AN: I originally had the ending for this chapter at a different, later point...again, this was never really meant to be as epic as it became so I've had some pacing issues. Next chapter is now much shorter, but this chapter loses some of its wordy drag.
Thanks as always to skywalker05 for reading my attempts at action, fixing them, and not laughing at me in the process (much). Also, thanks to all the reviewers!
Chapter Eight
Every passing second takes a thousand years to pass. The stairway is beginning to waver dangerously in front of Altair's eyes when another wooden door appears up ahead.
If there are more stairs on the other side…but he doesn't finish the thought. Malik has gone very still and silent. More stairs will kill them both.
Altair shifts Malik in his arms so he can reach for the door handle, and feels a sick sort of pleasure when the wounded man whimpers. "Almost there," he insists to no one. "We are almost there. And he is still alive. Only a brainless novice would choose to die now."
The door squeals with rusty disuse, but Altair is not about to waste more time wrestling with uncooperative exits. He gives the handle a furious yank, and the door reluctantly swings open. Even as Altair is darting through the doorway, he looks up, dreading the sight before him…
But the darkness that greets his vision is not the cloying type of the inner fortress. It's the pure dark of a night sky, with sprinkled starlight pouring through occasional, wispy clouds. Cool air drifts against Altair, soothing sore limbs. Malik mumbles in his delirious sleep.
Outside. They are finally outside.
Altair doesn't bother feeling relieved—they've escaped the citadel, but they haven't yet escaped. They aren't on ground, but a roof…a very high roof. Jerusalem rests before them: they are higher than the tallest cross or minaret tower. And there are no ladders leading down.
Trying to remember the architecture of the building proves useless; Altair glances up and sees smooth walls soaring on three of four sides. The fortress climbs higher still, apparently, but Altair will not be climbing with it: the walls are utterly lacking in exposed bricks and cracks-turned-handholds. Climbing down will be no less impossible; even were it not such a long, dangerous path, there's no way to scale the building while holding Malik in his arms.
They are still trapped, then. Altair bares his teeth into a snarl, cursing whatever force in the universe is determined to see him dead.
Something catches his eye: a splintery, wooden beam sticking a few inches out from the edge of the roof. It's just a loose plank, but Altair goes to inspect it nevertheless. It's at the right angle…and it's just long enough…maybe he could…
He walks to the edge of the roof and looks down, narrowing his eyes to better focus his vision. Far below, an old wagon filled with hay rests on a cobblestoned street. Wind billows through his robes, nearly pushes his cowl off his head. The hot, summer air sticks to his skin.
Altair hesitates. Every instinct he has—every urge, every bit of training—is telling him to make the jump from ledge to wagon. It's a long way down, and not exactly a soft landing, but one of the first tricks Altair learned while in training was how to scale great heights and then promptly leap off them. It's still risky, but for an assassin it's not an unusual move. Altair knows how to position himself, how to turn in mid-air, how to judge for distance and end with perfect aim. He could make that jump.
He could. Malik can't.
The Dai is still drifting in and out of a weak, fever-drenched consciousness. When Altair tries to talk to him, he gets nothing lucid in way of a response. There is no way Malik will be able to rouse himself long enough and well enough to aim properly, position properly, land properly. Altair has seen the results of missed jumps: broken limbs are the best result. More often, miscalculated high leaps end with skulls cracked open against stone, brain matter soaking into pavement and ribs jutting through skin.
He can make the jump. But he can't make the jump. And that damn voice is back, breathing in his ear, reminding him that he is the great assassin, who always survives…all he has to do is what he's already done…
(Turn your back on them and go. Ignore the screaming. They are assassins, they are willing to die; you are too talented, too necessary. Run so that you can keep living.
Ignore the screaming. You're used to being alone.)
Altair has spent most of his life listening to that voice. Now he looks down at Malik's haggard form and feels sick. He's cut men in half, been bathed in the blood of strangers, watched as wrong-place-wrong-time bystanders were slaughtered by arrows and swords and poison—but Malik's shallow breathing is what makes Altair want to gag.
He kneels down, shifts Malik from his arms, propping him up with his back against the wall. The back of his neck tingles. "I will end this," he whispers. "I will keep you alive."
Then he turns around, standing firmly in front of the Dai. Their backs are to the wall now, literally. When he sees Robert framed in the doorway, it feels a bit like fate.
