The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “Sound the damn horn,” Tycho said.

  Lady Giulietta wiped her lips and blew a thin note like a child’s bugle. The note was stronger the second time. Lowering the horn, she waited expectantly. The entire cathedral blazed, flames billowing through ruptured windows and blown-out doors. Burning domes gave the building a devil’s crown of fire. The sides of the valley were molten red. Yet this was a cathedral; it was like watching what was once part of heaven be destroyed by the fires of hell.

  “Three times,” Frederick insisted. “Try again.”

  Hurriedly, she raised the battered hunting horn. Her third call rang high and clear and was loud enough to still the battle for a second. That is, the domovoi stopped killing Venetians and renegades for the briefest of moments; both sides having huddled together to face the more brutal enemy.

  “T-there . . .” Marco”s face was exultant in the firelight.

  Out of the Red Cathedral’s burning doorway rode a knight in armour so old it belonged on the slab of an ancient tomb. Embers exploded beneath his horse’s hooves, smoke rose from his shoulders, the paladin’s tattered cloak wore the flames he had ridden through. Behind him rode others.

  Giulietta crossed herself.

  “S-so b-beautiful,” Marco whispered.

  The paladins swept on to the ice to hit the domovoi from the rear, clearing a path with their swords. They rode down Marco’s and Alonzo’s men alike as they turned and charged again, hacking ferociously and leaving domovoi broken behind them. Their horses were heavily armoured, the metal points of their toes turned down in exaggerated spikes. Marco was smiling as if visited by angels.

  Captain Weimer came hurrying up with a question.

  Marco shook his head. “T-they are the p-paladins. Who would d-dare offer them aid?” The fighting was spectacular in its fury. The paladins were remorseless and brutal and their enemy driven to fight by some instinct that didn’t allow retreat or surrender . . . The paladins killed and the domovoi died, and the inner circle of ice that had been the domovoi’s killing ground became their cage. And the spearmen and the knights, the renegade Crucifers and the wild archers, all those mortals who thought the world belonged to them, scrambled out of the way when the fighting came too close, and watched it happen. Slowly, surely, the paladins halved the number of domovoi and then halved it again.

  When it came, the end was unexpected. A domovoi jumped for a paladin, missed its leap and impaled itself on his horse’s spiked faceplate. The creature was carried a dozen paces still hacking with its stolen sword until the paladin beheaded it, twisted half out of his saddle and kicked it free with curved steel toes. Tycho was the only one to see it happen.

  As the paladin began to settle back another domovoi leapt for him and the impact was enough to knock the paladin from his saddle. He landed with a crash that was followed by an echoing boom like the cry of some monster. “What was that?” Giulietta demanded.

  Tycho already knew. It was the sound Bjornvin’s lakes made at the end of winter when the ice cracked. It seemed the wild archers recognised it, too. A handful began heading for Marco and the barrel bridge behind him.

  “Protect the duke,” Captain Weimer shouted.

  “P-protect Lady G-Giulietta.” Marco’s counter-order was firm. He loosened the handle of his sword and turned his mount towards the wild archers, and then he looked back at his men. “Ready?”

  “Where are you going?”

  Marco looked at Lady Giulietta. “To k-kill Alonzo, obviously.”

  “Your highness,” Tycho said. “Wait.”

  “For w-what?”

  For the prickling in the back of my neck to turn into something solid, for what is happening to finish . . . A dozen paladins faced two hundred domovoi who’d found their purpose and moved as one as they crowded the paladins’ horses, sacrificing themselves beneath thrashing hooves to slow the beasts. The paladins still fought furiously but they were driven back towards the island by weight of numbers.

  “Why d-don’t the p-paladins attack again?”

  “They’re trying, highness. Look.”

  Domovoi hung from their arms, rendering their weapons useless. Those stabbed with daggers grabbed their attackers’ wrists, blades still inside them to stop the paladins from stabbing others. In humans it would have been heroic, in domovoi it was terrifying. Throwing itself under a horse’s hooves, a domovoi was crushed as the animal fell, throwing its rider on to ice that cracked loudly. Horse and armoured rider fell through and Tycho realised in horror that the heat from the flames had rotted the ice at the island’s edge. Ice cracked again and another paladin followed, taking the domovoi that swarmed over him. His mount flailed desperately, trying to clamber free until webbed fingers and the weight of its own armour dragged it under.

