Skiouros frowned at the small crossbow in his hands.
‘I’ve never seen one of these. Did you invent it?’
‘Hardly,’ muttered Girolamo, lifting his crossbow and peering between the pine needles at the walls and the two men atop them. ‘It’s a Venetian device, but I understand modelled after an eastern creation. Nowhere near as accurate or powerful as a proper crossbow, but quick and useful at short range. And it’s often handy to have a spare loaded.’
‘They’ve separated,’ hissed the echoing tone of Cesare, and Girolamo nodded. ‘San Sebastiano favour me now.’ With a steadying breath, the Genovese mercenary levelled his crossbow in the steadiest hands Skiouros had ever seen and with the slightest of movement twitched the trigger.
With the twang and thud of the lath and string meeting once more, the bolt sailed out through the air in a surprisingly flat trajectory, the rope trailing after it like a line drawn artistically through the air. With a wince at the necessity of doing so, Girolamo dropped the weapon to the ground even as the rope continued to uncoil next to him, and grabbed the second bow held in Skiouros’ outstretched hands.
Barely pausing to aim, he lifted the tip of the weapon and pulled the trigger, the smaller bolt rising into the air on a higher trajectory to account for the lighter weight and lower firing strength.
Skiouros turned to the walls between the branches and watched with fascination. The first bolt had already struck by the time he had turned, and he saw the guard stagger back, the bolt having passed through his chest, dragging the rope into his innards. The trailing line whipped through the air. Just as the man toppled back from sight with a squawk that was barely audible, the second, smaller bolt took the other guard in the neck, passing through his windpipe and dropping him silently and cleanly from sight.
Skiouros turned to the man, expecting a grin of satisfaction, but Girolamo was already packing away his small weapon and slinging his main crossbow over his back.
‘Go!’ barked Cesare in his metallic hollow voice, and Helwyg was first up, pushing his way through the branches and scrambling up the remaining distance of the slope towards the heavy, tan walls, heedless of the slippery iciness of the scree beneath him. Skiouros followed as the rest of the group hurtled out into the sunlight.
The rope that had trailed behind the deadly bolt hung down the wall from the parapet and trailed along the frozen ground below for a few yards, testament to just how well the archer had judged the height of the walls and the power of his shot.
No alarm was being raised in the castle. This was the most heart-stopping moment of all. At this point so much could go wrong with the plan. Skiouros made himself turn his attention to the rope ahead, deliberately forcing himself not to think about the possible hiccups facing them.
Helwyg reached the bottom of the wall with little trouble, while Skiouros and the two sailors slipped and skittered on the scree behind him. As the great Silesian reached the rope, he grabbed hold and began to give it a good heave. Skiouros felt his heart skip a beat as several feet of rope fell through the air, and he was convinced it had not anchored above. Then, as quickly as it had loosened, the rope tightened once more and stopped its descent. Helwyg gave it a hefty tug and it moved a little, but not too much. The big man turned to Skiouros, holding out the rope.
‘Me?’
Helwyg nodded. ‘I too big. You little man. Light for climb.’
Little man! But it was hard to deny the fact that he probably weighed half of the Silesian’s huge, muscular bulk. If the rope had any give, it would certainly fail under that weight.
He turned to see Parmenio and Nicolo looking at him expectantly. Parmenio still looked less than impressed, but he was rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the action. Nicolo grinned. ‘Think of it as climbing rigging and hurry up. We haven’t long before his lordship decides we’ve failed and starts hitting us with bombards.’
With the added reminder of that possibility, Skiouros turned to the rope and gripped it with his sweaty hands - gauntlets would be hazardous now. He had to rely solely on his natural talents. At least he had always been a good climber, ever since he and Lykaion had scaled the church tower back home as children, not to mention the Nea Ekklasia…
Wrapping his lower legs around the rope, he began to climb, hauling himself up with his hands and then anchoring himself with his feet as he reached up once more. Again and again he performed the repetitive actions, ascending with ease and beginning to feel more confident as he rose.
