The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini (35 page)

“
Frederick
.” His shout was so loud Alonzo himself turned.

“Traitor . . .” The ex-Regent pointed his sword, somewhere between a warning and a threat that he would see Tycho dead. Ignoring him, Tycho watched a
krieghund
break away from gutting a wild archer and lollop towards him. The beast ripped arrows from its flesh as it ran. When Frederick leapt up to stand beside Tycho he was halfway human. “What do you want?”

“See those?” Tycho demanded.

“See what?” Blood dripped into Frederick’s eyes from a cut on his forehead and his near-naked body was shaking with exhaustion and cold.
Krieghund
he was powerful, human he was weak again. He squinted in the direction Tycho pointed. It was obvious he was too tired to concentrate.

“Don’t go away.”

Time slowed and Tycho found himself stepping over corpses and sliding between individual fights as he negotiated the crawling hell of the battle on the ice. A Venetian stabbed at an enemy foot soldier and withdrew his spear, blood drops like pearls stringing the air. He stabbed at the soldier beyond and his first victim, already fallen, slashed the Venetian’s ankles below his shield.

The spearman lowered his shield in shock and died when a wild archer’s arrow split his mail, blossoming blood as the arrow passed through his lungs and cut his heart in two. Tycho caught the man’s falling spear and threw it, skewering the archer and knocking him from his wild pony.

A hundred paces ahead, a Venetian dodged his attacker and stepped straight into Tycho’s path. Breath whooshed from his body, he looked briefly shocked to have hit something he didn’t know was there. He died when his attacker swung an axe at his back, gaffing him like a fish. Tycho killed the attacker and as many of the slow-moving enemy as stood between him and the black rocks ahead. He ripped his way up the bell tower, hit the nearest creature full-on and let both of them fall. Dragging the thing back to the ice, where the others seemed reluctant to follow, he bit hard into its leathery neck, spitting blood so vile it burned his mouth.

“Well,” Frederick said. “That was impressive.”

His voice was sour enough to make Tycho wonder if he meant it. Tossing the thing at Frederick’s feet, he said, “See it now?”

“Domovoi,” Frederick said. “House demons.”

“You recognise them?”

“My father keeps some,” Frederick said. He raised his head and howled. Instantly, his followers broke from their individual battles and headed towards him. They fought their way through the melee, killing those who objected, but sparing any who stepped aside or turned and ran. Within a moment they stood around the tumbled cart, and behind their own line, while the battle went on without them.

They looked at the battered domovoi in silence and Tycho realised they knew what it was and had probably seen one before. At Frederick’s nod they looked towards the bell tower and their faces paled. “The duke needs to be told,” Frederick said. “What we do next is his decision.”

“There are too many to fight,” a
krieghund
said. He flushed. “I mean, there are too many to fight and win. I’m happy to fight them.” The beast’s face was neither human nor wolf, but something raw and in-between. The blood on his jaws was not from the enemy, it leached from unhealed skin.

“Still his decision,” Frederick said.

Tycho said, “Help him make the right one.” Both Frederick and the
krieghund
who’d spoken turned to him. “If those attack, the infantry are already dead.”

“That’s brutal,” said Frederick.

Tycho replied, “War is brutal.”

Although he scowled, Frederick didn’t disagree. Staring towards the smouldering bell tower, he said. “They’re still appearing.”

“Do you think Alonzo has a mage?”

“I doubt it,” Frederick said. “They’re being summoned by the bell tower, perhaps by the island itself.”

“And we’ve set fire to their home.”

Frederick nodded grimly. “Let’s destroy the bridge and fall back.”

“Your highness . . .” It was the
krieghund
who’d spoken earlier. “We may be too late.” Marco, his staff officers and his knights were advancing along the lake, their battle flag held high and personal pennants waving.

“Idiot,” Frederick said.

It was the first rude word Tycho had heard him say about a man most of Europe thought unfit to rule himself never mind an empire as big as Serenissima. The Venetian knights slowed for the barrel bridge, clattered across it in two and broke into a canter that became a gallop within a dozen paces. Marco had decided to charge his uncle. It was magnificent, and stupid. A rolling front of horseflesh and steel, lances lowered and swords loosened, crashed into the side of Alonzo’s cavalry, which was regrouping. The noise knocked snow from the sides of the valley and set avalanches sliding.

