Moonlight carved Tughril's face into a mask of hope and desperation as he studied the false map. His cracked lips moved silently:
"Through the sewers... past the guard post at the dry fountain... then the Red Door."
The parchment felt alive in his hands—smuggled in with the bread weeks ago, memorized during endless prison nights. Now, it guided him to the waste channel's iron grate.
The gate resisted like a stubborn demon, its rusted bolts fused solid by years of damp neglect. Tughril pressed his forehead to the cold metal, gathering his resolve.
With slow, deliberate movements, he reached for his meager possessions—the shallow eating bowl that had been his only companion through months of captivity. He filled it now with his own urine, the acrid liquid pooling quickly before the ammonia could evaporate. The stench burned his nostrils as he poured it over the corroded joints.
Next came the length of chain from his belt, wrapped tight around the thickest bar in a makeshift harness. He braced his feet against the opposite wall, every muscle straining, veins bulging at his temples.
The metal shrieked in protest—a sound that would surely alert the guards—but at that precise moment, the changing watch passed overhead, their heavy footfalls and casual banter masking the noise. With one final, desperate heave, the gate surrendered with a groan. Tughril tumbled backward into the filth, but the way was open.
Freedom, at last, lay ahead through that dark, reeking maw.
The stench struck him like a mailed fist—thick, living rot that turned his empty stomach. Three months stewing in his own cell's filth had not prepared him for this: the stifling reek of decades of human waste, rotting food, and decaying vermin in the bowels of Damascus.
Tughril clenched his jaw, pressing the precious map to his forehead with one hand while the other gripped the slimy wall for balance. The sludge rose to his knees. Each step demanded he pull his legs free from the muck with a sickening, sucking noise.
His fingers found the rusted ring exactly where the map had indicated—a mooring bolt protruding from the tunnel wall at the first turn, pitted with corrosion but unmistakably placed. The precision sent a chill through him. No forgotten escape route remained so pristine. But desperation overrode doubt, and he pressed forward, counting each pace, fingertips gliding over slime-slicked stone.
Without warning, the ground vanished beneath him. One moment he was carefully placing a foot, the next he plunged thigh-deep into a hidden pit. The sewage closed around his leg like a hungry mouth. Flailing, his hand struck something solid—a corpse drifting beneath the surface, its flesh still fresh.
He recoiled, grabbing instead a wooden beam—conveniently placed, perhaps too conveniently—and clawed his way out. Miraculously, the map remained dry, clenched in his filthy hand as the rest of him dripped with foulness.
Dragging himself forward, shivering and gasping, he spotted the next landmark: three stones stacked in a neat pyramid atop a dry ledge. Their surfaces gleamed unnaturally clean, as if wiped by careful hands.
Why would a secret route, unused for years, show signs of maintenance?
The thought scattered like smoke as his palm touched the final marker—the Red Door. Not wood, as he'd imagined, but rusted iron beneath flaking paint. Its hinges groaned with unnatural ease as it swung open, revealing—a tunnel transformed.
It looked nothing like the crumbling path described in the map. Instead of rubble, the way stretched clean and unobstructed. The usual sewer rats were nowhere to be seen. Only a battle-scarred tomcat sat in the shadows, yellow eyes gleaming with dispassionate awareness.
Fresh torch brackets lined the walls, unmarked by cobwebs or soot. Sand had been scattered across the floor, masking footprints. A wineskin hung from a hook, still beaded with condensation from the cool night air.
Tughril snatched it and drank deeply. The vinegar-laced water burned his throat. He didn't taste the faint bitterness that had tainted the prison guards' wine for weeks.
The tunnel angled sharply upward. The climb was brutal. His knees screamed with each of the forty-seven steps. He passed a patch of tacky plaster, still damp from recent repairs. Then—without warning—pale dawn light spilled through the vent of a baker's oven.
He emerged into the morning air, blinking in the brightness. Across the empty street stood the caravanserai—its crumbling arches promising refuge.
After months in chains, after filth and fear, he had reached sanctuary. Or so he believed.
Tughril staggered into the caravanserai's shadowed courtyard as dawn broke over the Armenian Quarter. His legs trembled from the night's desperate flight. The once-grand meeting place stood empty, its mosaic tiles cracked, weeds sprouting through the stonework—but its walls held firm.
He collapsed beneath an archway, his back against cool stone, and slept like the dead for three days. He awoke only to gulp water from the miraculously clean cistern or chew dried figs found in a hidden alcove.
By the fourth morning, suspicion crept in. Where were his allies?
The Templars should have posted a watchman. The Assassins would've left a coded mark. But the silence pressed on his ears like a weight. He paced the courtyard, counting each footfall to keep the dread at bay.
Then came the builders.
