Assassin's Creed: Brothers Unite (#Wattys2016) |Assassin's Creed Fanfiction|

Chapter 36 Altaïr

   I was cold. I looked around at my surroundings. A wide open grassland with nothing but grass as far as the eye could see. I turned around to see a glowing white city that looked a lot like Masyaf, only not. Is that... Am I... I couldn't finish any of the questions that entered my mind. I looked down at my hands there was something strange about my left one. I looked closer, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. One. Two. Three. Four- out of habit I stopped counting at four, but there was still one more finger. What on earth? How long has it been since I had ten fingers? I must be dead.

   I started towards the glowing city, before I realized what I was doing. I stopped. The closer I got to the city the slower and less noticeable my breath became, but when I walked away from the glowing city, not only would it get more enticing, my breath would get stronger. I stood still for a minute trying to decide where I wanted to go. Several shimmering people appeared away from the city. Arno, Archer, and Ezio. Arno looked at me, then at the city behind me. "I thought you would be closer than that."

   Archer had an axe strapped to his back. It looked like a woodcutters axe, but when I looked closer, the back had another blade that pulled back into a claw shape. He didn't say anything.

   "Altaïr," Arno said. He sounded worried, terrified even. "What's stopping you from going to the city?" I looked directly into his eyes and realized that I was standing on the threshold of death. He was terrified that I would turn around and walk toward the city... like Elise. I didn't know who that was, but I could tell Arno had loved her.

   I glanced back at the city and took a step towards the three of them. I felt like I was walking through a pot of sludge. It was like something was pushing down on me the closer I tried to get to Arno. I took another step forward, then another. Pain exploded in my left leg. I grit my teeth and took another step toward them. My leg collapsed beneath me, I gasped as my left shoulder also burst into pain. Just a little farther, I told myself. You're almost there! I tried to stand up and felt myself start to slide backwards. NO! I yelled as I stood, trying to push the pain away, to ignore it, something. If only to get to Arno, Archer, and Ezio. I managed to take two more steps before I collapsed again. Someone caught me.

   I opened my eyes to see Ezio sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulders, holding me up. He smiled slightly. "Good evening," he said, a small bit of humor behind the worry that clouded his eyes.

   I groaned and tried to stand up. Arno pushed me back down again. "Oh, no you don't. It was a good idea for you to stand in the death vision but you shouldn't do anything like that outside of it."

   "The what?" my vision was red around the edges. It had been like this a couple of times before. I figured it meant that my life was in danger.

   "The death vision," Arno said. "It's what you see when you are almost dead, but could survive."

   "Did Connor have one then? When Edward brought him back to Homestead?"

   "I will assume not," Archer said. "I usually get sucked into death visions when my friends are concerned, it doesn't matter what I'm doing or how far away I am."

   "Well that's refreshing," I said trying to be upbeat and ignore the pain in my leg and shoulder. "At least I know that somebody will be able to bring me back again."

   "I can't stop death from old age though," Archer said.

   "Hmm. That's a problem then."

   Ezio stood and I leaned back against something cold. I looked around at my surroundings for the first time. I was in a cave, it wasn't large and it didn't go far back, but the roof was just low enough that the horses outside couldn't come in. There were three. One was black, one white, and one was brown. I smiled. "I see Blade introduced you to her brothers."

   "She did more than introduce us," Archer said with a happy grin. "Arrow-"

   "Agreed to help you and Spirit agreed to help Arno?" I asked.

   Archer nodded. "Yeah. It's funny though, Spirit has a French accent."

   "He does not have an accent!" Arno disagreed. "He just sounds like me."

   "Exactly."

   "Arrow is a good fit for you Archer," I said quietly. "He's just as crazy as you are."

   Arno grabbed my right arm and pulled me to my feet. I almost tipped over as I shifted all my weight to my right leg. Arno put his arm under my shoulders and held me up with a slightly disapproving look on his face. We had to duck a little. Ezio was waiting outside for us. As soon I was out of the cave Blade rushed over and nudged Arno.

   "Let go Arno," I said, looking at Blade.

   Arno stepped away, and I put my arm over Blade's neck. She nuzzled my side gently. I'm glad you're alright little one. A quick pounding came from the forest.

   Ezio tensed. "There it is again," he said. "Should we wait to see what or who it is?"

   "If we don't they'll just keep following us," Archer said. "Let's wait for a bit."

   It won't take as long as they think, Blade said.

   I nodded. "I know."

   Sure enough, Blade and I were right. I blinked and missed exactly what happened but here's what I saw. A gray horse exploded through the bushes, which promptly started smoking. "Darn you three!! Uh, four!"

   I looked up to see Mary sitting angrily atop the gray horse. "Hello to you too."

   Mary jumped off of her horse and came over to me. "What happened to you?"

   "The same thing that's been happening to everyone else."

   Mary looked me over. "I wonder how that happened."

   Ezio smiled at her. "If you've got any ideas we'd love to hear them."

   Mary glared at him. "That was sarcasm. We should get back to the Homestead."

   Archer was already sitting on Arrow's back. He grinned. "See you there!" Arrow leaped into a gallop with Archer bent over his back.

   Arno cursed and leaped onto Spirit. "Archer! Come back!" He also disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke.

   "And here I thought my horse was the only one like that," Mary said shaking her head.

   I smiled and put my right leg in the stirrup and maneuvered myself so that I was in as little pain as possible. "Ezio, you might want to hitch a ride with M- James," I caught myself before I said Mary.

   Mary looked up at me. "You've done that before," she accused. "Gotten on a horse with an injured leg, I mean."

   "Of course I have," I said, nudging Blade into a walk. "That's part of being an assassin." I leaned forward and Blade leaped forward into her overly fast, smooth gallop.