  “W-we should h-help them.”

  Tycho grabbed Marco to stop him spurring his horse. A dozen courtiers dropped their hands to their swords, and Marco scowled.

  “D-don’t be f-fools. H-he’ll kill the lot of you.”

  Tycho let Marco’s arm go.

  “C-can’t you h-help them?”

  “Not without abandoning you, and my place is here.”

  “At m-my cousin’s side?”

  “At your side. At Leo’s side. Yes, at hers, too.”

  Prince Frederick looked offended on Lady Giulietta’s behalf. At the island’s edge another paladin toppled and then another. They struggled furiously, no longer battling, simply struggling to fight free.

  One of Alonzo’s captains kept staring over and Tycho wondered if he intended to attack Marco. But then he recognised Towler, who waited until Prince Frederick noticed him, and then Towler turned, snapped out an order and together his company charged the domovoi. Before they did, Towler raised his sword in ironic salute.

  “F-friend?” Marco asked.

  “One of my father’s men.”

  “Your f-father has spies in m-my uncle’s c-camp?”

  “Of course. Just as you and your uncle have spies in his.”

  Inspired by Captain Towler’s charge spearmen from Alonzo’s and Marco’s troops turned on the remaining domovoi. But it was too late to save the paladins, who continued to fall through the ice, taking domovoi with them.

  Marco said, “I c-can’t believe I’m seeing this. The d-death of a l-legend . . .”

  “They won’t die,” Tycho said. He wasn’t sure how he knew and had no intention of getting into a discussion about death, knights sleeping under hills and those who entered this world through rings of fire. But the paladins had died to a man at Roncesvalles. Yet here they were again.

  A bit like him really.

  44

  Marco turned from the battle before the last of paladins died, or whatever happened after they fell through the ice. He decided not to gather his spearmen together or order a coordinated withdrawal. The last thing he did before riding for his camp on the lake’s edge was order the destruction of the barrel bridge. This trapped his troops with Alonzo’s own inside the moat.

  He had a right to that decision.

  “S-so,” Marco said later. “Why d-did I do t-that?”

  He was talking to Lady Giulietta, who’d been looking back at the burning cathedral as they rode through the ruined village and headed up the valley side on the road that led to the pass over the mountains.

  She shrugged.

  “G-Giulietta?”

  “Because you’re a c-c-coward?”

  One of Marco’s courtiers gasped and Marco grinned. “Fair g-guess,” he said. “But w-wrong. T-try again.”

  Head down to watch her mare pick a way across a rocky fall that littered the road with scree, Giulietta thought about Marco’s question as Tycho watched from where he rode slightly behind. Frederick rode ahead. Only two horses could ride abreast on the narrow road and Marco had claimed the space beside her. Behind Marco came his knights, what remained of Frederick’s krieghund and those who’d been guarding the lakeside camp.

  “W-well?” Marco deman
ded.

  “Don’t try to turn your cowardice into a guessing game.”

  “Those c-creatures are d-dead, the p-paladins are g-gone . . . The thin ice in the m-moat will soon be h-hard enough for people to w-walk. But, m-most importantly, Alonzo won’t attack the m-men we left. Not n-now.”

  “What?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “He’ll l-look for m-me and d-discover I’m gone. He won’t r-risk his remaining t-troops in a b-battle for no reason. He’s too g-good a soldier.”

  “He’s going to come after us?”

  “Of c-course h-he’s going to c-come after us. What d-do you expect?” Marco sounded almost happy about it. Either that, or he hoped to steady those around him. His knights had to know how desperate things were. The ex-Regent might spare what was left of the archers and spearmen. The flipside of that coin was that the Nicoletti and Castellani who made up most of those forces would feel no duty to attack him. Leaving him free to track Marco if that was what he wanted.

  Tycho nudged his mount slightly forward.