Alonzo’s cavalry were tired and Marco’s fresh.

But his were hardened soldiers and Marco’s formed from the sons of nobles and
cittadini
, with a smattering of tried officers to stiffen their spine. They clashed and the Venetians rode straight through. Shouting, they turned and, buoyed by their own excitement, attacked again. Swords swung and hacked, shields came up and knights were knocked from their saddles and trampled by their own animals. The animal that was the battle became more deadly and more vicious.

Maybe the smoke finally drove the domovoi down to ground level and on to the black rocks of the island, perhaps it was the stink of blood or the noise of the cavalry clashing. They skittered on the water’s edge, touching the ice as if its solidness was unexpected. A wild archer turned, saw them and loosed an arrow that caught one in the throat. The horseman next to him raised his own bow and did the same. The domovoi clicked their high inhuman protest. Finding the ice solid, they flowed on to it and began to spread out. A moment later the killing began.

“Tycho, you c-can’t . . .”

“Watch me.” Tycho dragged Marco’s horse out of the melee. “Has Giulietta gone back to the camp?”

“She’s over t-there.”

Tycho saw a slight figure in white armour draw her bow and put an arrow into a wild archer on a pony who was aiming at someone else. It hit his leg but was enough to make him miss. A Nicoletto stabbed him, which saved Tycho from having to do it. “Don’t move,” he told Marco.

Flowing across the ice, Tycho grabbed Giulietta’s bridle and ducked as she swung her bow as if it were a sword. “Me,” he said, wondering if that made it any better. Her face was strained and she looked close to tears.

“I soiled myself,” she said.

“Half the field have soiled themselves. There are more important things to worry about, like keeping Leo alive . . .” Yes, he thought that would concentrate her mind. She followed him to where Marco sat scowling. Before they could reach him, Captain Weimer rode up and saluted. They arrived just in time to hear the captain say, “Your highness, we face a worse enemy.”

Having killed their first attackers, the domovoi had armed themselves with swords taken from the dead and were hacking their way through shields, crushing helmets with maces, stabbing with whichever end of a spear was at hand. Every man to die gave them another weapon and they killed indiscriminately, making no distinction between Alonzo’s and Marco’s forces.

“W-what are t-they?” Marco demanded.

“Demons,” Tycho said.

“Then we s-stay and f-fight.”

“Your highness . . .” Captain Weimer hesitated.

“We’re C-Christians,” Marco said. “W-we’re m-meant to f-fight demons.”

“I’m not sure it’s meant to be this literal,” muttered Frederick, sliding himself alongside Giulietta’s horse so that he held the other side of her bridle. A high scream filled the air and was chopped off. “Highness, with respect, we should retreat. We don’t have the weapons.”

“I have this,” said Giulietta. In her hand was a hunting horn. “It’s Roland’s,” she told Tycho. “It summons the paladins through a circle of flame.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From me,” Frederick said.

Tycho ignored him. “Where will you get your circle of fire?”

“There.” Frederick pointed at the castle. Turning to Giulietta, he said, “My lady, sound the horn.”

“That thing is yours?”

“You’d rather die than accept my help?”

I can’t die
, Tycho almost replied. She could, though, and Leo . . .

“It belongs to my son,” Giulietta said. “It belongs to Leo because he’s going to be head of the
krieghund
.”

Marco froze . . . So did the nobles around him.

“Y-you shouldn’t s-say things l-like that.”

“It’s the truth,” she said fiercely. “Leopold was
krieghund
and so is my son. Leo will lead the Wolf Brothers.” She nodded to the sword slung across Frederick’s back. “That’s the
WolfeSelle,
it belongs to him, too. Isn’t that right? Doesn’t it belong to Leo?”

Frederick nodded.

Away to the edge of the circle of ice around the cathedral a man threw himself on to the makeshift moat, the crackle ice almost holding as he ran for the safety of the frozen lake on the other side, only to plunge through at the last second. His cry of shock at the coldness of the water turning to screams as webbed hands rose to reach for him and began to tear.

Giulietta vomited.

“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.”