Mordecai paused to catch his breath, bending over and clutching his kneecaps tightly. He was too old for this.

The dragon and the knight seemed to be in conversation again - it surprised and pleased the old man to see the slow healing of old rivalries. Unfortunate that it was likely about to be destroyed. The girl, Rhiannon, seemed to be hesitating, unsure of whither to flee. To Mordecai's surprise, she suddenly darted off down a side alley.

"Wait! Come back!" he called hoarsely, but she was gone. Turning to his remaining companions, he called; "Come, we must search for her. The Crusaders are here, she could become lost or injured in the confusion. Hurry!" With that, he gathered up his robes in his left hand, grasped his staff in his right hand, and ran after her.

He ran for what must have been minutes rather than seconds, pausing only to glance down narrow pathways and streets. The paved road rang under his sandled feet, his mantle flowing out behind him like a flag. At first, Mordecai thought he'd lost her - there was a huge crowd of panic-stricken citizens blocking his way. But they parted at his shout, and he caught sight of a small figure pounding ahead. He increased his speed further, but did not know whether the knight and the dragon were following also.

The large siege tower of Godfrey of Bouillon rolled up to the walls, dropping its bridge, and unleashing a hail of crusaders. They got on the walls and began hacking away. Crusaders and Fatimid defenders flew off the walls to their deaths, left and right. The clash of arms and blood being spilled, making the ground slippery, and causing an even more dangerous situation on the walls. The crusaders continued to beat forward, shoving the defenders off into the streets to their deaths. It was looking almost like a giant wrestling match, as the crusaders continued to push forward against the ever straining defenders. A defense could only hold for so long against the growing numbers of crusaders. It wouldn't be long before these attackers overwhelmed the defenders.

A last siege tower dropped its bridge on the walls, letting loose a large group of Norman crusaders. Among the Norman crusaders, blending in as best he could, was a squire by the name of Gudmund Tollak, a Norman, came with Robert Curthose's number. He didn't want to look too much like a squire at the moment, as he might be stuck doing some tedious task, instead of advancing with the other crusaders into the city. He didn't appear anything like a squire at the moment, anyways, as he wore his chainmail shirt, coif, and the traditional Norman helmet. He wielded a kite shield and an arming sword, blending in quite well with the other Normans. And of course, he wore the tabard of the crusaders, proudly.

Charging forward with the other crusaders across the bridge, not quite in the front, but close to it, came Gudmund, yelling something that was not quite understandable in the heat of battle. He finally made his way to the front as they poured over the walls into the streets of Jerusalem. The northeast gate, where the crusaders had been attacking at, swung open, as another group of crusaders stormed in. There was no restraining it now. The north east wall had been breached, and the other walls would soon crumble with them.

The crusaders only began to slow down just a bit as they encountered resistance along the streets. Gudmund, along with the others, was adding to his body count little by little, killing the terrified, and sometimes brave, armed defenders in the streets. Citizens would charge out armed, and be cut down, standing no chance against the battle hardened Norman Crusaders.

Killing someone was not as unsettling as it used to be. Gudmund could still remember the faces of the people he killed, burned into his memory. He had grown to accept it after long, since he was carrying the memory of the most important part of a person's life. The nightmare's would continue, and the only thing to do was to keep going and have as much fun as you could when you weren't out killing, because your time might come the next day. In this way of life, people became more hardened and kinetic.

Robert Curthose was determined to lead his men to the Holy Sepulcher and possibly beat all of the other groups. The citizens were running or throwing themselves at the crusaders' feet, begging for mercy, and further slowing them down. Usually they would just step over them or kick them out of the way, but every now and then you got a clever little bastard who decided to stick a knife into a crusader's back and then pretend like he was innocent before an angry crusader hacked him down. This usually was why they would be called out on killing "innocent" people, when the opposite was true. Such was the malady of the warrior.

