Heya everyone,

A few months ago, Wes and I decided to change our fursonas. Wes is now a Knight Templar named Matthias von Brandenburg and I'm a Knight Hospitaller named Benjamin Martin.

Same species and everything, just different back stories.

Speaking of back stories, Wes asked me to write one for our new 'sonas. So I'm slowly doing just that. Here's a taste of what I've written so far.

Enjoy.

---

High noon found no rest for the victorious crusaders. The troops had been too keyed up to gather any rest during the brief pause. The "Two Hammers" loomed large in their faces and fears, there would be no rest so long as those monsters remained unconquered. To do so would require the Christian forces to assault ten forts erected by the enemy along the mountain defiles.


Ten little forts of mud and rock. How hard could it be?

The knights would have to leave their horses behind. The "Two Hammers" were far too treacherous for the legs of even mules let alone war horses.

Each man packed fifty pounds in shield, helmet, ironmongery , and kit.

Benjamin Martin shuffled from footpaw to footpaw as Percival approached.

"What happens now?"

"We go up soon," the wolf responded.

"Is it hot," he continued, "or just fear?"

Benjamin looked back into Percival's eyes for a moment before asking his own question.

"Are you scared, Percival?"

"Petrified," the wolf grunted in response.

When the call came down to begin mobilizing, Percival tugged his squad together for a quick word, "It'll be hot up there; you'll be sweating. Don't take wine! Only water. Eat every chance you get or you'll cramp. And don't be ashamed to shit yourself. We'll all be scraping mud from our fur by nightfall."

The signal came and up they went in column. Heat radiated off the west facing stone which had been baking in the sun all day. There were three tracks, each wide enough for one man; switchbacks turned so tight the men had to put cornel plugs on their spear points to prevent injury of the fellows above them.

Shouts and fighting rang out two hundred feet above the advancing crusaders as a Templar vanguard cleared the first fort.

Upon reaching the cleared fort, the Hospitallers marshaled and prepared to take the second.

"Dress the line!" cried Percival, "Take your water now!"

The fort loomed a quarter mile ahead in the sunlight; it's stones bleached white by the sun it resembled a miniature town more than a fort, with a low wall and a dozen small homes.

With righteous vigor the knights advanced uphill in great skimming strides. The fort was laid out in a circle with its low mud and brick wall around the perimeter; this the Hospitallers vaulted in scores, black habits flapping in the wind, like water over the lip of a damn.

Once inside the walls, the fighting is house to house. The Saracen defenders had punched passageways through the party walls; as the Christians clear one room, the foe skipped to the next, loosing a cascade of rubble behind him. When the fighting closed, the Muslims would slip around and strike from the rear. Each window concealed a sniper and darts rained from the rooftops.

Benjamin Martin found himself assaulting one house that would become infamous in the second fort as the "House of Blood".

Stacking up on the door with his squad, the collie said a quiet prayer.

"Deliver me, Oh God. I am yours."

Stephane de Leon stepped forward and kicked the rickety door off its hinges. As soon as the otter was clear, Benjamin and Jean swept through the door, weapons drawn, and wheeled to cover both walls. Instantly they were met by four heavily armed foes. Benjamin's hammer barely blocked a scimitar swing with his hammer's haft that was aimed for his head. Roaring, the knight drove his knee into the foe's groin, driving him back. The next foe he dispatched with a back hand swing to the charging caracal's temple. The first foe came on again and the collie grunted as the scimitar slammed into his ribs but failed to penetrate his mail. Lowering his shoulder, Benjamin charged and slammed the jackal into the wall. The foe lost his scimitar and the two wrestled for the Hospitaller's hammer. Screaming, Benjamin planted both hands on his hammer's head and drove the spike into the Saracen's neck. The collie watched the life leave his foe's eyes before turning to see Jean de Leon pulling his sword from the final enemy's ribs.

It seemed like an eternity since the fight had begun, but Benjamin was startled to see that Percival and Stephane were just coming through the door.

Two more knights rushed in and Stephane led them upstairs to the second story.

They were met by flaming naptha pots and arrows fired at point blank range.

