“Unlike yourself, we didn’t sail out the womb with boats stead a feet.” Manfried shouldered his pack. “Given as I am to thinkin fordin yon river might prove a task what with our armor and such, I move we hike upstream as we’s been.”

“Damietta is east of Alexandria.” One of the Hospitallers broke with the clump of men and motioned away from the river, over the bog. “That is the closest other city.”

“Seein as you’s speakin proper, I find it disconcertin you think so simple,” Manfried replied. “If we’s trekkin through marsh, might’s well do it next to clean water stead a that meck.”

“Farewell, then,” the man said, filling a waterskin from the river. “Cardinal, I assume you will travel with us?”

Martyn looked to the Grossbarts, who were both smiling at him and shaking their heads, hands on pick and mace. “No,” he sighed, “I have faith Mary will guide us.”

“Fine.” The warrior-monk stood, the previous days in close company with both cardinal and Grossbarts having convinced him of their madness. “When we reach Rhodes I’ll inform the king and the new Pope of your decision.”

“New Pope?” Martyn had nearly forgotten his own previous delusions that these men had based all of their decisions upon. The Hospitallers convened, and several of them exchanged soft words before three split from the pack and marched to Martyn. These men knelt in the muck and pledged their continued dedication to his safety while their brothers turned their backs on the Grossbarts. Of the three Moritz spoke both Italian and German while Bruno and Werner knew only German, their voices unwavering as they dirtied their lips on the silt of the Nile.

The other seven Hospitallers marched toward the rising sun. Just out of sight of their former company, they were cheered to discover the bog yielded to lush farmland and bountiful orchards. They rested in the shade of an enormous tree and gorged themselves on dates, unaware that a salamander had nested in the roots and infected every fruit with its dread toxins. They all began convulsing and sweating blood, and only after their organs burst from the heat did their suffering end.

“Settled then.” Hegel nodded south up the river. “Get Rigo off our Arab and we can move on.”

The bloodied Al-Gassur assured the Grossbarts they had made the correct choice, for just up the river lay churchyards grander than Alexandria and Venezia combined. A week passed and no cemeteries appeared, only the swamp they plodded through and the river bordering it. A viper bit Werner in the hand when he filled his waterskin and within an hour the knight expired, bloated and rotting as if he had spent weeks submerged in the Nile.

Even the mighty rations of the Grossbarts dwindled, and one evening when they scrambled up a rare dry prominence a crocodile attacked Bruno. The beast exploded out of the muck bordering the rise, its huge jaws latching onto his leg. The knight, confronted with the ancestral nemesis of his kind, let out a scream as the dragon yanked him into the water. The Brothers Grossbart came to his rescue, but while Hegel’s pick skewered its brain, in the chaos Manfried snapped Bruno’s neck with his mace. Only after did Hegel realize the rolling monster had slashed open his boot and shin with its claws. They smoked the salty, wet crocodile meat with the dead shrubbery shrouding the top of the mound, even the wounded Hegel happier for the encounter. Moritz and Martyn interred Bruno in the mud, and the Hospitaller cross they marked his grave with found its way into Al-Gassur’s bag.

In the days that followed the pain in Hegel’s leg worsened, as did his attitude. Manfried’s attempts to figure where this new monstrosity fit into their growing catalogue went unanswered by his limping brother. Hegel stole the Arab’s crutch but even with a peg leg and no assistance Al-Gassur moved quicker than he. Huts could sometimes be dimly seen on the opposite bank but no men called to them and they knew better than to attempt a crossing. When Hegel felt the old itching at his neck he turned and saw a large ship creeping up the river behind them. They all stopped, agreeing they had no choice but to hail the galley.

“Now remember, Arab,” Hegel cautioned, “you’s the only one can speak like them, so be sure the meanin’s clear. They take us to the tombs and they get some gold but not a coin fore then.”

“Of course, my kin in lame.” Al-Gassur bowed.

“And recollect right what happened to every cunt what tried doin us wrong or sellin us out,” Manfried added.

“What if they attack us?” Martyn worried his lip.

“Then we strike them down with the power of the Lord.” Moritz drew his massive sword, raising himself in the Grossbarts’ estimation.

“And if they don’t stop, but row past us?” Martyn insisted something must go wrong.

“That is reason Her Goodness Mary grant our ownselves crossbows,” Raphael said, lying in the mud to notch a bolt.

“Finally in decent company,” Hegel told his brother in their twinspeak.

“Close’s we’s liable to get, any rate.” Manfried also cocked his arbalest, switching back to German. “Here they come, so do your stuff, Arab!”

They began jumping in the muck, yelling and waving their hands, even Rodrigo excited by the prospect of escaping the swamp. The boat slowed, the bearded men at the oars staring at them in shock, those striding on the deck excitedly yelling. Al-Gassur invented word after nonsensical word, tears of pleasure at the Grossbarts’ imminent undoing cleaning his mustache.

The rowers at the front locked their oars and stood as the boat glided toward the shore. The standing men withdrew bottles, knocked them back themselves, and tossed them to the rejoicing men on the bank. Nothing is less cautious than a fiending alcoholic, only Moritz abstaining from the drink. Yet when Hegel tilted a gifted bottle that old witch-chill rushed up and down his bones, his belly twisting around his spine. He slapped a bottle out of Manfried’s hand and drew his pick.

“I don’t believe them boys was actually drinkin, brother. Drink’s probably got some Arab barber berries in it or such, so lest you’s eager to wake up in some new place with all sorts a nasty to deal with I’d abstain.”

“I’s had enough a that shit to last a lifetime,” said Manfried, firing his crossbow into the first Mamluk to hit the bank, and together they joined the fiercest, greatest battle of their lives.

The winter ended as Heinrich’s new family journeyed, the heat increasing even in the dank belly of the southern forests of Wallachia. Over hills and rocky mounts, through sunny glens and shadowy gulches they crept, never doubting their purpose. Vittorio talked incessantly while Paolo had not spoken since he recognized the grotesque buboes bulging under Heinrich’s arms when the man removed his robes to pop blisters and peel skin, depositing them in a river upstream of a mill. Paolo had certainly become mad as a mooncalf but his education stayed with him. Only when Vittorio scratched at his groin and armpits did the barber’s son inspect his own, and at seeing the purple swellings he rejoiced to know he would soon die. He did not, nor did Vittorio, nor did Heinrich.

When they skirted the massive city of Al-Gassur ’s birth Heinrich danced lewdly by moonlight, reciting litanies inspired by the whispers he heard not in his ear but in his heart. Drawing symbols in the dirt with a woodsman’s severed finger, Heinrich repeated the words that freed similar beings from their torment, granting Paolo and Vittorio the same privilege he enjoyed.

Crossing the channel proved nigh impossible with the three demoniacs’ aversion to running water but they managed to steal a boat and float across without dampening themselves. They were almost apprehended by mounted Turks several times in the barren regions they crossed, but they hid in caves when the numbers were too great and descended on smaller groups, again devouring all but one or two, leaving those to stagger home, infecting their loved ones and ranting the cursed name Grossbart that all three of the possessed chanted hatefully.