you're a good soldier, choosing your battles

Jan 11, 2013 16:39

"Let those who shall come after this age and era know the extent of the mischief they wrought and the confusion they cast into the heart of men... It was a cup that had been filled to overflowing; it seemed as if a wind had died. This is a warning to those who reflect; may God do likewise to all tyrants."

-Ata-Malik al-Juvaini, History of the World Conquerer, epitaph to the last Assassin Grand Master.

"La shay'haqiqah, koulo shay'moumkin." (Nothing is true, but everything is permitted.)

-Assassin's Creed.

Chapter One.

Syria. 1174

The men in white picked their way up the gully. Their pale robes looked like three scraps of wool against the red rocks. Malik al-Sayf might not even have noticed them if he hadn't been on the lookout for lost sheep.

He shaded his eyes and watched as the three men scrambled over fallen rocks worn smooth by winter floods. They climbed between tall pinnacles that rose to stab the faded sky like knives of stone. Malik's grandfather had been famous for his skills in the mountains, but even Seid al-Sayf could not have moved as deftly as these men.

Malik whistled once. As the echoes died away he heard a series of protesting bleats. Kadar pushed his way through the Al-Sayf clan's small herd of sheep and flopped on his belly beside Malik. Asif, their long-eared old ram, raised his head and glared at Kadar with yellow lozenge-shaped eyes. The other sheep ignored Kadar. It was Malik's job to herd the sheep. Their mother only sent Kadar along to keep him out of trouble.

"What?" Kadar asked.

Malik jerked his head towards the valley.

Kadar squinted down the gully. His face screwed up with concentration. He looked for a long time. Malik was about to sigh and point the men out to Kadar when his brother said "They're fast."

Malik snorted. A sheep raised its head in alarm and Malik clicked his tongue to calm the ewe before he replied. "They're Assassins. They're supposed to be fast."

"Why are they here?"

Malik had no idea. Loath to admit to his younger brother than he didn't know, he fell back on the one thing that he did. "It's not time for the tithe. They came in the spring."

Kadar glanced over his shoulder at the quietly grazing sheep. "We can't lose more of the flock!"

"We won't," Malik reassured him. The sheep were one of the few things their family had of value. But he couldn't imagine what the Assassins were here for if not the sheep.

"Let's hide," Kadar said.

"Let's not," said Malik. "They'll want us at the camp." He peered cautiously down from their eyrie at the Assassins. The white-clad men did not pause. They continued up the gully, climbing nimbly as lizards over the tumbled rocks. They made no sound at all, though Malik listened hard. The sheep cropped gently at the grass around the brothers and a bee droned past in a futile search for wildflowers. This late in summer, the only things growing were thorns and oleander, and there wasn't even much of that to go around. It had not been a good year.

Kadar crawled on his belly to the very edge of the rock. Malik watched the Assassins over Kadar's shoulder and got ready to grab his brother by the ankle if he slipped. "They don't look like the men in the tales."

Malik shrugged. "Nothing does."

Everyone who lived near Masyaf told tales of the Assassins, and the al-Sayf clan, as in many other things, was no exception to the rule. Assassin stories were best told on long winter nights, when the stars shone brightly and the earth was hard as a Frankish heart. It had taken Malik a while to connect the killers in his father's tales with the men who came up the pass every few years to take a sheep in tithe to the Old Man of the Mountain, but he'd got there in the end. Nothing else Malik had ever seen in his nine years had lived up to his father's stories.

"Do you think they're here to kill someone?"

Malik shrugged. "Not us."

"How'd you know that?"

"Haven't you listened to the stories?" Malik said. "They only kill evil men."

Kadar looked unconvinced. "I'm nearly a man."

Malik snorted. "Asif is more a man than you."

"Ibn in kalb!"

"That's your mother too, fool."

Kadar jumped onto Malik's back. It was a short and showy fight, as all the al-Sayf brothers' were. Malik won. He slammed Kadar face-down in the dirt and asked "Enough?"

"Yes!" Kadar spluttered, his voice muffled by a mouthful of dead grass, sand and sheep shit.

Malik relaxed his grip on his brother's throat. "Where did you learn that from? The caravans? You know they don't teach anything worth knowing."

Kadar snarled and pushed Malik away. "You're only two years older! Why do you always win?"

Malik shrugged. "Maybe I'll teach you, when you're old enough."

Kadar rubbed at his cheek and held his tongue. It was the most sensible thing he had done all day.

Malik used the time to count the flock. He picked his staff from the stones and ran his index finger down the stick to count the notches carved into the wood. There was one long notch for each five sheep, and a short mark for any extra. He scanned the rocks for the distinctive brown and white fleeces of his mother's herd. All the sheep were there, so he glanced back down into the valley.

There were no Assassins to be seen.

Malik leaned far out from the rocks, but the valley was empty for as far as he could see. The Assassins had already left the gorge. And there was only one way they could have gone.

Malik got to his feet, frantically brushing red dust from his robe. "We have to go."

Kadar leant out past Malik and shaded his eyes with his hand. Their mother always called Malik the smartest of her sons, but Kadar had the keenest eyes. He could always spot a lost lamb before the eagles found it. Sharp vision was a useful skill to have in the mountains, even if Malik often had to fetch the sheep from whatever ledge it had clambered on.

"Do you see them?"

"No," Kadar shook his head. "They're not there. Where do you think-"

"Take a guess," Malik snapped.

