THERE'S NOTHING BEYOND THIS POINT

TREAD OF THE DESERT WOLF

The steel pointed missiles whizzed perilously near the

ears of the young crusader as his mount hurled him at

breakneck speeds across the arid desert expanse. His

beautiful sixteen year old Arab lover rode at his side as

they raced beneath the gray light of breaking dawn. He had stolen her away

from the magnificent pavilion of her stern old father Sheikh Abu Annizz.

It had been a mad gamble at best and the

theft was discovered much sooner than Sir Gaston le Loup had anticipated.

A blood mad horde of howling desert warriors

gave chase and their escape had been a near thing.

Still, Sir Gaston’s horses were strong and well bred; and

at last the fleeing youngsters reached the safety of the

knight’s stout desert fortress just as the merciless

eastern sun cleared the far horizon. A half hour more

and their lathered mounts would have surely collapsed

from sheer exhaustion.

The young French knight spent the day and its following

evening with his prize, the princess Sejazzkin, enjoying

an ocean of strong wine and enough lovemaking to impregnate a massive,

sun baked Egyptian monument. That’s not to say the princess was

constructed of hard stone. No indeed.

Still, their joy would all to soon be tempered by many days and nights of

violence and ghastly blood letting.

Sir Gaston’s fortress was immeasurably old but its walls

were thick and very high. Inside was an excellent well

and a generous store of provisions. The veteran garrison of 112

men were armed with superb weaponry and they were led by a half

dozen defrocked Templars. All were tested men who

knew a thing or two about desert fighting. For twelve hard days and

harder nights Allah’s fierce sons tried in vain to take

the old fort, only to fail with each blood drenched attempt.

At last all seemed lost for the crusaders when nearly a

thousand more blood mad desert warriors arrived to join

in the battle. The Sheikh sent a man to the walls where

he shouted a demand that Sir Gaston give up the fort

and return the princess on pain of torture and death. An

oath was sworn that the knight would be spared should he wisely

obey all demands. However, the French lord paid this promise

no heed for he knew it to be a blatant lie.

Instead Sir Gaston le Loup draped his pallid ass over the high wall

and dropped a heavy turd that struck the startled envoy’s mount squarely

on the head. This gave cause for the animal to rear up and unseat its rider who

plowed into the sand in a most undignified manner.

"Hear me o Sheikh Anizz, here be not bullshit but shit

all the same!" Sir Gaston shouted from the ramparts. The scribes did

not record the precise meaning behind the intrepid knight’s bold words.

However, suffice to say, the Sheikh’s ears did not find le Loup’s taunts

soothing as the Arab grimaced with rage.

Thus the fighting continued unabated for nine more

more harrowing days. At last, barely twenty Franks

remained alive yet the Arabs counted their dead in the

hundreds. Sir Gaston’s own crossbow unleashed the

deadly bolt that struck the Sheikh’s eldest son squarely

between the eyes. These were days when the thirsty

desert drank deeply of the blood of its sons. Every new

dawn, as if to add insult to injury, le Loup shat more

large turds over the wall, laughing insanely as dozens

of arrows passed perilously within inches of his stout

backside which gleamed white and leering beneath the

bright rays of the eastern sun. To the exasperated

Arabs it seemed that the Frank led a charmed life. They

began to whisper among themselves as to whether some hidden

meaning might be read into these bloody events. Whilst their cups

of vengeance remained empty, all had choked down more than

their fill of hardship and death.

Eventually, being a very impatient man and suspecting

that somehow he had incurred the wrath of Allah, the

old Sheikh tried a different tactic. He ordered an arrow

fired over the wall with a letter attached thereon. The

note was hurriedly carried to Sir Gaston’s chamber just

as the randy knight pulled out of his beautiful mistress

for the sixth time that very day. He downed a tankard

of strong wine and called for a monk to read for him.

Le Loup was illiterate, having never received a day of

schooling in his life. However, he was well schooled in

other matters.

When the monk finished, Sir Gaston smiled. The Sheikh offered a

heavy weight in cold coin for the return of his favorite daughter.

Sir Gaston ordered the monk to author a hasty reply

before seizing his long bow and firing his reply over the wall personally.

The razor tipped arrow struck a camel’s ass and the

terrified beast raced deeply into the desert with a dozen

shouting horsemen following at full gallop. At last the beast died and

the crusader’s reply was recovered. Making great haste, the dozen

warriors presented the message to the anxious Sheikh who ordered

them all whipped for their clumsiness and the lose of the camel.

The very next day two camels laden with gold were

taken into the fortress. A man of his word, and after

a terribly sad goodbye, Sir Gaston sent a pitifully

sobbing Sejazzkin out from their lover’s sanctuary and

back into arms of her father. The Sheikh did his best to comfort the

poor lass as she was obviously distressed from all the abuses

suffered at the hands of the mad Frankish fiends.

Then the Sheikh cursed the Frenchman loudly before

taking to horse and riding back into the barren wastes

with all his grumbling warriors in tow. (Save for the

dead which had been buried in a mass grave at the

demand of Sir Gaston. He deemed the stench from all

the rotting sun drenched corpses had been more than

sufficient to stink up his holding, and that their continued

presence was no longer necessary. Prior to

that, all attempts by the Arabs to gather their dead had

met a hail of French arrows.)

Standing alongside Sir Gaston was the lone surviving

Templar man-at-arms. He was somewhat new to the garrison and

exhaled with obvious relief as the two Frenchmen watched the fierce

Arab force withdraw.

"The saints have granted us a rare mercy, I doubt if we could have held

out one more day milord. Truly we were all but done in. That was

surely a heart rending decision you were forced to make, to return

such a great beauty. Yet it certainly saved our lives." The Templar

wiped his brow and leaned wearily upon his great broadsword, his

sun burned and unshaven face serving ample evidence of the

fighter’s desperately long vigilance at the walls.

"In truth it was not such a trying moment," replied the

seemingly inexhaustible Sir Gaston le Loup. "Verily,

she be the fourth daughter of a wealthy sheikh or prince that

I’ve kidnapped only this past year. Our holy

mission has profited me much in these rich lands. I do

believe that one or two more such abductions and I shall

have amassed adequate fortune to guarantee an

early retirement in excellent comfort. Then I shall

celebrate my good luck by returning to France and coupling

with every whore in Paris…perchance thrice

with those I find pleasing or reasonably comely." Then, deeply

absorbed in ambitious musings, the Wolf paced for yet awhile the

blood stained ramparts.

Thus was birth given to the legend of Sir Gaston le

Loup, Bane of Maidenheads.

a Sermon Bathe production