“Momma, when will we get to Jerusalem?” asked the young, tan boy.
“Very soon, my son.” Said his mother, an Arab Muslim seeking refuge and hoping to find it in the Holy Land.
“Will they accept us there, momma?” asked the boy.
“I believe they will.” Said his mother.
The year was 1182, Baldwin IV was King of Jerusalem, and people were flocking to the Holy Land by the hundreds, often travelling in large, dense groups, and it was no different here.
“What is that?” asked a bearded Arab man as he pointed with one hand and grabbed his wife with the other, pulling her close to him, the two of them turning to run.
“Momma?” asked the boy.
The boy’s mother, the beautiful Arab woman stared out into the distance, seeing a group of riders headed their way, swords in hand, screaming and yelling as they approached.
“Momma?”
The woman reached down, scooped the boy up in her arms, and turned to run.
“Hold onto me; hold onto momma!” she cried, her voice shaky, her words trembling with fear as she tried to move through the thick crowd she’d been travelling with, desperately trying to get away.
Suddenly, she was struck in the back of the head, and she fell to the ground, her young, 4-year-old son falling out of her arms, and roughly bouncing across the ground.
She could hear horses circling around her as she reached for the back of her head, her vision blackened from the blow, the world around her dark; then, everything slowly became blurred, her vision slowly returning fully.
“Oh please! Oh, please don’t hurt my baby!” she cried as she cried as she reached out towards the boy who was being held by one of the attacking bandits.
She then turned to see a man in armor, a faded emblem on his tunic, long-sword in his right hand.
“Oh please!” she pleaded through bitter tears. “Sir, knight, please! Don’t let him hurt my baby! Please, I beg you, protect my son! You’re a knight, surely you will protect us!”
“I have no pity for Muslims; godless heathens the lot of you.” Said the long-haired bearded man.
“Please! You swore a vow to protect travelers…”
She was cut off by a kick that landed against her ribs.
“Do not address me, sinful woman.”
“And what would you know of sin?” came a voice from behind the man.
The man turned, and immediately regretted it, as the asker drove a blade through his stomach and out the other side all the way up to the handle.
“I forgot, Sir. Erik: you’re the expert in that field.”
“You…. You…”
“Me nothing.” Said the man as he kicked the disgraced ex-knight off his blade and into his friends.
He stood 6 feet tall, weighed a solid 200 pounds, and was built like a mountain, broad and thick, facial hair growing slightly on his handsome tan face.
“There’s still four of us and one of you.” Said a fat bearded bandit as he motioned the others to attack.
“Didn’t forget about me, did you Horus?” said a voice from behind the fat man.
The voice belonged to a lean, wiry, athletic built, heavily tanned man, with a closely cut goatee and mustache, and short brown hair.
Both men wore chainmail over their plain white shirts, and the 4 remaining bandits looked back and forth between the two.
But before they could figure out what to do, the wiry built, heavily tanned man rushed forward, his sword in a high guard, driving it down and through the fat man’s skull.
The thick, taller of the two rescuers stepped forward slowly, his sword in a low fool’s guard, as one of the bandit’s drove his sword forward in a stabbing motion.
The thick rescuer rapidly brought his sword up in a single thrust, not parrying the man’s blade, but hitting the bandit’s blade with such force that it drove it back and through his face.
Then he kicked the man back into one of the others, trapping the companion under him and on the ground, the skinny man squirming as his face turned blue, the weight of his friend literally crushing him to death.
The last bandit held the captured boy up with one hand as he stepped backwards and smiled, holding his sword up to the boy’s throat.
“I’ll kill him right now if you boys try any….”
He let out a surprised breath as the wiry rescuer drove his sword through his spine, and he dropped the boy to the ground before the wiry rescuer kicked the bandit off his blade, the bandit falling on the pile of fallen comrades.
The Arab Muslim woman crawled over to her crying son and hugged him, holding him close.
“Momma, I’m scared.” The boy said.
“It’s ok now, these men they’ve saved us; they…” she looked up and then around; all there was, were bodies of bandits and other travelers, but the two men were nowhere to be seen.
“Momma, what men?”
She smiled. “Angels, my son: they were Angels.”
Appalachian Post 
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