But despite that training, Aguilar’s heart sped up as he gazed for the first time upon the man who was his parents’ killer. He forced himself to call upon his learned discipline and, as his Mentor had ordered, to remember the mission.
The boy—and, through him, recovery of the Apple of Eden—was what mattered. Was all that mattered. Indeed, if by some stroke of luck Ramirez failed to discover that this forgotten, simple village was the hiding place of the sultan’s precious heir, the Assassins would not engage him or his men. Aguilar would be forced to watch, unable to lift a finger, let alone a blade, as the hated Templars rode off in safety.
Such, of course, would be the perfect outcome. Ahmed would be safe, and the Apple would be safe, and no Assassin would lose their life today.
But despite this knowledge, Aguilar found himself wishing it were otherwise.
That less-than-noble wish was granted a moment later when there came a shout from inside the house, and one of the soldiers emerged.
“We found him,” the soldier announced to the still, massive knight. Ojeda nodded and dismounted with a grace surprising in a man so large.
Aguilar wondered who had betrayed them. He would likely never know. It did not matter. Someone had, out of fear or greed, and now it was the Assassins’ task to recover the young Prince Ahmed.
Somehow.
Ojeda strode among the frightened villagers like a lion among goats, his narrow-eyed gaze flickering over them. He settled on one of them, seized the woman by her headscarf and wrenched it hard, bringing her to her knees.
“Which family harbored the boy?” he demanded.
Aguilar could see the fear and pain in her eyes, but the woman refused to answer. Ojeda frowned, twisting his big hand more tightly. The woman hissed.
“I alone,” came a voice as one man stepped forward.
It was Diego, who had long been a friend to the Brotherhood. Benedicto had come to him asking for help to hide the young prince, and Diego had bravely agreed. Like the women Ojeda was tormenting, Diego was afraid—any sane person would be—but he held his head high.
Aguilar was well aware that all Diego needed to do in order to have his life spared—and indeed, perhaps even gain riches as a reward—would be to point at any of the hooded figures in the crowd and shout a single word: “Assassins!” But he did not.
Threading his way through the crowd, Aguilar noticed the fleeting look that passed between Diego and the woman. Brief though it was, Ojeda saw it, too. With a grunt the black knight twisted the woman’s hair once more before hurling her down to the dust. He turned to regard the man who had stepped forward, over whom he towered by at least a foot.
“Nobody else knew he was there,” Diego continued.
Ojeda looked him up and down, then nodded to his generals. “I admire your bravery. For this, I will spare your life.”
The man released a breath he likely hadn’t been aware he had been holding. Ojeda’s lips twitched slightly in what might have been a smile as he added, “Hang his family and make him watch. Burn the whole village. The women first. They reek of pig shit and sin.”
And the Templars dare say they are on the side of the angels, Aguilar thought, white-hot rage spurting through him. He forced it away; forced himself to keep moving casually instead of launching himself upon the hated, brutal enemy.
Even now, Diego remained silent, not betraying the Brotherhood. He understood what was at stake, and he knew that while the Assassins yet lived, he and his family still had a chance at survival. Templar soldiers dragged both Diego and the woman—his wife—away.
Aguilar kept his head low, the heavy rust-colored hood shadowing his face. Everything in him cried out to change his position, to thread his way toward Ojeda, so that he could claim the kill. But Fate would have it that he was closer to another target, and Benedicto even now was subtly moving behind the black knight.
Resigned, Aguilar maneuvered his way toward the edge of the crowd and slipped around to the back of the single-story building that had housed the prince, climbing swiftly to the roof and flattening himself against it.
No one noticed. The townspeople were being manhandled to the ground while their prince was hauled forth by a pair of soldiers. Ramirez followed them outside, looking triumphant. He watched, gloating, as the soldiers dragged the child across the dusty earth to a cart in which sat the cage. Roughly, they opened the barred metal door and shoved Ahmed inside.
