As night fell, both sides, exhausted from a day of fierce fighting, still had plenty of tasks to handle: tending to the wounded, burning the dead, and preparing defensive weapons anew. The camps of both sides were bustling with noise until the deep of the night when they finally quieted down.
Norn, dragging his weary body, collapsed onto his bed. "Sassan, get me a glass of water!" After a long while with no response, Norn looked around curiously. Sassan, who was always on call, was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did Sassan go?" Norn scratched his head in confusion.
Meanwhile, in Saladin's camp, a dark figure lurked inside a common soldier's tent.
"My young master, you are far too kind-hearted," Sassan muttered, pulling a dagger from the chest of the last sleeping soldier. Ignoring the blood behind her, she peered through the tent flap at Saladin's royal pavilion.
Saladin's royal pavilion stood alone in a large open space, heavily guarded. Every seven or eight meters, two Mamluk cavalrymen stood watch, and a squad of elite soldiers patrolled constantly. Not to mention the five hidden sentries covering every angle, there were no blind spots. Even the changing of the guard was led by two officers, making infiltration impossible.
Sassan calmly observed Saladin's pavilion before her figure flickered and vanished into the darkness.
When she reappeared, Sassan was outside a supply tent. Compared to the heavily guarded royal pavilion, this tent, which held no important supplies, was guarded by only two men.
After creating a bit of a commotion, the two guards were successfully separated and then silently taken down.
Sassan entered the tent and scanned the interior, which was filled with miscellaneous items.
She splashed the carried lamp oil over the clutter, grabbed a thin rope to secure a torch above the debris, and placed another torch beneath the rope.
After setting up these, Sassan quietly left, leaving the flame to slowly roast the thin hemp rope.
As time passed, the temperature gradually rose, and the fibers of the rope began to lose their strength, turning into a charred mass. Finally, a burst of flame sprang forth.
The rope, now in two pieces, could no longer hold the torch. The lamp oil on the ground ignited into a raging fire the moment it touched the torch, engulfing the entire tent in flames.
"Fire!" The surrounding soldiers were awakened and scrambled to put out the blaze. It took two hours before the fire was finally extinguished.
Outside the royal pavilion, the loyal guards did not leave their posts for such a minor incident. Their sole duty was to protect the Sultan's safety; firefighting was someone else's job.
"Assassin!!" A junior officer, covered in blood, ran towards the royal pavilion, with three black-clothed figures brandishing weapons and running towards the pavilion. Their gait was peculiar, their expressions manic, and they muttered indistinct words.
The officer, seemingly injured, limped along but was quickly overtaken by the black-clothed figures, who stabbed him in the back.
The pained officer managed to run a few more steps towards the royal pavilion before collapsing, blood gushing from his wound.
The Mamluk guards stationed at the royal pavilion looked on coldly at these black-clothed figures. All signs indicated they had ingested a plant from India—something only the Hashashin would do.
"Kill them!" Three guards immediately charged forward. The black-clothed figures' movements were erratic, their weapons wielded without skill. The guards' scimitars left gruesome wounds on them in the first clash.
But these black-clothed figures seemed impervious to pain, wildly swinging their weapons.
Hearing the commotion outside, Saladin emerged from his pavilion, with the surrounding Mamluks quickly closing in.
"What's going on?" Saladin's voice was filled with panic.
Upon hearing the guards' explanation, Saladin stared in horror at the Hashashin. "What are you waiting for? Kill them!"
The Mamluk officer in charge of the guard calmly nodded, and more Mamluk guards rushed forward.
"Kill!"
Already at an advantage, the guards became even more ferocious. Their scimitars swiftly decapitated the black-clothed figures.
Saladin watched as the assassins were slain. He should have felt relieved, but a sense of unease grew stronger.
"Whoosh!"
A crossbow bolt, gleaming with an ominous light, embedded itself in Saladin's chest. The poison coated on the bolt quickly spread through his bloodstream to vital organs. Saladin's face soon turned a sickly shade of purple, and he collapsed unconscious.
"Protect the Sultan!" The Mamluks surrounding Saladin panicked and immediately shielded him with their bodies.
"The assassin is over there!" Finally, a guard, following the direction of the bolt, spotted the assassin—it was Sassan, disguised as the dead junior officer.
After setting up the arson scene, Sassan had found a few unfortunate souls near the royal pavilion, force-fed them an overdose of Hashashin drugs, and led them to the vicinity of the pavilion.
The chaos created by these unfortunate souls successfully drew out Saladin and distracted the guards, giving Sassan the opportunity to strike with all her might.
"Here's a greeting from the Hashashin!" Sassan tossed a small, flaming orb into the crowd, and a noxious cloud of smoke quickly billowed forth. By the time the guards, clutching their noses, emerged from the smoke, Sassan had vanished.
"Fools! You useless fools!" A whip soaked in saltwater cracked against the bare chest of a Mamluk, leaving a gruesome scar.
"To let an assassin succeed right under your noses! And to let the killer escape! What shame do you have left?" Another whip fell, this time striking another guard.
"If the one in the royal pavilion had been the real Sultan, you would have already lost your heads!"
Several burly men continued to lash the guards with their whips. The officer, fearing further blame from Saladin, berated them incessantly.
"Enough," Saladin said, looking at the guards' battered bodies and waving to stop the enforcer's actions. "Let them lead the assault on the castle tomorrow to atone for their failures."
He then walked to one side, lifted a white sheet, and revealed a corpse that bore a striking resemblance to him, with a cyanotic face.
Saladin sighed, "Bury him with honor. And find more decoys."
Inside the castle, Sassan, pale-faced, pushed open the door to her room. To convincingly play dead, that stab on her back was real.
"Where have you been?" Norn rushed over as soon as the door opened, only to be startled by the massive wound on Sassan's back.
"I went to assassinate Saladin!" Sassan weakly collapsed onto the bed, leaving Norn to bustling around.
"Foolishness!" Norn was both anxious and angry. "I have my own ways to deal with Saladin! You don't need to worry about it, little girl!"
Tearing apart Sassan's tattered clothes, Norn winced at the sight of the crudely bandaged wound. Recalling how Sassan had silently carried out his various orders over the years, he felt a deep sense of debt.
"You are very important to me! Don't just go doing something so perilous," Norn said, taking out some alcohol to carefully disinfect Sassan's wound.
"To give one's life for the master is the glory of us Hashashin!" Sassan gritted her teeth against the pain of the disinfection.
"You are a person first! You are Sassan of Norn Adler!" Norn shouted at Sassan, but his tone softened as soon as he saw the wound. "In my eyes, you are just a bit of a mischievous girl who likes to play with others, who can apply makeup."
"Promise me!" Norn held Sassan's hand to his face. "Don't do such foolish things anymore!"
Sassan, looking into Norn's intense gaze, felt inexplicably guilty and turned her small head away.
"As you command, my Norn."