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communi_kateFandom: Assassin's Creed
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Summary: The brothers reach Masyaf.
After This Age
An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99
Chapter Two,
Syria, 1174.
The Assassins soon left the paths that Malik knew and headed north on trails far less familiar. Kadar did not speak a word to anyone until after the sun had reached its zenith, and then he only said "I have to piss."
The closest Assassin nodded and let Kadar go behind a rock. Malik waited. When Kadar did not return quickly he excused himself as well and followed his brother's footprints around the boulder and into a small canyon.
He found Kadar at the end of the canyon, half-hidden behind the purple blossoms of an oleander bush. The narrow gorge had been formed by winter floods. At the end of the canyon was a place where years of flowing water had broken down the red stone walls. In winter it would have been a waterfall. As it was midsummer, the canyon was as dry as old bones.
Kadar had pulled himself to sit on the waist-high ledge. He turned as Malik approached, pointed to the horizon and said "Malik! Look!"
"What?" Malik went to join his brother. He leaned his elbows on the rocky ledge and looked out. He saw nothing but bare red mountains.
"I can still see the mountains from here!" Kadar said. He sounded happy for the first time since they'd left the camp. "Let's go. We can go home."
Malik sighed. "We can't."
"We can. It won't take long. We'll be back by morning!"
"We can't."
"I want to see Hasan and Maryam. Asif will miss me. I want to go home!"
"Kadar, we can't," Malik caught at his brother's sleeve as Kadar tried to clamber up over the ledge. The ragged fabric ripped. Kadar squirmed away, but he was not fast enough. Malik picked him up by the waist, lifted him down bodily and pushed him against the canyon wall. "Don't you understand? We can't go home. They'll only send us back. Ummu only sent us away because she had to."
Kadar tensed. He tried to break away but Malik held him firmly by the shoulders. "You're lying!" he snarled. He thrashed and beat his fists against Malik's chest. "I hate you! I want to go home!"
Malik let his brother struggle. Kadar was too close to him to cause much damage, and Malik wasn't sure that he did not deserve the blows. "Shut up," he hissed. "Shut up. They'll hear you."
Kadar slumped in Malik's arms, and he began to howl. His shoulders shook and his body tensed and tears and snot dripped from his face. He left go of Malik and slid to the red gravel on the canyon's floor. "Ummu told you to look after me."
"I know." Malik sat down beside his brother and wrapped his arms around Kadar's thin shoulders. "I'm trying."
Kadar's voice was a muffled wail of misery. "Malik, I don't want to be an Assassin." He curled up against the sun-warmed rock, bony elbows balanced on his knees and his chin slumped against his chest so that only a pair of red-rimmed eyes and a shock of tangled black hair showed over his crossed arms. Tears streaked his face.
Malik shrugged. "You don't get a choice," he told Kadar. Kadar instantly went rigid against him, and Malik wondered for a moment what he had said. It took him longer than it should have done to check the mouth of the canyon.
One of the Assassins stood silhouetted between the red rocks walls. It was hard to see the Assassin's expression clearly beneath the white hood of his robe, but his voice was neutral. "It's getting late. We must be on our way."
Kadar inhaled sharply. Malik got up, scraping his back against the rough sandstone, and was relieved when Kadar followed his lead. He held his brother's hand tightly as they followed the Assassin back to the trail. The other two Assassins were waiting as patiently as stones beside the boulder. Behind them the setting sun stained the mountains the colour of henna and saffron. The sky was a pale, fragmented blue. There was no camp in sight, and Malik noticed that none of the Assassins carried a pack.
"Sayyid, where will we spend the night?" he asked the closest Assassin as they began to walk.
The Assassin shrugged. Malik expected him to say 'As God wills' like most people he knew did when faced with a problem, but instead the Assassin just said "We'll find somewhere."
When the sun was a thin line of honey-gold against black peaks they reached another shepherd's camp. The people there were herders like the al-Sayf clan, with just as many children, but they had three tents instead of one and a large herd of fat-tailed sheep. They greeted the Assassins like lost family, invited them into the camp to spend the night and slaughtered a sheep in their honour.
Malik and Kadar sat under the coarse woollen tent-flaps after the meal was done and watched the sun slide behind the mountains. The evening prayer time had passed without anybody mentioning the fact, and everybody in the tent behind them was already asleep. Malik had expected that the fest would drag on long into the night-most herders saw few guests and valued news highly. Travellers were never allowed to rest until they'd told their hosts everything they knew.
Malik wondered if the herding family didn't want to know what the Assassins knew. He tucked his bare feet beneath the hem of his robe as the stone around them grew colder and watched the sun set in strange skies.
"I don't like it here," Kadar said unhappily beside him. "It's different."
Malik shrugged. "They fed us well," he pointed out. The sheep had been a small one, but there had been plenty to go around, and the mutton had been followed by rice soaked with butter. There had been no butter at home, and precious little rice.
"The food was good," Kadar agreed. He pressed close to Malik, shivering, and Malik threw his arm around his brother's shoulders. "But it's not home. Do you think we'll go back?"
