As the pike rolled from his grasp and clattered onto the floor, Frédéric Rouille clutched his wound and snarled at the hooded figure looming above him. "You son of a whore," he spat.
"Charming," Arno remarked dryly. "Tell me Rouille, what did you intend to achieve here? Is massacring prisoners part of some Templar playbook I'm unaware of?"
"Enemies of the Revolution, the lot of them," the fallen captain retorted, a mad glint in his eyes. "Spies, royalists... and they're already in prison, who'd care if we move up their execution?"
"You're a bloodthirsty maniac," Arno remarked with a sigh. "Wonderful."
"And what does that make you, assassin?" Rouille smirked. "How many guards did you kill to get here, I wonder? How many Sans-Culottes lie bleeding in the streets by your blade?"
"That's different—" Arno began, faltering.
"Is it?" Rouille interjected. "We both use the same methods; we both kill to be rid of tyrants. The only difference between us, assassin, is that you don't go far enough. You and that fop Mirabeau. Oh he was all fire and venom at the Estates-General, but in the end he was nothing but talk. Worse, he was colluding with the king, with the enemy!"
"Mirabeau wanted a peaceful transferal of power," Arno quickly rounded on him. "But instead, you and your Templar extremists are turning Paris into a bloodbath. And here I thought you Templars were supposed to be about order."
"And I thought you assassins were supposed to be about freedom," Rouille spat. "Well now we'll show them freedom. Freedom to bleed, freedom to starve, freedom to embrace the fury. They'll murder eachother for a loaf of bread. You assassins should be proud. Isn't this... what you always wanted?"
The light left his eyes before Arno could reply. Arno stood still for a moment, rattled by the fallen captain's words. At last, he leaned over the fallen Templar and murmured, "You were but a pawn in your master's game, and now you've been sacrificed for it. Reposez en paix." Closing Rouille's eyelids, Arno then took a moment to search the dead man's pockets. Finding a letter adressed to one Marie Lévesque, he rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. "Murder eachother for a loaf of bread," he muttered, wheels turning as he turned from the body to descend the Grand Chatelet's walls.