Jon Grimwood - The fallen blade

In a miracle of luck and poor judgement the third most junior Assassino hurled himself at the creature in front of him, ducked under a claw and managed to stab his sword into the beast's side before the krieghund struck. The young man died with his neck broken and his throat spraying blood.

"Kill the beast," Giulietta begged.

"I don't have arrows to waste." Sweeping his gaze over the small, dark square, Atilo concluded fifty people must be watching from behind shutters. Houses this poor lacked glass. So they could hear as well.

None would help. Why would they?

"Look," he told her, pointing at the krieghund on its knees. As she looked, the beast began to change, its face flattening and its shoulders becoming narrower. Giulietta took a second to understand what she was seeing. A wolfthing becoming a man, who stopped howling and started trying to shovel loops of gut back into his gaping stomach.

"Now we kill him."

Out of the darkness came an Assassino, his sword already drawn back to take the dying man's head. Blood pumped in a fountain and fell like rain. The battle was ferocious after that. Beasts and men hacking at each other. And then men lay dead in the dirt. Most in riveted mail, a few naked.

"My lord…"

Giulietta was finding her nerve, addressing him politely now. She still looked pale in the moonlight. They all looked pale to him. At least she'd stopped shivering and now held his dagger more confidently. There was an old-fashioned Millioni princess in there somewhere.

"They're advancing…"

"I know," he said, raising his bow. The officer who took orders originally glanced over, bowing slightly in reply to Atilo's nod, to acknowledge whatever passed between them. He signalled to those of the Assassini who remained and they attacked as one.

The last stages of the fight were brief and brutal.

Swords slashing, daggers sliding under ribs, blood spraying. The stink was the stink of the abattoir; of shit and blood and open guts. The men died well, but they died, and, in the end, most corpses were clothed, a handful were naked and one furred half-corpse lurched towards Atilo, a dagger jutting from its ribs.

"Kill it," Giulietta begged.

Sighting his crossbow, Atilo fired for the creature's throat.

The beast staggered, but kept coming. Straight into a second arrow. Hooking back his string, Atilo slotted a third, and would have fired had the krieghund not slashed the bow from his hand.

Never thought I'd die like this.

The thought came and went. There were worse ways to go than facing a creature from hell. But he had Marco III's niece behind him and he couldn't just… "Don't," he shouted. He was too late, however.

Stepping out from behind him, Giulietta rammed her stiletto into the krieghund's side, twisting hard. She went down when the creature cracked its elbow into her head. It was stooping for the kill, when a piece of night sky detached itself, dropping in a crackle of old leather and dry clicks. Atilo took the opening. Stabbing a throwing knife into the beast's heart.

"Alexa…?"

The square of leather bumped into ground-floor shutters, crawled between rusting bars and hung itself upside down. Wings folding to a fraction of their previous size as golden eyes glared from a face disgusted with the world.

"Giulietta's still alive?"

Kneeling, Atilo touched his fingers to the girl's throat. "Yes, my lady."

"Good. We'll need her now more than ever." The bat through which Giulietta's aunt had watched the battle turned its attention to the krieghund's death agony. "You've upset him." The words were thin. A whisper of wind forced from a throat not made for speech.

"He's dying."

"Not him, fool. His master. Leopold will try stealing her again."

Atilo considered pointing out that the German prince hadn't stolen her this time. Lady Giulietta had stolen herself.

"Then we hunt Leopold down and kill him."

"He has protection," whispered the bat. "He will be more cautious now. He will move more carefully. And he will rebuild his Wolf Brothers. And then all this will start again. Slaughtered children and the Night Watch too scared to do their job. Until we grow tired and beg for the truce he keeps offering us."

"This is our city."

"Yes," said the bat. "But he's the German emperor's bastard." The second time someone didn't come when he knocked, Atilo kicked the door off its hinges and entered with a throwing dagger in his hand.

"Boil water," he ordered. "And fetch me thread."

A combination of the blade he carried, his air of command and his absolute certainty he would be obeyed was enough to make the householder put down an iron bar, bow low and order his wife into the kitchen at the back.

"Who sleeps above?" Atilo pointed over his head.

"My daughter…"

"Bring her down."

"My lord."

Atilo caught fear in his voice. "I don't want your damn daughter," he said brusquely. "I want her bed, and privacy. Leave hot water, a needle and thread outside her door."

"Thread, sir?"

The Moor sighed. "Find a horsehair, boil it in the water, and the needle while you're at it. Knock when they're ready." Disappearing into the night, he returned carrying Giulietta, her legs hanging over his arms, her head thrown back to reveal blood in her hair.

"You know who I am?"

The man, the woman and their newly arrived daughter shook their heads. The daughter was about twelve, wrapped in a blanket, and flinched when he turned his attention to her. "Did you see the battle?"

"No one here saw anything, my lord."

"Right answer," said Atilo, pushing past towards the stairs.

New Year 1407 In the days then weeks and finally months that followed that autumn's pitched battle between the Assassini and the Wolf Brothers-a battle known only to a few-plans went forward for the marriage of Lady Giulietta to Janus, King of Cyprus.

As the year dragged towards its end and another was born, on 25 December, the same day as the Christian Lord, Atilo il Mauros-who wasn't quite sure which god he acknowledged-licked his wounds and wondered how to keep the destruction of his Assassini secret.

The girl they'd died protecting simply waited to meet her new husband. Although she should have realised he wouldn't come himself. Instead, he sent an Englishman, Sir Richard Glanville, as his envoy.

Arriving in mid-December, the envoy spent Christmas at the ducal palace, while terms were negotiated and arrangements made for Lady Giulietta's departure. When these were agreed, Sir Richard celebrated by offering a hundred gold coins as the prize for a gondola race. A foreign noble's traditional way of ingratiating himself with the Venetian public.

However, his generosity failed to impress Lady Giulietta, who resented having to leave her warm quarters for the chill wind of a winter afternoon, and made little attempt to hide it. She had no idea that Monday 3 January would change her life. As far as she was concerned, it was the day sleet frizzed her hair as she turned out to watch the end of another stupid race.

"They say Crucifers prefer men."

Sir Richard's simple breastplate was half hidden by the cloak of his order. His only jewellery was a ring marrying him to his priory. By contrast, the captain of Giulietta's escort wore red hose, scarlet shoes and a brocade doublet short enough to show his codpiece. Both men were watching a merchant's wife.

"My lady. Are you sure about that?"

"Eleanor…" Giulietta started to reprimand her lady-in-waiting and then shrugged. "Perhaps Sir Richard's the exception."

"Perhaps the rumour is wrong."

"You like him!"

"My lady."

"You do!"

Eleanor was thirteen and Giulietta's cousin. She had the dark eyes, black hair and olive skin of those who mix northern blood with blood from the south. She was loyal but quite capable of answering back. "He's a White Crucifer."