Assassin's Creed: Forsaken (29 page)

EPILOGUE

E
XTRACTS FROM THE
J
OURNAL OF
C
ONNOR
K
ENWAY

16 S
EPTEMBER
1781

i

“Father!” I called. The bombardment was deafening, but I had fought my way through it to the West Tower where his quarters were to be found, and there in the passageway leading to the Grand Master’s chambers, I found him.

“Connor,” he replied. His eyes were flinty, unreadable. He held out his arm and engaged his hidden blade. I did the same. From outside came the thunder and crash of cannon fire, the rending of stone and the screams of dying men. Slowly, we walked towards one another.

With one hand behind his back, he presented his blade. I did the same.

“On the next cannon blast,” he said.

When it came, it seemed to shake the walls, but neither of us cared. The battle had begun and the sound of our chiming steel was piercing in the passageway, our grunts of effort clear and present. Everything else—the destruction of the fort around us—was background noise.

“Come now,” he taunted me, “you cannot hope to match me, Connor. For all your skill, you are still but a boy—with so much yet to learn.”

He showed me no quarter. No mercy. Whatever was in his heart and in his head, his blade flashed with its usual precision and ferocity. If he was now a warrior in his autumn years, beset by failing powers, then I would have hated to have faced him when he was in his prime. If a test is what he wanted to give me, then that is what I received.

“Give me Lee,” I demanded.

But Lee was long gone. There was just Father now, and he struck, as fast as a cobra, his blade coming within a hair’s breadth of opening my cheek. Turn defence into attack, I thought, and replied with a similar turn of speed, spinning around and catching his forearm, piercing it with my blade and destroying the fastening of his.

With a roar of pain he leapt back and I could see the worry cloud his eyes, but I let him recover, and watched as he tore a strip from his robe with which to bandage the wound.

“But we have an opportunity here,” I urged him. “Together we can break the cycle, and end this ancient war. I know it.”

I saw something in his eyes. Was it some spark of a long-abandoned desire, some unfulfilled dream remembered?

“I know it,”
I repeated.

With the bloodied bandage between his teeth, he shook his head. Was he really that disillusioned? Had his heart hardened that much?

He finished tying the dressing. “No. You
want
to know it. You
want
it to be true.” His words were tinged with sadness. “Part of me once did as well. But it is an impossible dream.”

“We are in blood, you and I,” I urged him. “Please . . .”

For a moment I thought I might have got through to him.

“No, son. We are enemies. And one of us must die.” From outside there came another volley of cannon fire. The torches quivered in their brackets, the light danced on the stone and dust particles rained from the walls.

So be it.

We fought. A long, hard battle. Not one that was always especially skilful. He came at me, with sword blade, fist and even at times his head. His fighting style was different from mine, something more rough-formed about it. It lacked the finesse of my own, yet was just as effective and, I soon learnt, just as painful.

We broke apart, both breathing hard. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth then crouched, flexing the fingers of his injured forearm. “You act as though you have some right to judge,” he said, “To declare me and mine wrong for the world. And yet everything I’ve shown you—all I’ve said and done—should clearly demonstrate otherwise. But we didn’t harm your people. We didn’t support the Crown. We worked to see this land united and at peace. Under our rule all would be equal. Do the patriots promise the same?”

“They offer freedom,” I said, watching him carefully, remembering something Achilles once taught me: that every word, every gesture, is combat.

“Freedom?” he scoffed. “I’ve told you—time and time again—it’s dangerous. There will never be a consensus, son, among those you have helped to ascend. They will differ in their views of what it means to be free. The peace you so desperately seek does not exist.”

I shook my head. “No. Together they will forge something new—better than what came before.”

“These men are united now by a common cause,” he continued, sweeping his bad arm around to indicate . . .
us
, I suppose. The revolution. “But when this battle is finished they will fall to fighting among themselves about how best to ensure control. In time, it will lead to war. You’ll see.”

And then he leapt forward, striking down with the sword, aiming not for my body but my blade arm. I deflected, but he was quick, span and struck me backhanded with his sword hilt above the eye. My vision clouded and I staggered back, defending wildly as he tried to press home his advantage. By sheer dumb luck I hit his injured arm, gaining a howl of agony and a temporary lull as we both recovered.

Another cannon boom. More dust dislodged from the walls, and I felt the floor shake. Blood coursed from the wound above my eye, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand.

“The patriot leaders do not seek to control,” I assured him. “There will be no monarch here. The people will have the power—as they should.”