Six burly men appeared at the gates, bearing timber and tools. Their leader—a grizzled Syrian with a Frankish accent—claimed the Templars had paid for repairs, preparing the site for a war council. Tughril watched from the shadows as they worked—replacing beams, patching the roof, sealing cracks.
They left after three days, promising the knights would arrive within a fortnight.
A week crawled by.
Each evening, Tughril stood at the eastern window, watching the streets. The restored comforts—the rainproof roof, the reinforced door—now felt like a cage. He traced the fresh mortar between stones. Even the old servant's passage behind the kitchen had been bricked up with suspiciously new clay.
On the fifteenth evening, as the Maghrib call echoed through Damascus, the gates groaned open.
But it wasn't the Templar delegation.
Zengid warriors entered first, hands on sword hilts. White-robed Assassins followed, daggers already drawn. Then came the Templars, red crosses gleaming, mailed fists clutching letters sealed with Tughril's own mark.
Confusion rippled through the gathering.
The Assassin master eyed the Zengid captain. The Templar grandmaster's fingers tightened on his sword. Tughril saw the dawning horror in their eyes—reflected in his own.
"You received my letters?" he asked, mouth dry as sand.
The Templar hurled a parchment at his feet. The handwriting was perfect. His slanted script. His signet's smudge. Everything.
Panic erupted.
The Zengids rushed the doors—barred from outside. An Assassin dove for a window—hidden spikes snapped shut on his arm. From below came a hiss, like a thousand serpents.
Tughril knew the smell at once—saltpeter and sulfur.
Then fire. Then thunder. The last thing he saw was the caravanserai's beautifully restored ceiling collapsing toward him in a storm of light and stone.
The rooftop attic gave Taimur a perfect view of the caravanserai courtyard below. He stood motionless in the shadows of a minaret, the evening call to prayer echoing around him as he watched the last of his targets shuffle through the gates.
The Zengid rebels came first, their green turbans dusty from hidden journeys through the city's underbelly. Then came the Assassins, white robes fluttering like ghosts as they slipped in through the side entrances. Last of all marched the Templars, red crosses bold against chainmail, arrogance radiating from their stiff postures—even as they walked straight into his trap.
Beside him, the Muezzin's Daughter shifted her weight, small hands clutching the ignition trigger. The modified crossbow mechanism gleamed in the fading light, its string taut against the firing pin. She glanced up at him, dark eyes reflecting the last streaks of sunset.
Taimur didn't speak. He simply raised one finger—wait.
Below, the last of the Templar knights disappeared inside. The heavy wooden doors swung shut behind them. A moment later, the telltale scrape of iron bars being slid into place echoed up to their perch. His men were sealing the exits now—windows barred, side doors locked, hidden passages blocked. The caravanserai had become a perfect cage.
He exhaled slowly, watching through the lattice as confusion rippled through the gathering. The Templars turned on the Assassins. The Zengid rebels reached for their swords. Emir Tughril stood frozen at the center of the chaos, his face a mask of dawning horror as he realized the truth.
"Now."
Taimur nodded.
The Muezzin's Daughter pulled the trigger.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world erupted.
The explosion tore through the caravanserai's foundations with the wrath of divine judgment. The central pillars disintegrated first, their carefully weakened bases vaporizing in a storm of stone shrapnel. The roof collapsed inward, tons of clay tiles and timber beams crashing down onto the men below. Walls folded like parchment, their freshly repaired masonry reduced to deadly projectiles. A rolling cloud of dust and smoke billowed into the twilight sky, swallowing the screams of the dying.
Taimur watched, unmoved, as the structure crumbled. The destruction was absolute.
Or nearly so.
Amidst the settling debris, movement flickered. A hand clawed free from beneath a pile of rubble. Then another. Slowly, painfully, figures emerged—Emir Tughril, his once-fine robes tattered and bloodied, his face a mask of soot and shock. The Assassin leader followed, his white robes now dyed crimson, one arm hanging useless at his side. A handful of Templar knights dragged themselves out, armor dented, movements sluggish with injury.
They barely had time to blink before Taimur's men descended.
Black-clad warriors materialized from the smoke, blades glinting in the firelight. The surviving Templars died first, cut down before they could raise their swords. The Assassin leader snarled and reached for a hidden dagger—only to crumple from a blow to the back of the skull. Emir Tughril didn't even resist. He simply sank to his knees, eyes empty, as rough hands bound his wrists.
Taimur stepped forward, the dust settling around him like a shroud. He looked down at his captives, then at the ruins of the caravanserai, and allowed himself a small, cold smile.
[System Notification: Primary Objectives Complete]
[+2000 Merit Points: Enemy Forces Eliminated]
[+500 Merit Points: High-Value Target Captured (Emir Tughril)]
[+500 Merit Points: High-Value Target Captured (Assassin Leader)]
[Total Merit Points Awarded: 3000]
[Total: 6,800/10,000]
The game, it seemed, was progressing nicely.