Assassin’s Creed®

by Oliver Bowden

  One by one, Ezio wrecked twelve ships, but the chaos and panic that ensued were of equal value. In the distance he could hear explosions, shouts and screams as Machiavelli did his work, too.

  As Ezio made his way to their rendezvous, he hoped his friend had survived.

  All Valencia was in uproar, but pushing his way against the flow of the crowd, Ezio made the appointed meeting place in ten minutes. Machiavelli wasn’t there, but Ezio didn’t have long to wait. Looking a bit shabby, and with a blackened face, his fellow Assassin soon came running up.

  ‘May God reward Leonardo da Vinci,’ he said.

  ‘Success?’

  ‘I have never seen such pandemonium,’ replied Macchiavelli. ‘The survivors are running away out of town as fast as they can. I think most of them will prefer the plough to the sword after this.’

  ‘Good! But we still have work to do.’

  They made their way down the narrow street and arrived at the door of the Lone Wolf to find it closed. Silently as cats, they climbed onto the roof. It was a one-storey building, bigger than it appeared from the front, and near the top of the pitched roof there was an open skylight. They approached it and cautiously looked over the edge.

  It was a different room from the one in which they had been ambushed, with two men down below: Micheletto stood at a table, and facing him, seated, was Cesare Borgia. His once handsome face, now lacerated by the New Disease, was white with fury.

  ‘They have destroyed my plans! Those damned Assassins! Why did you not destroy them? Why did you fail me?’

  ‘Excellenza, I—’ Micheletto looked like a whipped dog.

  ‘I must make good my escape. I’ll go to Viana, in Navarre, just across the border. Let them try to recapture me then. I’m not waiting here for Ferdinand’s men to come and haul me back to La Mota. My brother-in-law is king of Navarre and he will surely help me.’

  ‘I will help you, as I have always helped you. Only let me come with you.’

  Cesare’s cruel lips curled. ‘You got me out of La Mota, sure, and you built up my hopes. But now look where you have got me!’

  ‘Master, all my men are dead. I have done what I could.’

  ‘And failed!’

  Micheletto went white. ‘Is this my reward? For all my years of faithful service?’

  ‘You dog, get out of my sight. I discard you! Go and find some gutter to die in.’

  With a cry of rage, Micheletto hurled himself at Cesare, his huge, strangler’s hands flexed to close on his former master’s throat. But they never got there. With lightning speed, Cesare whipped out one of the two pistols he had in his belt and fired at point blank range.

  Micheletto’s face was destroyed beyond all recognition. The rest of his body crashed over the table. Cesare sprang back, out of his chair, to avoid being covered in blood.

  Ezio had drawn back, so as to be invisible but not out of earshot, and was preparing to leap from the roof and grab Cesare as he came out of the front door of the inn. But Machiavelli had craned forward to get a better view of the dreadful showdown, and now he inadvertently kicked a tile loose, alerting Cesare.

  Cesare looked up swiftly and drew his second pistol. Machiavelli didn’t have time to draw back before Cesare fired, shooting him through the shoulder and smashing his collarbone before he fled.

  Ezio thought of pursuit, but only for an instant. He had heard Cesare say that he intended to go to Viana, and he would follow him there, but not before he had seen to his wounded friend.

  Machiavelli groaned apologies of all things, as Ezio managed to haul him off the roof. At least he could walk, though the wound was bad.

  Once they reached the main thoroughfare, Ezio accosted a passer-by, having to stop the man by force as the chaos raged around them.

  ‘I need a doctor,’ he said urgently. ‘Where can I find one?’

  ‘Many people need a doctor!’ replied the man.

  Ezio shook him. ‘My friend is badly wounded. Where can I find a doctor? Now!’

  ‘Let go of me! You could try el médico Acosta. His rooms are just down the street. There’s a sign outside.’

  Ezio grabbed the near-fainting Macchiavelli and supported him. He took his scarf from his tunic and with it staunched the wound as best he could. Niccolò was losing a lot of blood.

