The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini (34 page)

Enough creatures returned for their funeral pyres to lick the sides of the onion domes. And though Alonzo’s men had been doing their best to douse the arrows that flamed against the cathedral walls they could do little about the steep roof; too many fire arrows now jutted from the walls for them all to be smothered.

It was a slow and bloody business. Marco was getting his wish, however. Fire ate at the Red Cathedral and arrows flamed from too many places for the building to survive. The wood was old and still dry from last summer, the falls of snow having spared the walls the drenching rains would have brought. Black wings returned in flames to a roof that was already ablaze. New creatures that popped into existence found themselves burning before they could find their wings.

Around her, knights settled back to watch, while sergeants arranged their men in tighter rows and counted the dead, of which there were dozens.
Hundreds
, Giulietta corrected herself.
Maybe a thousand.
What she could see would be repeated all round the island. The archers stood in ragged groups, checking their bows and finding their breath. Boys ran the barrel bridge fetching arrows. The biggest of the carts had been deemed too heavy to cross. Up among the onion domes of the cathedral the screaming was savage, not even animal in any sense she understood. Marco’s zoo back home held every animal in the world, and had even included a unicorn when she was young, but she’d seen nothing like these. “What are they?”

“N-no idea. B-but I want one to examine a-afterwards.”

Lady Giulietta decided to be happy Marco thought there would be an afterwards . . . She looked at the darkening sky and wondered if the battle would last all night. Mostly she wondered why her uncle skulked in his cathedral rather than coming out to fight. The fact worried her. He was a famous strategist; if he decided to stay inside skulking then he had his reasons. Maybe Marco was wrong about there being an afterwards. Giulietta bit her lip.

“C-come on,” Marco said, “t-tell me.”

“It doesn”t matter . . .”

“F-Frederick’s over there s-seeing to his m-men.”

“It’s not that.” She knew where Frederick was. He’d resumed his human form and was delivering comfort and the
coup de grâce
to those of his followers too wounded to save. He slid the blade between their ribs himself; you couldn’t say that for many princes.

“Tycho, then. You’re w-worried about Tycho.”

Her cousin was wrong, she hadn’t thought about him from the moment the first fire arrow was loosed until now. Maybe that itself was worrying? She should have been wondering where he was, except she knew: under an awning back at the camp and an hour from waking, to judge from the sky. It shocked her how readily she’d come to accept his world was the reverse of hers.

His day, her night. Her night, his day.

Above her, the darkening sky was empty. No clouds, no birds, no raggedy winged creatures trying to kill her. There were broken bodies on the ice. Castellani and Nicoletti were working together to collect the corpses of their friends. The companies of archers were now being reformed into smaller companies made of strangers from companies that had been destroyed.

Lady Giulietta could smell her own shit, feel it under her. Her bowels had voided completely and her guts were hollow. This was war. Dead bodies in ugly piles, and imploring men with their intestines on the ice before them. A soldier crouched, head in hands, quietly shaking. She wanted to cry.

“N-not now,” Marco said.

The great doors of the cathedral were shifting. Vast and old and carved when this was a sacred site and long before it was corrupted and turned and finally claimed by the Red Crucifers, the doors swung back to reveal darkness.

Only a nave behind
, Giulietta reminded herself.

For a second there was total silence and only the threat of the open doors, with every member of Marco’s army on this side of the island frozen, and those on the ice inside the moat on the far side stilled by the rest’s silence.

“H-here they c-come,” Marco shouted.

Frederick appeared beside Giulietta’s bridle with a dozen of his
krieghund
behind him. All were stripped to the waist, barefoot and clutching weapons. They obviously had orders to protect her. Alonzo’s banner came first. He had a duke’s coronet above his arms. A ducal crown topped the pole from which his banner flew. A white flag below it indicated he wanted to parlay.

“What do we do?” Giulietta asked.

“We t-talk,” Marco said. “We h-have no choice.” The rules of treaty were strict and Venice would be damned in the mouths of ten thousand strangers if they were ignored. “You’ll r-ride with m-me?”

“Me?” Giulietta asked.

“Of course,” said Marco. Frederick stepped closer and it was obvious he wanted to be included. “And the emperor’s favoured s-son.”

