I was not with Saladin in the years following Montgisard, and I thank God for that. I had known him since he was a boy, but the man he became after his defeat was strange to me. He had vowed to take Jerusalem, and he set himself about his task with a ruthless energy that was frightful to behold, even at a distance. He let nothing stand in his way, not friends, nor family, nor even his honour. He unified is people as never before, taking competing emirs and enemy tribes and forging them into a single, dangerous weapon. In Jerusalem, the king and his courtiers knew little enough of this. All they knew was that Saladin had turned his attention elsewhere, and for the first time in many years there was peace… – The Chronicle of Yahya al-Dimashqi

Thus begins Holy War, the final book of the Saladin Trilogy. Saladin has been defeated, and Baldwin rules once more, with the Saxon knight John of Tatewic at his side. Yet all is not well in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin is dying, and rival factions divide the kingdom as they plot for the throne. Meanwhile, Saladin has gathered an army the likes of which the Holy Land has never seen. In June 1187, he marches on the Kingdom at the head of twenty four thousand men. He has sworn to take Jerusalem or die trying.

But even as the two armies march towards their climactic confrontation, a new threat is rising far away, across the sea. In England, the soon-to-be crowned Richard has taken up the cross. He is the greatest warrior of his age, an enemy unlike any Saladin has faced. And the Lionheart is coming…