People scampered around, doing what their everyday lives told them to do. Children played in the streets and guards patroled the area. This particular Assassin had spent the day snoozing in a cart full of hay after a night of exploration and money gathering.
Not very threatening being half-buried in golden horse feed. Nobody seemed to care, or notice. Not even the horse that was hitched up to it minded the extra weight, plodding along where it was led once its owner returned and began to have it move along. The Assassin was jostled by a rut as the cart moved through the narrow streets, vaulting out of the moving bed and tumbling to the ground. His back would be sore later, but he was awake now.
Well, now that he was, what to do?
Instead of thinking about it, he wandered about, and made his way to the marketplace. Reaching over, he took a handful of olives from one of the vendors whose back was turned and slipped a coin in their place, heading toward the streets once more, munching happily on the little fruits.
Where was he going? He didn't care where.
The noise caught his attention--the sound of a yell, followed by the ripping of cloth and the cracking of wood, as well as the squashing or rolling of fruit. Turning, he saw guards advancing on the fruit merchant's destroyed shop. Spitting one of the olive pits into his hand, he tossed it at the nearest guard. Another few pits off their thick skulls from various directions and the guards were soon distracted, milling about in search of the culprit.
He had in the crowd, pretending to be invested in a fish monger's stall. The Assassin wanted to laugh; this was fun. When the guards finally spotted him, given away his compulsion to eat the rest of the olives, they approached with stern ferocity fixed on their faces.
"What do you think you're doing, tossing pits at us? Call it a game, stronzo?" demanded the lead guard.
"No, messere. Only, I feel it's inappropriate for so many of you to come investigate some poor idiot falling out of a window onto a fruit stand." The guard advanced, cursing him under his breath as he grasped his arm. Wrong move. The men jumped back as their companion sank to the cobbles, dead. They looked about and spotted the man scrambling to the roofs.
"There! After him!"
The Assassin broke into a dead sprint across the rooftops, the high walls and uneven terrain navigated easily by the skilled free runner. Some rooftop guards saw him, but they were shoved off the building they stood on. Served them right for being too close to the edge! Finding a haystack below not attached to a horse, he lunged for it and dove right in. The guards began their descent, but before they could make their way to the haystack, their quarry had already left it, slipping down an alley and making his way back to the market.
X x X
The spawn of Altair swore a revenge on par with what the Sparrow had done to him. Possibly along the lines of manually ripping off some body part and forcing it down the younger man's throat. But that would wait for later when imminent peril wasn't looming.
Lex staggered as Desmond grabbed him by the scruff and hauled him over to the nearest building's roof.
"Get on the roof, get on the roof, get on the roof!" the man snarled, all but tossing the smaller Assassin onto the tiled Venetian roofs as he hoisted himself up. The two ran as best they could--they slipped on a few wet tiles--until a flatter roof was found and they started at the sight of an archer. The archer stared back at them before raising his bow.
"Get down. Now," said the man. The two held up their hands and backed to the edge of the roof.
"Lex."
"Yes?"
"I'm going to kill you." They spun and jumped. The Eagle caught a lantern as the Sparrow caught his legs, spinning them toward a flat trellis to which vines clung. Lex ran up against the verticle piece of trellis as Desmond landed on the flooring. The two climbed down into the streets. "What the hell do we do now?"
"Well," Lex said softly, looking around them at the people and their clothing, "I think we should get some cloaks."
"Oh, yeah, genius? Well, riddle me this: how are we going to get some coin?" Desmond growled. "What're we going to do, shake our hips?"
"I was thinking more of making our fingers sticky." With that, Lex set off into the crowd with Desmond, beginning to pick pockets. The two stopped as they saw two men shed their cloaks and draw their swords, the crowd parting on either side of them. Making their way through the crowd, they took up the cloaks and put them on, drawing up the hoods. The men soon enough dropped their swords and began swearing at one another, then throwing punches. The crowd surged forward, separating the two Assassins.
Desmond staggered back against a stall, grabbing a purse that had fallen to the ground in the scuffle and tying it to his belt. On the other side, Lex pressed himself back into a side alley. He blinked as another hooded, cloaked man went by him, reaching out automatically for his bulging purse.
The Assassin spun as he felt his purse tugged, a murderous look coming to eyes, face unreadable as he unsheathed his hidden blade to warn the intruder to back off and stay away. Still on edge from the guard chase, he was willing with no qualms to give the pickpocket the choice to flee or die.
The would-be pickpocket brought his arms up as the man turned, catching his blade arm. He brought his leg behind the man's, shoving him back against the wall and moving quickly away, fists clenched.
The wind was promptly knocked out of him as he hit the wall, eyes wide beneath the hood of his clothes. Where had he seen that before? Those moves... Is it...? No. It couldn't be. I saw him go back! That was centuries ago!
He managed to find his voice.
"Sparrow?"
"Red Owl? What're you doing here?" Stupid question, he realized, as soon as it had come out of his mouth. Jameel was here because...
"I've been around for too long." Jameel took him by the shoulders, gripping him tightly. "I saw you disappear!" He looked him over, as if to see if he had everything that he'd had in 1191. "How...but...when...?" Lex was surprised at Jameel stuttering like a shy child. The man couldn't seem to shape sentence, or words. For Jameel, his day had been made completely. It blew him off his feet that Lex stood before him. He had never expected the Sparrow to come back, much less in the city where they stood.
"When? Today. How? Same way as before. Desmond's here too," Lex answered. "You're sure you're gonna be okay?" He reached over and touched his arm, then his face.
Jameel finally stopped working his mouth when Lex touched him. All he could do was nod stupidly until his brain pieced itself back together again. His stupefied look immediately changed to dread.
"It isn't safe." Lex began to roll his eyes. "Really, it isn't. These streets are just as bad, if not worse, than long ago. Alert Desmond and find a place to hide." Lex was about to leave the alley when they heard the clanking of armor. Jameel pulled Lex deeper into the alley just in time for a tall man wearing armor to walk by carrying a huge halberd.
At first, he seemed a normal heavy guard, but the Journeyman took a second look. It was Templar armor, he realized, the cross emblazened on the front, but what really stood out were the man's paldrons and helmet. They were shaped like rhino heads, the horns sharpened to deadly points. Lex looked at him, eyes wide. "Kadin's descendant. One of them," Jameel hissed under his breath. "He has money. He has hidden guards as well." Jameel knelt, holding Lex still, clutching his face between trembling hands.
"Get going. Find Desmond. And by Allah, do not let him see you! Be invisible as the wind."
Lex nodded once and peered out of the alleyway once the Rhino had gone by. He glanced back at Jameel before hurrying off, hopping up the nearest wall and padding off in the direction he'd last seen Desmond. He gagged and covered his nose, the smell of the nearby tannery choking his senses as he dropped to the street, hood up once more.
Spotting the man standing and watching a minstrel, he made his way over and tapped his arm.
"Trouble."
Desmond didn't look away from the lutinist as he askesd, "Where's the nearest haybale?"