The blood from the dead bodies was starting to stain Gudmund's clothes. His tunic, though already stained, was getting blood along the edges and some swipes across the front. Finally, after trampling the civilians who pleaded for mercy, they encountered a little bit of real resistance. Some Fatimid defenders had formed a line of shields, but soon the crusaders came running full speed at it, crashing through, as the blood shed began again. As the other crusaders found themselves entangled with the defenders, Gudmund found himself facing off against two defenders, as one stabbed at him with a spear, he charged forward, crashing into the man with his kite shield, and knocking out some teeth and breaking his nose, whilst simultaneously hacking at the other with his sword. This fight, was soon brought to a close as another crusader killed the second man and Gudmund smashed the broken nosed Fatimid into submission with his shield, before pulling back and plunging his sword into the man.

Gudmund was at the forefront with his fellow crusaders, something he had never dreamed would happen on the fateful day. He would be one of the first Norman Crusaders many of these people would see, today, and possibly the last.

The Fatimid army, although having fallen back from the walls, fought with grim determination. They stopped up the streets their spear to halt the Christian advance, and for a time, they held fast. Blood slicked the cobbled street, the dead numbering dozens in this alley alone. The whole army of course could not travel down one road, not all six thousand men, and the rearmost parties had begun to flood into other portions of the city - securing the flanks of the primary offensive and stationing small platoons to guard any number of defensible positions. Urban warfare could get real nasty, after all, and in the event that all did not go as planned, there needed to be an established zone of control. There wasn't a lot of coordination among the defenders anymore, as individual platoons were routing while the situation on the ground was changing too fast to notify separated parties. The majority of soldiers had survived the breach of the walls, however, and roughly half of the Fatimid army was regrouping at the inner wall while the remaining third would, alongside numerous armed peasants, harry the invaders and try to do as much damage as they could. Indeed, lying in wait at the end of the street the foremost soldiers fought, the militia had crowded the roofs and hid with slings, bows, rocks, hammers - anything that might become a missile. These began to sail over the Crusaders' heads, with admittedly mixed results.
One man appeared to have a healthy supply of dung hidden somewhere up there, and he was using it to great effect.

It so happened that, following Gudmund's dispatch of another soldier, the knight was seized by a wild-eyed Hebrew man who had entered the melee unscathed. His hair reached past his shoulders, gnarled and knotted so that one might imagine it housed a bird's nest, and he pressed the knob of a twisted wooden scepter right up between Gudmund's eyes. While he might have struck him, he did no such thing - instead hissing an unidentifiable string of Hebrew and shaking him relentlessly. He would shove Gudmund backwards into his own line of men. After this, the man began to hang on Gudmund's tunic, laughing maniacally. The scepter clattered to the ground, forgotten, and no doubt by now the other Crusaders might have stepped in to help. Yet his own wide-eyed stare held them, momentarily, at bay. "You, Squire... follow... follow me!"
He would stand then, or rather lurch to his feet, and attempt to haul Gudmund into the open door of a nearby home.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the inner wall and in the heart of the city herself, Marduk was chasing a slightly saner Hebrew man through an alley that was frankly not built for an animal his size. When they did happen upon the streets, he made his own path through the crowds; regardless of their station in society, not many people are willing to play chicken with a dragon in a hurry, and instead get right on out of his way. That, or they find themselves gently but forcefully shoved aside with the broad side of his snout.
Despite all this, his mind wasn't really on the pursuit. Mordecai could do all the thinking - he'd just follow. Instead he was still fixated on that initial shock, dwelling on how she had known his name. He'd never answered, never said a word to any of the others, as by the time he'd recovered his wits, she was gone.
But, unlike Mordecai, he would not go ahead without knowing Hayate was with him.