The usual bunch of guards gathers behind their master. How many men follow him? How many men have bought into his Templar lies? Altair sights and throws two daggers, one after the other, flick flick into the chests of guards rushing toward him. It's easier to throw knives then to fight blade against blade, and at this point, the fewer men Altair has to bare his sword against the better.
("I know how hard it is to fight off several men at once. Did you think I'd fail to notice how much of the blood on the ground is yours?")
He reaches for another dagger, but his fingers pluck at air. He's out of them, and there are four more guards coming too close too fast. A fifth lingers by the doorway to call for even more soldiers, should there be a need. Ridiculous…an entire army scrambling after one man.
De Sablé points with his sword. "Kill the cripple while his bodyguard's distracted." He meets Altair's eyes, and it's obvious he deserves his high rank: there is no kindness or mercy in his gaze. Just a cool, blood-hungry desire to be the winner of all things. "The assassin is mine…kill the hostage."
Altair stabs the first man to try it through the chest. The second wields a sharply curved dagger, not a sword, and Altair is able to use his momentum against him, grabbing his right wrist and twisting it so that the man spears himself through the thigh with his own weapon. As the soldier spasms on the ground, it's easy to slice through his stomach.
The last two Templars come at him at the same time, and they land a few nasty blows to his arms and ribs before he is able to fend them off. Killing them is a long, arduous process—longer than it should be for a man trained to kill multiple soldiers at once. By the time the last Templar drops legless and lifeless to the ground, Altair's sword is almost too heavy to swing. New gashes run down his chest and arms, smearing against the dried blood already there. He turns to face Robert, breathing hard.
The fifth man takes off back down the stairs. Altair is dimly aware of his fleeing but doesn't bother trying to prevent it. He's out of daggers and out of energy, and if he spent a month fighting off soldiers there would always be more around the next bend. It's Robert he needs to focus on, with what remains of his strength.
But it's so hard to focus on Robert when the world keeps tilting under his feet…
The Templar doesn't bother wasting time with more threats. He simply lunges, sword outstretched. Just as in the courtyard, Altair's arms shake with the force of blocking his strike. De Sablé isn't winded at all.
The fight goes badly from the start. Altair makes a lot of sloppy, stupid mistakes—mistakes he berates himself for even as he makes them. He's too wide open, too distracted to properly hold his guard. Trying to block Robert from Malik gives him a very limited space in which to move; his typical flowing techniques are hampered almost entirely past usefulness. There is a tenacity to the Templar's fighting that suggests he knows his advantages far too well.
Altair slides around and swings, his sword banging against Robert's. He pushes, straining sore muscles for all they're worth, his sword dipping under the weight of gravity as if it's homing for the heart. De Sablé grips the hilt of his weapon with both hands, presses downwards and shoves—Altair's sword is ripped from his hands. It scuttles across the ground and vanishes over the rooftop's edge.
Altair freezes. He looks at Robert with the angry, hunted look of a trapped animal. He grabs for his dagger, but it's a hopeless cause and he knows it; the smaller blade isn't meant for this kind of one-on-one fight. He isn't darting gracefully from victim to victim: he's cornering (or being cornered by) a single man with sharper teeth.
"You've kept this going for far too long," Robert says. "You've killed half my men. And for what? Your master's cryptic ravings? Is an attempt on my life worth all that it's put you through?" He nods in Malik's direction. "Is it worth what it's put him through?"
"Only a madman brags of victory when he is about to be defeated," Altair retorts. It's an empty, tired threat, and neither man is fooled.
"One thing I have to give your Brotherhood credit for…you assassins are tougher than you look," Robert muses. He prods his sword at Altair almost teasingly, forcing him to scramble to avoid mocking blows. He isn't even taking the assassin seriously anymore; he watches Altair struggle to dodge, and laughs. "Nothing we did could get the man behind you to give any sort of satisfying reaction. I don't know how it's possible to ignore your enemy when he's snapping your fingers in two, but your friend managed it quite nicely."
He swings again, a real and sudden strike—Altair dives away from it, leaving Malik wide open. The assassin lands poorly, and though he bites hard enough on his lip to draw blood, he can't quite control his curse of pain. He stands up, and his left ankle promptly caves: he ends up on one knee, nine fingers digging into stone, eyes blazing with fury.
It's no use. His ankle is twisted, badly. All that he's done, the distance he's traveled…it's no use. Not now. He lifts his head to stare in defiance at De Sablé: even dying can be done with strength.