“Behold the prince of Granada!” shouted Ramirez, his voice dripping scorn. “His father the sultan will surrender his rebellious city—the last safe haven for the infidels! God will punish His people’s heresy. Finally, Spain will be under one Templar rule.”
The Assassins permitted him half a moment to gloat. Then, as coordinated and precise as if they had choreographed every move, they attacked.
Aguilar sprang from the roof, his hidden blades at the ready. Ramirez saw the Assassin’s shadow and turned, too late to draw a weapon, but not too late to stare into Aguilar’s eyes as the slender metal pierced his throat.
***
Cal stared at his hand, seeing the blade activated, lean and lethal beneath the five digits—no, there were four, he had only four on his right hand, the ritual—
“Stay with the memory, Cal.”
***
Aguilar closed the dead man’s eyes, and rose.
“Assassins!”
The cry went up, and all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER 6
Aguilar’s brothers and sisters had sprung into action the moment they saw him leap.
As Aguilar had observed seconds earlier, Benedicto had positioned himself to stand directly behind Ojeda. Somehow, impossibly, the knight seemed to sense the Assassin’s presence. Just as Benedicto’s axe descended in a blow that surely would have decapitated Ojeda, the Templar ducked and whirled with startling speed.
A grapefruit-sized fist came up, landing squarely in Benedicto’s face. The second blow in rapid succession knocked the Assassin mentor to the dusty earth.
Aguilar suddenly understood that the reassurances from the Brotherhood—their words that, even if he had been present, he still could not have saved his parents—were not idle. Aguilar was no unbloodied novice. He had fought with his brothers before now against skilled, trained men such as the Templar general he had just killed. But Ojeda seemed more like a force of nature than a mortal man.
All this was processed in less time than it took his heart to beat.
Out of the corner of his eye, Aguilar saw one of his brothers pull twin swords from his back, smoothly lopping off a Templar soldier’s head between their razor-sharp edges. It bounced to the dusty earth, the eyes open and staring in a final expression of surprise.
Another slit a throat from behind. A third snapped a neck.
Still another kicked a soldier to his knees and finished him off with a powerful step to the throat.
But it was Maria who remembered Benedicto’s instructions—“Our mission is the boy.” While the rest of the Assassins—including Aguilar, who was now being attacked on two sides—were busy taking down the soldiers, she had headed straight for the cart that bore a young prince in a cage.
Each Assassin’s blades were unique. Maria had adjusted the mechanism on one of her gauntlets to enable her to fire her blade as a projectile weapon, turning it into a throwing knife. Her other blade, Aguilar knew, was twin-pronged.
Now, she flicked her left wrist and plunged the two sharp metal points into the belly of the lone red-cloaked Templar soldier standing beside the cart. As he doubled over, Maria snatched the man’s own spear, sprang back, whirled it around, and drew the spear’s point along the soldier’s neck.
He crumpled to the dusty earth. She jumped easily into the seat, slapped the reins sharply across the horses’ broad backs, and they obligingly sprang into motion.
Aguilar caught this only fleetingly. He was busy taking down those who might follow her. He punched one red-cloak, who stumbled backward, whirled to s
lice the throat of another charging soldier behind him, then completed a full circle to seize the red-cloak’s head and slam it into the dusty, hard-packed earth.
He looked up for a moment, catching his breath, his eyes on the biggest threat present—Ojeda. The man was not only massive and a cunning warrior, he was intelligent. That was why the Mentor, Benedicto, had selected Ojeda as his own target.
But all of the Mentor’s skill, experience, and usually unerring sense of timing had, in the end, proved futile. Three soldiers were now struggling to subdue a fiercely resisting Benedicto.
Aguilar’s heart sank, but his grief was replaced by implacable fury.
It should have been me. Benedicto was not fueled by hate, as I am. I would have taken him.
“Aguilar!” Benedicto was screaming, silenced momentarily by a fierce kick to his abdomen.
As Aguilar began to move toward Ojeda, the big man’s head whipped around.
He had seen Maria absconding with the prince.
