Crusader Victorious.

On a road between Jerusalem and Damascus, veering westward through a settlement nearer to Masyaf, a trio of men, traders by day and connoisseurs of wine by night, made their oblivious journey to their homes outside Masyaf. One of the men was a great deal wealthier than the rest, though this still afforded him a lower-class status among the people of the city. However, his fortune brought the three friends many a bottle of new spirits to taste. His ways seemed impervious to the ebb and flow of the market, always bringing more to the table than the rest no matter how poorly the trading went that day.

"I find it inconceivable to believe that you, my dear friend, make ends meet quite the way you do without dipping your hand into a basket not your own," his friend cajoled with the wealthier of the three. "Your methods are a mystery to me, your uncanny fortune bewildering!"

He could only laugh at such a ribbing. He'd heard such questioning of his business hundreds of times before, and the dialogue spoke by as many people.

"I'd love to tell you once again how to bring your salted meat stand marketing skills up to a respectable level, but I'm sure it would just get lost in all the wine you've been soaking up," he retorted with a deep laugh that filled the canyon. The dirt path and surrounding rock walls helped his resounding voice reverberate for all within a kilometer of their location to take notice of.

"What I'd be interested to know," the quiet third one added, "is just what it is that you trade in that makes your money. I've never seen that much gold pass anyone's palm for the things the two of us trade." He gestured with a nod to the drunkard, whose primary sales were the finest sun-dried meat in the area. Although he had cornered the large part of the market in Jerusalem, competitors always seemed to keep his stand from making half the gold his friend made in the same amount of time, and with seemingly half the effort.

The richer of the three men looked on down the path, with a sudden look of concern and reminiscence falling over his eyebrows. His deep blue eyes squinted as if he'd been struck in the back by a camel's hoof, changing the atmosphere in a heartbeat from a light conversation to that of a funeral procession. The others didn't notice, and even if they did, they couldn't have seen what was in his mind. He thought only of the things he traded.

He traded people. People who were less than people. They were once whole beings, but had been reduced to slaves. These slaves were the lowest quality of human being in the lands, but people nonetheless. The rich trader knew this better than anyone, and yet he bought and sold them by the dozens every hour of the day. He knew their pain, borne upon their faces and limbs. He knew it not because he'd felt it himself, or even because he'd known a slave – he couldn't have been more disassociated and disconnected from the sand-beaten workers. He learned the anguish and the suffering of the slaves from being around them for every day of every month for the last eight months.

The morning sun would rise, and with it would rise the cries of the beaten slaves who overslept when it came time to trade them. This, the trader witnessed. The midday sun would rip open the sun-burnt scars on the backs of the sand rats. This, the trader was forced to bear on his mind while he sat in the comfortable shade and gorged himself on the food he'd come to live for. The evening sun would hang low over the horizon, and still the slaves would be beaten for every reason their drivers could think up – the whims of the drivers was considered among the most reasonable of reasons.

The trader loathed the unending moments he had to bear while taking and giving gold pieces for the working bodies that tortured his mind with their pain. How he managed to get into this line of work, he couldn't recall. Why he never got out of it, he could never tell. All of it washed away in the delirious flood of spirits that he downed his money with, every night he left his trading stand.

"Hey, don't trip on that log there!"

Being lost in his dark state, the rich trader had narrowly missed stepping over a fallen tree in the road. His companions made the intelligent maneuver long before getting there and took the edge of the road to avoid the unnecessary obstacle, but the rich trader hadn't been paying attention in the slightest. He stepped over it clumsily and looked back to ensure none of his gold had fallen from his twine-fastened pouch.

His stopping could've been the only reason they heard him coming, since their chatter was quite loud and only ceased when their wealth friend stopped to count his coinage. The feet of the dark horse threw up such a sandstorm the three men could barely make out the rider atop the excited beast. Coming from the same direction they'd sauntered down from, a rider in heavy white garb and numerous torso-mounted scabbards flew down the road with great percussive fanfare from his steed.