Hayate first noticed that Rhia had been swept away from them, barely hearing the name she mentioned. He gave chase for the moment, but the crowd was too hard to shift through with the extra weight he was carrying, and Rhia herself was rather harder to spot from a distance them Marduk. As he lost sight of her, he gave a small sigh of disappointment, in himself, but assured himself that she'd be fine. He turned back to notice that the others were started to get seperated from him as well. Luckily, Marduk's colors and stature were easier to make out in the crowd than Rhia, though he did lose them for a moment as the crowd forced him around a corner. If he wasn't careful he would have accusations to deal with, and would likely lose the group entirely.

So he shuffled through the crowd trying his best not to agitate any of the actual inhabitants of the city. He had left a fairly good amount of belongings at the house he was staying in, but heading back there would be ill-advised at the moment. He forced himself around a corner and decided to take his pack off and hold it in front of himself so it wouldn't smash into others in the crowd, couldn't be the victim of a pickpocket, and would have enough mobility to actually catch up with the others. He continued forward, hoping that he would spot them upon rounding the next corner, and upon doing so, He caught sight of Marduk again.

He pushed through the crowd until he once again reached the dragon, taking note then that the brown creature was waiting for him. He smiled and placed a hand at his side before saying, "Thanks for waiting up for me..." He knew his armor had slowed him down much too much, and looked ahead to be sure he wasn't holding Marduk up too much either. He had a bit of an idea, but it seemed a bit rude to ask of the dragon. Still, it would solve his dexterity problem. "I heard your name, but I didn't catch it...so then dragon, would you mind carrying the armor so I don't get lost in the confusion again?" Another reason for this was, like it or not, Hayate would have to come to Marduk's aid if he got in danger, to secure his armor.

He of course, would not unless Marduk agreed, though if Marduk started forward without agreeing he would slung his pack on again and think a bit about where Marduk would not mind being grabbed. Holding hands was a very easy way to stay together in a crowd...but Marduk did not have hands, and if Hayate tried then his own hand would probably be trampled. He began to think the whole situation a bit choatic, (if he hadn't thought so already) and he asked, "Where'd the other go?" Though he thought he could see Mordecai's staff in the distance, "You didn't lose him waiting for me, right?"

Rhiannon caught sight of the elder man from the confrontation earlier and hurried towards him, slipping through the crowd easily thanks to her slight size while always being careful not to be trampled.

"We need to get to safety." She told the man, pointedly ignoring any questions that he might ask about her bloodstained clothes, the splashes on her face and the loss of her cowl; her red hair now flowed freely out and gave her a somewhat wild appearance along with the new found confidence she had gained with the realisation of her existence. She was one the faerie people, the powers she possessed were merely part of her and not due the possession of some evil spirit and God had seen fit to allow her to escape the flames of His supposed followers; He had shown her that He permitted her existence and continued in faith in Him.

Not waiting to see if the man followed her or not, Rhiannon slipped back into the crowd and headed back the way she had come. Marduk, the dragon, and the other member of their strange group were not so far away and she burst free of the crowd in front of them with a strangely excited smile; the chaos all around them was mere background to her new sense of self and she revelled in the boiling over of madness around her while she had gained control of herself for the first time.

"This way, quickly. They're already in the city and a mob with clubs against soldiers are cattle to the slaughter." She glanced behind them as she spoke, seeing the approach of the Crusaders even though they were far away with several obstacles in the way. Why hide from her powers when God had told her to use them? Especially if for the sake of others?

She danced back, almost disappearing back into the crowd before wheeling back again towards the two.

"Come, come. Hurry, hurry, do not tarry. Come, move your feet of lead! Dare not drop what you carry. Hurry, hurry, 'else we'll all be dead!"

As she sang power crept into her words and merged with the lyrical tune of her voice. Those the small poem was aimed at would find their feet urging them forwards, to follow her, independent of their own wishes.

"Do not be afraid, we will be safe soon!" Rhiannon declared, laughing gaily as she danced in front of them towards their intended sanctuary.

Mordecai lunged through the crowd, sending several fleeing citizens flying. The girl, bloodstained and battered, seemed set to send him on a longer race.

