A Brotherhood of Wolves,
An Assassins Creed/Companion to Wolves crossover AU by xahra99, written for petra's psychic wolves fic challenge. What Altaïr left behind in Solomon's Temple
"Men!" De Sable shouted. "To arms! Kill the Assassins!"
Malik heard a sharp whine from behind the crumbled wall, quickly cut off. Altaïr and his wolf were lost from sight behind the debris. Malik and his brother were alone upon the scaffold, and the floor of the Temple of Solomon was a sea of red and white Templar tabards.
"Go," he told his brother, although he knew that Kadar had no need of commands. He felt a cool amusement as they leapt from the scaffold together; Kadar towards the chest that held the relic and Malik down towards the fence of Templar steel.
He lost sight of Kadar's reddish fur for a moment as the wolf scrambled up the cascade of low terraces. A Templar moved out to block his way. Malik side-stepped automatically and caught the man in the throat with the short blade that jutted from his knuckles. He felt the knife jar in bone before the dead man fell slackly to the floor.
The soldier's death bought Malik a few seconds before the Templars were upon him. Malik spun, trying to keep all the men within his sight at once. His training took over as the first man slashed at him. Deflecting the blade towards the ground with the tip of his own sword, Malik made quick work of the first Templar. He opened the next man's sword-arm to the bone, moving quickly to parry a slash that would have taken his head from his shoulders. As he did so he felt a smug sense of satisfaction that was certainly not his own.
Brother?
Kadar replied with a wave of pride that near-washed Malik from his feet. He tasted cold metal in his jaws. Kadar, Malik knew, had the orb. The first part of their quest was complete.
Malik expected the second half to be much harder.
The arrival of Templar reinforcements did nothing for his mood. These Templars had brought their shields; big, kite-shaped things as tall as a man and half again as wide. They wore plate armour and mil shirts that glittered in the dim light. The men who had penned Malik fell back to make room for the new arrivals. Malik circled, keeping his back to the closest wall, and saw de Sable smirking at him from behind the Templar shield-wall. Lightly armed, unarmored, Malik cursed.
He met the Templar charge with savage ferocity, hoping to make the soldiers wary enough to net them both some breathing space. He sought out the gaps in bucket-shaped helms, the triangles of unprotected flesh in the armpits and groins of mailed men. He heard Kadar snarl as a Templar brought his blade crashing down upon Malik's own sword with a violence that struck sparks.
The impact made his arms vibrate with the force. Unable to hold the blade, he winced as the Templar slowly forced his sword down, leaving Malik's guard open. He did not even see the mace blow that shattered his left arm until it had dropped him to his knees, his sword nowhere to be seen. The gauntlet on his left hand was shattered into a mess of leather and of blood. His hidden blade lay broken on the stones.
The Templar who had felled him drew his mace back. Malik stumbled desperately to his knees as de Sable watched with cool disinterest, arms folded.
He heard a choked growl and shouted "Kadar! Brother! Run!"
His wolf did not listen. Kadar launched himself from the altar of the Temple of Solomon. He flew arrow-straight through the air, hackles raised in a ruff of reddish fur. The Apple of Eden fell from his mouth as he hit the ground and rolled to Malik's feet, dripping blood and stringy strands of wolf saliva.
Kadar did not pause. He bunched his muscles and leapt for the Templar's throat. The big man had been quick enough to shatter Malik's arm, but he was not fast enough to defend himself from the wolf. Kadar ripped out the Templar's throat with a snap of his jaws. The soldier collapsed. Kadar rode the dead man's breastplate all the way to the ground. He snarled at the corpse and swung his head; circling around Malik, urging him to rise.
Malik did as the wolf bid him. He forced the fingers of his right hand to close around the Apple, dragged himself to his knees and dropped the Eden fragment into his pouch. He avoided looking too closely at his ruined left hand as he crouched again to grasp his sword. Blood trickled to the ground and dripped in dust-edged rosettes on the paved floor of the Temple. Kadar snarled, a low, vicious rumble, and de Sable unsheathed his blade.
The Templar Master took his time, raising the sword to examine it for scratches or nicks in the dim torchlight before he tossed the scabbard aside and stepped forwards. The Templars made way for him.
At bay, Malik watched de Sable approach with a sinking heart. The Templar was older that Malik, but he moved with the grace of a seasoned fighter. He wore a mail coif and shirt to protect his throat from Assassin steel or trellwolf fangs. The respect the other soldiers granted him made Malik wary about taking this man on in single combat.
As if, he thought wearily, I have a choice.
But Kadar was not wounded, and he was not intimidated by the Templar and his armor. Hackles raised, teeth bared, the wolf stared de Sable down, bumping against Malik's leg to shepherd him towards the Temple door, and freedom. The Templar hesitated for a moment. Kadar was not a large wolf, but he was a trellwolf nonetheless; and a trellwolf of any size was a force to be reckoned with. Malik could see de Sable calculating odds in his head.
Then de Sable attacked.
Malik stared helplessly at his sword as the Templar brought down his blade. His limbs felt as if they were mired in honey. Blackness gathered at the edges of his vision. He parried clumsily at the last minute. De Sable broke the stalemate easily, and stepped in for the kill.
Kadar pushed Malik deliberately out the way. Shock slowed Malik's movements. He should have stepped between the Templar and his wolf, but Kadar would not let him. The muscles in his haunches bunched as he sprang at de Sable's throat.
Malik caught one last flash of emotion; the warm and unconditional love a wolf had for his pups, before the wolf said to Malik, clearly, Run.
A second later de Sable's sword took Kadar cleanly through the ribs. He died as cleanly as a man pinching out a candle flame between his fingers. Malik rushed forwards, but Kadar's life had already gone. So Malik did what his wolf had told him with his last breath.
He ran.
It seemed like an eternity before he reached the horses. The bay mare Altaïr had brought from Masyaf stables had vanished. Malik untied his grey awkwardly one-handed. He knotted his good hand into the horse's mane and kneed the horse into a canter, feeling all the while the empty space to his right hand side where Kadar should have been. The grey whinnied softly; unnerved both by the sight of blood and the absence of the wolves that the Assassins took such pains to train their mounts to accept.
It was far too far to Masyaf for Malik to feel the pack-sense, but he thought he heard a mournful howl carried by the wind. He bowed his head over the saddle bow and let the breeze wash across his face. The cool air banished the black spots encroaching on the edge of his vision. Numb with shock and blood loss, Malik collected the reins in his one remaining hand and tried to think. There was nothing between him and Masyaf but miles of empty road. If he could deliver the Eden fragment to Al-Mualim, then at least Kadar would not have died in vain.
Why did Altaïr not wait? If he had waited, we could have retrieved the Eden fragment in secrecy, and I-
I would still have Kadar.
But Kadar was gone. Malik was a wolfless man now, and it was all because of Altaïr.
If the other Assassin was alive, Malik vowed, he would make Altaïr pay.