“His only son,” Frederick said.

“The only one h-he acknowledges, c-certainly.”

An emperor’s bastard was still impressive
, Giulietta thought. As Frederick’s bloodstained hands reached for her bridle, and her mount tried to shy but couldn’t match the strength in Frederick’s arms, she saw him watching her. His eyes golden and fiercely intelligent within a not-quite human face.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said.

“Alexa’s idiot, Alexa’s echo and Sigismund’s attack dog . . .”

“Y-you called us h-here t-to insult us?”

Alonzo grinned. His beard was oiled and his cloak edged at the bottom with a band of imperial purple to which he had no right. The coat of arms on his shield matched Marco’s own. Any herald would have known both men claimed the throne. “Why are
you
here then?

“H-here p-parlaying? Or do you m-mean
h-here
?” Marco swept an arc with his hand that embraced the lake and the mountains, and by extension everything and everyone in it . . . “In this g-garden of d-delights, this p-paradise?”

Alonzo sighed.

“I’m h-here to k-kill you, obviously,” Marco said.

Alonzo’s bark of laughter was fierce.

“I’m p-parlaying b-because those are the r-rules. Y-you can g-get away w-with anything if you’re s-seen to obey the r-rules . . . Trying to m-murder your n-nephew, f-fucking your b-brother’s wife, b-betraying your family . . .”

His uncle’s face tightened.

Marco’s stammer was worse than Giulietta remembered it being in weeks and she wondered if he was pretending or if the broad-shouldered man in front of him really did make him that nervous.

“This is my offer,” Alonzo said. “Withdraw, abdicate and accept exile and I’ll let you live. Let her live, too,” he said, pointing at Giulietta. “Even your pet dog if you want to include him in the deal. But you return my son.”

“Y-your c-castle is b-burning . . .”

Alonzo looked at the smouldering walls above him. The cathedral was huge, the bell tower impressive and the hall squat and toad-like, but all were wooden and dangerously dry for all it was winter. “I was bored with it anyway . . .”

“It c-can be your f-funeral pyre.”

“And you’ll never get Leo,” Giulietta said furiously. “You can tell that to the Dolphini milch cow you married.”

Alonzo glared. “She hung herself. I have your white-skinned freak to thank for that.” Giulietta felt his hatred follow her back to their lines. Although, when she turned, her uncle was gone. The great door of the cathedral still stood open and there was movement in the darkness behind.

“N-now,” said Marco. “Now the real battle b-begins.”

They were losing from the first minute. Marco’s infantry might have been enthusiastic, but they were mostly half trained and exhausted from marching from the port where they landed up the valleys and into the mountains. He had archers, but those still alive were exhausted from loosing their fire arrows. He had trained knights, members of his palace guard and enough Nicoletti and Castellani spearmen to give Venice an entirely new generation of widows. He had Frederick’s
krieghund
. He even had the poor bastard villagers whose houses he’d chopped up for firewood.

Alonzo had less. But Alonzo had better.

The Crucifers, renegade or not, had trained in war since childhood, giving up their names and families to follow the sword. He had the other half of the wild tribe of archers Tycho had faced at the fort. He had his reputation as a warlord.

She should have known it was all going too easily. Lady Giulietta had trouble keeping track of how the battle developed, but she knew exactly how it began. Her uncle came charging through the huge double doors, clattered his mount down black rocks on to the marbled ice and beheaded the first
krieghund
to charge him. The
krieghund
leapt for Alonzo, who swung viciously, removing its head before stabbing the next
krieghund
in the chest and riding over it.

The cloak slid from Frederick’s shoulders as flesh ripped, and he dropped to a crouch, racing forward before she could object.

“L-let him g-go,” Marco said.

“Your cousin’s right, my lady . . .”

Turning, she found Tycho at her side. His eyes were huge in the twilight and he kept his face twisted from the last of the sun. He’d called her
my lady
ever since he returned Leo. Why, she wondered, did he find her name so hard to say?

“Where’s your son?”

“Back at the camp.”

“That’s where you should be.”

“Because I’m a woman?” She glared down at him.