Some seven or eight feet below the battlements, he felt his heart jump again as the rope suddenly slithered downwards and he found himself dangling ten feet back down, his legs unhooked. Wondering if any of his friends might be heroically stupid and stand underneath as he fell, he realised the rope had become taut again and he once more anchored his legs, forcing himself to repeat that part of the climb. As he reached the lower edge of the battlements, his hands encountered something wet and he paid closer attention to the rope than to the parapet a few feet above. The hemp glistened with dark liquid and he realised with intense horror that this section of the rope had passed through the guard’s chest. His revulsion suddenly gave way to panic as he realised what that meant:
The rope was not well anchored and was coming loose from the body!
Desperately, knowing that the rope was no longer a viable climbing option with that unpleasant slimy coating, Skiouros reached in and grasped the machicolation of the wall - one of the gaps below the parapet through which stones and boiling liquids could be poured on attackers. In this particular case one of the most murderous methods of thwarting an attacker actually came to his defence. Letting go of the rope with his feet, he held on to the hole in the projecting battlements with both hands.
Trouble.
He was stuck.
The rope hung loose behind him and he could probably grasp it, but that would do him little good. He would get nowhere before his weight pulled the rope free of the body and he plummeted to his death among his friends. But equally he was now hanging directly beneath the projecting battlements with no hope of scaling the overhang and clambering up over the top.
His desperate eyes played across the defences from this angle taking in everything he could see in the panicked hope that there was an obvious solution he was missing. There wasn’t. There was no helpful wider gap beyond the next jutting corbel. Nothing stuck out to help him. He felt his fingers becoming numb with the cold and the pressure of supporting all his weight.
Could he fit through this narrow gap?
Skiouros frowned into the hole above him. He was small and sleight by build, but he had put on a lot of muscle this past half year aboard Colombo’s ships, and with the added bulk of a mail shirt he was hardly sylph-like. He mentally measured the gap through which defenders dropped rocks and tried to picture his own frame from an objective viewpoint.
He didn’t think so.
The fingers of his left hand slipped free and he found himself dangling over a long fall by four fingertips. It appeared that gravity and necessity were making the decision for him. Realising with regret that his weapon belt and gauntlets would not fit through the gap, he used his left hand to unfasten them, allowing them to drop to the slope below among his friends.
Unburdened, and with three deep breaths to prepare, he finally exhaled until his lungs were devoid of air and threw his free hand - the one that had slipped - up into the hole, reaching around until his fingers closed on the flagged floor of the wall-walk. He felt a moment of elation when they found it, and as soon as he was sure the new grip would hold, he let go with his right hand and reached up into the hole. Both hands were now gripping the floor above. He closed his eyes and threw up a brief prayer to the God of Christian, Jew and Turk alike to help him through this.
And he heaved.
His head suddenly burst through the darkness of the hole and gave him a floor-level view of the parapet walk. He almost laughed with the joy of victory…
�
�and then his chest wedged in the hole.
His eyes rolled in panic, his arms now laid out before him on the flagged floor, the cold sun gleaming directly in his face, the castle’s interior displayed ahead, but his chest trapped and his legs dangling in empty air, kicking in futile panic in open space.
‘Oh shit!’
It had meant to be whispered, but his panic had made the words too loud and he realised how easily he could attract attention right now. Desperately, he forced himself to calm down. He had to think this through.
The panic arose once more as he came to the conclusion that he had no time to think. His chest was wedged and he simply could not breathe in more than a mouthful of air. His ribs had no space to expand. Not only was he prone in an enemy fortress, trapped and dangling over a deadly drop, he was also remarkably close to suffocating.
