Up on the battlements of the highest tower Jibril removed his helmet and wiped the sweat and blood from his brow, catching his breath finally and leaning against the granite to rest his aching muscles.

It had been in the darkest hours before dawn when the word came that the Caliph's agents had slain the guards and opened the iron portcullis at the main gate of the Castle Homs. The besieging army had been in a state of readiness for some three nights waiting for just this moment, and when the attack finally came it had been swift and merciless.

Now, as the first rays of the rising sun were seen on the horizon, as if sent by the Caliph himself from Baghdad to acclaim their victory, Jibril looked down upon the carnage in the courtyards and along the winding walls, where the Faris guards and Abna spearmen had wrought their bloody work against the sleepy and ill-prepared men of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

There, just outside the gate, amongst the piles of elephant dung, lay the armoured bodies of the Latin general and his bodyguard, who had bravely yet vainly sallied forth to meet the attackers. They had fought like lions, but had been cut down at the last, mobbed by the zealous jihadis and overpowered.

Now he looked out westwards, far into the distance, where in the dawn light he imagined he could see the dust cloud thrown up by the steeds of the Caliph's noble Seljuk allies, storming the Latin fort on the Orontes that represented the last line of King Baldwin's defence.

If all had gone according to plan, the Levant now lay wide open to the armies of Islam, and the end would come swiftly now for the infidel.

He rejoiced in his heart at the thought that the holy cities of Jerusalem and Damascus would now surely be reclaimed by the people of Islam - and if Baldwin were to see sense, and Allah willed it, perhaps he would relent without further bloodshed.

At his feet he became aware of a fallen Crusader, a spear in his back. In his dead hand he clutched a large and seemingly heavy leather pouch. Jibril was intrigued, and prised it from the dead man's grip.

Looking inside, he found 600 gold coins and a crude drawing of a boat...