Desert Oath: The Official Prequel to Assassin’s Creed Origins

by Oliver Bowden

  He spread his hands as though to offer no firm reply either way. Hollow eyed, he spared her a slight smile. Tacit acknowledgement that each had divined the other’s deceit. She thought she saw a glimmer of respect there, but refused to believe that it meant anything. The man killed because he could. Whatever else he might feel was unimportant. If given the chance, he would kill Bayek, then he would kill her, and probably Nefru, Herit and Ahmose just to tidy up loose ends. She would talk to him until the end of the world, if need be, to keep that from happening.

  ‘This thing we have in common,’ she reminded him, ‘you were going to say …?’

  He nodded. ‘You noticed, is what I was leading on to. You saw that my bow was new. I think I can remember that I complimented you on your observation. And that, Aya, is what we have in common. I, too, am observant.’

  Her eyes remained fixed on him, though she was mentally gauging the distance between herself and the door. The weight of the stool she sat on. How quickly she might throw it at him to buy time. ‘Why do I have a feeling this is going somewhere?’

  ‘It is.’

  She swallowed, steeling herself, feeling a crackle in the room. She hid the flash of hope under her fear, let the latter bubble up a bit more. He wanted to talk. She would talk until the day the sun failed to rise, if need be. ‘Go on, tell me. This is what you’ve been leading to all along, isn’t it? So tell me. What is it that you’ve observed that you so wish to tell me about?’

  ‘Very well then,’ he said, ‘I shall.’ And he fixed her with a gaze, those dark eyes seeming to pierce right through her …

  67

  I rode – faster than I had ever dared before, pushing my horse onwards, onwards, promising it water and oats and all the horsely pleasures its heart desired if she could just spirit me to Siwa in time.

  Night fell, and still we thundered on, man and horse, and I spent every moment in mortal dread that my steed would lose her footing, plunge and throw us both into the dirt.

  And if that happened – if we really did crash to the ground – then whose fault would it have been? Would it be the poor horse’s, exhausted and foaming at the mouth, forced to gallop in the restricted vision of a dying day, but steadfast to the last even though its new owner treated it so poorly? Or would it be the fault of her rider? A man driven almost insane with a desperate need. A man on a mission?

  I knew the answer to that question.

  And then, at last, the moonlit water of the Siwa oasis came into view and I bullied my mare into an extra burst of speed, promising her all sorts of treasures, and …

  She fell. Either through exhaustion or a misstep her front legs buckled, she pitched forward and we were suddenly both on the ground.

  For a moment or so I lay there, groaning. Then I rolled over, checking myself for broken limbs or bleeding wounds, and to my great relief finding none. Beside me my horse scrambled to her feet and stood, head lowered but otherwise, thankfully, unharmed. I had pushed her hard, too hard, but she had rewarded me by getting me here.

  She was exhausted, but I could run the rest of the way. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ I gasped, dragging off my pack, taking my sword and bow, slinging them across my back and beginning the journey around the oasis. Above me was the hillside of Siwa, the fortress and temples regarding me imperiously. I hit the track that led into the village, arms and legs pumping, weighed down but determined.

  There was no time to ponder upon my return. My only thought was for Aya, and it was to her house that I ran. My breath was ragged, my limbs heavier than I had ever imagined possible, pounding along lanes and streets I knew so well but had never before trod with such purpose and determination.

  And then, there it was: her aunt’s home. I’d last seen it the night I left Siwa and arriving there now dragged me back in time, but I was in no mood to savour it. Right now, I had to think, I had to be clever – wasn’t that what Father had always drummed into me? Exercise caution. Think. Plan.

  I withdrew into shadows offered by homes opposite in order to get my breath back. Silently, I deposited the pack, eyes going to the frontage of Herit’s home. It struck me that the house had become shabbier since I last saw it. I checked for my sword, grasped the hilt of my knife, taking strength from their presence there at my waist, and then I darted across the street. At the doorway I stopped, listening, expecting to hear what, I wasn’t sure. Either way, there was no sound from within. Even so, the house looked occupied. There was a screen at the door and hangings at the window. There was no way of making my way around to the rear. I would have to enter by the front door whether I liked it or not. Taking a deep breath, I slipped inside.

