the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

them.
Still confident, de Sable pressed forward. ‘Soon this will be over and
Masyaf will fall,’ he muttered, so close with the mighty blade that Altaïr
heard it whistle past his ear.
‘My brothers are stronger than you think,’ he replied.
Their steel clashed once more.
‘We’ll know the truth of that soon enough,’ grinned de Sable.
But Altaïr danced. He defended and parried and deflected, cutting
nicks in de Sable, opening gashes in the mail, landing two or three
stunning blows on the knight’s helmet. Then de Sable was backing away
to gather his strength, perhaps realizing now that Altaïr wouldn’t be the
easy kill he had assumed.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So the child has learned to use a blade.’
‘I’ve had a lot of practice. Your men saw to that.’
‘They were sacrificed in service to a higher cause.’
‘As will you be.’
De Sable leaped forward, wielding the great sword and almost
knocking Altaïr’s blade from his hand. But the Assassin bent and twisted
in one easy movement ramming back with the hilt of his weapon so that
de Sable was sent stumbling back, falling over his own feet. The wind
came out of him and he was only just prevented from falling to the dust
by the knights forming the ring, who righted him so that he stood there,
bristling with fury and breathing heavily.
‘The time for games is ended!’ he bellowed, as though saying it loudly
might somehow make it come true, and he sprang forward, but with no
deadly grace now. With nothing more deadly than blind hope.
‘It ended long ago,’ said Altaïr. He felt a great calmness, knowing now