The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  One chance, Atilo said.

  That was what everyone got. No exceptions.

  Failure would see him sold as a slave, supposedly. Although Tycho suspected, given his recently learnt skills, failure would see him dead. Which was fine, he didn’t intend to fail. He intended to kill the German and return to Ca’ il Mauros to rip out Iacopo’s throat.

  Levering himself over a parapet, Tycho dropped to a crouch and discovered he wasn’t alone. A dark-haired man waited five or six paces away, lazily elegant in an open shirt; his crouch a mocking mirror of Tycho’s own. He was grinning behind his beard. “I hope you realise you stink like a polecat? And—I have to admit—I thought you planned to hang on the edge of that balcony all night.”

  “Leopold Bas Friedland?”

  “Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland.” His eyes slid over Tycho’s costume. “Is that how Atilo dresses his bum boys these days? And that sword… I thought a dagger in the back was more the Venetian style?”

  “You’re not an assassin?”

  The German flushed at Tycho’s jibe. Much of the humour going out of his face. “I’m a soldier in a secret war. A peasant like you wouldn’t understand what that means.”

  Tycho snorted.

  “Took you long enough to get here.”

  “A few minutes to climb your crappy wall.”

  “Eighteen months to pluck up the courage.” Prince Leopold saw Tycho’s scowl. “Oh, not you. You’re the disposable bit in this. The Regent, Duchess Alexa, that raddled Moor she’s fucking. Perhaps you should tell me before you die… What took them so long?”

  Tycho drew his sword.

  In the muted light of a cloud-shrouded moon he saw Prince Leopold’s eyes narrow. Tycho’s blade glittered like water reflecting sunshine. And then Prince Leopold’s gaze flicked upwards, and a patch of black detached itself from the night’s upturned bowl with a creak like old leather.

  “Six months to make the sword,” it said. “A year to turn this boy into your death. Another five minutes for that to become a reality. Emperor’s bastard or not, Prince Leopold, you’ve plagued this city too long.”

  “Alexa, and I thought you didn’t care.”

  Rolling the sword across his hand, Tycho swept a figure of eight. It felt like any sword to him. For all that its blade… Stepping closer, Tycho saw the blade brighten. So he stepped back quickly and saw it dim.

  “Well I never,” the prince said. “A mage sword matched to a boy who doesn’t quite know how to use it. This should be interesting.”

  He drew and lunged in the same second.

  His lunge changing direction. Tycho was so busy blocking he almost missed the dagger in Leopold’s other hand. It would have killed him had it pierced his side. Instead it ripped his doublet and drew blood.

  Both men stepped back.

  Your job is to kill a German princeling. He means nothing. That’s all you need to know. The Regent’s words rang sour in Tycho’s memory.

  In a year, Tycho had swapped a crude knowledge of axes for swordplay, knife work and unarmed combat. But he’d also half-learnt to read, studied poisons, and discussed politics. He felt spread thin in the face of a man who held a sword like an extension of his own arm.

  “Ready to die?” Prince Leopold asked.

  Dropping his dagger, the prince raised his sword. As if intentionally opening himself to attack. But he could sweep his weapon down to either side or straight ahead. He could block every stroke Tycho offered with a single move. So Tycho raised his blade in turn, and waited.

  Overhead, cracking leather circled.

  Dipping and swooping and offering dry clicks that sounded like falling dust. When it swooped close, Tycho realised it was large. As large as his doublet given the power to fly. Prince Leopold snorted, flicked his gaze at the clicking darkness, and struck as Tycho’s gaze followed, swinging his blade in an arc brutal enough to lop a man off at the knees.

  Metal met metal. Sparks flying as shock numbed their arms.

  Tycho had no idea how he blocked the blow. From the look on Prince Leopold’s face he had no idea either. Sweeping the man’s sword aside, Tycho went for his throat. Almost losing his own entrails as Leopold ducked beneath the strike and spun, his sword passing a hair’s breadth from Tycho’s belly.

