The travel-worn Crusader scouts stood atop the hills outside Damascus. Their armor bore no shortage of bloodstains, medals earned from their clashes with Saracen scouts along the way.
They rode around the city, sketching all manner of diagrams.
Under the blazing sun, Damascus's tall, thick walls stretched in a winding line like a coiled World Serpent, holding the city tightly in its embrace.
Tall, sturdy towers were spaced across the walls in an orderly pattern.
Crusader records stated that during the First Crusade, Antioch had four hundred towers and twelve kilometers of solid city walls.
Though Damascus could not compare to Antioch at its height in terms of scale, it still possessed over two hundred towers. Their placement had been carefully designed, ensuring that any section of wall under attack would face crossfire from several towers.
The "arrow screens" and "shield formations" used during the assault on Homs were useless against such fortifications.
"This is the legendary Damascus, the capital of the Saracens!"
Leopold and Lothar stopped atop a small hill with several dozen Winged Hussars.
He could not help but marvel. Other than Alexandria, this was the grandest city he had ever seen: minarets soaring into the clouds, towering temples of sacred fire, and ranks upon ranks of white buildings reflecting a holy radiance beneath the blazing sun.
Syria was not the endless desert so commonly depicted. Later news reports, as well as many films and television productions, portrayed this land as nothing but barren sands.
But how could the Fertile Crescent, which had given rise to so many great cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Antioch, Baghdad, and Ctesiphon, possibly be a wasteland?
Sometimes, one only needed to cross a hill to find lush forests and babbling streams running through the valleys.
This was, beyond doubt, the center of