Ezio moved forward slowly, every sense taut.
‘That’s good,’ said the captain, and Ezio immediately sensed his slight relaxation. Did the man really think he was giving in? Was he that vain? That stupid? If so, all the better. But perhaps, after all, this ugly man, who smelt of sweat and cooked meat, was right. The moment of death had to come sometime.
Beyond the wide window between the columns a narrow wooden platform projected over the void, perhaps ten feet long and four wide, constructed of six rough planks. It looked ancient and unsafe. The captain bowed in an ironic gesture of invitation. Ezio stepped forward again, waiting for his moment, but at the same time wondering if it would come. The planks creaked ominously under his weight, and the air was cold around him. He looked at the sky and the mountains. Then he saw the eagle coasting, fifty or a 100 feet below him, its white pinions spread, and somehow that gave him hope.
Then something else happened.
Ezio had noticed another similar platform, projecting from the tower at the same level some fifteen feet to his right. And now, on it, alone, walking fearlessly forward, was the young cowled man in white he had glimpsed in the battle. As Ezio watched, his breath suspended, the man seemed to be turning towards him, to be making the beginning of a gesture …
And then, again, the vision faded, and there was nothing but the wind and the occasional scatter of gusting snow. Even the eagle had disappeared from sight.
The captain approached, noose in hand. Ezio fleetingly noticed that there was plenty of slack in the rope which trailed behind it.
‘No eagle here that I can see,’ said the captain. ‘I wager it’ll take the buzzards no more than three days.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ Ezio replied, evenly.
A knot of guards had come up behind the captain, but it was the captain himself, standing close behind Ezio, who pulled down his hood, slipped the noose over his head, and pulled it tight around his neck.
‘Now!’ said the captain.
Now!
At the very moment that he felt the captain’s hands on his shoulders, ready to shove him into oblivion, Ezio raised his right arm, crooked it, and drove his elbow violently backwards. As the captain fell back with a cry, stumbling into his companions, Ezio stooped and took up the slack of the rope where it still lay on the planking and, dodging between the three men, spun and looped the slack round the stumbling captain’s neck. Then he leapt from the platform into the void.
The captain had tried to recoil, but too late. He was slammed to the planks under the impact of Ezio’s weight as he fell. The planks shuddered as his head struck them. The rope snapped taut, all but breaking the captain’s neck as it did so. Turning blue, his hands went to his neck as he kicked and struggled against death.
Uttering all the oaths they knew, the guards drew their swords and moved forward fast, hacking at the rope to free their officer. When the rope was cut, the accursed Ezio Auditore would plummet to his death on the rocks 500 feet below, and as long as he was dead, what did the manner of it matter?
At the rope’s end, twirling in space, Ezio had both hands between the noose and his neck, straining to keep it from cutting into his windpipe. He scanned the scene below him. He was dangling close to the walls. There had to be something he could catch to break his fall. But if there wasn’t, this was a better way to meet death than going to it meekly.
Above, on the dangerously swaying platform, the guards at last succeeded in severing the rope, which by now was drawing blood from the captain’s neck. And Ezio found himself falling, falling …
But at the moment he felt the rope go loose, he swung his body closer to the walls of the castle. Masyaf was built for Assassins by Assassins. It would not forsake him. He had seen a piece of broken scaffolding projecting from the wall fifty feet below. He guided his body towards it as he plummeted downwards. He caught it, wincing in pain as his arm was wrenched almost free of its socket. But the scaffolding held, and he held, and, grinding his teeth with effort, he hauled himself up until he could get a grip with both hands.
But it wasn’t over yet. The guards, leaning out, had seen what had happened, and began to lay hold of anything they could to throw to dislodge him. Rocks and stones and jagged pieces of broken wood hailed down on him. Ezio looked around desperately. Over to his left, an escarpment ran up to the wall, perhaps twenty feet away from where he now was. If he could swing from the scaffolding and gain enough momentum to throw himself across that distance, there was a faint chance that he could roll down the escarpment. At its foot he could see the edge of a cliff top, from which a crumbling stone bridge stretched over a chasm to where a narrow path clung to the side of the mountain opposite.