More quickly than a man of his size should be able to move, Ojeda took off for the second wagon the soldiers had brought with them, leaped onto it, and made his way to the front, where he threw one of his own men to the earth and took his place.
“Aguilar!” Benedicto’s voice somehow carried over the screams and clash of weapons. “The boy! The boy!”
Aguilar gritted his teeth. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to go after Ojeda. The odds against the Assassins were not good. He was well aware that he might die today. And if he did, he wanted to do so in combat against this monster who had murdered his family, would have murdered everyone in this entire village for their hubris in daring to stand up against the Templars.
Instead, he obeyed his Mentor, changing course in mid-stride toward a mounted red-cloak. He grabbed the skittish horse’s reins with one hand and hauled the rider off with the other, flinging himself into the saddle and kicking the beast hard.
Strong, swift, and obedient, the beast hurled itself forward like an arrow shot from a bow. Others of the brethren had also heard their Mentor’s order. One by one, they finished off their current adversaries—or fell trying—and took off after the fleeing wagon.
But the Templars, too, had noticed Maria’s flight, and were riding as if all the demons of hell were after them.
Ojeda was already closing in, pulling his wagon alongside Maria’s. The Assassin favored him with a quick, scornful glance, slapping the reins and crying out to her team to move faster. But it was another Templar soldier who pulled his horse up close to the back of the wagon and leaped from his mount, clinging to the bars of the prince’s cage.
Aguilar urged his mount on faster, crouching low over its neck. Maria herself reached the Templar in time. He watched, pleased but not surprised at her skill, as within the space of a heartbeat she had jumped from her seat at the front of the wagon, propelled herself off the rock wall of the gorge, and landed smoothly in the wagon’s bed, directly behind her enemy.
Startled, the Templar was slow to draw his sword. It cost him. Maria kicked him in the midsection once, forcing him to drop the weapon, and then once more. He toppled off the wagon to the rocky earth below, but not before Maria had seized his sword.
A second soldier climbed up, ready to resume where his fellow had left off. Maria had brought the sharpened steel of the first Templar’s sword across in a wide sweep.
But this one was not as easily taken unawares as the first. He ducked the blow, coming up at her with a foot-long dagger. She danced away, almost effortlessly, whirling like a dervish, and slammed her elbow into his face. Another turn, and her booted foot crushed his throat. He stumbled, gasping, and fell off the wagon.
A third man was galloping up on a horse, but Maria snatched up a crossbow and fired a bolt into the soldier’s chest. He, as the other two had done, fell and struck the ground hard. Quickly, Maria sprang atop the cage and scrambled back into the driver’s seat, snapping the reins again.
The entire incident had taken a little over a single minute.
Many had joined in the chase on both sides, and the flat road was becoming crowded. Aguilar kneed his horse, urging it to veer to the right, up onto a rockier pathway where he could give the beast its head and pass the Assassins and Templars clogging the path. Ojeda was closing in on Maria and the young prisoner, but Aguilar was closing in on Ojeda.
He kicked the horse, asking just a bit more from it, then, moving swiftly but with exacting precision, stood on his mount’s saddle. The extra height of riding along the bank had given him a distinct advantage in achieving his goal.
He balanced for the briefest of instants, timing it just right, and then leaped from the galloping, frothing animal to the bed of Ojeda’s wagon. It was not the most graceful of landings, but Aguilar made it, striking the wooden planking hard.
He knew his landing would alert the driver, and even as he got to his feet, Ojeda was climbing over to face him.
For the first time, Aguilar de Nerha was able to look his parents’ killer in the face. He was surprised to see that Ojeda had odd-colored eyes—one dark brown, the other a pale, unnatural blue—with a scar that ran from above the brow to down across the cheekbone. But both eyes revealed a cold and cruel nature.
A faint glimmer of recognition flickered in Ojeda’s eyes, quickly dismissed. Aguilar understood. He knew his strong jaw was exactly like his father’s, and his mother had often commented that her son had her eyes.
Do you see them in me, Ojeda? Do you feel a prickle, as if perhaps you are gazing at ghost?