  The minute he saw the wound, Acosta had Machiavelli sit in a chair. He took a bottle of alcohol and some swabs and carefully dressed it.

  ‘The ball went right through the shoulder,’ he explained in broken Italian. ‘So at least I won’t have to dig it out. And it’s a clean wound. But as for the collarbone, I’ll have to reset it. I hope you’re not planning on travelling at any time soon?’

  Ezio and Machiavelli exchanged a glance.

  ‘I have been a fool again,’ said Machiavelli, forcing a grin.

  ‘Shut up, Niccolò.’

  ‘Go on. Get after him. I’ll manage.’

  ‘He can stay here with me. I have a small annexe that needs a patient,’ said Acosta. ‘And when he’s healed, I’ll send him after you.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Perhaps two weeks, maybe more.’

  ‘I’ll see you in Rome,’ said Machiavelli.

  ‘All right,’ replied Ezio. ‘Take care of yourself, my friend.’

  ‘Kill him for me,’ said Machiavelli. ‘Though at least he spared us the trouble of Micheletto.’

  Part Three

  * * *

  We have reached the last era in prophetic song. Time has conceived, and the great sequence of the ages starts afresh. Justice, the virgin, comes back to dwell with us, and the rule of Saturn is restored. The Firstborn of the New Age is already on his way from high heaven down to earth.

  Virgil, Eclogues, IV

  63

  Ezio once again travelled across Spain on a long and lonely journey, almost due north to Viana. He arrived there in the month of March, in the year of Our Lord 1507. The city that he saw, a mile or so distant, looked exactly like the one in the vision accorded him by the Apple, with strong walls and a well-fortified citadel at its centre, but there was a difference.

  Even before he crossed the border into Navarre, Ezio’s practised eyes told him the city was under siege. When he came to a village, most of the locals just shook their heads dumbly when questioned, but when he sought out the priest, with whom he was able to converse in Latin, he learned the whole picture.

  ‘You may know that our King and Queen have designs on Navarre. It’s a rich land and they want to incorporate it into Spain.’

  ‘So they want to take Viana?’

  ‘They’ve already taken it. It’s occupied by the Count of Lerin on their behalf.’

  ‘And the besiegers?’

  ‘They are Navarrese forces. I think they will be the victors.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because they are under the command of the brother-in-law of the King of Navarre, and he is an experienced general.’

  Ezio’s heart beat faster, but he still needed confirmation: ‘His name?’

  ‘He’s very famous, apparently. The Duke of Valence, Cesare Borgia. They say he once commanded the army of the Pope himself. But the Spanish troops are brave. They have taken the fight out to the enemy, and there have been bloody battles in the fields outside the town. I would not go any further in that direction, my son; there lies only devastation and blood.’

  Ezio thanked him and spurred his horse forward.

  He arrived at the scene to find a pitched battle going on right in front of him, while a fog swirled around them. In its midst, Cesare Borgia took a stand, hacking down any foe who came at him. Suddenly Ezio himself had to fight another horseman – a Navarrese, with his crest bearing a red shield crisscrossed with yellow chains. Ezio slashed at the man with his sword, but his foe ducked just in time to miss the blade and Ezio nearly toppled over from the momentum. Recovering just in time, Ezio manoeuvred his horse round and back towards the man. The horseman was pulling his sword
arm back to strike a blow at Ezio’s open flank, but Ezio lunged at him with a lightning flick of his sword arm. The tip of his sword slashed into the man’s chest, and he pulled back in pain, allowing Ezio to deliver a mighty blow downwards, splitting his foe’s right shoulder down to his chest. He fell without a cry and was finished off by the Spanish infantrymen.

  Cesare was on foot, and Ezio decided that it would be easier to get close to him undetected if he were also on foot, so he dismounted and ran through the fray towards him.

  At last he stood face to face with his deadly foe. Cesare’s face was streaked with blood and dust and strained with exertion, but when he saw Ezio his expression took on a new determination.

  ‘Assassin! How did you find me?’

  ‘My thirst to avenge Mario Auditore led me to you.’

