The Lion of Cairo (2 page)

The Assassin staggered, clutching his bloodied visage. More than pain lanced through his skull. A crawling sensation shivered across his scalp and down his spine—
a thousand tentacles of ice seeking to pry their way into his soul
. His ears rang with phantasmal sound, with voices not his own—
howling, gibbering, cursing, screaming; voices filled with rage, with terror, with purpose … cold, murderous purpose
. His jaw champed, teeth grinding as his own fury blossomed. Did he survive the fearsome siege of Ascalon, the initiations of
al-Hashishiyya,
and the grinding hunt through the Afghan mountains to bring the death his master decreed for the Afridis only to fall prey to a poisoned blade?
Not poison,
a voice mocked, stronger than the others; an ancient voice tinged with madness.
No, not poison.

The Assassin’s wrath cut through the agony, granting him a moment of absolute clarity. Rumors he had heard of Baber Khan’s cruelty, of his insane recklessness, of a pact between the chiefs of his clan and the djinn of the mountains, suddenly made sense. It must be the
salawar
. By what deviltry he could not imagine, but its touch filled his head with visions, ancient and bloody scenes of carnage, of slaughter, and of betrayal. It called to him … the Assassin’s body spasmed; he took a step toward Baber Khan then fell to his knees, glaring up at him through a haze of blood and fury. “That … that b-blade!”

“Yes! You feel it, do you not?” Baber Khan replied; he ran a thumb and forefinger along the edge of his
salawar,
collecting the Assassin’s blood. His grim smile widened as he licked his fingers clean. “It is the Hammer of the Infidel, and none can stand before it! What is your name, dog?”

“Assad,” the young Assassin replied. He sat with his head bowed, oblivious to the blood dripping down his lacerated cheek. The knuckles of his right fist were white where he gripped the hilt-shard of his saber.
My birthright.
His lips writhed, nostrils flaring, as he fought off the fearful paralysis induced by that devil-haunted blade by focusing on the broken steel before him.
My father’s saber!

“The Hammer of the Infidel kills before ever the final blow is struck! Even the gentlest caress of the blade strips a man’s resolve from him to leave him naked and trembling at the edge of the Abyss!” Baber Khan laughed. “Assad, eh? My brothers will know the name of the fool who thought to challenge the chief of the Afridis!” He stepped closer and raised his
salawar,
its tip poised for a killing blow.

“A fine trick,” Assad said, glancing up, “since your brothers are already in hell!” The Assassin exploded with the unexpected desperation of a wounded lion. He launched himself at Baber Khan, drove the hilt-shard gripped in his right fist into the Afghan’s groin. Blood spurted and steamed as his ferocious bellow turned to a shriek. The jagged length of blade bit deep; Assad sawed upward, ripping Baber Khan’s belly open to the navel.

Color drained from the Afghan’s face. He swayed, eyes widening in disbelief; with one hand he reached out and knotted his trembling fingers in the collar of Assad’s robe. Baber Khan struggled to raise his
salawar
.

“Allah!” he croaked. “How?”

Assad caught the Afghan’s wrist and stripped the blade from his grasp. Touching its ivory-and-silver hilt sent white-hot wires of pain stabbing through the Assassin’s muscles even as he felt something cold and heavy touch his mind. Something ancient. Something filled with hate. Assad recoiled, but gritted his teeth and kept hold of the
salawar.
“I am
al-Hashishiyya,
you fool,” the Assassin replied. “Where others fear the Abyss, the sons of Alamut embrace it. Now, let my master’s will be done!”

Before Baber Khan could react, Assad drew the
salawar
across his throat in one smooth motion and then shoved the Afghan away. And Baber Khan, lord of Kurram and chieftain of the Afridis—Baber Khan, who had earned the wrath of the Hidden Master of Alamut by slaughtering his emissaries—took one halting step and toppled to the ground, his last moments spent writhing in a slurry of blood and snow.

But the Assassin paid no heed to Baber Khan’s death throes. He paid no heed to the cold or the wind or to the burning agony of the laceration bisecting his cheek. No, the Assassin’s attention remained fixed on the long blade in his fist, on its pommel of yellowed ivory carved in the shape of a djinn’s snarling visage. “I am
al-Hashishiyya,
” he said to the glittering-eyed devil. “I am Death incarnate.”

