**I edited the ending of the Chapter to bring it more in line with the feeling the Creed series. As we have seen, all characters tend to encounter the Assassin-Templar War early on in the story. I have a pretty good idea where I am taking this and was originally going to have Will Slade become introduced to the Assassins at around Chapter 8 but that was too far. So I have rewritten the ending of this chapter to get Slade and the reader already become aware of the secret war. Hope this makes readers happy, Enjoy.

The pain was gone, and Will floated in nothingness. Guided by something he could begin to understand but only that it was somehow familiar, he struggled to come out of the dark. It was cold and empty, devoid of the warmth of the sun and the feel of grass. Yet he had always known it and struggled to understand the dream like state he had encountered as a child, stricken with a fever but miraculously came out the other side.

Little by little, the light filtered in and Slade could make out the world around him. The flap of a tent, sunlight peeping in. The smell of alcohol and the coppery smell of blood, a scent he knew all too well. From this he took only one meaning; he was alive.

"Welcome back to the living, young Captain." Said a kindly voice, an elderly man stepping up to him. Dressed in a surgeon's smock spattered with blood, it gave a sadistic quality to this grey beard and tired eyes, a few wisps of hair clinging to his shiny scalp. A silver crucifix hung from his neck, untouched by the blood of his apron.

"Where…am..I?" Will managed, struggling to move his arm. The pain returned, shooting up his left side and into his shoulder.

"In an army hospital, A Union one at that, you gray-back. You took a quite a few wounds there, young man and you'll have the scars to remind you of your follies. The one on your cheek adds a rather grim façade to you, I say." He chuckled, the sound of man whom, like Will, had seen too much war. In his scratchy voice, Will detected some hint of malice and

Looking down at himself, he saw his shirt was removed to his bare chest, and was bandaged around the middle. His left arm was also in a sling, the wound cleaned and sewed.

"Is this still Pennsylvania?" Will asked, his throat parched. The doctor seemingly read his mind and fetched the water pitcher, pouring some into a canteen cup. Will gulped it hastily, coughing as a result.

"Indeed it is, just off the field of battle from whence you came. It's over if you must know." said the doctor offhandedly, turning to his instrument table.

"What's over, old man?" asked Will, shifting upright in bed.

"Why, the battle. Your side was trounced soundly and left its dead or dying on the field. That young Brigadier General, that Custer has taken charge of the after action. The orders are to have all prisoners fit for the trial and sentencing." He answered solemnly. "He's a bold one, just the sort that is needed in this war and not a soft heart for the defeated."

Will chuckled grimly, unbothered by the old man's words.

"So this Yankee got hard one for us rebs. No surprise there, after all we did lose. When does this tom foolery of a trial commence?" Slade asked, his question answered a moment later. Two blue-uniformed soldiers entered, cavalry by their yellow stripes on their trousers.

"Now." Said the doctor, then almost as an afterthought he turned to the troopers. "I will need to dress him before I hand him over. Kindly step back out, gentlemen." The two troopers nodded and retreated back outside. With careful hands, the old man helped Will to his feet but he pulled back violently.

"Treatin' me a like a lamb to the slaughter, you sonofabitch?!" he shouted as the pain flared up again. The two soldiers came back in and one slammed his rifle butt into Will's side, dropping him back down.

The doctor only shook his head.

"Dignity rather than violence would suit you better, young Captain. It is simply your time is up and your day of reckoning is at hand. The Lord forgives all, but I'm simply a doctor so I don't have to." And delivered a vicious back hand slap across his cheek, and the soldiers dragged will out.

They came to a field just a ways outside the camp, Union troops ringing the perimeter. Having been unceremoniously tossed to the ground by his captors, he lay upright in the grass. It was wet from the early morning dew, cold and reviving. Surrounded by almost a hundred grey uniformed soldiers, many of them wounded and bandaged, they were truly and utterly defeated.

"Thought you was dead, Cap'n" said a voice standing over him. Will looked to see the scraggy and worn face of Ed Bell, a fellow trooper from his regiment. He took the ground next to him and began checking his wounds.

"They tried, Ed. Just not hard enough. What's to happen here?" he asked, the pain from his wounds slowly subsiding.

"Word is they aim to feed us before they ship us off to some prison barge in Delaware. I don't right fancy it but what else can we do? Hell, it ain't like any man of us is running outta here." He replied in his thick Carolina brogue.

"That's right bullshit, Ed. We're to be tried for treason against the Union by that sonofabitch Custer. Imagine that, the Boy-General himself come to judge fighting men." Will snarled, knowing full well the reputation of Custer; a glory-hound if there ever was one, but fearless as they came. There was something to be said in that and Will could respect a man for being courageous. But Custer was cut from a different cloth if the stories were to be true.

