as was necessary for the foretelling, boldly made off with Umar's white stallion and galloped through the sleep-laden Saracen camp, across the valley, and into the arms of my Crusader comrades.

I was not to fall into the arms of my erstwhile lover, however. Once Hugh d'Ibelin had seen the brand on my belly, he never again would touch me. He didn't blame me and he didn't mistreat me—if denying me the plowing of my passage when I was in heat couldn't be called mistreatment—but I had become an untouchable, spoiled goods. In a fury, he dispatched Umar's second son to his treasured paradise forthwith, but I had no illusions that Umar had not expected that—or that, indeed, the lad really had been Umar's son at all. And even if so, I had experienced enough of Umar's virility and of the fullness and strength of his flow to known that he had sons to spare.

From that moment, I heeded the visions I had been given of the white stallion and started planning the deliverance of my comrades in Belvoir and my revenge on Umar for his branding of me as his sex slave.

All of that day I conjured up my most powerful spell in the highest room of the highest tower of Belvoir. That night I summoned the moon, and a full, brilliant, yellow moon answered my call. I removed myself to the open platform above the tower, disrobed, spread my arms wide to the heavens, and cried out passionately to the moon.