Ducking under the rain of debris from above, Ezio started to swing backwards and forwards, his hands slipping on the ice-smooth wood of the scaffolding; but they held, and he soon built up impetus. The moment came when he felt he just couldn’t hold on any more, he’d have to risk it. He summoned all his energy into one last powerful backswing, hurling himself into space as his body moved forward again, and spread-eagling himself in the air as he flew towards the escarpment.
He landed heavily, badly, and it winded him. Before he had time to recover his balance he was tumbling down the slope, bouncing over the rough ground, but gradually able to guide his battered body in the general direction of the bridge. He knew this was vital, for if he did not end at exactly the right spot, he would be hurled over the cliff’s edge into God knew what void beneath. He was going too fast but he had no control over his speed. He kept his nerve somehow and at last he came to a stop – ten feet onto the trembling bridge itself.
A sudden thought struck him: how old was this bridge? It was narrow, single-span and far, far below he could hear the crashing of angry water over rocks, invisible in the depths of the black chasm beneath. The shock of his weight thrown upon it had shaken the bridge. How long was it since anyone had crossed it? Its stonework was already crumbling, weakened with age, its mortar rotted. As he got to his feet, to his horror, he saw a crack snap open right across its width not five feet behind him. The crack soon widened, and the masonry on either side of it began to fall, tumbling crazily down into the dark abyss.
As Ezio watched, time itself seemed to slow down. There was no retreat now. He realized immediately what was going to happen. Turning, he started to sprint, summoning every muscle in his straining body to this one last effort. Across the bridge to the other side he ran, the structure fracturing and plummeting behind him. Twenty yards to go – ten – he could feel the stonework plunging away just as his heels left it. And at last, his chest practically splitting with the effort of breathing, he lay upright against the grey rock of the mountainside, his cheek pressed to it, his feet secure on the narrow path, unable to think, or do anything, listening to the sounds of the stones of the bridge as they fell into the torrent below, listening to the sounds ebb and ebb until there was nothing, no sound at all but the wind.
11
Gradually, Ezio’s breathing calmed and levelled, and the aches in his muscles, forgotten in the crisis, began to return. But there was much to do before he could allow his body the rest it needed. What he had to do was feed it. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for nearly twenty-four hours.
He bandaged his grazed hands as well as he could, using a scarf torn in two drawn from within his tunic. He cupped a palm to capture a trickle of water which was running off the rock against which his cheek was pressed. Partly assuaged, he pushed away from the surface he’d been leaning on, and checked himself over. No broken bones, a slight sprain in the left side, where he’d been wounded, but nothing else, nothing serious.
He surveyed the scene. No one seemed to have set out in pursuit but they would have watched his fall down the escarpment and his run across the collapsing bridge – perhaps they hadn’t noticed that he’d made it – perhaps they’d just assumed that he hadn’t. But he couldn’t discount the possibility that there’d be search parties out, if only to recover hi
s body. The Templars would want to be quite sure that the Mentor of their arch-enemy was indeed dead.
He looked at the mountainside next to him. Better to climb than to use the path. He didn’t know where it led, and it was too narrow to afford him room to manoeuvre if he had to fight. It looked climbable. At the very least he might be able to reach some pockets of snow, and really slake his thirst. He shook himself, grunting, and set about his task.
He was glad that he was dressed in dark colours, for he had no need to make any effort to blend with the rock face he was crawling up. Hand- and footholds were easy to find at first, though there were times when he had to stretch hard, times when his muscles shrieked in protest, and once a shard of rock flaked off in his hand, nearly causing him to crash back down the 100 feet or so he’d already covered. The worst thing – and the best – was the thin but constant stream of water which fell on him from above. Worst, because the wet rocks were slippery; best, because a waterfall meant a creek, or at least a beck, up above.
