Dawn painted the training yard in pale gold as two thousand warriors stood motionless in perfect ranks. The morning air was thick with the scent of oiled leather and nervous sweat, the earth beneath their boots worn bare by generations of soldiers. These were no green recruits—each Kurdish fighter bore the legacy of battle: missing fingers, arrow scars like old maps across their arms, and eyes that had seen too many dawns after blood-soaked nights.
Taimur walked the line with the manual— Final Book of Horsemanship cradled in his arms like a sacred relic. The leather cover seemed to pulse faintly against his robe, alive with some hidden power. He paused before a grizzled veteran whose left ear had long ago been taken by a blade. The man's stance was faultless—weight evenly balanced, posture relaxed yet deadly. Taimur gave a curt nod and moved on.
The selection process stretched into hours. Each candidate was tested in three disciplines:
First, mounted archery. They galloped past straw dummies, loosing arrows at targets no larger than a Frankish coin. Some failed here—their hands betrayed by old wounds or their horses too skittish for precision.
Next came close-quarters combat. Taimur observed them spar with wooden shamshirs, watching not for brute strength, but for the subtleties—a flicker of the eyes before a feint, the shift of a grip under fatigue. One young warrior with a broken nose disarmed three opponents in a blur of wristwork, earning a rare flicker of approval from Taimur.
The final test was the harshest. The remaining candidates were ordered to don captured Milanese breastplates—thirty pounds of steel that clanked ominously in the stillness. Many faltered at first, their limbs unused to the foreign burden. But the worthy adapted swiftly, their bodies remembering the language of war.
By midday, the trial ended. Five hundred and eighty-seven men remained, gathered at the yard's center, chests rising and falling in perfect rhythm like a single great beast. Those dismissed did so in silence—there was no shame in falling short of such standards.
Taimur ascended a wooden platform and unfurled the manual's first schematic: a rider clad in full plate mid-strike, frozen in the execution of what the text called the Iron Strike.
"From this day forward," Taimur declared, his voice slicing through the morning hush, "you are no longer merely warriors. You are the tip of Salahuddin's spear—the storm that shall fall upon our foes like the wrath of Allah Himself."
The men did not cheer. They simply watched him, eyes gleaming—not with bloodlust, but with a hunger to become something more than men.
Taimur turned to the first page of drills.
"Mount up."
What followed was a crucible. Each dawn saw the Kurdish riders already assembled, breath fogging in the cold light as they awaited instruction. The Milanese breastplates gleamed dully, their weight a constant reminder of what was demanded.
The first days were agony. Men who once rode for days in chainmail now collapsed after minutes clad in steel. Taimur moved through them like a surgeon, adjusting straps, redistributing weight, having smiths shave nonessential steel from pauldrons and line cuirasses with silk padding. Slowly, impossibility became routine. By week's end, they mounted and dismounted faster in full plate than they once had in leather.
Crossbow training began beneath a blazing sun. The Genoese weapons—designed for infantry—were nearly useless on horseback until Taimur revealed the manual's secret: a bronze stirrup attachment that let riders brace the weapon against the saddle for reloading. What once took two minutes now took thirty seconds. Soon, the sky above the yard darkened daily with bolts that buried themselves in straw dummies up to the fletching.
Then came formation drills—the true genius of the manual. The "Scorpion's Tail" demanded flawless synchronization: a wedge-shaped charge, a crossbow volley at two hundred paces, then a sudden split into twin flanks that regrouped behind the enemy. At first, the maneuver was chaos—missed timing, near-tragedy. But through repetition, failure turned to instinct. And on the day they executed it flawlessly, five hundred riders moving as one, even the old trainers were silent in awe.
Three months passed.
When Salahuddin came for the final demonstration, the yard fell silent. No drums, no horns—just a single blast to signal the charge. The "Iron Strike" began with a thunderous volley that shredded the dummy line, followed by a charge so precise that every blade struck down in unison. Dust rose, then settled slowly, revealing a field of shattered straw and splintered wood.
Salahuddin walked the line in silence, his hand grazing the nicked blades of their shamshirs. He paused before a rider missing two fingers, whose gaze held firm.
"Can you do this against the Franks?" the Emir asked.