  “You t-think w-we should h-hurry?”

  “Yes, highness.”

  “You’re p-probably right.”

  They rode until dawn, higher and higher. The air thinned, and the wind rose when they climbed above the treeline, their horses steaming with sweat as the beasts fought for each step. Far below, the cathedral burnt bright enough to redden the mountainsides until the coming day paled the effect to elegant pink.

  “C-cover yourself,” Marco ordered Tycho.

  “Highness, leave me here.”

  Instead the duke ordered that Tycho be tied to his own saddle and hidden by horse blankets until his soul returned. “You d-don’t sleep,” he said. “N-not like we d-do. You abandon your b-body. W-well, so I’m t-told.”

  Giulietta blushed.

  Frederick just looked hurt.

  When he woke, Tycho knew instantly something was wrong. His group was too quiet, the atmosphere too strained. He shook his head free from the horse blanket covering him and found his wrists lashed beneath his mount’s neck and the animal led by Marco himself. “Shush . . .” Marco whispered.

  Leaning across, the duke pulled at a knot and Tycho’s hands came free. He reached back to check his sword was loose in its scabbard. Frederick looked tight-faced, his followers watchful. Captain Weimer pale but resolute. Giulietta’s thumb was in Leo’s mouth to keep him quiet. She looked terrified.

  “Alonzo . . .?”

  Marco raised a finger to his lips.

  Fire flamed the mountain ridge behind him and Tycho realised he’d woken to the very last of the daylight. The peaks burnt so bright he turned back to the track and had to close his eyes. There were riders on the mountain below them. Their mounts stumbled on the rocks and steamed with exhaustion, but they kept coming. Perhaps twice as many men as in Marco’s party. With Frederick’s krieghund and Captain Weimer’s troops they should be able to set an ambush. Tycho wondered what the other problem was.

  Frederick pointed to the cliff above.

  Shadows flickered along the moonlit top, fleeting and mostly visible out of the corner of his eye. They were swift and silent and kept easy pace with those using the treacherous track below. The clear sky and almost full moon made Marco’s party easier to see. Dropping back, Tycho found Captain Weimer. “How long?”

  “Less than an hour, my lord. I thought it an ambush, but . . .”

  Whoever held the high ground, they were fresh enough to move at speed, and they could stop or slow Marco’s progress enough to let Alonzo catch up if that was their aim. They had done neither. “Bandits?”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  “Can we outrun Alonzo?”

  “Not without abandoning those on foot.”

  “Then do it,” said Tycho, shocked the captain hadn’t done so already. The infantry could make a stand and hold Alonzo back long enough for Marco and Giulietta to ride ahead and find safety.

  “The duke forbids it.”

  “Of course he does. Bloody idiot.”

  Marco turned and smiled, almost as if he knew he was the subject of their whispered discussion.

  “Then we must all make a stand.”

  Captain Weimer nodded. “My thoughts. Unfortunately, it’s not my choice.”

  “Have you suggested it?”

  The captain looked at him strangely. “I’ve been doing so all day. His highness said no decision could be made until you woke. Well, you’re awake, so perhaps you should go talk to him . . .” The man turned away, lost in his crossness at nobles and aristocrats who refused to fight wars properly.

  They had nine horses, four knights, two princes, a future duchess of Venice if she lived that long, an infant of less than eighteen months, nine krieghund sworn to defend the infant to the death, ten light infantry, Captain Weimer, who made up for in experience what he lacked in numbers, and Tycho.

  He could become a demon. He could become an angel.

  In recent years, in the middle of battle, he had become both. But here and now, watching the cliff top and worrying about the prickling at the back of his neck, with Giulietta and Marco having a hissed argument, he felt only sad it had come to this. When Frederick fell back, looking nervous, Tycho simply nodded . . .

  “What are our chances?”

  “Bleak. Unless you have a brilliant idea?”

  “You’re meant to be the strategist, the man who pulls victory from defeat and work miracles . . .”

  I am? “Not me,” Tycho said. He doubted he was a man at all.

  “Who will win that?” Frederick meant the other battle, the one being fought up ahead in furious whispers between Duke Marco and Lady Giulietta as they hurried their mounts forward.

