Drake drifts off before he can reply, his head thick like syrup.

But it isn't dark and quiet for long, a red burning welling up behind his eyes, the familiar drums beginning their tattoo...

He is in Egypt and he is afraid.

Still drunk on victory, they had been caught sleeping. But soon Kassassin is a bloodbath, and it is all Drake can do to stay alive.

He runs through the field, looking for an enemy and hoping not to find one. In his heart, he is a coward. His left arm is dead, the shoulder forced out of joint by the man who tried to slit his throat. But Drake's bayonet ripped apart his chest before the man could finish him, and so he lives. Alone.

Drake sees his commander - dead. His best friend, dying. He cannot help them. He is running.

He hears the refrain in his ears: coward coward coward deserter deserter.

Then he falls.

Drake falls into the canal, the waters red as Moses' Nile. And he cannot fight anymore, the water pulling at his limbs, dragging him down into the bloody depths.

He is drowning. He is dying.

It is what he deserves.

...

Drake chokes. He rockets upright, struggling to breathe. He coughs up the water of the river, red and red again, desperate and wild-eyed.

And then he realises he's not alone.