The Kurd lifted his visor, face streaked with sweat, lips curled into a grin. "Just point us at them, Malik."
Salahuddin said nothing, but Taimur saw it—the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. That night, orders went out to the quartermasters: begin forging five hundred more breastplates.
That same evening, as campfires crackled and the scent of roasted meat drifted on the breeze, the warriors argued over a name for their new brotherhood. Suggestions were shouted, tested, dismissed.
It was Salahuddin who ended the debate with a quiet certainty:
"The Asad al-Harb," he said. "The Lions of War."
The roar that followed shook the walls of Damascus.
[System Notification: Elite Cavalry Unit "Asad-al-Harb" Established]
[Reward: +1,000 Merit Points]
[Current Total: 9,800/10,000]
Late that night…
The dungeon beneath Damascus' citadel reeked of damp stone and crushed mint leaves. Taimur descended the narrow stairs, his boots scraping softly against worn steps. The guards at the bottom saluted and stepped aside, their torches casting long, flickering shadows on the walls.
The last cell at the end of the corridor held his prize—the Assassin leader, chained to the wall like a caged wolf.
The man looked up as Taimur entered. His white robes were torn and bloodstained, but his eyes remained sharp, defiant. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Back again, scholar?" he rasped. "Come to beg for secrets you'll never understand?"
Taimur pulled up a stool and sat across from him, his expression unreadable. "No. I've come to offer you a place among us."
The smirk faded. "You want me to join your little network?"
"The Sand Foxes are growing," Taimur said. "We have six elders—the Scholar, the Merchant, the Leper, the Muezzin's Daughter, the Brothel Mistress, and the Eunuch. But a circle needs seven."
The Assassin gave a dry, humorless laugh. "You think I'd lower myself to sit beside those imposters? My order shaped empires while your spies were still learning to hold a blade."
Taimur sighed. He had hoped for reason. But pride, like rot, often needed to be cut out.
He snapped his fingers.
Two guards entered, carrying a heavy sack. They upended it onto the floor, and seven heads tumbled out across the stone. The Assassin's breath caught. His eyes locked on the faces—each one a regional master of his order. Aleppo. Mosul. Antioch. All dead.
"Your network is broken," Taimur said quietly. "Your spies answer to us now. Your safehouses are ash. Your couriers talk—willingly or otherwise."
The Assassin strained forward, chains rattling. "You dare—"
"I do," Taimur said, voice like steel. "Because I have something you don't."
He reached into his robe and drew forth a worn, leather-bound tome. The cover gleamed strangely in the torchlight, its gold-etched script shifting like liquid.
The Assassin froze. His gaze locked onto the book as if it were a holy relic. "What... is that?"
Taimur opened it to a random page. A diagram showed a listening device made from reeds and beeswax, designed to capture whispers through stone walls. The Assassin's breath quickened. His fingers twitched.
"Where did you get this?" he asked, voice hoarse.
Taimur smiled. "The Rishis of Al-Hind."
The lie slipped effortlessly from his lips. Judging by the flicker of awe in the Assassin's eyes, it landed with weight. The sages of India were legend—custodians of secrets older than the pyramids.
Taimur flipped another page. This one detailed a poison that mimicked heart failure, undetectable by any physician alive. The Assassin paled. He had spent his life mastering death—and here was a book that made him feel like a child.
"Join us," Taimur said again. "Not as a prisoner. Not as a relic of a broken order. But as Al-Muallim—the Teacher. The seventh elder of the Sand Foxes."
The Assassin's eyes moved from the severed heads to the book. Pride battled hunger. After a long, heavy silence, his shoulders slumped.
"You win, scholar," he muttered. "But know this—I do not bow to you. I bow to knowledge."
Taimur nodded. "That's all I ask."
He stepped forward and unlocked the chains himself. As the man rubbed his wrists, Taimur handed him the Book.
"Study it. Learn it. Teach us what we lack."
The Assassin—no, Al-Muallim now—took the book with trembling hands. He ran his fingers reverently along the spine.
"This... rewrites everything," he whispered.
Taimur turned to leave. "That's the point," he said over his shoulder.
Outside, the first light of dawn touched the minarets of Damascus.
The Sand Foxes were complete.
And the game was just beginning.