The Leper King

November 10, 1178Two days after the Battle at Jacob's Ford

South of the Jordan – Saladin's Camp

The ground was still wet with blood. Torn banners flapped against the charred husks of supply wagons, and half-buried corpses marked where the fiercest fighting had turned the soil to mud. What had once been the vanguard of Saladin's army now resembled a funeral procession with no destination. The tents were gone, either burned in the retreat or hastily abandoned.

Saladin sat beneath a worn silk awning propped by scavenged spears. The air was thick with smoke and failure. His guards—fewer now—watched the hills in silence, eyes wide and sleep-starved.

A scribe knelt before him, reading from a scroll written in hurried Syriac.

"Four thousand dead. One thousand five hundred captured. Dozens of senior emirs are missing or confirmed taken. The rest... scattered."

Saladin said nothing at first.

He studied the embers of the last fire, lips pressed into a thin line. His black robes were dirtied with ash and blood, and though his left hand trembled slightly from a glancing wound across the shoulder, he kept it hidden beneath his cloak.

"Where is Nasir al-Din?" he asked quietly.

"Dead, Sultan," the scribe replied. "He led the final charge and was impaled on a Frankish pike. His horse was brought down by the crossbowmen."

Saladin's jaw tightened. Nasir had been one of his most trusted lancers from Hama—young, bold, and devout. Gone now, like too many others. And to what? A fortress barely a year old, defended by conscripted peasants and a leper king.

But no—Saladin knew better. This had not been mere chance or holy fervor. This had been strategy. Brutal, modern, and precise.