“You Templar vermin don't know of what you speak,” she hisses, voice low and deep for the fairer sex. Her words are flecked with anger and disgust; she raises his chin as much as his choke-hold will allow, proud and crass, not at all like a woman. “You don't even know what you are fighting for. You are so well-ingrained in your bigotry that you have begun to believe your own lies. What do you know of equality?” Despite being pinned like an animal, waiting to die, she opens her mouth and laughs in his face. “What do you know of justice?”
He pulls her away from the wall and throws her to the ground, frowning as she gasps and holds a hand to her neck. This time, there is confusion as well as distaste in the way she looks at him, one of her hands instinctively flexing back to unsheathe the weapon hidden in her bracer, even if Altair broke the blade not ten minutes prior. Only the short, jagged base of the knife comes out, barely extending past the butt of her palm.
“I know there is no justice in gutting a defenseless woman,” he says, leaning forward and catching her wrist as she tried to slash at his throat with the ruined hidden blade. He smiles, all teeth. “At least not where no one else can see.”
-----
“You don't understand, Altair. The Assassins are the ones who can see the true path to the future,” Al Mualim pleads, but he is already choking on his own blood, the collar of his robes soaking a deep red, matching the Templar cross sewn on his front and distorting its clean-cut lines. He is bleeding out on the floor and Altair watches him die, neither stooping to comfort them nor bending to pass a hand over his eyes when the old, wizened body finally gives out and shudders still. That would be too merciful; that would be too much like an Assassin.
When he returns to the castle, he has visitors.
“Al Mualim called us here,” explains the black-market dealer from Damascus, dressed in opulent, dark robes from the profit he makes from selling priceless counterfeit pots imported from the East. The wizened old doctor from Acre, his beard a snowy white, nods his agreement. “He said there was a matter of great importance to discuss, mentioned a letter from Europe.”
Malik's eyes wander over the blood still caked in Altair's nails, linger on the golden sphere still trapped in the claw of his hand, tight and secure like the bars of an iron cage. There is jealousy in that gaze, envy that Altair should be the one to have won that particular prize. “A trap,” he surmises sullenly, leaning back against the counter with a huff of irritation. “These days the Assassins are everywhere. And if you have dealt with your infiltration problem here, then I am going to return to my district to make sure I don't have such careless pest problems.”
“Malik,” Altair begins, but he is too proud and too power-drunk, too certain of his own truths to go searching for any others, too corruption-filthy and selfish. He lowers his attention away from the expectant look the other Templar gives him and shakes his head. What forgiveness does he seek that he himself does not grant at the gallows? “No, it is nothing.
eclipse (2/2)
He pulls her away from the wall and throws her to the ground, frowning as she gasps and holds a hand to her neck. This time, there is confusion as well as distaste in the way she looks at him, one of her hands instinctively flexing back to unsheathe the weapon hidden in her bracer, even if Altair broke the blade not ten minutes prior. Only the short, jagged base of the knife comes out, barely extending past the butt of her palm.
“I know there is no justice in gutting a defenseless woman,” he says, leaning forward and catching her wrist as she tried to slash at his throat with the ruined hidden blade. He smiles, all teeth. “At least not where no one else can see.”
“You don't understand, Altair. The Assassins are the ones who can see the true path to the future,” Al Mualim pleads, but he is already choking on his own blood, the collar of his robes soaking a deep red, matching the Templar cross sewn on his front and distorting its clean-cut lines. He is bleeding out on the floor and Altair watches him die, neither stooping to comfort them nor bending to pass a hand over his eyes when the old, wizened body finally gives out and shudders still. That would be too merciful; that would be too much like an Assassin.
When he returns to the castle, he has visitors.
“Al Mualim called us here,” explains the black-market dealer from Damascus, dressed in opulent, dark robes from the profit he makes from selling priceless counterfeit pots imported from the East. The wizened old doctor from Acre, his beard a snowy white, nods his agreement. “He said there was a matter of great importance to discuss, mentioned a letter from Europe.”
Malik's eyes wander over the blood still caked in Altair's nails, linger on the golden sphere still trapped in the claw of his hand, tight and secure like the bars of an iron cage. There is jealousy in that gaze, envy that Altair should be the one to have won that particular prize. “A trap,” he surmises sullenly, leaning back against the counter with a huff of irritation. “These days the Assassins are everywhere. And if you have dealt with your infiltration problem here, then I am going to return to my district to make sure I don't have such careless pest problems.”
“Malik,” Altair begins, but he is too proud and too power-drunk, too certain of his own truths to go searching for any others, too corruption-filthy and selfish. He lowers his attention away from the expectant look the other Templar gives him and shakes his head. What forgiveness does he seek that he himself does not grant at the gallows? “No, it is nothing.
All of you, go.”