Assassin's Creed: Underworld by Oliver Bowden

and shifted the cosh from one hand to the other, then
back again.
    The guardian gathered himself. He raised his
cutlass, moved into position between The Ghost and the two men he was paid to protect, and then
he called to them over his shoulder. What he said was, ‘Sirs, run.’
    The two toffs needed no further invitation,
stumblingover one another and crashing into the stones as they took their
leave, disappearing noisily into the night. Behind them on the floor lay the flask of booze.
    The Ghost clenched his teeth. He couldn’t
let them get away.
    ‘You don’t have to die for the likes
of them,’ he told the bodyguard, who gave a short chuckle.
    ‘You’re wrong, my friend,’ he
replied. ‘Dying for the likes of them is
exactly
what the likes of me do. We do
it all over the world.’
    Young though he was, The Ghost knew how it
worked. The rich purchased commissions so they could rise quickly through the ranks of the
British army, ensuring that for the most part they stayed out of the bloodiest fighting and
enjoyed the best comforts. ‘It doesn’t need to be that way,’ he said.
    ‘It does, lad. When you’re as wise in
the ways of the world as you are in combat – and by Christ you’re wise in that
– then you’ll know.’
    The Ghost shook his head. Time was wasting.
‘It doesn’t matter, sir. Either way, it’s not you I want, it’s who you
serve.’
    ‘Still can’t do it, son,’ said
the bodyguard sadly. ‘I can’t let you do it.’ The cutlass was raised, he kept
his opponent on point and his stance remained firm, but there was something in his eyes The
Ghost recognized. A look of impending defeat. The look of a man who knows he’s beaten,
whose death or downfall is not a matter of
if
, but
when
.
    ‘You have no choice,’ The Ghost
replied, and wasalready in motion, and to the bodyguard he was a mere blur,
as though the night had rippled, the darkness shifting to accommodate the young Assassin’s
sheer speed as he sprang forward.
    The Ghost had not made the mistake of
underestimating his foe of course. He had anticipated how his opponent might defend, as well as
factoring in that his opponent would expect him to attack a certain way. And so he feinted first
one way and then the other, feeling the flow of his own body as he manipulated it in two
different directions at once as he leapt, using a gravestone as a springboard to come at the
bodyguard from an unexpected height and angle.
    Too good, too fast, and much too
combat-intelligent for the bodyguard. This man, trained no doubt by the English military, tough
as old boots to begin with and toughened even more by countless overseas campaigns, even he was
no match for The Ghost. No match at all. The cosh, sticky with blood from its last victim,
crashed into the back of his head and his jaw slackened and his eyes rolled as he fell
unconscious to the ground.
    An hour or so later he would awaken, with a sore
head but otherwise unharmed, when he would need to answer searching questions as to how he and
his three equally battle-hardened companions could possibly have been bested by a mere squit of
a lad.
    For now, though, he was out cold.
    Meanwhile, The Ghost vaulted a gravestone, coming
to the woman who had pulled herself up on her hands and now stared at him with a mixture of fear
and awe and gratitude.
    ‘Bloody hell, lad,
what the bloody hell are you, some kind of demon or summat?’
    ‘Go,’ he told her. ‘Leave this
place before our friend gets his wits back about him.’ And with that he took off after the
two pleasure-seeking gentlemen, the sight of the woman’s bruised, bloody and swollen face
spurring him on, kindling his anger as he snatched up the cutlass and ran.
    Catching them was easy. They were drunk and noisy
and slow and though they were frightened they were probably confident that their champion could
best this young upstart, because men like this had never needed to worry about anything. They
employed people to do their dirty