”I do not have that choice!” Marduk said scathingly in reply to Hayate. The dragon did not directly answer the question of his own safety, though – instead he looked away, his eyes resting on the mosque. He was listening, but somewhat distantly. Would the crusaders destroy this beautiful building? What about all the other holy places in the city? After a few long moments, Marduk folds his ears back and turns his back to the mosque. His voice nearly cracking, he glanced to the rolling clouds above and whispered a small plea. ” Ya Allah Sa'edna.”
He made no attempt to conceal that prayer, and afterwards cast a furtive look toward Rhiannon. “I… if you think it will work, I will not object. You know these folk better than I; I know only the tales I hear which make it over the sea. But I have heard very nasty things, and I’m… quite afraid of what might happen to me. I-I want to flee. To get out. But a siege is a siege; that’s the whole point, isn’t it? There isn’t any escaping.” Marduk might have continued, but at that moment the Hebrew man came running back sans his coat, shouting that they must flee. Now –that- hadn’t occurred to him; he felt it would be some time before the army reached their position. It may in fact fail to breach the inner walls! But sure enough the streets were flooding with people now; many were scrambling for shelter.
On the street corner, one man mounted a stack of crates to gain height and raised above his head a sword that gleamed in the rising sun. The knot of Arabic that spilled from his tongue would prove to work a number of peasants into a furor. Soon the crates, having conveniently been placed beforehand – this after all was not a surprise attack – were broken into and dozens of weapons spilled into the streets. Spears, mostly, maces – few hammers. Cheap wooden bucklers. The crowd scavenged these in minutes and, just barely avoiding a melee among themselves, began to move through the street to rally anybody they could find. Similar scenes played out all across Jerusalem as the city roused herself to fight. Most men, however, would be fighting with whatever they could find in the streets – there were only so many weapons to go around.
Marduk, of course, blanched when he heard what the mob was shouting. Quickly, he shoved his nose into the small of Rhiannon’s back and shoved. “You heard Mordecai. Wherever we’re going, let’s get out of here.” If she didn’t walk on her own, he would push her forward! ”But quit running!” He snapped, glaring at the man who was just rejoining them. Come to think of it, he hadn’t ever noticed the man leaving! Where had he gone? ”There’s a lot of scared people out right now, and a lot of angry ones too. The last thing we want is to start everybody panicking. We’ll be crushed.”. Well, being a dragon, he’s probably not too easy to trample. But that’s really not relevant to the point he’s trying to make. A small part of him said that maybe he should be rallying with the others. But a much bigger part of him said that spears were sharp and probably didn't feel very good.