Assassin's Creed: Outlaw - Book One

A Meeting In Sherwood

"Yeah," I said. Looking about me, searching for anything that might qualify as 'bearings'. "Just give me a moment."

Following what little instinct the place had activated in me I wandered across the road, climbed the bank and moved up into the treeline.

"Where are you going?" Helen called after me.

"Give me a minute," I shouted back.

Even as the trees surrounded me I felt something. It wasn't like memory, it was like I just knew where I was and where I could go from here. I spotted a tree nearby covered in small fissures and stubby branches, big enough for handholds.

I walked up to the tree and, without even consciously thinking about it, I pulled myself up. The first few feet were scaled easily, but I quickly learned the difference between my stamina and Yughi's. Even so, taking it slow and easy I climbed up into the canopy in under two minutes.

From there I found I could branch run quite easily. I was nowhere near as fast as Yughi but I had to keep up a jog in order to make the motion smooth. Laughing with delight I hopped from branch to branch through the forest, circling around until I was headed back to the tree line at the edge of the road. I was about thirty feet up in the air and it felt, in some bizarre way, like I had come home.

As I came back toward the edge of the wooded area I realised I hadn't quite made it all the way back to the same point. I was a little way up the road from the car, I had even, without thinking about it, come around the meandering bend in the road.

A car was driving along the road and would be at Helen and Paul's position in about twenty seconds. Something about the car knotted up a little tension in my gut. It was like Yughi's eagle sense was waking in me and this car, it was some sort of threat or target.

I did not descend from the canopy but, rather, ran along the branches to keep up with the car. It slowed as it reached the passing place where Paul and Helen still waited. The first grey, thin fingers of dawn could be seen, making the air grey and strange.

As the car stopped Helen rested herself against the bonnet with her hands tucked behind her back. Paul reached into the passenger side of the car and pulled out a map. From where I was I could see he had a gun as well.

The mysterious car's engine stopped. The driver's side door opened and a figure emerged from inside, another one climbed out of the passenger side.

I didn't recognise the man driving the car, he didn't seem very Abstergo, he was dressed casually, his hair cut short, but not in a military fashion. He was clean shaven and this served only to make him appear more intense.

"Car trouble folks?" The man asked Helen and Paul.

"No mate," Paul replied genially, "just consulting the old map. A little bit lost is all."

"Oh, where you headed? Maybe we can help," said the driver of the car. He was searching the back seat of our car as if he was looking for evidence of something, possibly me."

"It's fine, really," Paul said. "I think I know where we took a wrong turn. We were actually just about to head off."

"Where's Sam?" the driver of the car asked casually. The question was thrown out so calmly that it covered the exit of two more men from the back of his car. Both levelled guns at Paul and Helen, now the driver's passenger did the same.

"We don't know," Helen said. "He went into the woods ten minutes ago, he could be anywhere."

The driver looked at Helen and pursed his lips, making a judgement about how full of it she was likely to be. I knew that Helen was telling the truth, apparently so did the driver. He pulled out a gun of his own.