The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini Read Free Page A

including Atilo’s own family. The great pirate of the Barbary Coast could turn traitor to those he loved and save them, or stay loyal and condemn them to death.
    Bastard
, Atilo thought with admiration.
    Even now, decades later, he could remember his awe at the brutality of Marco’s offer. In a single afternoon Atilo uttered the words that divorced his wife, renounced his children, converted his religion and bound him to Venice for life.
    In taking the title of Lord Admiral of the Middle Sea, he had saved those who would hate him for the rest of their lives. In public, he’d been Marco III’s adviser. In private he’d been the man’s chief assassin. The enemy, who became his master, ended as his friend. Atilo would die for that man’s niece.
    This was the biggest gathering of Wolf Brothers in Atilo’s lifetime—and he was shocked to discover so many in his city. Well, the city Atilo he’d come to love. Atilo knew what this battle meant. To fight
krieghund
in the open like this would destroy the Assassini, quite possibly leave him without an heir. Destroying the Assassini would leave Venice without protection.
    Was her life worth that much?
    He knew the girl behind him had caught the moment he wanted to slap her. Fifteen-year-old princesses were not meant to run away, unhappily betrothed or not. They were not meant to be
able
to run away. A savage whipping would await her if she lived; assuming Atilo told the truth about her flight. Alonzo would see to the whipping even if her aunt objected. For a woman so fond of poisoning her enemies Alexa could be very forgiving where her niece was concerned.
    “My lord…”
    A black-clad man appeared out of the darkness, sketched a quick bow and instinctively checked what weapons his chief was carrying. He relaxed slightly when he saw the little crossbow.
    “Silver-tipped, my lord?”
    “Obviously.”
    The man glanced at Giulietta, his eyes widening when he realised she carried Atilo’s dagger.
    “She has her orders,” Atilo said. “Yours are to die protecting her.”
    There were twenty-one in the Scuola di Assassini, including Atilo. In the early days he’d given his followers Greek letters as names, but he drew his apprentices from the poorest levels of the city and many had trouble with their own alphabet. These days he used numbers instead.
    The middle-aged man in front of him was No. 3.
    No. 2 was in prison in Cyprus on charges that couldn’t be proved; he would be released or simply disappear. Knowing Janus it would be the latter. No. 4 was in Vienna to kill EmperorSigismund. A task he would probably fail. No. 7 guarded their headquarters. No. 13 was in Constantinople. And No. 17 was in Paris trying to poison a Valois princeling. In theory, only one of them needed to survive to ensure the
scuola
, the Scuola di Assassini, continued unbroken.
    Sixteen Assassini against six enemies.
    With those odds victory should be certain. But Atilo knew what was out there: the emperor’s
krieghund
. His blades would die in reverse order. The most junior trying to exhaust the beasts so their seniors had a chance of success. Atilo was arbiter of what success entailed. Tonight it meant keeping Lady Giulietta out of enemy hands. “Go die,” he ordered his deputy.
    The man’s grin disappeared into the night.
    “Numerical,” Atilo heard him shout, and hell opened as a snarling, silver-furred beast stalked into the square, leaving a screaming, vaguely man-shaped lump of meat in an alley mouth behind.
    “What is it?” Giulietta asked, far too loudly.
    “
Krieghund
,” Atilo snapped. “Speak again and I’ll gag you.” Sighting his crossbow, he fired. But the beast swatted aside the silver bolt and turned on an Assassino approaching from its blind side. The kill was quick and brutal. A claw caught the side of the boy’s skull, dragging him closer. A bite to the neck half removed his head.
    “I thought they were a myth,” Giulietta whispered, then clapped her hand over her