So suddenly he nearly missed it, his foot found purchase against the tiny lip of a badly-fitted stone block in the wall’s face. It was little more than the width of a fingernail, and his boots were lumbering leather things, but it was a beacon of hope in that panicked moment. Concentrating, he positioned his other foot on the same lip and pressed with his toes until he thought they might snap with the strain. At the same time, he hauled with all his might on his arms, scrabbling for better purchase with his fingertips. His left hand closed over the edge of a slightly larger flagstone and the combined pressure from pushing with his feet and pulling with his arms caused something to give. He shifted first an inch. Then two. He could feel the lack of oxygen going to work, tiny lights dancing in his vision and his wits filling with panicked fuzz. But another inch and then two and there was a horrible grating noise as the mail links of his shirt ground on the stone, and suddenly he was up, heaving in ragged breaths. With some difficulty - though nothing compared to what had gone before - he dragged his hips and legs up onto the wall walk.
He lay there for a moment, heaving in air and recovering, but it did not take him long to realise that every passing moment increased their peril.
Coming up to a crouch he looked around, taking in the situation. This section of the walls came down from the ridge in a ‘U’ shape, enclosing the small postern gate. He could see the various timber structures of the castle’s main bailey, along with the men and women moving among them. Other guards stood watch on the walls of the upper section. It seemed a miracle that no alarm had yet been raised, given the fact that many of the posted sentries were in view of each other, including the two Girolamo had shot. But then each man was watching the countryside beyond the walls intently, and those nearest the postern were concentrating on the huge army formed up in the valley and the array of cannon and bombards facing them on the hill opposite.
The guard with the bolt jammed in his neck had gone from view, presumably fallen from the wall inside the loop of the ’U’. The man with the rope-bolt was wedged up against the battlements, having been dragged up against them when Helwyg yanked on the rope through his chest, and anchoring it there. Skiouros could see the tip of the bolt projecting from the corpse’s back between the shoulders and the flagstones around him were sprayed with crimson and strange coiled marks that resembled snake tracks but showed where the rope had trailed across the walk after having passed through his body. He had apparently done the right thing letting go of the rope. One more tug and it would have come free from the corpse and fallen away again.
Scurrying across to the fallen guard, he pushed the body back with distaste and began the grisly business of pulling the rope free. Ignoring the sticky slime on his hands, he grasped the rope and dragged it a few feet so that the wet section was above the parapet, looping it across a stone drain spout and tying it tight.
With a glance back at the castle’s bailey and finding it hard to believe no one had seen him yet, he ran back across to the wall and gestured for the others to come up. Once Parmenio had begun the climb, Nicolo grasping the rope below him, Skiouros scurried over to the inner edge of the walk. The drop down to the area within the postern gate loop was perhaps twenty feet. He could theoretically survive the fall intact, but the chances were slim, given the rocky ground and the icy conditions. Instead, he crouched, keeping an eye on the other sentries so oblivious on the higher walls. His heart beat out the seconds as he waited and he was relieved beyond measure when Parmenio hooked his hand over the battlements and pulled himself across and onto the flags.
‘This…’ his friend heaved in a deep breath, ‘is why I am a sailor and not an acrobat!’
As he lay on his back, his chest rising and falling, Nicolo’s face appeared over the top and he pulled himself across to join them.
‘You took your pissing time!’ he said, slinging Skiouros’ weapon belt and gauntlets over to him.
‘I encountered a few problems!’ snapped Skiouros in irritation as he caught the items and fastened the belt about his waist.
The three men continued to recover as Girolamo and Vicenzo arrived and joined them. As they crouched and looked around, Skiouros frowned. ‘Where’s Helwyg?’
‘Too heavy to trust the rope,’ muttered Vicenzo. ‘He’s waiting with Ser Orsini.’
Girolamo shook his head and tutted. ‘The rope bolt was for speed. If we’d known you were going to take so long I’d just have shot him and we could have used a grapple.’
‘Oh piss off,’ barked Skiouros, eliciting a frown from the crossbowman.
‘Come on,’ Parmenio urged them, rising to a crouch. ‘We’d better get moving. I can almost hear that artillery cranking up.’