  Darkness. Silence.

  As I cast my eye around the place I noticed something: on the table were two beakers, which I lifted to inspect. They’d recently been used. They were still wet. Still traces of – I smelled – wine. Was this Aya and her aunt, I wondered. Perhaps Herit had revived? Was it possible that the killer had not yet arrived? Or had he arrived and was biding his time? Maybe the trader I spoke to was simply mistaken?

  Now my attention went to the sleeping arrangement. I knew the layout of the house. There was only one bedding area and so it was likely that Aya would be sharing it with her aunt. I stood for a moment, debating what to do. On the one hand, to be caught peeking into the chamber would be so very shameful; on the other, it could be that Aya lay on the other side of the wall: Aya, whom I had spent so many months missing. Aya for whom my heart ached.

  Right. I took a deep breath, peered quickly around the side of the door and into the sleeping area.

  It was empty.

  I had another look. Still empty. And now any trepidation I’d felt was replaced by a new sense of foreboding. Aya was here, and yet she wasn’t here. So where was she?

  Something occurred to me and I hurried back out into the street, taking less care to be quiet now. Next door lived Herit’s best friend, Nefru. She wasn’t going to take kindly to being woken up, but then again the circumstances demanded it. Just as I was about to enter, I heard voices from within. Voices that I recognized: Nefru, Herit … and Aya.

  And now I forgot about manners and propriety. I suppose I even forgot about thoughts of the killer and avenging my father. In fact, all I could think about when I heard that voice was her. And with a cry, Aya’s name springing from my lips, I burst into Nefru’s home. No, it wasn’t the most elegant of entries, but I had ceased to care – all I wanted to do was see her, and the sight that greeted me was more precious to me than water, food or air. It was Aya, rising from her seat, her eyes wide and her mouth dropping open, a look of abject surprise that became something else, a reflection of my own feelings, something I can only describe as joy.

  I heard their voices, Nefru saying, ‘The gods, child, he’s come,’ and Herit agreeing. But they were mere background noise, hardly even a distraction, as Aya and I rushed together like water closing over the wake of a passing ship.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she was saying in between kisses. She’d taken my face in her hands and was showering me with them, accepting them in return. Behind us Nefru and Herit were cooing, making noises about ‘young love’ and ‘wasn’t it sweet’ as though we were a couple of freshly minted lovebirds, children exchanging shy first pecks, rather than a couple who were on the verge of becoming man and wife, whose parting, I now realized, had been like a little death.

  ‘I thought I would never see you again,’ I breathed.

  That slightly sardonic smile I knew so well had returned. ‘Rabiah told me that I would definitely see you again,’ she told me.

  ‘I wish I could say the same about you,’ I replied. ‘I feared you dead.’

  She shook her head, an odd relief colouring her voice. ‘No, I’m fine. Where is your father?’

  Having to break the news of my father’s death brought me a fresh and piercing pain. ‘He found us, Aya. The man who’d been hunting us all those years. He found us and attacked.’

  ‘Sabu is d
ead?’ she said, paling. ‘Bayek, I’m so sorry.’

  I took her and grasped her by the shoulders. ‘Is he here?’

  Aya had frozen. She tightened her hands into fists, falling unconsciously into a stance we’d both learned during my training. Ready to go to battle. And I knew. ‘Yes,’ she answered in a quiet voice.

  From behind her piped up Nefru: ‘This man you’re talking about, Bayek. He’s dangerous, is he?’

  I didn’t take my eyes off Aya. ‘Dangerous like you would not believe, Nefru – dangerous and intent on killing me and all my kin. If he’s here then I must know at once where.’

  But the look in Aya’s eyes told me all I needed to know. It was hardly necessary for Nefru to go on. ‘What does he look like, this man?’ the older woman asked, even as Aya slowly shook her head.