The brothers turned from the ledge together and tried to gather the flock. The sheep flapped their drooping ears and skittered along the rocks in panic. The more the brothers tried to hurry, the more the flock scattered. The sheep were always obstinate at the best of times, and they were at their worst when they thought they were being rushed.

They reached their family's camp just after the Assassins. Asif bawled his head off in protest at their hasty descent. One of the ewes was lame and both brothers were covered in red dust from the top of their heads to the soles of their bare feet. Malik braced himself for a sharp word from their mother as they skidded to a halt but she just nodded and said "Boys, put the sheep round the back."

Malik took the flock round the back of the camp to the mud-brick compound that protected the flock from the bandits and jackals that came at night. The sheep were tired from their headlong rush down the mountain and went in to the compound easily. Malik shoved the barricade of thorns across the gate so fast he cut himself.

When he returned to the courtyard Kadar was still standing there staring at the strangers. Malik didn't blame him. The Assassins wore mail shirts and leather under their white robes. They carried swords and wore belts of throwing knives the way other men wore sashes. The gleam of sunlight on steel was brighter than anything Malik had ever seen.

"Is your husband well?" asked the tallest of the Assassins.

"Very well," Malik's mother said. Fahim Al-Sayf had coughed himself to death that winter, but it was not polite to speak ill of the dead. Her voice was very soft but she held her back straight despite the red dust that stained her skirts. The Assassins kept a respectful distance. It was a man's job to speak, but Sa'ad, the eldest son, was only twelve.

"Your order prospers?"

"It does well enough," said the Assassin.

"Then you've been favoured."

"As have you."

"It has been a long time," Malik's mother said quietly, "since we considered ourselves blessed."

The Assassins' gaze flickered across the threadbare tent, the pitifully small herd of sheep and the holes in their clothes. Malik was ashamed, and then he was interested. The Assassins visited every few years. They never said much and they never took long. They took their sheep and left.

"You have been blessed with children," the Assassin said at last. "How many?"

"Nine." Malik's mother said. "Four girls and five boys."

"A blessing and a curse."

She inclined her head." Just so."

Malik noticed that Maryam had loosened one of the tent flaps to peer at the strangers. He saw the gleam of eyes beneath the felt and heard one of the girls laugh.

"Their names?" the Assassin asked and Malik realised that he was asking after them. His mother sighed.

"Sa'ad," she said, brushing her hand against Sa'ad's shoulder in a possessive gesture that said not this one. "My second son is Zayd," She pointed to Zayd, who was crouching with his back against the tent and trying hard to look inconspicuous. "This is Malik, and Kadar. My youngest is Hasan." She stroked her youngest son's hair as he clutched at her skirts.

It took Malik far longer than he should have done to realise that the Assassins weren't here for the sheep. The al-Sayf clan could spare more sons than sheep. Fewer sons meant more sheep to go around.

"Two?" the Assassin asked softly.

Malik's mother nodded. "Choose them companions," she said, "give them good names, and teach them the Creed. That's all I ask."

"Malik," one of the other Assassins said. "That's a good name for a fighter."

Their mother nodded. Malik was mesmerised by the bright steel and the terrible, hopeful look in his mother's eyes. He did not protest as the Assassin pointed to him and turned to his older brother Zayd.

Zayd coughed.

Malik recognised the sound. It was the same deep, hacking cough their father had suffered for seasons, the same cough that had killed him that winter. Malik's mother winced. The Assassin hesitated. His eyes flicked from Zayd to Kadar and back again. "They're healthy?"

She nodded, her attention already focused on Zayd's trembling shoulders. The Assassin regarded Malik and Kadar like Malik's father had used to examine a sheep he wished to buy. Malik half-expected the Assassin to check their teeth.

"You, and you," the Assassin said at last, pointing at Malik and Kadar. "You're with us."

Malik took a step towards the tent, and hesitated, torn between his family and the Assassins. Kadar grabbed him around his waist and held on tightly. Their mother bowed her head.

"If they can't learn our ways, they'll be sent back," said the Assassin.

Malik saw his mother's lips tighten in dismay. She swallowed, and turned to Malik as Hasan tugged at her skirts. "A mother gives her child nothing better than a good education," she said to Malik and Kadar. She was only steps away but her voice was already distant. Malik felt as if a canyon had opened up between them; wider than the gorge below and much more deep. "I would have sent you to your uncle, but his family is doing no better than us, and they have enough mouths to feed. Listen to the Assassins. Do as they tell you. Follow the Creed."

"The Creed?" Malik asked.

"You'll be Assassins," their mother told them, while the Assassins themselves looked on with an expression that Malik would later interpret as 'or die trying.' "Kadar, you pay attention. Malik, look after your brother."

Kadar gasped. Malik knew his brother would soon burst into tears, and he shoved Kadar hard between the shoulder-blades. Kadar stumbled and glared at him; his anger transferred from their mother to Malik. He wiped his eyes but did not cry. Malik was grateful for that, if nothing else.

It is better to make Kadar angry than let him disgrace himself in front of strangers, he thought.

"Follow me," said the Assassin.

Malik tugged Kadar after him. "Where are we going?"

The Assassin looked back over his shoulder at them, "Masyaf," he said.

They made much worse time descending the gully than the Assassins had made climbing up. Malik looked back once, his arm tight around Kadar's shoulder, but the black tent was lost in the shadows of the gully, and the walls of their compound were the same colour as the stone.

fanfiction, ac:after this age, gen, assassin's creed

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