The Hebrew almost collided with the knight and the dragon. He only managed to stop himself just in time, almost overbalancing. Clutching his staff and wheezing, he spluttered out a hurried greeting. The girl was already gone.

Suddenly, an eerie voice spoke from the stampeding crowd: "Come, come. Hurry, hurry, do not tarry. Come, move your feet of lead! Dare not drop what you carry. Hurry, hurry, 'else we'll all be dead!" As if in a trance, he turned and followed the voice, too weak and tired to resist. He prayed frantically in his head for strength, but he still could not stop his body from moving. "Perhaps the Lord wants me to follow", he reasoned, and, as there seemed no alternative, he stopped fighting the power and allowed it to guide him towards its source.

Marduk smiled, leaning down and pressing his nose into Hayate’s belly. The dragon exhaled softly, before raising his head to look back out over the crowd – keeping close tabs on Mordecai. “I haven’t yet. But I do not want to lose either of you. …Climb on my back, and be quick about it. You’ve ridden a horse before, right? I am sorry I do not have my saddle.” He would lower himself, looping his tail around for the man to boost himself up.

This is not, for the dragon, an unusual proposal. Tarrying while Hayate followed on foot was stressful. Maybe they could continue to keep up with Mordecai like this, but if he didn’t have to worry about the Norman, he might even manage to catch up! He wouldn’t resort to trampling people, but he was quite capable of nudging them out of his way. His master could be an impatient man at times.

He would wait long enough for the knight to make his decision, and then forge ahead into the crowd – either with Hayate on his back, or with the bag of armor dangling from his teeth. He wouldn’t mind carrying either one. Either way it would be only a matter of time until they encountered the sputtering Hebrew – Marduk nearly trampled him, with the way he burst out of the crowd!
“You found her?” He asks urgently, looking up to try to pick Rhiannon out of the sea of faces. It shouldn’t have been so hard; one white woman in a purged middle-eastern city. Come on.
"Wait, there she... is..."
And then, he heard her voice – intoxicating, and somehow surreal. She flitted through the crowd as if a dream! As he watched, something switched off in the dragon’s head. Wordless, he followed her with glazed eyes…

Gudmund felt himself being dragged by the little old man towards a house. This was not by any means something he was keen on complying with, and so, he proceeded to rebuff the little scrawny old man. He grabbed his fingers and squeezed them off his shirt, freeing himself from the little old man's grip, slowly, but surely. The little old man's fingers began to straighten as Gudmund continued to squeeze. His bony hands were little match for Gudmund's stronger, developed hands, as should be expected of someone with the training of a Knight. "I have no time for this!" He shouted at the little old man, freeing himself from his grip and pushing the old man away.

Gudmund had already lost a lot of headway and was not as close to the front ranks as before. "Go and hide indoors! You'll only be killed" He shouted. He grabbed the old man and whirled him around to face the door he had previously been dragging him towards, and Gudmund gave him a good shove towards it. "There is no place for you here! It's dangerous!" He was mostly just irritated for having his time taken up, while he lost the front rank.

With that, Gudmund turned and ran towards the front again. The closer he got, the more determined he became to get the chance to charge straight up the walls and clear a path for his fellow crusaders. He was racing many a fellow crusader to get to the front. Luckily, he kept pulling ahead. He was young and eager to make it. In a few more years he could earn his Knighthood, or even earn it now, while still in the Holy Land. Such quick advancement was nearly unheard of under his lord, but he wouldn't be staying under his lord. It was his dream to stay in the Holy Land as a defender, maybe even become a lord of some region of the Holy Land.

Gudmund finally reached the front as the Normans continued to plow through everything lying in their wake. Their feet and legs were covered with blood and they left marks on the ground. Gudmund was no exception. Blood was staining his clothing as well. His boots were turning a different color, as the blood caked and dried onto the leather. His kite shield had several bloody smears and a mark that looked like someone had been forced to eat the shield. Regardless of how horrid they all looked, everyone continued to slosh forward, no giving up when the end was so near. The entire city would be theirs and so would the entire Holy Land.