  “Marco, obviously. He has less to lose.”

  “His life? His dukedom?”

  “Giulietta has Leo. Her own life and you . . .” Tycho had to grab Frederick’s bridle to keep him moving. The look in the princeling’s eyes was unreadable as he stared at the couple riding in front of them. Leaving Frederick to his thoughts, Tycho edged his horse forward. There was barely room for two animals to ride abreast and he had to nudge Marco’s horse before the duke noticed him.

  “Well,” Tycho whispered. “Is it decided?”

  “You stay out of this,” Giulietta hissed.

  “It’s d-decided,” Marco said. “My c-cousin and Leo will t-take the horses and ride ahead. We will stay h-here to buy them t-time. If we g-get lucky and k-kill Alonzo . . .” He shrugged. “Well, we’ll just h-have to catch them up.”

  Lady Giulietta opened her mouth to object.

  “It’s d-decided.”

  “You’re the duke,” she said.

  “And you’re the n-next d-duchess.”

  “That’s just a label,” she said furiously. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Marco smiled at her. “S-see,” he said. “You’re learning. You could even r-reintroduce your b-beloved republic if you w-want to cause r-real chaos. Now let us d-dismount and you can t-take two of the knights, and all the horses. With replacements you c-can d-definitely outride h-him. We’ll m-make s-sure of it.”

  “Frederick should go with her,” Tycho said.

  They both turned round to look at him.

  “I’d t-thought of s-sending you.”

  “Frederick and the krieghund,” Tycho said firmly. “They will die to protect her, and even if they wouldn’t, they’d die to protect Leo.”

  “S-so would y-you.”

  “There are more of them.”

  Marco looked at him sadly. “You’ve d-decided t-then?”

  “Don’t worry,” Tycho told Giulietta. “We’ll deal with Alonzo and catch you up afterwards. Wait for us at Castelnuovo.” He named the port where they’d landed. The one the locals called Sveti Stefan.

  “Tycho . . .”

  “If I may . . .?” Tycho said.

  Marco edged his horse forward to let Tycho take his place alongside Giulietta. Reaching across, Tycho took he
r hand and she closed her mailed fingers on his. She’s changed and so have you . . . I can do this, Tycho told himself. I can say goodbye well enough to let her ride away.

  Giulietta had tears in her eyes.

  Tycho felt his own spill over and tightened his fingers, not trusting himself to speak. When he looked up, Giulietta was staring at him.

  “I didn’t know you could cry.”

  Tycho let go her hand and reined in his mount, falling back until he was next to Frederick. “You’re to go with Giulietta,” he told the princeling.

  “I’ll stay and fight . . .”

  “Those are Marco’s orders. You take the krieghund and the horses and ride for the coast as fast as you can. We do everything we can to buy Giulietta and her son time.”

  “This is suicide.” Frederick looked to where Lady Giulietta sat stiff-backed next to her cousin. “Does she realise you’ll all die?”

  “I’ve told her we’ll meet at Sveti Stefan.”

  “And she believed you?”

  Personally, Tycho doubted it.

  45

  “Y-you could h-have gone with h-her . . .”

  “No, highness, I couldn’t.”

  Marco sighed and glanced up the track towards the pass through which Lady Giulietta, her son and the krieghund had vanished. The cliff rose high on one side of the track and dropped into a ravine on the other. It was just wide enough for six spearmen to block the way. Those behind could stab and slice, and provide weight for the shield wall in front.

  Although Marco’s remaining knights had the best armour, without mounts to carry them they were near useless and were already shedding what plate they could. It was the infantry who would meet Alonzo’s charge. Marco had chosen the battlefield carefully. About twelve paces down the track was a tight bend round a rocky spur. This, Marco announced, was to prevent Alonzo from being able to charge at speed.

  It would take two days for Giulietta to reach the coast, possibly three . . . The longer they could hold Alonzo the better chance she’d have. They had the kink in the road and the narrowness of the path on their side. Prince Alonzo had greater numbers and cavalry on his. “W-what are you t-thinking?”