ever God wants._

He jerked on the reins of his brown Arabian to turn toward the French
charge. They were still far away. The valley was long. He called Omar
and Husain to him.

"Bows and arrows. Spread out in a line. When we are formed up, advance
at a trot on my signal."

He unstrapped his bow from his saddle and slung it over his shoulder and
across his chest.

The five flag men lined up behind Daoud. On their right rode a naqeeb
holding high the green banner of the Sons of the Falcon, inscribed in
dazzling white lettering with a verse from the Koran: HAVE THEY NOT
SEEN THE BIRDS OBEDIENT IN MIDAIR? NONE UPHOLDETH THEM SAVE GOD.

Omar rode down the line relaying Daoud's orders to the officers and flag
men. When all was ready, Daoud raised his hand and brought it down. A
single line of two hundred horsemen, they moved out at a trot. While his
men could fire arrows from a galloping horse, the slower the horse was
moving, the more accurate the shooting.

He could see what was coming at him much more clearly now. The middle
and rear ranks of the crusaders were obscured by dust, but in the front
ranks a hundred or more helmeted heads bent over the armored brows of
their huge horses. The long poles of their steel-tipped lances pointed
at him.

To be hit by one of those knights galloping at that speed, with all that
weight of steel and horseflesh, would be like being hit by a boulder
from a stone caster. If the Franks got much closer, there would be no
stopping them.

Daoud unslung his bow. From the corner of his eye he saw the flag men,
whose duty it was to watch his moves and signals, lift five red pennants
high. He did not need to look to know that the Sons of the Falcon had
all dropped their horses' reins, guiding their horses with their knees,
and were drawing their bows.

His bow, like those his men carried, was double-curved, made of multiple
layers of horn and hardwood. His arrow had a thick steel tip that could
punch through mail armor like a spike driven by a hammer. He took aim at
a big Frank in the middle of the line. The intersection of the limbs of
the red cross on the Frank's white surcoat made a perfect spot to aim
at. Between two beats of his Arabian's hooves, he loosed his arrow.

The flight of Daoud's arrow was the signal for the red flags to go down.
Two hundred arrows whistled across the rapidly narrowing gap between
crusaders and Sons of the Falcon.

Daoud saw the man he had fired at thro