"Not unless we fail," said Malik. None of his father's tales mentioned what happened to failed Assassins. Malik didn't think it was anything good.
"Did we do something wrong?"
Malik shook his head. "It's supposed to be an honour."
Kadar rested his chin in his hands and stared out at the sky. "It doesn't feel like one," he said in a small voice.
Malik would have given anything at that moment to wake wrapped in woollen blankets in his family's camp. He also knew that admitting this to Kadar would not make either of their lives any easier. If the Assassins didn't catch them, then their mother would be required by honour to send them both straight back. There was no point trying to leave, but he didn't want to go into the still tent to sleep with strangers, despite the cold.
He sighed. "Shall we sleep out here tonight? I'll go and find some blankets."
Kadar looked at the tent, and at Malik, and nodded. Malik crawled back under the tent-flaps. The tent was dark, but it was a comforting, warm darkness that reminded him of their family's tent at home. The floor was strewn with sleeping bodies. A dog barked on the other side of the tent and Malik heard a baby cry sleepily in answer. A woman's voice hushed the child with a song Malik did not recognise.
He crept past them all, bare feet silent on the rugs, over to where a couple of blankets lay piled against one wall. The blankets were heavy and hard for Malik to lift alone. As he pressed them to his chest they gave off familiar smells of wood-smoke, wool and the faint scent of faded dyes.
Malik buried his face in the blankets and did his best not to cry. He wanted his brothers, his sisters, their dogs and their songs. Not a tent full of strangers and a cold night's sleep on rocks out in the open.
But he had to be strong. He had to look after Kadar.
Malik gulped back his tears and hoped that the small sound would go unnoticed in the quiet darkness of the tent. Once he felt that he could trust himself to move silently he weaved between the sleeping family and ducked back under the tent-flaps. A quick glance around was enough to tell him that he'd come out under the tent just around the corner from where he'd left Kadar.
He stepped out into the starlight and saw the Assassin.
Malik froze. He pulled the blankets closer to his chest and hoped that the Assassin had not seen him. The man sat on a tall pile of rocks to Malik's left. His head was turned away, watching the trail that led to the compound. Malik was sure he made no sound, but the Assassin snapped his head around. The shadows beneath the Assassin's peaked hood obscured his face.
Malik barely dared to breathe. He hoped that the Assassin did not think he was stealing the blankets, but he was far too terrified to say anything. The Assassins in his father's tales had possessed near-supernatural speed, strength and cunning. They could stalk men by night, kill with a blow and run across the mountains without dislodging a single stone. As Malik stared into the darkness beneath the Assassin's hood, he believed every story he had ever heard.
The Assassin did not say a word. He simply nodded at Malik, turned his head and went back to watching the trail. There was no sign of the other two men. Malik wondered if the other Assassins were asleep with the family in the tent, or whether they too kept watch, and where.
Malik took a deep breath of cold air before he turned his back on the Assassin and went back to Kadar. He had worried that his brother would wander off or try to leave the compound but Kadar was right where Malik had left him, shivering and pressed against the sagging black wool walls of the tent for warmth. He looked up as Malik approached and said "You took a long time."
Malik threw the blanket at Kadar and sat down beside his brother, wrapping himself in the warm folds of the blanket until only his face showed. "You can get them, next time. Now go to sleep."
Kadar folded his blanket in half and lay down on the stones beside Malik. "I won't sleep," he said, and immediately settled down to doze.
Malik sat up and thought. He watched the stars and crescent moon rise above the mountains and thought that he would never sleep. He must have dozed eventually, because he woke to Kadar poking him in the ribs.
"You're awake? Good? We need to go."
As Malik crawled out from under the tent-flaps he saw all three Assassins speaking with the herder's family. None of the men looked tired. Any of them could have been the watcher in the night. Their conversation was animated, and Malik wondered what they were talking about.
He found out soon enough, when they left and took the herder's youngest son with them. The boy wailed like a lost lamb as they walked away. The mourning cries of women echoed from the compound.
"It's like they think he's died." Kadar said in a hushed voice to Malik as they walked past a pasture of scorched grass and stunted trees. There was still more pastures here than at the al-Sayf camp. Malik could not help thinking that his family would not have given sons away if they had lived in such a place.
"He should be quiet," Malik snapped, "and stop making such a fuss." He spoke loudly, so that the herder's boy would hear. The boy sniffed and said nothing, but one of the Assassins caught Malik a blow around the head that made his teeth rattle. He fell silent.
"Not the will of any god," said one of the Assassins, "but the will of Al Mualim."
Kadar frowned, "Al Mualim's real?" he said. "Our father told stories about him."
The Assassin nodded. "Most certainly. Did you think the Assassins were tales too?"
"We know about the Assassins." Malik said sulkily.
"You'll learn more," the Assassin said "when you get to Masyaf."
Malik wanted to ask how long they would be travelling, but the herder's boy spoke first. "When will we get to Masyaf?"
"Tonight, if fortune wills it," said the Assassin, and turned back to the trail with a grunt and a manner that brooked no further questions.
