Dateline: Jerusalem, 1187

It was the last day of the longest and bloodiest battle of the crusades, little remembered by historians because the pope had just been discovered to be a woman in liturgical drag earlier that month. The forces of Salah al-Din Yusuf bin Ayub had just captured Jerusalem. The Christians were totally routed, fleeing and screaming and in some case pausing to kneel and pray for deliverance. Those who did died quickly at least, decapitated by the great curved swords of Saladins men. Those who ran out into the desert died of their wounds or thirst, blackened and croaking for water.

If one can, for a moment, picture the very edge of this chaotic and sanguinary event, A solitary figure can almost be made out. He is Hossein, a much lauded and feared kurdish general, long favored by Saladin, but sadly reduced because of bad business choices between crusades to contract work, sometimes leading janissaries sometimes beating the slums for conscripts, sometimes (as now) actually fighting. Hossein is fat, robed, bearded and beturbanned. He is a man of greatness reduced to chasing these uncircumsized dogs through the midday heat instead of lying in the coolness of a tent drinking coffee. Moments ago he nicked one of the swine eaters on the leg and followed the fleeing man through the dust, hoping that he would bleed out so he could have his head removed and Hossein could feel complete in his duties (Hossein was a great beliver in duty and piety and clearly nothing satisfied Allah more than the deaths of these dogs). So fat middle aged Hossein scrurries after the fleeing coward and finally, finally the man collapeses and rolls over onto his back to meet his death face on. Hossein trudges up, an educated man he prepares a taunt for the man to take to his Christian hell with him. As the great sword is raised, Hossein looks deeply in the man's eyes and asks:

Where is your savior now?
The sword swings down, the head rolls. Hossein feels briefly better, his headache abates somewhat. He wanders off in search of sherbert.

Warning: Some historical events are conflated, others invented. This is a work of fiction. But I bet it happened.