  He was here. The knowledge was in the room just as surely as if the killer was standing there in the flesh. And in the end it took just one word from me – ‘scars’ – and the two older women blanched with shock.

  ‘He’s been next door,’ said Aya’s aunt. ‘His name is Bion.’

  For a crazy moment it occurred to me to ask Aya if she was all right – although she was fine – or maybe if anything else had happened. Yet no. It seemed that she was, on the outside at least, unharmed. He hadn’t touched her. He was waiting for me. I was the real prey.

  ‘Where is he now? He’s not there.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ began Aya. ‘I don’t … Bayek, I think he might have –’

  But I was thinking. The bloodline.

  ‘My mother,’ I said suddenly, releasing Aya. Belatedly understanding why she was gearing up for combat in her aunt’s home. ‘Gods, my mother.’

  And in the next moment I was dashing back out into the street with Aya just behind me.

  ‘Bayek, stop!’ she called. ‘He won’t kill her without you there!’

  ‘We have to hurry,’ I yelled at her, racing up the street.

  ‘I know that,’ she said, ‘but he didn’t kill me without you there, he told me he’d wait.’ I nearly tripped at that, which gave her a chance to catch up. ‘And you’re not taking him on alone.’

  I saw faces appearing at the windows and the doors of the houses around us but had neither the time nor the inclination to quieten down for their sake. ‘You don’t know this man like I do,’ I said.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘He’s acquired …’

  ‘Bow skills, I know. I told you I’d spoken with him.’

  That took me aback, yet again. But she had told me. She used the pause to tell me, once more, ‘I’m coming with you.’

  And, of course, she was right. The rest didn’t matter for now. My father and I, two Medjay, had fared badly against this Bion. In all of Siwa there was only one person who had trained as hard as I had over the years, and it was Aya. We had no real plan, but the two of us together, it would be enough. Suddenly it seemed clear – the very idea of setting off without her was ludicrous.

  The moment passed between us. We ran side by side and, despite the situation, she was smiling. She knew that I had come to the right decision. ‘Wait there,’ she commanded, before dashing inside her house. A second later she was joining me, only this time she carried her sword and was buckling up her wrist guards even as we continued our ascent through the village and up towards my house.

  All these years I had longed to see my mother again and now I was the one who had brought death to her door. If I was too late, could I ever forgive myself? I already knew the answer to that question as Aya and I skidded to a halt just short of my old home. There it seemed that it threw its shadow across me once again. The truth was that I had always found my family home forbidding, perhaps for the simple reason that it contained my father. Even so, it was still home; it was where I lived. Now, things were different. Now, as Aya and I pulled up and looked at one another, both of us wondering what would happen next, it looked a lot less like home to me, and more like a battleground.

  During our years spent together, coaching one another, Aya and I had developed an unspoken link and we used it now, as I gestured for silence and then indicated that she should go around the back of my old home. In the meantime, I went to the front door, heart hammering.

  Our door was more substantial than anything on the houses down in the village. I tried it, remembering from various youthful escapades that it squeaked, but unable to do much about it. Time was of the essence now. If Bion were here, then why would he be hanging around? The fact was, I had to go in, and I had to go in at once.

  Was I rushing in unprepared, just as my father had always warned me against? Probably, although this time I wasn’t alone. This time I had Aya with me.

  68

  I suppose that a little bit of me had hoped that once again I would burst in to find the place empty, just as I had at Herit’s. Yes, I wanted to confront and stop the killer, but more, much more than that, I wanted my mother to be all right.

  My old house was just as I remembered it – just as it always had been. What I’d expected to see, I don’t know, but the sight that greeted me was him – Bion. Here he was, the rider, the bowman, the swordsman, the man who had killed my father and who had made it his mission to kill me as well.

  Except that this was a very different assailant I came upon. The last time I’d seen him he’d been spearing my father with his sword, drenched in blood and badly wounded himself but victorious, and made into a towering figure for that reason.

