The Assassin's Trails Book 1: Altair

Chapter 1: The Errand

I woke up to Altaïr shaking me. I sat up and walk down the stairs to see a table with some bread, pork, apples on it. I took a peice of bread and ate it with some other food. When I finished I asked Altaïr when I would begin training. "Right now." he said. Then he gave me a wooden stick and walked out of the house with me trailing him. "First, you need to run an errand for me in the city." he said and gave a piece of paper to me. I froze and frowned. "You told me I shouldn't go back out there because it was too dangerous. "

"Well, now you need to do this or else I won't train you."

"Fine," I sigh as I start walking on the trail to the city. It was starting to snow and the cold stung me. When I went in through the gates, I pulled my hood over my head and hoped I wouldn't take everybody's attention. I took out the paper Altaïr gave me and read  Go to the roof of the chapel. Thomas will be waiting for you there with something. Bring it to me.

I looked up and I saw it, the chapel. It was a large building made from bricks and had lots of windows. I realized from the paper that Altaïr wanted me to climb the large building. I went into an alley way and started to climb the windows. I went from one window to the next until I was at the top. When I looked down my vision swam and I almost fell off. Then I heard a gruff voice say "What are you doing up here lad?"

I spun around to see a man in his late thirties. He wore a jacket and plain green pants and held a rag in his hand. "Are you Thomas?" I asked. The man nodded, "I'm Thomas, you got a problem?"

"No, I have been sent by Altaïr."

Thomas went up to me and said, "Altaïr got a boy doing his buisness now? Well best not keep him waiting." He gave me a small bag and then ran off of the building. I pocketed the bag and looked at Thomas as he fell down in to a haystack. I jumped as well and landed with a thump. Thomas got out just as I heard voices. "I think the boy the assassin took is here somewhere. He might be linked to the conspiracy. We should murder him so that he doesn't leak anything to the Sacred."

Suddenly I had a sharp pain in my arm and when I looked, there was blood and the tip of a spear was lodged into it. Sadly, I couldn't resist crying out in pain which attracted the guard's attention that someone was in the haystack. I jumped out to see three guards with swords at the ready. "Hey, it's the kid! He listened to our secret conversation so should we kill him, sir?" said one.

"Kill him now, he's just a boy!" shouted the lead guard.

At that moment I realized that I had to run because there would be no way for me to fight them and survive. I san across the street to where a crowd had formed to see what the guards had found. Now I ran into the crowd where it dispered at the sight of the guards running at them with their swords. I followed a mother with her baby through the crowd until she tripped and fell. As she tried get up a man stepped on her arm and she fell back down in pain. I picked up the baby on my shoulder and helped the mother up. "Thank you very much," she said as she took the baby from me and ran away. "There he is!" I heard and remembered that I was in a chase to get away from the guards. I kept on running through alleys and streets untill I saw the gate out of the city. But as I was about to reach the gate a guard ran in front of me. The ony thing that saved my life was the river next to the gate so I ran next to the guard and shoved him into the water. The guard cried out and tried to balance himself before he fell but I kicked him and he jumped in. I didn't want to stay in the city any longer so I ran back to Altaïr's house where I blacked out.