the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

‘You know nothing. It was folly to bring you here. To think that you
might see and understand.’
‘I understand well enough. You lack the courage to face me, choosing
to hide among the shadows. Enough talk. Show yourself.’
‘Ah … So you want to see the man who called you here?’
Altaïr heard movement in the gallery.
‘You did not call me here,’ he shouted. ‘I came on my own.’
Laughter echoed from the balconies above him.
‘Did you?’ scoffed Talal. ‘Who unbarred the door? Cleared the path?
Did you raise your blade against a single man of mine, hmm? No. All
this I did for you.’
Something moved on the ceiling above the gallery, throwing a patch
of light on to the stone floor.
‘Step into the light, then,’ called Talal from above, ‘and I will grant
you one final favour.’
Again, Altaïr told himself that if Talal wanted him dead his archers
would have filled him with arrows by now, and he stepped into the
light. As he did so, masked men appeared from the shadows of the
gallery, jumping down and noiselessly surrounding him. They regarded
him with dispassionate eyes, their swords hanging by their sides, their
chests rising and falling.
Altaïr swallowed. There were six of them. ‘Little challenge’ they were
not.
Then there came footsteps from above and he looked to the gallery
where Talal had moved out of the half-light and now stood gazing down
at him. He wore a striped tunic and a thick belt. Over his shoulder was a
bow.