So am I,
the devil replied …

The First Surah

PALMYRA

1

The sun hung in the bloodred sky like a misshapen lump of copper, its edges blackened, its face radiating waves of excruciating heat over a landscape ravaged by war. Thousands of mailed corpses littered the streets of Ascalon—bodies frozen in the act of dying; hacked asunder, blades of steel and iron yet clutched in their fists. Tattered pennons once carried with pride by Ascalon’s defenders now rustled like ghosts on the hot wind.

As a ghost, too, did the figure of a dark-haired child drift through the great mass of the slain, swinging a wooden sword in boyish abandon. With it, he lashed out at imaginary enemies, the flash of his pale limbs incongruous in this gore-blasted wasteland. He chased the wind, chased zephyrs of dust through deserted plazas and down winding streets; past fire-gutted buildings looted by victorious Nazarenes. The wind led the boy to the city’s heart, to where a ruined mosque squatted in the middle of a broad square.

Here the boy stopped, tapped the ground with the tip of his sword. His brows drew together as he eyed the structure. Curious, he mounted the shallow steps and peered through the open doorway. Inside, shadows swirled like smoke from a funeral pyre; shafts of copper light lanced through ruptures in the domed ceiling. The boy caught sight of a figure pacing the periphery of the chamber, a lean wraith clad in a surcoat of grimy white cloth who warily avoided the murky daylight.

The boy’s youth made him fearless. He crossed the threshold, his voice profaning the silence. “What was this place?”

Instantly the silhouette stopped and spun toward the door, falling into a predatory crouch. It snuffled the air like a hound on the trail of a hare.

“Are you deaf?” the boy said. “What was this place?”

“A tomb,” the figure replied, its voice hard and guttural, full of rage. It crept forward, still in a crouch. “And a prison.”

The boy glanced around, disbelieving. “A prison? For what? There’s no door.”

“For a fell and terrible beast.” Closer it came. “One that has not tasted flesh nor drunk blood since before you were ripped squalling from your mother’s womb, little one.” Closer, sidestepping a column of light. Menacing eyes glittered and sinew creaked. Still, the boy displayed no trepidation; he stood motionless, unwilling to credit the stranger’s words.

“What kind of beast?”

Now, with only six paces separating them, the figure straightened. This close, the boy saw a design in blood caking the chest of the figure’s surcoat: a cross, red on white. The stench of death clung to it; the boy blinked, his nose wrinkling. The smell reminded him that perhaps he should be cautious.

“The worst kind,” it hissed. “One that hungers!” The Templar threw its head back, howling its rage as it sprang on the startled child. Too late, the boy raised his wooden sword as searing cold talons dug into his throat …

2

Assad bolted upright, his hands reaching for a weapon even as he stifled a cry of alarm. Sweat beaded his forehead; his nostrils flared as flint-hard eyes swept the shadowy corners of the room. Beside him, his companion mewled in her sleep. With titanic effort, Assad forced himself to breathe, forced his muscles to relax. Slowly, he sank back down on the bed, closing his eyes as the thudding of his heart abated.

It was a familiar nightmare. Even though fourteen years had passed, memories of the fearsome siege of Ascalon still haunted him—memories of hunger and thirst, of roaring fires and strangling clouds of smoke, of corpses left to rot in the sun and the blond giants whose hellish machines shredded the city’s ramparts like paper. An involuntary shudder ran through his body.

Assad sighed and opened his eyes. A faint breeze rustled colorful linen sheers hanging from the narrow windows; outside, streaks of crimson and gold heralded the rising sun. The air crackled with heat even before the first searing rays struck fire from the plastered mudbrick walls of the oasis city of Palmyra.

Assad sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Though nearing forty, his body still bore the indelible stamp of a warrior—a scarred frame hard-woven with knots of muscle and corded sinew. Assad’s features were sharp and angular; a not unhandsome face made sinister by the jagged scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his jaw, visible even through his close-trimmed beard.

The movement woke his companion. She stretched, the damp sheet slipping to expose her small breasts and an expanse of round, honey-colored hip.

“What time is it?” the woman, Safia, murmured, her hand caressing his back.

“Near dawn,” Assad said. “Go back to sleep.”