  They sliced at each other with their swords until Ezio managed to knock Cesare’s weapon out of his hand. Then, sheathing his own, he flung himself on the Borgia, putting his hands around his throat. Cesare had learnt a few things from Micheletto about the art of strangling, though, and he managed to free himself by thrusting Ezio’s arms away. Ezio unleashed the Hidden Blade, but Cesare caught the blow, once again successfully defending himself, as the battle raged about them.

  It was then that the Spanish trumpets sounded the retreat. Triumphant, Cesare yelled to the nearest Navarrese troops, ‘Kill him! Kill the Assassin. Tear the maldito bastardo into pieces!’ As the fog increased, so Cesare melted into it and the Navarrese soldiers closed in on Ezio. He fought them off long and hard before exhaustion overwhelmed him, then he fell to the ground, almost unnoticed as the melee and fog swirled around him and the soldiers left him for dead.

  When Ezio came to, some time later, he was lying on his back in the middle of the battlefield; he had to push a corpse off him before he could sit up.

  The battlefield lay under a cloudy, blood-red sky, and, in the distance, the sun burned angrily. Dust hung in the air over a wide, unmade road, littered with the dead.

  Ezio saw a crow standing on a corpse’s chin, pecking hungrily at its eye. A riderless horse stampeded by, driven mad by the smell of blood. Broken banners snapped in the breeze.

  Groaning with the effort, he stood up and, painfully at first, walked through the field of dead. He found that he had lost his sword and dagger, though the Hidden Blade and the Bracer had not been found and looted.

  His first job was to replace his weapons. Near him, he noticed a peasant sifting through the spoils of battle. The peasant looked at him.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘There’s more than enough to go round.’

  Ezio looked for fallen officers and knights, as they would be better armed, but in every case someone had got there before him. At last he found a dead captain with a fine sword and a dagger similar to his own. These he took gratefully.

  Next he went in search of a horse as it would be quicker to get around that way. He was in luck. Not half a mile from the edge of the battlefield, well away from the Navarrese camp, he came across a fully saddled and bridled warhorse, its back bloodstained, but not with its own blood, grazing in a green field. Talking to it gently, he mounted it. It kicked a little at first, but he soothed it quickly, then rode it back the way he had come.

  Back on the battlefield, he encountered more peasants recovering what they could from the bodies. He passed them and galloped uphill towards the sound of another fight. The crest of the hill revealed a level plain below it where the battle had been rejoined, close to the battlemented walls of the town, from where cannon-fire issued.

  64

  Ezio steered his horse to one side of the battle, through some olive groves, where he encountered a patrol of Navarrese troops. Before he had time to turn round, they had fired their muskets at him, missing him, but cutting his horse down from under him.

  He managed to escape amongst the trees and continued on foot, taking care to avoid the Spanish troops, who were prowling everywhere. Creeping closer, he came to a clearing, in which he saw one Spanish soldier lying wounded on the ground while another did his best to comfort him.

  ‘Por favor,’ said the wounded man. ‘My legs. Why won’t the bleeding stop?’

  ‘Compadre, I have done all I can for you. Now you must trust in God.’

  ‘Oh, Pablo, I’m afraid! Mis piernas! Mis piernas!’

  ‘Quiet now, Miguel. Think of all the money we’ll get when we’ve won the battle. And the booty!’

  ‘Who is this old man we are fighting for?’

  ‘Who? El Conde de Lerin?’

  ‘Yes. We are fighting for him, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, my friend. He serves our King and Queen, and we serve him, so we fight.’

  ‘Pablo, the only thing I’m fighting for now is my life.’

  A patrol arrived on the other side of the clearing.

  ‘Keep moving,’ said its sergeant. ‘We must outflank them.’

  ‘My friend is wounded,’ said Pablo. ‘He cannot move.’

  ‘Then leave him. Come on.’

  ‘Give me a few more minutes.’

  ‘Very well. We head north. Follow us. And be sure no Navarrese sees you.’

  ‘Will we know when we have outflanked them?’

  ‘There will be gunfire. We’ll cut them down where they least expect it. Use the trees for cover.’