He shook his head slowly and sadly, a condescending gesture that, if it was supposed to appease me, had exactly the reverse effect. “The people never have the power,” he said wearily, “only the illusion of it. And here’s the real secret: they don’t want it. The responsibility is too great to bear. It’s why they’re so quick to fall in line as soon as someone takes charge. They
want
to be told what to do. They
yearn
for it. Little wonder, that, since all mankind was built to serve.”

Again we traded blows. Both of us had drawn blood. Looking at him, did I see an older version of myself? Having read his journal, I can look back now and know exactly how he saw me: as the man he should have been. How would things have been different if I’d known then what I know now?

I don’t know is the answer to that question. I still don’t know.

“So because we are inclined by nature to be controlled, who better than the Templars?” I shook my head. “It is a poor offer.”

“It is truth,” exclaimed Haytham. “Principle and practice are two very different beasts. I see the world the way it is—not as I wish it would be.”

I attacked and he defended, and for a few moments the passageway rang to the sound of clashing steel. Both of us were tired by then; the battle no longer had the urgency it had once had. For a moment I wondered if it might simply peter out; if there was any way that the two of us would simply turn, walk away and go in our separate directions. But no. There had to be an end to this. I knew it. I could see in his eyes that he knew it too. This had to end here.

“No, Father . . . you have given up—and you would have us all do the same.”

And then there was the thump and shudder of a cannonball strike nearby and stone was cascading from the walls. It was near. So near. It had to be followed by another. And it was. All of a sudden a gaping hole was blown in the passageway.

ii

I was thrown back by the blast and landed in a painful heap, like a drunk sliding slowly down the wall of a tavern, my head and shoulders at a strange angle to the rest of me. The corridor was full of dust and settling debris as the boom of the explosion slowly ebbed away into the rattle and clatter of shifting rubble. I pulled myself painfully to my feet and squinted through clouds of dust to see him lying like I had been, but on the other side of the hole in the wall made by the cannonball, and limped over to him. I paused and glanced through the hole, to be greeted by the disorientating sight of the Grand Master’s chamber with its back wall blown out, the jagged stone framing a view of the ocean. There were four ships on the water, all with trails of smoke rising from their cannons on deck and, as I watched, there was a boom as another was fired.

I passed by and stooped to Father, who looked up at me and shifted a little. His hand crept towards his sword, which was just out of his reach, and I kicked it skittering away over the stone. Grimacing with the pain, I leaned towards him.

“Surrender, and I will spare you,” I said.

I felt the breeze on my skin, the passageway suddenly flooded with natural light. He looked so old, his face battered and bruised. Even so, he smiled, “Brave words from a man about to die.”

“You fare no better,” I replied.

“Ah,” he smiled, showing bloodied teeth, “but I am not alone . . .” and I turned to see two of the fort’s guards come rushing along the corridor, raising their muskets and stopping just short of us. My eyes went from them to my father, who was pulling himself to his feet, holding up a restraining hand to his men, the only thing stopping them from killing me.

Bracing himself against the wall, he coughed and spat then looked up at me. “Even when your kind appears to triumph . . . still we rise again. Do you know why?”

I shook my head.

“It is because the Order is born of a realization. We require no creed. No indoctrination by desperate old men. All we need is that the world be as it is. This is why the Templars can never be destroyed.”

And now, of course, I wonder, would he have done it? Would he have let them kill me?

But I’ll never have my answer. For suddenly there was the crackle of gunfire and the men span and dropped, taken out by sniper fire from the other side of the wall. And in the next moment I had rushed forward and, before he could react, knocked Haytham back to the stone and stood over him once again, my blade hand pulled back.

And then, with a great rush of something that might have been futility, and a sound that I realized was my own sob, I stabbed him in the heart.

His body jerked as it accepted my blade, then relaxed, and as I withdrew it he was smiling. “Don’t think I have any intention of caressing your cheek and saying I was wrong,” he said softly as I watched the life ebb out of him. “I will not weep and wonder what might have been. I’m sure you understand.”

I was kneeling now, and reached to hold him. What I felt was . . . nothing. A numbness. A great weariness that it had all come to this.

“Still,” he said, as his eyelids fluttered and the blood seemed to drain from his face, “I’m proud of you in a way. You have shown conviction. Strength. Courage. These are noble traits.”

With a sardonic smile he added, “I should have killed you long ago.”

And then he died.

I looked for the amulet Mother had told me about, but it was gone. I closed Father’s eyes, stood and walked away.

2 O
CTOBER
1782

At last, on a freezing night at the frontier, I found him in the Conestoga Inn, where I entered to find him sitting in the shadows, his shoulders hunched forward and a bottle close at hand. Older and unkempt, with wiry, untamed hair and no trace of the army officer he had once been, but definitely him: Charles Lee.

