the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

help, with Malik and Altaïr long gone.
‘Can you walk, my friend?’ Altaïr had said.
Malik had looked at him with blurry eyes. All the pain in those eyes.
When he had eventually focused on Altaïr, a look of gratitude and relief
had come to his face, so sincere that if there had been the slightest doubt
in Altaïr’s mind it was banished at once.
‘For you, I can walk,’ said Malik, and attempted a smile.
But as they made their way back along the tunnel it had soon become
clear that Malik did not have the strength to walk. Instead, Altaïr had
taken his good arm, brought it around his shoulders and carried his old
friend to the ladders of the tower, then across the ramparts, eventually
descending the wall on the western side of the citadel, avoiding guards
along the way. At last they arrived back at the residence. Altaïr looked
first one way, then the other before he let himself in.