the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ whispered Mukhlis, as the stranger blinked, then
turned his gaze on him. ‘You are him, aren’t you? You’re Altaïr.’
Altaïr nodded. Tears pricked Mukhlis’s eyes and he dropped from his
seat to the stone floor, grasping one of Altaïr’s hands in both of his own.
‘You’ve come back to us,’ he said, between sobs. ‘You’ve come to save
us.’ There was a pause. ‘Have you come to save us?’
‘Do you need saving?’ said Altaïr.
‘We do. Was it your intention to come to Masyaf when we met?’
Altaïr thought. ‘When I left Alamut it was inevitable I would find
myself here. The only question was when.’
‘You were in Alamut?’
‘These past twenty years or so.’
‘They said you were dead. That the morning Maria died you threw
yourself from the citadel tower.’
‘I did throw myself off the citadel tower,’ Altaïr smiled grimly, ‘but I
lived. I made it to the river outside the village. By chance Darim was
there. He was returning from Alamut, where he had found Sef’s wife and
children. He retrieved me and took me to them.’
‘They said you were dead,’ said Mukhlis again.
‘They?’
Mukhlis waved a hand that was meant to indicate the citadel. ‘The
Assassins.’
‘It suited them to say so, but they knew I was not.’
He disentangled his hand from Mukhlis’s grasp, pulled himself to a
sitting position and swung his legs out of the bed. He looked at his feet,
at their wrinkled old skin. Every inch of his body sang with pain but he
felt … better. His robe had been washed and replaced on him. He pulled