But half an hour’s climb brought him to the top of what turned out to be, not a mountain but a cliff, since the ground he finally hauled himself up onto was level and covered with patches of rough, tussocky grass. A kind of all but barren alpine meadow, bordered on two sides by more walls of black and grey rock, but opening westwards quite some way – as far as Ezio could see. A mountain pass, except for the fact that, behind him, it led nowhere. Perhaps once, long ago, it had. An ancient earthquake might well have caused the cliffs he’d just climbed, and the gulley into which the bridge had fallen.
Ezio sped to one side of the little valley to reconnoitre. Where there were passes, where there was water, there could also be people. He waited, near motionless, for another half an hour before venturing forward, shaking his muscles to keep them warm – they had begun to stiffen with the long period of immobility. He was wet, he was getting cold. He could not afford to be out here for too long. It was one thing to escape the Templars, but his effort would be wasted if he now fell victim to Nature.
He moved closer to the stream, locating it by the chuckling of its water. Stooping by its bank, he drank as much as he dared without glutting himself. He followed it. A few woody shrubs began to appear by its banks, and soon he came upon a stunted coppice by the side of a pool. Here, he paused. It would be a miracle if there was anything living up here, so far from the village that squatted below the castle of Masyaf, any animal he could catch and eat; but if there was a pool, there was also the faintest chance that there might be fish.
He knelt, and peered into the depths of the dark water. Still as a fishing heron, he disciplined himself to be patient. And then, at last, a ripple, a faint one, which disappeared as soon as it had unsettled the water’s surface, but enough to show him that there was something alive in there. He continued his watch. Little flies hovered low over the pool. Some flew over and harassed him, attracted by his body heat. Not daring to swat them away, he endured their tickling attentions and their tiny, vicious bites.
Then he saw it – a large, plump body, the colour of a corpse, moving sluggishly six inches below the surface. Better than he’d dared hope – it looked like a carp, maybe, or something very like it. As he watched, another, much darker, joined it, and then a third, its scales coppery-gold.
Ezio waited for them to do what he expected them to do – put their snouts to the surface and gulp air. That would be his moment. All his attention focused, he tensed his body and steeled his hands.
The dark fish made its move, bubbles erupted as a fat mouth appeared.
Ezio sprang.
And fell back, elated, the big fish wriggling frantically in his grasp but unable to slide out. He laid it on the ground beside him and despatched it with a stone.
There was no way he could cook this. He’d have to eat it raw. But then he looked again at the stone he’d used to kill it, and remembered the shard which had flaked off in his hand during his climb. Flint! With luck, he could start a fire – to dry his clothes as much as to cook with. Raw fish didn’t bother him – he’d read, besides, that somewhere in an unimaginable country far away to the east there was a people who actually regarded it as a delicacy. But wet clothes were quite another thing. As for the fire itself, he’d take the risk. From what he’d seen, he was probably the first human in this valley for 1000 years, and its towering sides hid it from view for miles.
He gathered together some brushwood from the coppice and after a few moments’ experiment he had managed to start a tiny red glow in a handful of grass. Carefully, he placed it under a prepared tent of twigs, burning himself as his fire immediately flared. It burned well, giving off little smoke, and that was thin and light, immediately whisked into nothingness by the breeze
For the first time since his first sighting of Masyaf, Ezio smiled.
Despite the cold, to save time, he took off his clothes to dry them by the fire on rudimentary brushwood frames while the fish cooked and bubbled on a simple spit. Less than an hour later, the fire kicked out and its traces scattered, he felt a certain warmth in his belly and was able, soon afterwards, to don garments which, if not laundry fresh, were warm and sufficiently dry to wear comfortably. They would have to finish drying as he wore them. As for his exhaustion, that would have to keep. He’d resisted the desire to sleep by the fire and the pool, a fight as tough as any he’d had on the road, but now he was rewarded by a second wind.