The landscape changed as they travelled on. The scrubby trees gave way to tall poplars and tiny meadows of green grass; dust-choked canyons were replaced by tiny streams of clear water. They saw a few more tents, and then houses-real houses built of the same rocks as the mountains. And then they saw the town, and behind it, the great fortress of Masyaf.
The castle was like nothing Malik had ever seen. It rose from the rock in a great wedge of stone, topped by a gilded dome that gleamed as brightly as the Assassins' blades. The Orontes gorge cut a deep scar around three sides of the fortress. The castle's main gateway loomed like an open maw above a sloping hillside covered in small houses and surrounded by a high wall of wooden palings.
The herder's boy gazed at their surroundings and opened his mouth to ask more questions. Malik kept his mouth closed, and watched. He couldn't have spoken if he had tried. There was just too much to take in.
The boy tugged on Malik's sleeve. "My name is Rauf," he whispered."Son of Ismail, from the valley near the rocks shaped like a lion's mouth. What's yours?"
"Kadar," Kadar said, and Malik."
Malik nodded. He wasn't sure yet if he liked the boy, but at least he was from the mountains like them. The people here were strange, and there were far too many of them. To Malik's surprise, few of the Masyaf villagers were Assassins. There were women, men and children of every age, more than he had ever imagined, all bustling about like ants on tasks of their own. None of them paid the slightest attention to the boys and their escort. Malik stayed close to the Assassins and worried that he would lose them in the crowds and never find them again.
"Are you going to be Assassins, too?" Rauf's eyes shone as he gazed up at the castle wall that loomed above them.
"I think so." Kadar said.
"Maybe it's our fate," said Rauf, cheerily.
Malik shrugged. Their father had believed in fate, but the fate he believed in was the sort where great sayyids always recognised their own heirs in disguise or the brave prince always married his princess despite all that evil men could do to stop him. He had a feeling that the Assassins believed in a different kind of fate. Perhaps he was destined to become an Assassin, but it was a long strange road from a boy from the Orontes and six generations of sheepherders.
One of the Assassins looked over his white-robed shoulder at the boys. "This way," he said."Don't fall behind."
Malik, Rauf and Kadar hurried to keep up. The path wound upwards through the village as steeply as a waterfall. The Assassins seemed not to notice the incline. The boys did. When Kadar began to lag behind, Malik hoisted his brother onto his back and hurried after them. His feet ached, and the stones underfoot were sharp. Everyone here wore boots, or at least sandals.
It was a long way to the citadel itself, and Malik soon began to struggle. Rauf offered to take over and Kadar climbed onto his back without a murmur while Malik struggled to catch his breath. There were steep ramps and flights of steps and courtyards raised above the level of the ground. Every time they reached one Malik was sure that they had at last reached the castle gates, and every time they reached a courtyard the Assassins hurried on up yet another path, their white-robed backs rapidly retreating until Malik and Rauf practically had to run to keep up. When Rauf flagged, Kadar slid from his back and struggled on with them. It felt like a victory when they reached the castle gates at the same time as the Assassins.
The tallest of the three Assassins nodded to one of the guards. "Husayn."
The guard smiled. "Umar! Safety and peace, brother. What do you bring us?" He looked down at Malik and Rauf, and then further down at Kadar. "New recruits?"
The Assassin laughed. "If you can call them that."
"Know nothing, do they?"
"Only how to say their prayers and tell good coin from bad," the Assassin said. "Same as the rest."
The guard Husayn shrugged. "They don't sound promising." He bent down towards Kadar and asked him "Can you read?"
There were no books in the mountains. Kadar shook his head.
"Fight?"
Kadar looked uncertainly at the four heavily armed men. He shook his head again.
Husayn straightened up, laughing. "Ali and Ismail will have their work cut out."
"Then the sooner they get started, the better," said the Assassin Umar. He beckoned. "Boys, follow me,"
They followed the Assassin into a wide courtyard in front of the keep and over to a small fenced arena where several white-robed boys were practising swordplay with varying degrees of success. They were watched sternly by an Assassin wearing chain-mail covered by a white tabard.
"Ali?" the Assassin Umar said, "I have some novices for you."
"Then I hope that they are better than the last ones that you brought me," the Assassin Ali said. He turned away from the struggling boys and stared down his nose at Malik, Kadar and Rauf.
Umar shrugged. "When a sword fails, is it the fault of the iron, or of the smith that forged it?"
Ali sniffed. "Either," he said, "or none." He beckoned to Malik. "Your names, boy?"
"Malik Al-Sayf," Malik said, "and Kadar al-Sayf, and Rauf ibn Ismail, from the valley by the rocks shaped like a lion's mouth."
Ali raised his eyebrows. "Really? Then listen well." He jabbed a scarred hand at his chest. "I am the dai Ali, the novice-master of Masyaf." He pointed at the great wedge of stone that was the keep, "This is Masyaf. It is your home." He pointed at the white-robed boys who battled in the circle. "And these are your brothers. You will become Assassins." He paused. "It will take much work."