  The princeling changed styles three times in seven moves. Switching again for the three strikes after. Blocking a skull strike, Tycho jumped a Sicilian sweep, just avoiding a backslash to his Achilles heel. Tycho’s arm was already dead to the shoulder. His fingers gripped his sword from instinct.

  When he stepped back, Prince Leopold was also gasping, sweat running down his face. The veins in his neck standing out like hawsers. His scowl said Tycho shouldn’t have been able to survive that rally.

  His next attack came so fast it drove Tycho to the parapet.

  Risking a glance, Tycho saw a low wall stretch away on both sides behind him. Beyond his attacker, a roof rose steadily. On that slope’s far side would be another slope falling gently to a gutter cutting across the roof’s middle. A second slope would rise and fall beyond that, ending above the land gate.

  It was a traditional design.

  Ducking a blow, Tycho tried to spin past Prince Leopold, risking death to reach the slope. Had he succeeded he’d have had the roof’s height on his side and room to fight freely. But Prince Leopold’s sword caught his above the hilt and took the blade from Tycho’s hand.

  The princeling’s smile was gone.

  Opening his mouth, he bared teeth in a grin that narrowed his eyes to slits. A trickle of drool ran down his beard and Tycho felt his stomach lurch. Lord Eric’s brother had been berserker. They lived outside pain. Died outside it too. They’d crawl up a sword to gut the man who stabbed them.

  As Tycho waited, night clouds parted.

  A full moon nailed Tycho to the spot, fever waterfalling through his body as the sky went red around him and the city acquired hard edges and the water in its canals glowed like molten steel. For the first time ever, he let the moon’s rays take him and felt his dog teeth descend.

  Opposite him, Prince Leopold raised his face to the blood moon and howled, his body arching as his shriek split the air. Behind him the stars distorted, and the shimmering air ripped as worlds fought each other.

  The stronger of the worlds won.

  Peeling back, the skin of Prince Leopold’s chest split to reveal blood, raw flesh and fur beneath. His ribcage cracked. Muscles tearing and ribs breaking as unseen hands racked him, dislocating his joints and twisting him to a newer shape. Prince Leopold’s clothes tore too. Rags he ripped away to stand naked. His fingers turning to claws and black fur flowing in a wave across his reformed body. Blood dripped from his jaws where his teeth had extended.

  Sex erect, head back, Prince Leopold screamed at the moon.

  When his gaze flicked to Tycho it was animal.

  The sword he’d been wielding fell from his claws and clattered to the lead of the roof. The prince barely noticed. He was too busy completing the changes that made him krieghund.

  Tycho moved.

  He moved so fast the roof blurred as he reached the sword he’d dropped, grabbed it up and adopted the stance Prince Leopold had used earlier. Legs apart, blade held high above his head.

  “Ready to die?” he asked.

  The krieghund’s eyes blazed as it dropped to a crouch and sprang. Leaping high over Tycho, it twisted on landing, claws raking down Tycho’s spine. Blood rose black and sticky through torn leather, pain hitting Tycho a moment later. So shocking, he dropped to his knees.

  The red sky faltered.

  A second later, Tycho realised he’d dropped the sword.

  The creature reached it before him.

  It stood on Tycho’s blade, jaws so wide its tongue lolled from one side. While Tycho stood in a puddle of his own blood watched by the grinning monster. Stepping sideways, Tycho saw the krieghund do the same.

  So he did it again and again.

  Always moving
closer to Prince Leopold’s own sword. Until he was close enough to grab it from lead flashing at his feet. And the creature howled with laughter as Tycho let go, clutching his fingers.

  The sword was bewitched in some way.

  Magic was all Tycho needed.

  He reached for Prince Leopold’s sword again, his fingers blistering. The prince was judging distances and Tycho only just ducked in time to avoid claws jagging for his throat. He was about to retreat, when crackling blackness eclipsed the moon and Prince Leopold leapt high, trying to hook the irritation from the air.

  And in that moment the red sky steadied.

  “Become yourself,” the bat said.

