Topher Lydon

two things can be true at the same time

This is the FINAL book of the first Trilogy. The Crusade is over. Thank you for coming with me on this journey. Please leave a review, tap the recommend button (Black button, looks like a medal, right below where the like/love/thumbs up icons are in a chapter) Looks like this : Every time you do, you help me improve visibility and let me know how I am doing. I hope it worked and that you liked it. The next book deals with Ishan and it takes place before this chapter (the time from Jerusalem's fall, through to this journey) And then there is the Vanguard of the Silver Boar: Darien must keep his feral son from starting a war, marrying a princess, and beating up everyone he can pounce on.

Wylan, Julian and Lloyd are all in it, playing an important role. Wylan is interesting in it.

Ishan is not dead, remember witchcraft is involved. He has his own book about this coming up.

From the great Bonnie, may she recover soon

Jesse, Dimitri, Hughie, Isaiah, and CAPTAIN GREMLIN have work to do. don't worry

Just something about that hand canon you just have to respect. (probably the fact that it could blow a crater into a tank)

Only Mickey would end up yelling a battlecry that aliens would misinterpret for an indecent proposal

I mean, if there's ANYTHING Mickey is good at, it is utter Chaos resulting in destruction

F- the Veth!

Consciousness did not return to Mickey Ryder gently. It snapped back into his skull with the violent, jarring electrical hum of a Veth sterile environment. He opened his eyes, blinking against an overhead light so harsh, so blindingly, mathematically white that it felt like an icepick driven directly through his optic nerve. He lay flat on a raised observation table made of a cold, smooth material that felt suspiciously like polished bone. The air in the room was aggressively filtered, str

It happened quite a lot to the Crusaders. Radoslav just having enough and walking away to return to his kingdom. He sent a letter telling Darien he was on his own. Something Darien is going to have words about when he finally gets home and confronts the king. Radoslav is going to wet himself when Darien steps off a ship with an army, stating "Raddy, me old mate, let's 'ave a chat, shall we?"

"If you stay, you die." "He will drown in dust" "It won't help, it never does" Darien, and the Vanguard's fate doesn't lie in the "holy" land, it never did. They are extremely wealthy, heavilly armed, a fighting mercenary force 2300 men strong between the Vanguard and D'Avenel forces. Veterans all. France is about to have it's world turned upside down.

No, Darien's illness is not magical. He has been breathing in the dust of Judea, the sands of the desert for two years. He has also breathed in the fires and choking smoke of Jerusalem. The black ichor is him coughing up that smoke Key Facts About Silicosis The Cause: Breathing in respirable crystalline silica dust, which is found in sand, quartz, rock, and concrete. Who is at Risk: Workers in industries like mining, construction, sandblasting, quarrying, and manufacturing artificial/engineered stone. Symptoms: Persistent cough, ongoing shortness of breath, weakness, tiredness, and chest pain. Treatment: There is no cure for silicosis, as the lung scarring is irreversible. Treatment focuses on managing symptoms, stopping further exposure, and preventing complications like tuberculosis or lung infections

The Holy City was choking on its own salvation. By the seventeenth of July, the triumphant ecstasy of the Frankish conquest had curdled into a putrid, inescapable nightmare. The midsummer Judean sun did not warm; it punished. It beat down upon Jerusalem like a blacksmith’s anvil, baking the pale limestone streets and accelerating the rot of over ten thousand slaughtered Fatimid soldiers, Jewish civilians, and Muslim refugees. The bodies lay exactly where they had been hacked down. They were

I was contemplating doing something with the Second Crusade, but the amount of research that went into this one has left me tired. I might do a set next year, but this series took a lot out of me and I am still trying to regenerate braincells (went through a little burn out so wrote Vega Vixen to write something light

Our Brave Blue soul, and his mighty Glorb will battle!

I wanted to do it right, the truth unvarnished. I remember researching PTSD for this chapter, to try to get Darien's shock at what he was seeing, what he felt he had unleashed.

I keep being drawn back to Ashot. How a person can be just as Christian as the next person, but because he is the wrong colour, speaks a different language he'd have been just as dead in Jerusalem. When I new what I had to write for this chapter, I went back and rewrote the previous chapter to ensure the boys were all outside of the city when this happened. Writing this chapter was hard enough, I simply couldn't put the boys through it. Ashot, Tam, Connor, Steff and Wylan were underground. Julian was safe at Godfrey's side on the siege tower, Bran was safely leashed at the pavillion. I was very careful, I don't think any of us want to think of 15-17 year old kids walking through that horror. (I can be protective of my characters, I am fond of them... and there is only so much trauma I will set them through) The fact I broke Darien for this chapter was difficult enough.

Wylan hasn't given up yet. In this one, I bow to his wisdom.

Bibles at the time were all written in Latin, so only the wealthy and the priests could read them. They, in turn, selected which passages the common man was allowed to hear, and which were not. It allowed for complete control of the Word of God. A corrupt priest or lord could quote scripture to justify almost anything. A large number of bibles contradicted each other... it wasn't until the King James Bible, that a lot of these issues were consolidated and edited. (But James was an opportunist, and that version of the Bible suited his own aims). It is ironic, since the Bible itself states "Even the Devil himself can quote scripture"