The two men stood for a heartbeat, eyeing one another, and then, with a guttural cry, Ojeda lunged.
He carried a small but sharp axe, and swung it down, throwing all the strength of his powerful body into the blow. Aguilar’s arm came up barely in time, slamming into Ojeda’s and knocking the axe from the bigger man’s grasp. It went flying. Ojeda didn’t waste a second, pummeling Aguilar with such vigor and violence that the Assassin was hard-pressed to even counter, let alone spare a precious instant to activate his hidden blades.
More Templar soldiers were catching up to Maria. At one point, Aguilar lost sight of her. Fear that she had been cast down to be trampled beneath the thundering hooves of the horses stabbed him, but he could not let it affect him, not now, not when Ojeda—
Suddenly the cart lurched violently as it struck a great stone in the road. It was never meant to be driven at such speeds across such rough terrain, and now it had lost the battle. There came an enormous splintering sound and the terrifying, unforgettable scream of horses in agony as the wheel came off and the wagon collapsed, threatening to topple forward. The motion hurled both combatants forward. Aguilar used the momentum to launch himself toward Maria’s wagon—
***
—the massive mechanical arm abruptly lifted Cal, letting him dangle in the air, only to shove him down hard on the unforgiving stone floor—
***
—and he barely missed colliding with the sharp metal corners of Prince Ahmed’s cage, landing flat on the wooden bed of the wagon with a grunt.
Aguilar heard the continued sounds of wood groaning and snapping, followed by a smashing sound that told him that the wagon from which he’d just leaped would now be nothing but splinters. He hoped Ojeda was, too; lying bleeding in the road, life ebbing with every breath.
It was a good image. The only grief he felt was for the beautiful, proud horses.
Aguilar’s attention was now on what was happening in the front of the wagon, where Maria definitely was not. It appeared as though she had somehow fallen between the rear pair of horses pulling the wagon.
He knew she yet lived, for the Templar soldier was making outraged noises as, oblivious to the Assassin in the wagon behind him, he stabbed down furiously with his sword.
There was no time for Aguilar to climb over the cage. In one swift motion, Aguilar seized the dagger at his hip, aimed, and sent it hurtling through the air, directly over the head of the startled young priso
ner. It struck none of the bars, instead embedding itself precisely as Aguilar had intended—in the throat of the Templar, who tumbled helplessly off the seat, now nothing more dangerous than another obstacle in the road.
Aguilar got to his feet and gazed ahead, over the top of the cage. Fresh urgency spurted through his veins as he realized that Maria and her would-be killer had been so intent upon one another, no one had been steering the cart. The horses had simply kept galloping, panicked by the violence and the smell of blood, and they were going to keep galloping—right off a cliff and into the massive gorge that loomed ahead.
It was too late to seize the reins and pull the terrified creatures sharply to the left, back onto the road. Aguilar looked down into the wide, frightened eyes of the boy prince, who had not yielded to his terror despite his ordeal.
Even as Aguilar’s blade extended and he began to pick the lock with its tip, his heart swelled as he heard a beloved voice from the front of the wagon shouting “Aguilar! The boy!”
Her voice heartened Aguilar. He yanked the door open and hauled forth the prince, who was already reaching out to him. The Assassin knew he shouldn’t have been able to. The horses should have already been over the cliff by now. He realized that, somehow, they had made that left turn, veering and thundering to safety—but the wagon was still speeding toward absolute certain destruction.
And he and Ahmed were still in it.
The wagon’s wheels devoured earth no longer, and it hurtled forward—and down.
At last, at the end, the prince cried out. But even so, he clung to Aguilar with fingers of steel as the Assassin raised an arm. Instead of a hidden blade shooting forth, a grappling bolt soared out, embedding itself securely as the rope attached to it snapped taut.
Ahmed slipped.
Faster than a snake striking, Aguilar’s hand shot out and closed around Ahmed’s wrist. The pair swung wildly in mid-air as the motion of their arc brought them around to strike the side of the gorge with teeth-rattling force.
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