  To do so was to ignore every rule Atilo had taught him about remaining in control. But Tycho obeyed anyway, embracing the moonlight. Across his back cuts began to mend. The pain in his fingers vanished. The city became as clear as day. Stretching out around him with a shocking clarity. Light scribbled bright lines around the buildings. He had the secrets and the scents of the city in an instant

  He discovered how both Leopold zum Bas Friedland and the guard dog from the Alexandrian knew he was coming. His boots stank. It should be unmissable. And then Tycho identified the drug in his blood dulling his senses, and felt the effects wither as whatever made him who he was swept it swiftly away.

  Standing on Prince Leopold’s blade, Tycho snapped it in two and hurled handle and hilt, seeing it scour a line in the wolfthing’s cheek. His blade might be magic. The handle was common metal. Stepping back, Tycho swallowed the roof’s layout in a single glance. He felt…

  Good came in there somewhere.

  Good, and focused. And here, and now. He belonged inside his own skin for the first time ever. Looking at his fingers, he realised they were longer. His skin whiter. When he raised a hand to his mouth his fingers came away bloody. His dog teeth had grown. Not like this creature’s. His face hadn’t twisted and become animal, it had refined.

  This was what being Fallen meant.

  His speed and strength were simply side effects. Good ones, but side effects as surely as his hatred of sunlight. “You die here,” Tycho said.

  And the krieghund feared him.

  They met in the middle of a leap. Crashing into each other so hard a human’s bones would have broken. Tycho landed three paces away, spinning sideways as the krieghund used the parapet for leverage and leapt straight back. Tycho swept one foot under the creature as it landed, sending it rolling towards a corner.

  As he grabbed the creature’s hips to hurl it to the canal below, it twisted and sank claws into his shoulders, dragging him close. Tycho could smell the krieghund’s fetid breath. Feel dog-like heat rise from its body.

  Struggling would bury those claws in his flesh. Pulling away wouldn’t free him. Going close put him within jaw reach. The krieghund was strong but Tycho was faster. That had to count for something.

  He kneed the krieghund from instinct and heard the creature gasp. So he kneed it again, and as its grip faltered, put his elbow into its throat.

  The beast stumbled. Clawed hands clutching for its neck as it fell to its knees, rocking backwards and forwards. As if keening in silence. Maybe it was, Tycho thought, not caring either way.

  46

  This time he could clearly see magic rippling along his sword blade. Flecks of fire brightening as he approached his target. Hightown Crow had designed the weapon for one purpose only. Killing krieghund.

  “Any last words?” Tycho demanded.

  Prince Leopold looked up dumbly.

  “I guess not.” Drawing back his sword, Tycho found its balance. “Quite sure about those last…”

  “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  The words came from behind him.

  Tycho froze. He refused to turn. Refused to admit what his senses told him. Instead he watched the wolfthing’s eyes focus beyond him and something human slip back into them. Prince Leopold shook his head very slightly.

  “Anything,” the voice promised, closer now. “We’ll give you anything. Leopold has estates. He’ll pay a ransom. Please.”

  Kill Friedland. Kill his sister. All Tycho had to do was obey those orders and the Assassini would be his eventually. He didn’t dare turn around.

  “I have my orders.”

  He could prove himself worthy to be Blade. Assassini killed with no more thought or conscience than a dagger. They existed to be wielded by the duke and his Council. Who they killed was not their concern.

  “Stay back,” he warned.

  The young woman sobbed as Tycho’s sword reached tipping point. Already the krieghund was changing. Its limbs straightening. Blood running down its face as its jaws retracted. A near-human head would roll across that roof.

  He chose a point behind the prince’s skull.

  As his sword readied for the kill, a young woman flung herself across Prince Leopold’s naked body. A black scrap of sky detached, falling fast. And Tycho only just managed to pull his blow, shredding the bat instead. Wheeling away, the dying animal tumbled dirtwards.

  A tear-stained face looked at Tycho.

  Huge eyes widening as she recognised him. He felt unable to breathe, unable to do anything but stare back. He had hunted for over a year to find her and now she had found him. It was the girl from the basilica.

  “You won’t kill Leopold?”