Drawing nearer with great speed, the rider came into view leading his freshly created hurricane of dust with a long curved sword swinging in his left hand above his oversized hood. His impenetrable shadows hid his face from the bystanders, with the exception of his wicked smile. This was all the signal the traders needed to know what was going on.

"Crusader! It's a crusader on horseback!" The drunken trader managed to reclaim his wits long enough to begin a mad dash down the road, in an attempt to take refuge behind tall boulders off to the side. The second and quiet trader was less proactive about his own protection, to say the least, and froze on the spot with shivering legs and perspiration gathering dust upon his brow. The third trader, though not frozen, didn't seem to handle the impending crisis well either, and opted to dive to the ground, digging furiously with his hands in an attempt to get himself underground before the crazed rider could reach him. The attempt was not going well.

"It's a mad crusader, get over here before you're dispatched like a goat!" The first trader screamed and shouted with as much force as he could put behind his diaphragm, but the other two traders simply wouldn't budge. The rich man managed to get his head under the sand behind the fallen tree and seemed confident through his panic that this would suffice to save him. The trader-turned-statue stared at the looming reaper of souls, and the first trader hid behind his rock, terrified to watch what would transpire.

The mad crusader reached the tree in moments. The frozen trader didn't have a chance to blink, the crusader's speed was so great. The curvature of his blade shown in the sun when the horse made a great leap over the tree, and met the statue's chest with a downward thrust when the hooves of the beast touched sand again. With only the sickening sound of steel sliding through a number of organs and spilling lethal amounts of blood down the trader's front side, the mad crusader refused to slow his blade and pushed it through the dying body, bringing the steel out the trader's back, before letting the body descend into a great dirty mess on the edge of the path.

A sharp turn was all it took to bring the beast to a halt from its gallop, and the crusader stood atop the back of the horse with his blade poised in his hands, point to the cloudless sky. The richer trader peeked from his tiny crater in the sand to witness the madman flying into the air in a wide-arching backflip, shading the trader's face from the sun, and giving him the most terrifying image of his life: a madman's terrible smirk following the descent of a glimmering blade, covered in the blood of his friend, the point aimed for his heart.

The trader who had positioned himself behind the boulder didn't look out until he heard the blade strike two soft bodies of flesh. He found the body of his friend on the edge of the road in a red dripping heap of fabric, and the corpse of his other friend slung over the tree, as if to dry the meat his body had been growing for decades. The mad crusader wiped his blade clean on the clothes of the rich trader, and without even so much as looking at the pouches and pockets on either of the cadavers, mounted his steed and turned to the direction he'd originally intended for.

He turned back against the rock once more, closing his eyes with a great wince.

"I've witnessed…the mad crusader killing my friends…for nothing…but the sport of it," he whispered to himself, fighting the choking sensation overtaking his words. He looked to the sky, not sure if he should hope for the rider to pass him undetected, or to find him and end his newfound agony at the loss of his closed of companions.

He didn't have long to think on the matter, because the rider had pulled his steed up next to the lone trader. He did nothing but stare coldly at the man, who could only look into the shadows under the hood, terror filling him and every thread of his fragile soul. Without thinking, he broke out into a dash down the road. He didn't think about the speed with which the horse was chasing him, or with the quickness of the crusader's blade coming up behind him faster than a tsunami, or the fact that not even one of God's tsunamis would save him now.

The rider rode hard next to the fleeing man, and everything slowed. The man turned his head to witness his murderer. The rider turned his head to witness his target. The blade rose above the trader's head, and swung down with a large curve, bringing the giant razor down then up to meet the back of the trader's neck, severing every nerve on the way through the flesh and cartilage. The head was sent smoothly through the hot midday breeze into some bushes twenty feet from where its body fell to its knees, and collapse back to sit on its heels in a kneeling position, leaning backward slightly as if to let the sun touch every drop of blood that would drain from the neck.

The terrible reaper of souls slowed his horse and turned to look upon the beaten road now covered in a bloody mess. He watched it for a minute or two, seeming to be lost in thought, until his horse gave a start out of thirst. He looked to the mane of his steed, and gave him a strangely gentle pat on his proud head. With one last look back he spoke softly, "Crusader victorious," and rode off at a brisk but casual pace.