the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

like the moments before a storm. Above him on the library balcony, Al
Mualim was raising the Apple above his head, intoning something.
‘Come. Destroy the betrayer. Send him from this world.’
Suddenly figures were appearing around Altaïr, snarling, teeth bared,
ready for combat; figures he recognized but found hard to place at first –
but then did: they were his nine targets, his nine victims returned from
the other life to this one.
He saw Garnier de Naplouse, who stood wearing his blood-stained
apron, a sword in his hand, looking at Altair with pitying eyes. He saw
Tamir, who held his dagger, his eyes glinting with evil intent, and Talal,
his bow over his shoulder, sword in hand. William de Montferrat, who
grinned wickedly, drew his weapon and grounded it, biding his time
before the attack. Abu’l Nuqoud and Majd Addin were there, Jubair,
Sibrand and, last, Robert de Sable.
All of his targets, sent from the world by Altaïr and summoned back
to it by Al Mualim so that they might have their revenge.
And they attacked.
Majd Addin he was pleased to dispatch first, for a second time. Abu’l
Nuqoud was as fat and comical in his resurrected form as he had been
the first time around. He sank to his knees on the point of Altaïr’s sword,
but instead of remaining on the ground, he vanished, leaving just a
disturbance in the air behind him, a ripple of disrupted space. Talal, de
Montferrat, Sibrand and de Sable were the most skilled fighters and,
accordingly, they hung back, allowing the weaker among them to go
forward first in the hope of tiring Altaïr. The Assassin dashed from the
marble terrace and leaped from the ridge, landing on a second square of
decorated marble, this one with a waterfall nearby. The targets followed