The Enchanted Crusade

Saracen blades held no fear for Godwin; but now he faced Mufaddal's sorcery with the fate of the beautiful Ramizail—and England—resting upon
Just as daybreak burst over the rim of the desert, the dying man heard the crunch of horses' hooves on sand. He lifted his head and croaked as loudly as collapsing lungs would let him, saying thrice over, In the name of God, help! Then he pitched on his nose again and lay still, unable to move so much as an eyelash.
There was the grit of sand under the light tread of men, and a voice said, Name of all camels! What a collection of vulture-victuals this one is!
I doubt it was he cried out, said another voice. He must have been dead for a decade. This voice then rendered a belch of classic proportions. Damn those figs, it said.
If you will eat three pounds at a breakfast, Godwin love, said a throaty feminine voice, all full of honey and laughter, you must expect some few repercussions.
The dying man collected his will and the scraps of strength that were left in his tortured body, and shoving at the sand with one arm managed to roll over on his back. The horizon-cleared sun lanced sickeningly across his eyeballs, adding one more pain to the thousand which beset him. Three vague dark shapes bent above him.
By the very God, he lives! Give him a drink.
Water, cool and terrible and yet incredibly wondrous to lips and blackened gums that had tasted nothing save blood for what must surely be centuries, dribbled down across his cheeks, ran into his mouth, reached through his rasped throat for his belly. He gurgled and thought he was drowning, and it seemed a splendid death.
But he had something to say, something of such importance that it had dragged him across this endless waste of hellish sand long after a missionless man would have given up and died. He recollected the message and blinked his nearly sightless eyes once or twice, and made futile little motions toward a sitting position. A brawny arm at his back tilted him upright. Easy, man. You're all but dead. Don't strive so. Die easily.