As Skiouros peered down inside again, this time spotting the body of the second guard splayed out in a broken shape on the rocks, he heard a distant cry.
‘We’re discovered!’ Nicolo hissed. Next to them, Vicenzo appeared, having hauled up the rope, and he dropped it instead down the inner face of the wall.
‘Come on!’
The man gripped the rope in his hard leather gauntlets and slid with ease downwards, kicking out against the wall as he descended rapidly. Skiouros quickly pulled on his own gauntlets and followed suit, Parmenio, Nicolo and Girolamo coming on behind.
As soon as his feet hit the icy, slippery rock, Skiouros knew they were in trouble. Though there was no wall tower here, there was a doorway into the wall itself next to the gate, obviously a small guardhouse within the wall, and shouts of alarm were coming from within.
‘Stay here,’ commanded Vicenzo, ‘and hold them off.’ As he drew a needle-pointed poniard dagger from his belt, he pointed up the slope to the bailey. Skiouros’ heart jumped as he saw perhaps a dozen men at arms running between the buildings, heading for this previously unnoticed incursion. Behind them, he could see many more guards arming themselves. With a quick touch of the wooden zemi figure on the thong around his neck for luck, he drew his sword and his macana, gripping the reassuring wooden handle. Behind him, Vicenzo disappeared into the doorway. There were shouts of alarm and the sounds of combat from inside the guard chamber.
As the others drew their own blades, there being no time for Girolamo to cock his crossbow, Parmenio dashed across to the postern gate. It consisted of an oak door some six inches thick, reinforced on the outside with iron plates and studs, and on the inside with three locking bars that slid at one side into the stonework and at the other dropped into an iron holder. He began to heave the bars free. ‘There’s a key required too,’ he yelled, aiming his words at the guard room, and then ran for the doorway as the third locking bar hit the ground.
Skiouros, Nicolo and Girolamo braced themselves as the dozen men ran for them, many more assembling behind. With a crash and a yelp, the fight in the guard room was apparently done with, and as Skiouros glanced over his shoulder he saw Parmenio and Vicenzo reappear, rummaging through a leather satchel. Parmenio grabbed a heavy iron ring of keys and ran off to the door, while Vicenzo drew his sword to accompany his poniard and joined the other three defenders.
As Parmenio struggled with the iron ring, trying one key after another in the lock, despe
rately pulling on the portal each time, Skiouros prepared himself for the attack. The Roccabruna men-at-arms launched into the fray with gusto, each armed with long pikes or heavy, gleaming halberds.
Skiouros saw the first lunge coming and ducked his head to one side, the long pike swishing past his ear out of harm’s way. Not allowing the man time to recover his weapon, Skiouros stepped forward and drove his sword into the soldier’s belly, wrenching it back out only just in time to knock aside a halberd blade that swept across in an attempt to catch him at the junction of neck and shoulder, where his mail could not protect him.
Everything then devolved into a blur of battle, struggling for survival. After dodging or knocking aside a few more blows with his sword and rapping with his macana club on skulls and knuckles, dazing the enemy or loosening their grip on their weapons, Skiouros realised with a sinking feeling that he was retreating, being pushed back by the weight of the Roccabruna men. More and more men-at-arms were rushing to their aid and as he stepped back to avoid yet another blow, Skiouros saw the twitching form of Vicenzo being trampled by the enemy as they advanced. Nicolo gave a cry of pain and Skiouros glanced across to see him with his left arm folded across in front of him, blood evident among the glistening steel and the bright heraldic designs. They were holding up surprisingly well, but their numbers were dwindling while the enemy force continued to grow.
A razor edge he never even saw bounced against his ribs, ripping away links of mail and scoring a red hot line across his side. Once again he was grateful for the armour he had acquired at the Palazzo Visconti those months ago. That blow could have gone through ribs and lung both had the steel links not turned the blow aside.
Assassin's Tale Page 7