But, unbelievably, Robert turns his back on Altair and moves toward the Dai. He considers Malik's unconscious form for a moment. "I don't understand it. He escaped me once, but he didn't have the sense to thank his good fortunes and stay away." He kneels down, grabs Malik by the hair and yanks his body close. "The only time I saw any emotion out of him was when I mentioned that other assassin I killed back in Solomon's Temple. You remember him, I'm sure."
He glances over his shoulder at a silent and infuriated Altair, twisting Malik's hair around his fingers. "They were related, weren't they? Related, or at least close friends. Such a shame."
Robert tugs his hand; Malik's eyes flicker half-way open and the Templar smiles. With his mouth against the dying man's ear, speaking just loud enough for Altair to overhear, he murmurs, "That boy was alive for nearly an hour after you grabbed the Apple and fled. My men sliced him to pieces, and all the while he begged for you to come back and save him. He seemed so sure that you would."
The Templar finally drops him and straightens up. Turning to face Altair, he calls, "So who will you beg for now that you are—"
He has no time to finish his sentence before the assassin is upon him.
It is the last bit of strength Altair has…the last attack he'll be able to make. If it fails, he's dead. He knows this. He almost relishes it: the world is clearer when there's no other way.
His tackle leaves him on the ground, limbs tangled with Robert's—he frees his left hand and plunges it at a bit of exposed throat—Robert ducks his head and the extended hidden blade collides with the stone, snapping in two—the Templar is on his feet again, Altair gets to his own just in time for a punch to the jaw that sends him flying back—his head whacks against the ground and the night grows ever darker—he gasps—
Robert goes for his sword, dropped by the edge in the confusion, and Altair is moving in a dream, in a thick haze, watching his own body go through the motions of its last fight: and the violence sings through his bloodstream, and it's such a satisfying feeling, and it's such a shame to have to see it end—
He thinks, if I was stronger.
He thinks, I will not let Malik die.
Robert has his sword again but Altair doesn't trust his legs to bear his weight, so he grabs the one weapon he has left and rolls onto his side; he plunges his short blade into the only part of the Templar he can reach, which happens to be the left foot. There is no real force behind the blow, and the dagger gets stuck in the thick leather of Robert's boot. Robert snarls and kicks it out of Altair's hand. The assassin rises to his hands and knees, and wonders if teeth and bare fists will work against steel. De Sablé takes a step backwards, to steady himself…
but there is no last step…
The Templar's arms waver, out-stretched, as he tries desperately to balance himself with one foot dangling in mid-air. Altair watches himself answer his own question: bare fists can be quite useful. He pushes himself to his feet and shoves his hands against Robert de Sablé's chest.
Robert falls.
The Templar looks more surprised than anything as his feet slip from the edge of the roof. He holds out his arms, grabbing at nothing as if to save himself, mouth open in a yell that the wind steals away. Altair leans over the edge and watches without blinking. He wants to memorize every last, agonizing second.
It is a very long way down.
(The Creed frowns against taking pleasure in another's death. If nothing else, watching de Sablé's head aim for the pavement reminds Altair that he has yet to fully master said Creed.)
There's a lit torch attached to a building down below that lights up the road; Altair, even from his distant perch, can see the end come for the Templar in brutal detail. The street reaches up and takes Robert apart, tearing away skin and swallowing the skull. It's a bit too dark to make out the splatter of blood and guts that must be there now: the red smearing that is de Sablé's final mark.
Once, he must have been a very skilled and dedicated soldier. Once, he must have ridden into battle a confidant man, willing to raise swords against his religion's infidels. Once, he must not have been so obsessed with golden Apples and helpless worlds. Altair wonders, what is it that changed him? What hypnotic demon did he see when he held the Piece of Eden in his hands?
He looks down again. There is a small crowd gathering, but he is too far up to hear the cries. He turns away, turns to Malik—Robert Sablé is dead, but there is no time to preen.
Altair kneels by Malik, reaches out and brushes his fingers against the man's neck. Too-warm flesh and a stuttering pulse meet his touch. He lets his fingers linger a split second longer than he needs to; he does not think about it, does not acknowledge it, but later on he knows he will look back on his fingers against Malik's skin with something close to pride. He will want to tell the Dai, I am never afraid.
He moves his hand away. "Malik," he says. "It's finished. Robert is dead."
Malik does not respond.