Half his age, Safia was a sloe-eyed courtesan whose charms earned her a lascivious reputation in the bazaars of Palmyra. “It’s too hot to sleep,” she replied. Her hand slid around his torso and down his belly, stroking the hard ridges of muscle before falling lower still. She purred, “Besides, the maiden would ride her favorite stallion once more before the sun rises.”

Assad twined his fingers in her tousled black hair; leaning down, he gave her a savage kiss before lifting her hand away from his groin. “Not now. I have to be about my business.”

Safia sighed. “What business could you have so early?” She rolled onto her back, watching Assad as he stood and padded across the rug-strewn floor to where their clothing lay.

“That’s none of your concern,” he said. He found his long shirt and his white cotton trousers beneath a pile of diaphanous blue stuff that passed for Safia’s gown, all discarded in the throes of last night’s passion; he drew his trousers on, and then glanced about for his boots. These lay in the corner near a crumpled pile of cloth that turned out to be his ragged sash and turban, his once-black
khalat
—faded now to a deep shade of charcoal by sun and sweat—and an empty sheath of leather-bound wood. Methodically, Assad retrieved his things and finished dressing.

“You’re a dour man.” Safia sat up as he bound his hair beneath his turban. One end he kept loose, a veil of sorts to muffle his mouth and nose from blowing sand. Or to hide his features from prying eyes. “Have you no joy for life?”

Assad’s face hardened. He stalked back to the bed; Safia flinched away from him as he knelt, his eyes fixed on the smooth flesh at the base of the courtesan’s throat. “For life, yes. For questions, no,” he said, reaching a hand beneath where he’d been sleeping.

Assad’s fingers closed on a cold ivory hilt. Instantly, ropes of muscle stood out on his arm as contact sent shards of emotion slicing into his mind—hunger, longing, rage, pain, grief. And most powerful of all: an ancient sense of hatred. Nostrils flaring, Assad curled his lips in defiance. He brushed aside those razor-sharp vibrations, mastered them through sheer force of will. The spasm passed in the span of a heartbeat, leaving only faint echoes in its wake.

He glanced down at the weapon he extracted from beneath the bed—a
salawar,
the sword-knife of the tribesmen who lurked in the high passes of the Afghan mountains; its sculpted pommel bore the fearsome visage of a djinn, fanged mouth open as it roared in silent fury.
The Hammer of the Infidel, the Afghans called you; the blade of Afridi chieftains—the blade of madmen. But what name did your creator give you? I wonder. What words did he speak when he filled you with his hate?

Assad, known from Seville to Samarkand as the Emir of the Knife, rose to his feet. He slid the blade into its sheath and thence into the sash about his waist, his hand draped lightly over the pommel. He motioned to Safia as he crossed her bedchamber and opened the latticed door leading to the garden. “Get dressed. It will soon be time for morning prayers.”

“Prayers?” she said. Unashamed of her nakedness, the courtesan crawled from the bed and followed Assad out onto the colonnaded portico. The air smelled of clean desert breezes, of kitchen smoke and baking bread. “You don’t strike me as a religious man.”

“Don’t presume you know me because we’ve lain together twice,” he replied.

A ribbon of orange fire brightened the eastern horizon, presaging a day of unsurpassed brilliance—a day filled with heat and dust and chaos. Within the hour, the rising sun would sear away the cool shadows of the garden. The inviting plash of water in the fountain’s blue-enameled basin would become a sound of mockery; birds warbling in trellises of flowering jasmine would seek shelter in the eaves of ancient monuments. The only respite would be in the thin shade of a palm tree. Assad savored the cool while it lasted.

“Will there be a third time? Or a fourth? Will you not return tonight and allow me the chance to know you … better?” Safia’s fingers trailed down his arm.

Assad glanced sidelong at the petite courtesan. She stood with her legs crossed, her back arched and shoulders pulled back to emphasize her pear-shaped breasts. A ghost of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps,” he said, looping an arm about her waist. He stroked her bare bottom before giving it a playful swat. “Now go back inside before you take a chill.”

Safia laughed and spun away from him. “Will I see you tonight?”

The gleam in Assad’s eyes left little doubt. He watched her a moment longer, watched as she pranced through the fretted door and into her bedchamber. When he turned away, however, the veneer of lust he so scrupulously maintained in her presence vanished; his scarred face reflected only cold and disciplined confidence. The surety of a killer.