He felt equal to the task of returning to the castle. He needed his gear, and then he needed to unlock the secrets of the place if his quest was to mean anything.
As he retraced his steps, he noticed, shortly before he reached the cliff he’d climbed, that on the southern side of the valley another pathway led upwards along the side of that rock face. Who had hewn these pathways? Men from the dawn of time? Ezio had no leisure to ponder this, but was grateful that it was there. It rose steeply eastwards in the direction of Masyaf. Ezio started to climb.
After an ascent of some 500 feet, the path ended on a narrow promontory, where a few foundation stones testified to the presence long ago of a lookout tower, where guards would have been able to scan the country around and give the castle advance warning of any approaching army or caravan. Looking eastwards and down, the great complex of Masyaf, with its rearing walls and its cupola’d towers, spread out beneath him. Ezio focused hard, and his eyes, as keen as an eagle’s, began to pick out the details which would help him return.
Far below, he discerned a rope bridge across the same chasm formerly spanned by the stone one he had run across. Near it was a guard post. There was no other access to the castle, as far as he could see, from the side he was on, but at the far side of the bridge the path to the castle was relatively clear. The way down to the bridge, on this side, was another matter. An all but sheer cascade of black rock – enough to daunt the surest-footed ibex. And it was in full view of the guard post on the castle side of the bridge.
Ezio looked at the sun. It was just past its zenith now. He calculated it’d take four to five hours to reach the castle. He needed to be inside before darkness fell.
He clambered down from the promontory, and began his descent, taking it slowly, taking care not to dislodge the jumble of loose rocks, in case they tumbled down the mountain side and alerted the Templars guarding the bridge. It was delicate work, but the sun would be setting behind him and therefore in the eyes of any watchers below, and Ezio was grateful for its protection. He’d be down before it set.
At last he reached the security and concealment of a large outcrop on level ground not fifty yards from the west side of the bridge. It had grown colder and the wind was getting up. The bridge – of black tarred rope, with narrow wooden slats as its walkway – swung and rattled. As Ezio watched, two guards emerged from the post and walked a little way to and fro on their side, but did not venture onto the bridge itself. They were armed with crossbows and swords.
The light was dull and flat now, it was difficult to judge distances. But the lessening lig
ht was to Ezio’s advantage, and he blended in easily with his surroundings. Like a shadow, crouching, he made his way closer to the bridge, but there would be no cover once he was on it, and he was unarmed.
He paused once more about ten feet away, watching the guards. They looked cold and bored, Ezio noted to his satisfaction – they would not be alert. Nothing else had changed, except that someone had lit a lamp within the post, so he knew there were more than two of them.
He needed some kind of weapon. On the climb down and on this final approach he had been too preoccupied with not giving his position away to look for something, but he hadn’t forgotten that the mountain stone was flint, and there were plenty of loose shards at his feet. They glinted black in the dying light. He selected one, a blade-like flake about twelve inches long and two wide. He picked it up and in doing so was too hasty, causing other stones to clatter. He froze. But there was no reaction. The bridge was thirty yards across. He could easily be halfway before the guards noticed him. But he’d have to make a move now. He braced himself, stood up and hurled himself forward.
It wasn’t easy going once he was on the bridge. It swayed and creaked alarmingly in the now savage wind, and he had to grab its guide ropes to retain his balance. All that cost time. And the guards had seen him. They shouted challenges, which gained him a second or two, but seeing him come on, they unslung their bows, fitted bolts, and fired. As they did so, five more guards, bows already primed, came rushing out of the post.
The bad light affected their aim but it was close enough, and Ezio had to duck and dodge. At one point in the middle of the bridge an old plank snapped under him and his foot caught, but he managed to pull it free before his leg sank through the gap – then he would have been done for. As it was, he was lucky to be able to avoid more than a grazing shot as a bolt caressed his neck, ripping through the back of his hood. He could feel its heat on his skin.
They’d stopped firing now and were doing something else. Ezio strained to see.
Assassin’s Creed® Page 107