  ‘Just a moment, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I will follow now.’

  ‘Immediately?’

  ‘Yes, sir. My comrade Miguel is dead.’

  Once they had gone, Ezio waited for a few minutes, then made his way north before veering east, in the direction he knew Viana lay. He left the olive groves and saw that he had passed the field of battle and was skirting it on its northern side. He wondered what had become of the Spanish soldiers, for there was no sign of any successful outflanking movement and the battle seemed to be going to the Navarrese.

  On his way lay a shattered village. He avoided it, as he could see Spanish snipers concealed behind some of the charred and broken walls, using long-muzzled wheel-locks to fire on any Navarrese troops at the edge of the battle.

  He came across a soldier, his tunic so bloodstained that Ezio could not tell what side he was on, sitting with his back to a stray olive tree and hugging himself in agony, his whole body shaking, his gun abandoned on the ground.

  Reaching the outskirts of the town, among the settlements that crouched beneath its bastions, Ezio finally saw his quarry ahead of him. Cesare was with a Navarrese sergeant and was clearly assessing the best way of breaching or undermining Viana’s massive walls.

  The Spanish, who had taken Viana, had been confident enough to allow some of their camp followers to settle in the houses here, but they were evidently not powerful enough to protect them now.

  Suddenly a woman came out of one of the cottages and ran towards them, screaming and blocking their path.

  ‘Ayúdenme!’ she cried. ‘Help me! My son! My son is wounded!’

  The sergeant went up to the woman and, seizing her by the hair, dragged her out of Cesare’s way.

  ‘Ayúdenme!’ she yelled.

  ‘Shut her up, will you?’ said Cesare, surveying her coldly.

  The sergeant drew his dagger and slit the woman’s throat.

  65

  As Ezio shadowed Cesare, he witnessed further scenes of brutality doled out by the Navarrese troops on the hated Spanish interlopers.

  He saw a young woman being roughly manhandled by a Navarrese trooper.

  ‘Leave me in peace!’ she cried.

  ‘Be a good girl,’ the soldier told her brutally. ‘I will not hurt you! In fact, you might even enjoy it, you Spanish whore.’

  Further along, a man, a cook by the look of him, stood in despair as two soldiers held him and forced him to watch two others set fire to his house.

  Worse still was a man – doubtless a wounded Spanish soldier who had had his legs amputated – being kicked out of his cart by a pair of Navarres
e squaddies. They stood there laughing as he desperately tried to drag himself away from them along a footpath.

  ‘Run! Run!’ said one.

  ‘Can’t you go any faster?’ added his comrade.

  The battle had obviously gone to the Navarrese, because Ezio could see them bringing siege towers up to the walls of the city. Navarrese troops were swarming up them and there was fierce fighting on the battlements already. If Cesare were anywhere, it would be at the head of his men, for he was as ferocious and fearless as he was cruel.

  Somewhere behind him, a Spanish preacher intoned to a despairing congregation: ‘You have brought this on yourselves through sin. This is how the Lord punishes you. Ours is a just God and this is His justice. Praise the Lord! Thank you, God, for teaching us to be humble. To see our punishment for what it is, a call to spirituality. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. So is the Truth written. Amen!’

  The only way into the city is up one of those towers, thought Ezio. The one nearest him had just been pushed up to the wall and, running, Ezio joined the men rushing up it, blending in with them, though there was scarcely any need, for amidst all the roaring and bellowing of the pumped-up besiegers, who scented victory at last, he would not have been noticed.

  The defenders were ready for them now, though and began pouring the mixture of pitch and oil they call Greek Fire down onto the enemy below. The screams of burning men came up to those already on the tower, Ezio among them, and the rush upwards, away from the flames burning the base of the tower became frantic. Around him, Ezio saw men push their fellows out of the way in order to survive, and some soldiers fell, howling, into the flames below.

  Ezio knew he had to get to the top before the flames caught up with him. Reaching it, he took a great leap of faith onto the battlements just as the blazing tower collapsed behind him, causing murderous chaos beneath.