“Because if he’s captured all this becomes worthless . . .” Tycho gestured at Marco’s cavalry riding to meet Alonzo’s charge. They clashed so fiercely the noise was deafening. Swords slashed and spike axes split plate, and, as Marco’s knights broke free to regroup, Alonzo’s wild archers rode in from the side, squat bows releasing armour-piercing arrows that dropped half Marco’s men. A second volley disabled more and Alonzo’s knights turned to charge the Venetian spearmen.

One man lost his nerve. He dropped his spear and Alonzo himself swerved into the gap, riding right over him. Two renegade Crucifers followed, killing spearmen either side and widening the gap. The rest of Alonzo’s knights flowed through. The Venetians fought fiercely, hooking their spears into the armour of Alonzo’s knights. A dozen Red Crucifers were gaffed from their wounded horses and died with daggers in their eye slits, daggers between breastplate and hip armour, daggers into the groin. But the wall was broken and one renegade Crucifer after another headed for where they could see fighting.

The wild archers turned their shaggy ponies and charged at Marco’s bowmen, releasing arrow after arrow until the air was thick as rain with shafts. Having ridden straight through, they turned to keep shooting even as they rode away.

“We should help,” Giulietta said.

Marco shook his head. “W-we’d should s-stay h-here. We c-can’t afford to l-lose our advantage.”

She looked around her.
What advantage?

“We g-guard the b-barrel bridge. How else c-can Alonzo l-leave?”

Having ridden through the middle of Marco’s spearmen, Alonzo’s cavalry were fanning out behind to turn and attack the infantry from the rear. The moat cut in the ice off the island’s edge limited everyone’s space. The distance from moat to edge was a hundred and fifty paces, two hundred at most.

“How does anyone know what’s going on?”

“They don’t,” Tycho told her sharply. He bowed to her cousin. “My orders, your highness?”

“Tycho. W-what are t-those?”

“Your highness, my eyes . . .”

Giulietta squinted into the last of the sunlight to see a writhing blackness on the bell tower walls. The bulk of the cathedral was in flames, but the bell tower was freestanding and stood slightly apart. The wall nearest the cathedral would ignite in time but for the moment it just smouldered. “Creatures,” she said. “No wings this time.” As she watched, the blackness thickened.

“The c-cathedral p-protects itself . . .”

When she turned back, Tycho was staring at her. His gaze flicked to Marco and something grim entered his eyes. “You must retreat, highness.”

“Tycho,” Giulietta said.

“They’re domovoi
. . .
House demons.”

“We killed the winged ones.” She couldn’t believe he wanted Marco to run away. God knows, she wanted to run away. But she was a young woman. No one but her thought she should be here anyway. Well, Frederick did . . .

“T-this is b-bad?”

“Very bad, highness.”

Wheeling his horse, Marco grabbed Giulietta’s reins and dragged her after him. After a moment’s shock, Captain Weimer and Marco’s knights followed.

I saw your death . . .
Always, he worked out too late what he should have said.
I saw death in your face and in the skull beneath your skin.
The warnings were rarer now, rarer than when he first found himself in this world, but that one had been too brutal for him to miss.

As Marco and Lady Giulietta rode for the barrel bridge, Tycho jumped on to an overturned cart and stared around him. Renegade Crucifers were still trampling Venetian light infantry, bloody circles showing where knights twisted round, hacking down on heads, or the shields of those who raised them in time.

Each spearman wore mail under a padded jacket. Simple leg armour protected each man’s leading leg, and a light shield with a spiked boss had two loops on the other side; one hooked inside the elbow, the other was the handle. Each spear had an armoured shaft and a fierce spike at the business end, with a crossbar that was axe one side and armour-piercing spike the other. It was a fine weapon for hooking into joints in plate armour or jabbing through mail. And the spearmen retreated when threatened and stepped forward again when the knights turned away.

The battle had become something living that consumed everything it touched. If a crowd could become a mob, then an army mid-battle was a crowd turned to something far more dangerous. It looked as if it would kill until it could kill no more and die of hunger only with the last of the dead.

Tycho tried to swallow the numbers in a single glance but the situation changed faster than ink dropped into swirling water. And all the time that pulsing mass dripped down the bell tower walls. Tycho knew the Venetian forces didn’t realise it. He wondered if Alonzo’s troops did.