John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

The Ansar companions and Sabaha helpers of the Prophet had shown the way in earlier years, and he was a faithful disciple now, one of the elite Tabi’un , a religious aristocracy that guided the vast Umayyad empire that now covered half the known world. And rightly guided he was, for he was fast with the sons of Umar, the second ‘Rightly Guided Caliph.’ But he was not given this post simply because of his heritage, but rather for his piety, skill, fairness, bravery and the great bond he had forged with the soldiers of Islam, who favored him over all other pretenders.

As soon as he had taken the position, he immediately began to plan the campaign he was now pursuing with great valor and energy. The heathen lord, Odo of Aquitaine, had sullied the honor of the tribes by marrying his illegitimate daughter to one of his Emirs, Manuza, the fool and the betrayer. And so Abdul Rahman had gone east to punish Manuza first, satisfied at last when he received news that he had thrown himself from a high cliff and perished. Having his head, and the heathen bitch he had taken as wife, he would send these to the Caliph in Damascus as evidence of his industry here. That matter closed, the governor had traveled to Pamplona to survey the muster of his armies. Berber tribes, Arabs and Bedouins from the desert, stout men of the Atlas mountains, all gathered there, along with the Moors of the Catalan region, and joined by his incomparable horsemen, heavily armored and mounted on fierce Arabian steeds.

In a few short months he had crossed the high western passes into the land of the Basques, with whom he had reached accommodation through careful diplomatic maneuvers the previous year. His engines of war he sent by sea, from Taragona to Narbonne, for these he could not take through the high passes. They would be safe at Narbonne on the coast of the Middle Sea until he called for them later in the year.

His aim now was to scour the land, bleed it of wealth and treasure for his armies, and assure himself that no further opposition could be mounted by the Franks. He had little doubt that they would cower in the few walled cities he might find. In time he would return to savage them all, but for now he swept north like a scouring wind, sweeping all before him.

The Duke of Aquitaine had thought to give battle before the city of Bordeaux. It was this same man who had surprised and defeated the clumsy advances of the Emir Al Samh some ten years earlier, and it was fitting the Emir should perish for his ignorance, there before the gates of Toulouse. But Abdul Rahman was no fool, and he would not repeat the mistakes of his predecessors. When the enemy sought to bar the way at the River Garonne, he fell upon him like a hammer, surging across the river shallows and smashing through the ranks of Odo’s men with his fierce, unstoppable cavalry.

The heathen was brave, but overmatched, and his men endured a fearsome slaughter there, until the river ran red with their blood. He had little doubt that Odo lay dead upon the field, but would waste no time to search the mounds of heathen corpses for him. Bordeaux would be sacked for the pleasure of his soldiery, and the promise of much more lay ahead in the rich, wooded lands of the Franks.

The ruthless advance of his columns followed soon after, burning farms, hamlets, and especially the places where heathen clergy would build. In this the grey one, Abdul Samah, had a firm hand. He had insisted that every monastery, abbey, church or basilica must laid waste and destroyed, the hidden wealth and treasure they held taken as plunder. These sites would be replaced in due course with the elegant architecture of mosque and minaret, he had argued. Soon the call of the Muezzin would summon the faithful to prayer, but they would not stand around their altars in their crude stone churches, Instead they would bend in submission, their heads pointed south to Mecca, and so it would be.

Abdul Rahman had consented, for was he not the sword of Islam? The work of the hammer and sword, was his now, hewing down the heathen places so that the true faith might root itself, and the words of the Prophet be spoken all throughout this land. For there was no God but God, and Allah was his name.

Throughout the summer, he let his men forage and feast off the land, fattening their bellies and filling their wagons with booty. In time, as the leaves began to turn, he came to the city of Poitiers, destroying the basilica and the small surrounding settlement that lay outside its walls. Then he moved on, bypassing the city, for his siege engines were still far to the south, and he would not storm the walls until he had secured the border lands further north.

Rumors of another general at large in the land came to him, a man called Charles, of which little was known. For months now, since he defeated Odo and his army in the south, there had been no opposition to speak of on his march. Yet now it was said the clans of the Franks were gathering under the banner of this man Charles, and it was rumored that he was skilled in the arts of war, and fierce in battle as well.

No matter. All this he would see with his own eyes, for he meant to ride north, destroying one precious abbey after another, until this man showed himself. If the Christians would not fight to preserve their own mosques, then they were little more than dogs, wolves, barbarians.

He assembled his army again and pushed north, over the River Vienne and into the narrow belt of farmsteads and woodland traversed by the old Roman Road. Scouts and raiders sent to locate the Abbey of St. Martin returned, saying that many horsemen scoured the lands there, and still more, tall, fell men of the north, were seen on the roads coming down from Orleans. The Grey one urged him to strike quickly, sending in his heavy horse to overrun the place before a defense could be made there. But Abdul Rahman was not hasty, nor would he allow his army to advance in many far-flung columns in the face of a gathering enemy threat. His men were heavily burdened with pillage, their carts and wagons strung out along all the roads to the south.

Instead he wisely decided to call back his raiding Berbers, the light horse of al Andalus, and draw up his troops in the traditional manner. He would make the fist of five Khamis , each a division at arms, with one to lead the way up this uncertain road, his Berber cavalry and many mounted archers. Following them, three parts of his army would make up the main body, the heavy horsemen that had carried all before them. And his lighter infantry he would leave behind, close by the long columns of wagons and supplies, guarding the families of his proud warriors, and their well deserved plunder.

So it was that he came to the undulating land between the Rivers Vienne and Clain and sought out suitable ground for the making of his camp. The enemy was clearly at hand, but had not yet shown his full strength. Both opposing armies had been at arms for many days now, the outriders on either side harrying one another in short, inconclusive skirmishes, but Abdul Rahman could sense that some greater force had come down from Orleans and the lands north, and he knew he had found the general so many had spoken of in these last weeks, Charles, the Mayor of the Palace of Neustria, and the last Christian Lord who might have any hope of defending the Frankish kingdoms.

His scouts and foragers learned yet another thing, that the Duke Odo of Aquitaine was here as well! Somehow he had escaped the carnage of the River Garonne, undoubtedly to flee here and seek aid from these others. It angered him to think that this man still remained a thorn in the side of Islam, for even in defeat, broken, his lands and holdings long since overrun, Odo had somehow managed to be the harbinger that gathered all these forces here together, compressed between the swift flowing waters of two rivers.