As I approached the table he looked up at me, and at first I was taken aback by the wildness of his red-rimmed eyes. Any madness was either suppressed or hidden, though, and he showed no emotion on seeing me, apart from a look that I suppose was relief. For over a month I had chased him.

Wordlessly, he offered me a drink from the bottle, and I nodded, took a sip and passed the bottle back to him. Then we sat together for a long time, watching the other patrons of the tavern, listening to their chatter, games and laughter which they carried on around us.

In the end, he looked at me, and though he said nothing, his eyes did it for him, and so I silently ejected my blade and, when he closed them, slid it into him, under the rib, straight into the heart. He died without a sound and I rested him on the tabletop, as though he had simply passed out from too much drink. Then I reached, took the amulet from his neck and put it around my own.

Looking down at it, it glowed softly for a moment. I pushed it underneath my shirt, stood and left.

15 N
OVEMBER
1783

i

Holding the reins of my horse, I walked through my village with a mounting sense of disbelief. As I’d arrived, I’d seen well-tended fields but the village itself was deserted, the longhouse abandoned, the cook fires cold, and the only soul in sight was a grizzled hunter—a white hunter, not a Mohawk—who sat on an upturned pail in front of a fire, roasting something that smelled good on a spit.

He looked at me carefully as I approached, and his eyes went to his musket, which lay nearby, but I waved to say I meant no harm.

He nodded. “If you’re hungry, I’ve got extra,” he said genially.

And it did smell good, but I had other things on my mind. “Do you know what happened here? Where is everyone?”

“Gone west. Been a few weeks since they left. Seems some fella from New York was granted the land by Congress. Guess they decided they didn’t need approval from those that lived here to settle.”

“What?” I said.

“Yup. Seein’ it happen more and more. Natives pushed out by traders and ranchers lookin’ to expand. Government
says
they don’t take land that’s already owned, but, uh . . . Here you can see otherwise.”

“How could this happen?” I asked, turning around slowly, seeing only emptiness where once I had seen the familiar faces of my people—the people I had grown up with.

“We’re on our own now,” he continued. “No jolly old English parts and labour. Which means we gotta go at it ourselves. Gotta pay for it too. Sellin’ land is quick and easy. And not quite so nasty as taxes. And since some say taxes is what started the whole war, ain’t no rush to bring ’em back.” He gave a full, throaty laugh. “Clever men, these new leaders of ours. They know not to push it just yet. Too soon. Too . . . British.” He stared into his fire. “But it will come. Always does.”

I thanked him and left him, to go to the longhouse, thinking, as I walked:
I have failed.
My people were gone—chased away by those I thought would protect them.

As I walked, the amulet around my neck glowed, and I took it from around my neck, held it in my palm and studied it. Perhaps there was one last thing I could do, and that was to save this place from them all, patriots and Templars alike.

ii

In a clearing in the forest I crouched and regarded what I held in my hands: my mother’s necklace in one, my father’s amulet in the other.

To myself I said, “Mother. Father. I am sorry. I have failed you both. I made a promise to protect our people, Mother. I thought if I could stop the Templars, if I could keep the revolution free from their influence, then those I supported would do what was right. They did, I suppose, do what was right—what was right for them. As for you, Father, I thought I might unite us, that we would forget the past and forge a better future. In time, I believed you could be made to see the world as I do—to understand. But it was just a dream. This, too, I should have known. Were we not meant to live in peace, then? Is that it? Are we born to argue? To fight? So many voices—each demanding something else.

“It has been hard at times, but never harder than today. To see all I worked for perverted, discarded, forgotten. You would say I have described the whole of history, Father. Are you smiling, then? Hoping I might speak the words you longed to hear? To validate you? To say that all along you were right? I will not. Even now, faced as I am with the truth of your cold words, I refuse. Because I believe things can still change.

“I may never succeed. The Assassins may struggle another thousand years in vain. But we will not stop.”

I began to dig.

“Compromise. That’s what everyone has insisted on. And so I have learnt it. But differently than most, I think. I realize now that it will take time, that the road ahead is long and shrouded in darkness. It is a road that will not always take me where I wish to go—and I doubt I will live to see it end. But I will travel down it nonetheless.”

I dug and dug until the hole was deep enough, deeper than that which was needed to bury a body, enough for me to climb into.

“For at my side walks hope. In the face of all that insists I turn back, I carry on: this, this is my compromise.”

I dropped the amulet into the hole and then, as the sun began to go down, I shovelled dirt on top of it until it was hidden and then I turned and left.

Full of hope for the future, I returned to my people, to the Assassins.

It was time for new blood.

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