Ed shook his head in disbelief.

"Naw, it ain't like that Cap'n. The war be over for us and now we gets to sit it out. Sure, it be a damn shame we don't get to see our boys whip the Yankees what fer but I guess that's why we call it war." Then he excitedly stood up as two horse drawn carriages were brought into the clearing. Each one hurriedly took its place on both sides of the prisoners, their flaps facing inward.

'Told you, Cap'n! A general keeps it word, even he is a blue-belly!" Ed gestured to the carriages.

He failed to notice the ring of Union troops begin to step back from the prisoners. Then an officer rode in on horse, and Will already knew who it was. The boyish face with the great mustache, plumed hat and the gold trimmed uniform; George Armstrong Custer. Wild eyes scanned the Confederates, disgust and cruelty radiated from them.

Then two riders joined Custer at his side, both mounted on brown colts. Neither wore the dark blue of the hated Union but the familiar steel grey of the Confederacy, the same as Will. They were officers from their braided sleeves and slouch hats, a colonel and a major. They exchanged words between themselves then nodded to Custer.

"Cap'n, what are our own officers—"

Custer raised a white gloved hand then brought it down in a chopping motion, the Confederate officers remaining still and fixed on their comrades on the ground.

The flaps of the carriages were pulled back and the multiple barrels of a Gatling gun poked out of them.

"Ed, get down!" Will shouted a moment too late. The Gatling guns opened fire, their barrels unleashing a hell storm of fire and lead. Ed's face was contorted into a painful mask as he was stitched across the chest, collapsing on top of Will. Bullets tore into the hapless prisoners, some still on the ground while others tried to flee. Gory red holes blossomed on grey uniforms, firing even as they lay dead. It was unlike any volley fire, a continuous thunder of ear shattering shots that echoed across the field.

Some men tried to run and were cut down by rifle fire. The ones too wounded to move were mowed down where they lay, helpless and weak. The gunners swept back and forth, stopping only to reload their cartridges and continue. Smoke billowed from the carriages, the fire unceasing and the screams eventually stopped. Silence hung in the air.

Custer and the two Confederates dismounted and drew their pistols, walking amongst the dead. They came to one of the bodies, an oddly uniform man with a crimson sash around his waist. From under the dead, Slade could only make out a few words.

"…unnecessary carnage in the name of hunting you." said the young General.

"…remorse at the lives that were spent all to draw you out, Assassin." The Confederate colonel circled the body like a hawk.

"…means nothing to you, Templar…blood is all you'll ever seek." The dying man coughed.

"To bring about change, blood must always be spilled. This is a fact your predecessors knew and understand, my friend." Custer replied with conviction.

"Forcing change is not a revolution but utter control and that is all you Templars have ever wanted." Whispered the man, coughing. Custer sighed and stood.

"It is a great pity you never understand, nor will you see our Great Works brought to fruition. Farewell, Assassin." Custer raised his pistol and executed the man, the shot echoing through the woods. Rummaging through the dead man's jacket, he removed something but Will could not see.

"Excellent, gentlemen. To Washington we go and our work continues. May the Father of Understanding guide us." He said reverently.

"May the Father of Understanding guide us." The two confederates repeated, prayer-like.

The carriage flaps were tied off and pulled away, followed the troops in close formation. Last to leave was Custer and the two grey-uniformed officers, nodding in satisfaction at the day's work. With one last sweep of the carnage, they galloped off to parts unknown.

All sense of time was gone, and it must have been hours later when Will opened his eyes. The familiar stench of death and blood filled his nostrils, his senses long since accustomed to it. With his remaining strength, he pushed off the body of his friend and began to crawl out amongst the bullet ridden bodies of his comrades.

Having fought in many battles over the last three years, Will thought as he crawled over the dead, he had seen the cruelty and randomness of war. Men died in droves by volley, shot and canister, the bayonet and saber; that was war. But this was something out of a dream, the names of Templar and Assassin familiar to him like a feeling he could not place. He could not understand the origin of these feelings but only that he had to know more.

He cleared the last of the bodies and retrieved a gray frock coat from a corpse to cover his bandages. General Lee's army was retreating southward back to Virginia, maybe he could still catch them. They had been betrayed by their own, those officers who defiled the grey uniform. Party to the massacre of wounded men, their own men.

And the strange titles spoken between Custer and the dead man, the prayer for guidance. It was beyond his reason to understand but within him burned a feeling he did understand; vengeance. Vengeance against the man named Custer, titled a Templar and the two traitors at this side. Wherever this road was leading, it would end in blood and Will Slade was perfectly at ease with that.