The Day God Wept

The Aftermath

Walking the streets of Jerusalem was like walking through Hell. Or, how Edric imagined Hell to look now.

Everywhere he turned, corpses laid in the streets. Men, women and children—the Crusaders had spared no one. Blood ran through the roads and back paths in steady flows, so much so that Edric's boots were stained crimson up to his ankles. Ash mixed in, creating a vile dark substance that he now slogged through. Here and there he would catch a moan or a cry of pain from some injured civilian. He doubted the massacre was over. In the distance, smoke was just beginning to rise from some parts of the city.

He staggered through the streets, trying to focus on making it to the Church. But all around him were signs of devastation. Houses stood with doors bashed in, burning or simply torn down by siege crews. The bodies of innocents mingled with those of defending soldiers and Crusaders who had fallen in the attack. Weapons, supplies, and bodies—often times pieces of bodies—littered the roads and thresholds of houses and buildings. The entire front stretch of Jerusalem seemed devoid of any life except his own, and Edric struggled to contain his feelings. Grief, rage, confusion, and a sense of disgust all swirled within him now.

"What is this?" he muttered to himself as he slogged through the market square. It was like a scene ripped straight from a nightmare. Here the blood concentrated even more. Crusaders moved across the space by leaping from body to body to avoid catching their garments in the crimson beneath. Fires burned in the storehouses. Here and there, Edric could see prisoners being taken. That did little to ease his mind. They were dragged off by triumphant attackers, eager to put them to use. The victims wore looks of utter terror

"This is not what the Pope promised," he continued. A Crusader happened to be passing as he spoke. The man turned to him.

"The Pope promised us riches and power, Paladin!" he exclaimed. "We just had to take the Holy City! God's wrath has fallen upon these pagans, and we were his sword!"

Edric turned to the man blankly, gesturing around to the grotesque spectacle that had become Jerusalem.

"How can a loving and merciful God condone the slaughter of so many innocents, then?" he challenged the man. "Look around you. Barely half of these people took part in the defense of the city. Yet we slaughter them all without question?"

The man shrugged carelessly. Edric had to resist the sudden urge to sever his head from his shoulders.

"We do not question the word of the Pope, Paladin," he replied simply. "The Father told us to retake Jerusalem, and that is what we have done. He gave us no words about sparing the enemy. Only that should we take Jerusalem, riches untold would be ours for the taking."

"Since when are riches worth the lives of innocents?!" Edric demanded angrily, standing tall and facing the man head-on. "We swore oaths to end the unjust rule of the Muslims over Jerusalem, not put the entire city to the sword!"

"What do you suggest we do then, round them all up and ask if they support the heathens?" the man asked sarcastically. "No, this is the only way of truly purging their influence from this city. Desperate men can lie. Dead men cannot."

"Where is that moral written in the Bible?" Edric challenged.

The man shook his head slowly.

"You think this is all about religious duty, don't you?" he asked wryly. "It has nothing to do with this. If God truly wanted to take Jerusalem, He would do it Himself. Not force thousands of his followers to go to their deaths in the Holy Land in His name."

With that, the man turned and moved off into the marketplace. Edric watched him go sullenly. His worst fears had come to pass.

"This was never about religion," he muttered to himself, watching a Crusader brutally stab a man in the doorway to his house. "It was about greed."