  Tycho shook his head mutely.

  Putting his sword down, he stepped back from temptation. How could he not let the prince go? The sight of Lady Giulietta stole his will to act. He could feel the hairs on her arm as they rippled in the wind. Her scent was a drug far stronger than whatever Iacopo used. A golden heat haze danced around her. He felt awe. An awe so absolute it left him barely able to function.

  “Your price?” she whispered.

  Touching her lips, he smoothed his fingers down her cheek and rested them lightly on her throat, feeling her pulse flutter. She blushed, and then caught herself. Making herself meet his eyes.

  “Me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “You.”

  Lifting her to her feet, he looked deep into her eyes and saw himself silhouetted against a night sky. Her eyes were blue and he saw in them things no one would see. A thousand specks of light arranged around darkness. A flotilla of ships drawing in on an island.

  “In the basilica,” she whispered. “I almost…”

  I know.

  The memory of her, with a dagger to her breast, remained undimmed. The taste of a single drop of blood from the slightest of wounds had changed him forever. She had locked him to this absurd city.

  “Will you let Leopold rise?”

  He let her help the German princeling to his feet. If the man attacked Tycho would kill him. But Leopold simply stood there, swaying. His gaze met Tycho’s own, and then Leopold zum Bas Friedland looked at Giulietta and tried to speak. No words came from his ruined throat.

  “It’s all right,” she promised.

  He was objecting to her offering herself. All three of them knew that from the anguish on his eyes.

  Lady Giulietta had a chamber of her own. On the third storey, above the piano nobile and overlooking Rio di San Felice. It was ringed with salt, enough salt to leave a clear trail around the edge of the room. All the passages were lined with salt, even the stairs. Every room in Ca’ Friedland had salt around it.

  “Leopold’s idea,” she said. “It’s there to keep me safe.”

  “From what?”

  “You,” she said, tears filling her eyes.

  Shuttered windows led to a tall and narrow balcony with a tiled overhang supported by elegant pillars. Tycho opened the windows slowly, already knowing no enemy waited beyond. In time he would learn to trust his instincts. For now it felt arrogant simply to believe he was right.

  Caution made him lock her chamber, sliding its bolts, before checking outside. If you wanted to reach her balcony you would have to climb from the canal, using cracks in the outside walls and the stone ribs of the window arch
es. Anyone trained by Atilo could do it. That was what made him nervous.

  “What are you doing?”

  Tycho stopped lugging an old iron chest by its handle. “Blocking that.” He pointed at balcony doors. She nodded mutely, perched on her bed, its curtains down, except the side she’d tied back earlier.

  “He won’t try to come in.”

  “It’s not Leopold I’m worried about.”

  Her eyes went huge in the darkness. She was the girl he’d seen in the basilica. And yet she looked different. As if life had not been kind. “He hurts you?”

  She flushed angrily. “Never. Not once.”

  His fingers were steady as he slid her undergown over her shoulders, exposing her breasts. They were full, fuller than he expected. Tipped with dark nipples that looked engorged. He lowered her gown further, letting it drop and tugging her hand to show she should step out of it.

  Small, but swollen breasts, narrow hips, and flame-red pubic hair.

  “What’s that?” A scar crossed her abdomen, and she shivered as he traced its length with one fingertip, halting at the end.

  “You can see in the dark?”

  He nodded, realised that wasn’t much use, and said, “Yes, but not in the light. Tonight my sight’s clearer than ever.” Why did he tell her that?

  “That scar,” he said.

  Instead of answering, she slid from his fingers, disappearing behind a curtained arch. When she returned it was with a baby swaddled in bandages so tight it could barely move. Tycho felt constricted just looking at it.

  “Yours?”

  She nodded defiantly.

  “Someone cut a baby out of you?”

  “A Saracen surgeon,” she said. “Cut Leo free to save my life. He sewed me up with a tail hair from a white stallion. Said he always knew he’d need it one day.” There was awe in Giulietta’s voice. Women died in childbirth every day. Even a good birth held risks and offered pain.

  “It’s Prince Leopold’s child?”