  Now, however, he couldn’t have been more different.

  He sat on a stool. His knees were apart and he seemed to be staring at his lap. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing at first, until I saw the sliver of metal in his hand. It was a blade, just a small one. A dagger. His sword hung from his belt – my own was in my hand – but even so concern for my mother stopped me from rushing to press home the advantage, and I looked through the room carefully, trying to make sure she was not there.

  He was aware of my presence. How could he not be? The room was empty apart from him and me, and every noise in this empty space was like a vase being dropped. But even so there was little change in his demeanour and he didn’t acknowledge my arrival. There was just him, the stool, the blade and, in me, a rising sense of vengeful fury – the knowledge that I was here to make right the wrong that had been done on the banks of the River Nile.

  And now he looked up, found my gaze.

  ‘Hello, Medjay,’ he said quietly.

  There was a finality about his greeting that left me in no doubt as to how things were going to go.

  And I knew. It was time.

  I launched myself forward, crossing the room in two quick steps and slicing underhand with my sword, hoping to catch him on his unprotected left flank. But he anticipated, had already stood and drawn his own blade in one almost impossibly fast movement that belied his apparent state of mind.

  Our swords clashed once, twice, and then I took a step back, rearranged my stance, watched as he did the same.

  Father, I hope you are with the gods now and looking down upon me. You and Tuta both. For whatever happens now, I want you to know that I do what I do for you and for the Medjay and for my family. And if it means that I die then at least I die here, in my home, defending my loved ones.

  Mother. My thoughts went to her. As if in reply, Aya appeared in the doorway behind Bion. ‘She’s all right, Bayek, she lives,’ she cried. And there were tears of relief in her eyes.

  The Order’s assassin looked from me to Aya, and did I imagine it, or did his gaze soften as it alighted upon her – soften and then gain an extra layer of emotion? Somehow, I sensed something new about him this time. He was just as implacable as before, but different somehow.

  Aya’s sword was in her hand. When he adjusted his position to confront her, I noticed a slight awkwardness about his movement. I wondered, did it emanate from the wound I had inflicted during the battle at the Nile? Was the killer I faced now a reduced, less effe
ctive presence than he had been that day?

  I caught Aya’s eye, gave a signal by tapping at my side and at once could see she’d understood.

  Bion saw the movement and understood, reaching his dagger hand to keep that flank protected. At the same time Aya was moving around from the side, coming at him from just outside his field of vision. She gave me a quick nod, and together we attacked, rushing him in one movement.

  Our swords met. The battle began.

  We didn’t waste our energy talking to him or taunting him. Instinctively we knew that to be pointless. Instead we just came at him, the wordless agreement being that we would harry him, keep picking at him, one sword strike at a time, wear him down until we found his weak spot and then we would strike, a two-headed snake.

  But he was fast, and very skilled. His sword point found my shoulder. I felt warm blood rushing down my arm but thankfully no pain – not yet – and I quickly responded with first blood of my own, on his side just above where I had struck him with my knife at the river. He reared away from it and Aya caught him on his thigh. More blood ran down his leg and on to the stone below. I noticed him give a little twist of his foot whenever he adjusted his stance, checking for grip. He was good, so good.

  But we were good too. And there were two of us. And while his sword strikes were as hard as I remembered, I felt more able to parry them.

  ‘You have improved,’ he said at last, after some moments of battle.

  ‘I fight from the heart. I fight to avenge my father’s death.’

  But now something happened, and inwardly I cursed. At the doorway to my mother’s room, she had appeared, and I saw her put a hand to her mouth to cover her gasp. It wasn’t quite how I imagined breaking the news.

  ‘And to avenge your creed. Isn’t that right, Medjay?’ said the killer. Cold and uncaring. Whatever I had seen before was gone.

  ‘That too. Yes. That too.’

  Clash. Clash. Metal meeting metal, a constant, never-ending dance around the room, tunics soaked through with blood, the floor slick with it.