Stephane de Leon fought like a devil, naptha pots bursting on his shield, to protect his fellow wounded crusaders; single handedly driving back the attacking Saracens by his ferocity alone. Backing him, Benjamin, Percival and Jean charged up the stairs to close with the remaining foe. Upstairs each room was cleared bloody struggle by bloody struggle. In the last, Stephane took a spear square in the bollocks and fell screaming beneath the press. Standing over his brother, Jean lost his helm and an ear to an enemy axe blade and took a cane dart through the neck before the last of the foe was finally vanquished.

Slowly Percival and Benjamin carried the two otter brothers outside. Grimacing, Benjamin cut the dart protruding from Jean's neck in half with iron pliers, before pulling it out point first, a whisker from the Knight's carotid artery.

"It's lucky you weren't a Templar, brothers," remarked Percival from his position ministering to Stephane, "Otherwise we wouldn't have been here to patch you up."

Jean loosed a gurgling chuckle and Stephane moaned.


The resistance in the fort is fierce and there is only one answer to it. Leave nothing living. Wounded Saracens were slain where they lay. Prisoners were herded into cattle pens, to be murdered later with their wrists bound behind them and their own dishdashah tunics bagged over their heads.

Within three hours the fort is taken and the crusaders move on to the next.


Nightfall finds the Christians at the ninth fort. By this time the Templars and Hospitallers have mixed units with each other and the accompanying infantry, too taken are they be casualties to maintain their own squads fully. As if by fate, Benjamin found himself reunited with Matthias. They embraced quickly and gruffly not wanting to be caught out.

"I thought I'd never see you again," said Matthias under his breath.

"You may not for long," came the collie's reply.

Half a mile ahead the fort looms in the fading twilight.

Percival would not let the men loosen their armor or rest except on one knee. Breaking his earlier rule, he allowed the men wine. They all needed it.

"Whatever happens, don't break apart. Advance shield to shield all the way up." Percival tugged his mixed squad about him. "Whoever runs, better see me dead first," he growled.

The ranks pushed off in silence. The slope was wide approaching the fort, broken only by patches of scrub spruce and fennel. The crusader tread crunched over the dying coals of campfires.

The line advanced one hundred yards.

One fifty.

Suddenly a pot of flaming naptha pealed out of the dark and burst fire over the ground. An enemy voice cried out in the night.

With a shout the line continued forward, each man unconsciously elevating his shield to high port. Fire flared under paw tread, singeing the fur of the crusaders legs as they marched.

"Upfield!" bellowed Matthias. "Advance straight!"

Each man turtled inside his armor, flaring at the trapezius and setting shield to muzzle as nervous paws grasped hempen shield grips in a death vice.

Then came a storm of rock and bullets.

"Courage men! They're only pebbles!" Came Percival's cry, "Strong knees!"

Ahead in the fire flare came the ominous shadow of archers.

"Toothpicks!"

Iron headed shafts rained down on the advancing Christian line. The shields of the front rank filled like quill cushions with the Saracen shafts. Benjamin heard rebounding arrows clatter at his feet and the hiss of near misses over head.

The moon rose, revealing the rampart ahead.

"Javelins!"

The infantryman at Matthias' shoulder cried out and fell. Now descended the fusillade of heavy ash. There was no wind, so the shafts came on warhead-first with no deflection. Benjamin went down under a thunderous strike on his shield.

"I'm all right!" he cried as Matthias hauled him to his feet.

A second slammed the lion to the ground but failed to pierce his mail.

"Get up and advance!" came his companion's rejoinder.

The line is everything.

Terror must not break it.

The line is everything.

Fury must not break it.

The crusaders passed bales of faggots, doused in pitch, that blazed merrily at their advance. Mounds of thorn had been piled up to channel the attackers into the Saracen missile troop's killing zone.

The crusaders hit the wall. Its face was stone, bristling with stakes. From the crown the Muslims dropped boulders. Crusader missile troops rushed up from behind to provide covering fire for their comrades. The stones were knitted too tight to tear. "Climb!" came the cry from all around. A Saracen drilled by the Christian archers fell on top of Matthias in the press. The lion tried to mount the wall, keeping the gazelle as a shield on his back. Suddenly the Muslim came to life!

Shrieking like a banshee, the wounded Saracen drew a knife, it's tip seeking the lower lip of the lion's helm. Keeping his helm pulled tight against his mail, Matthias could do little but continue climb with his dangerous cargo. Abruptly, the foe stiffened and went slack, slain by his comrades on the rampart above.