Hayate smiled as Marduk pushed his nose at him and rubbed the dragon's snout in response. As the offer was finished, he nodded to Marduk and looked at the tail for a moment, wondering if whoever his master was would be okay with this. The dragon himself seemed fine with it though, so perhaps he had nothing to worry about. Looking ahead to see that they still had not lost the old man, he pushed off of Marduk's tail and slung himself over Marduk. The hide may be a bit rough on him, digging through his clothes as he sat with the heavy load. He knew they would only do more so as they ran ahead, but commented, "I have ridden a horse before, I have one outside the city even...oh?"

At this moment Rhiannon arrived, bloodstained and disheveled. He was about to ask if she was okay, but he had no time as her words spouted forth quickly and she pressed on ahead again, then there was that voice of her singing. It seemed a bit entrancing, and he felt urged to leap from Marduk's back and follow, he looked about to see if others noticed the wonderful tune but the panic hadn't seemed to lift from the others. As he was about to go down the dragon moved forward and he stared ahead as well.

The brief moment she stopped her singing to laugh, he gained a little more of his senses, wondering just how come he felt so compelled to follow. He did not mind it still though and relaxed against Marduk's neck, the roughness of the hide forgotten as he listened to the Fae's voice. He did have enough sense about him to ask of the old man from before, "Wait, where is the..." He didn't have to ask as he spotted Mordecai ahead of them, seemingly in the strange trance as well. He was beginning to be slightly worried about Rhai's origins now.

The bloodied clothes, happy tone, and haunting tune. It all seemed to allude to something...unnatural. However; they were escaping, he did not have time to ponder this.

Rhiannon laughed in pleasure as she saw the trio following her, mesmerized by her song. Of course, she was merely trying to save all their lives but the acceptance of her own power had provided here with a strange sense of peace, allowing her to revel in what had been given to her. There was the matter of her race, newly unveiled by her 'father' but that was for another time; now she was Rhiannon of the Ellyll and her power was not something to be ashamed of; it was a symbol of her inheritance.

"Nearly there!" She called back jovially to the three who continued to walk after her as the crowd streamed all around them. The panic in the city had reached a fever pitch with Crusaders gaining more and more ground and to those experienced in such matters it was clear that the defenders would be overwhelmed; especially as the second siege tower had freed itself of the troublesome ground to the south and had finally spewed forth another wave of attacking Christians onto the poorly defended walls in that area. Nevertheless they had made good time, spurred on by the Ellyll girl's melody and the Holy Sepulcher was before them now.

"Find your feet, we're here." Rhiannon spoke, releasing the power of her song from the three. She danced forwards towards the compound. "Come, before they close the gates!"

Mordecai reeled as he regained full consciousness, shocked and disorientated. That voice... it was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. Losing control of his own body - that had been terrifying. There were a multitude of different ways that kind of power could be used for corrupt purposes.

Still panting, he looked up an saw the girl, Rhiannon, beckoning to him, and his companions. She seemed remarkably cheerful for someone who had just performed an act of enchantment on at least three grown men and a dragon. Who knew who else might have been ensnared? Did this child, a mere youngster, have control over her own power yet? At any rate, she had managed to lead them to the relative safety of the Sepulcher.

Planting his staff solidly into the ground, he hoisted himself up, groaning loudly. His joints felt stiff and worn - the strenuous running hither and thither through the city had not done any favours for his old age. Nevertheless, he finally managed to force his legs into motion, propelling himself towards the inviting gates and enthusiastic girl within. He feverishly hoped that his companions were also able to overcome their bewitchment - the road would almost certainly become overrun by soldiers of both sides within the hour, crushing any bystander that remained.

As he neared the entrance, his tired gaze fell upon Rhiannon's head. It was clotted and matted with bloodstains, but no sign of large wounds. There were, however, several smaller cuts and grazes on her face and hands.

"Child, you are hurt. Please, allow me to heal you."