With a final mighty effort, Matthias reached the summit, threw off the pin cushion of a gazelle and scrambled onto the rampart. The knight was immediately beset by a caracal swinging an axe at his gut. Blocking this, Matthias drove the hilt of his weapon into the foe's wind pipe and sent him tumbling over the parapet. Grabbing his sword's ricasso the templar whirled, surcoat flapping, to impale a mouse that had been seeking to drive a dagger into the crusader's back. Matthias alone carried the rampart through sheer force of will and feat of arms, fighting like a man possessed. Here a Muslim lost his legs. There another was disemboweled. Death flowed around the templar like water as blood pooled about his footpaws.

With a cackle known to its breed, a hyena advance upon the Templar with a spear at the ready; thinking its reach would grant him the advantage. One strike slid across the knight's mail, bruising his ribs. Another was turned away by his blade. Finally, with a roar to shake the firmament, Matthias adopted a high guard and, striking, split foe and spear asunder from neck to navel.

All around the Saracens turned to flee, but they found no respite from the crusaders who fell on them like hawks on the dove.

Turning in time to help Benjamin up onto the rampart, Matthias smiled.

"Thanks for the help."

"I do what I can," panted the collie.


The final fort looms in the distance and the crusaders are spent. All are covered in bruises and cuts incidental to action. All around Matthias the men are puking and cramping. It hurts just to move.

The commander calls for officers to assemble and his lieutenants order the men to eat, but none can choke down bread absent wine or water.

"The troops are spent, sir."

Guy de Chevaliers grimaced and turned his gaze to the looming fort and enemy assembled there in numbers uncountable in the dark.

"With God as our judge, we take this shithole tonight." Replied Guy, giving one of his final orders.

But the Jiin does not wait for the crusaders to attack. Putting the fort's walls at his back, he led his troops straight at the marshalling crusaders.

The Saracens were massed in uncountable numbers. The crusaders closed ranks and the armies crashed together. The ensuing melee could be given the name battle by its size alone. None could swing a sword, such was the press of bodies. The spear was useless. Crusaders dropped them where they stood, fighting instead with their shields as weapons, struggling to unfoot their Saracen opponents or stick them with the short thrust and draw of daggers. Men fought with their knees, driving them into the foes testicles, with elbows fired at throats and temples, and with heels against those fallen to the earth. They clawed at each other's eyes and spit in faces if they could summon the saliva.

The Christians could feel the foe falling back before their savagery.

The moon rose behind the clouds and the Saracens broke and ran.

For what happened next, blame must be laid upon the Christian officers. They could not restrain their men who bolted en mass, ravening the foe like beasts. They had been fighting for over seven hours now without food or water; they must finish the enemy now, before strength failed.

Cries of triumph began to arise from the scattered Christian ranks, surely they had won? At that instant, the Templar at Matthias' right fell with an arrow in his skull. Turning right, Matthias felt his blood turn to ice. Here came the Saracens rolling up the right flank!

The Prophet's Own brigade was rolling up the crusader line like a scroll. Nearly two thousand elite men from Damascus; where all others had fled they had held and driven the crusaders back.

Matthias found himself on the earth, toppled by the enemy rush. The foe trampled him and, in the darkness, their spear points missed his body. He rolled free and Benjamin pulled him clear.

"We must rally or all shall be lost!" cried the Hospitaller.

Gathering what men they could, many walking wounded, the two knights led a counter charge against the Damascene brigade's rear; shattering it's momentum and breaking it apart.

Chaos descended all around. Lines no longer existed and men ranged the field in small packs like dogs, looking for foes, or themselves being cut down alone and afraid in the dark.

It was here that Percival fell. His brothers would find him in the morning, pierced by more than ten lances with a half dozen of the foe dead at his feet, and a rictus grin below his cold dead eyes.

The knights alone formed a bastion of will and discipline against the chaos. Drawing as many brethren near to them as possible Benjamin Martin and Matthias von Brandenburg formed an island of fury in the darkness. They smote and cleaved all before them, asking no mercy and giving none in turn. Blood flowed like rivers, turning the sand to muck beneath their tread. Time and again one would slip in spilled bowel or terrifying muck only to be hauled upwards by his companion. For hours the two fought back to back in the night time fury.

Somewhere in the firmament God looked down on the scene as the Devil laughed. Truly Hell had ascended to earth on that lonely patch of ground high in the "Two Hammers".

Deus Vult indeed.