Revelations

TWENTY-TWO

Ezio arrived during a lull in the fighting and managed to slip into the Den without being seen. There, he was greeted by Dogan, one of the Assassin lieutenants he had briefly met earlier.

“Mentor, it is an honor. Is Yusuf not with you?”

“No-they’ve mounted another attack-on our Den by the Grand Bazaar. He’s on his way there now.” Ezio paused. “What is the situation here?”

Dogan wiped his brow. “We’ve beaten back the vanguard, but they’re just fallen back to wait for reinforcements.”

“Are your men ready for them?”

Dogan gave Ezio a wry smile, encouraged by the Mentor’s enthusiasm and confidence. “Now you’re here, they are!”

“Where’s the next attack likely to come from?”

“The north side. They think that’s the weakest.”

“Then we’d better make sure it’s the strongest!”

Dogan redeployed his Assassins according to Ezio’s instructions, and by the time the Templars launched their counterattack, they were ready for them. The fight was as fierce as it was short, leaving fifteen Templar mercenaries dead in the square near the tower where the Den was located. The Assassin troop counted two men and one woman wounded, but no fatalities. It had been a rout of the Templars.

“They will not be back soon,” Dogan told Ezio when it was all over.

“Let’s hope so. From my experience of the Templars, they do not like to be bested.”

“Well, if they try it again around here, they’ll have to learn to live with it.”

Ezio smiled and clapped Dogan on the shoulder. “That’s the kind of talk I like to hear!”

He made to take his leave.

“Where will you go now?” asked Dogan.

“I’m going to join Yusuf at the Den of the Grand Bazaar. Send word to me there if the Templars do regroup.”

“In that unlikely event, you will be the first to know.”

“And tend to your wounded. That sergeant of yours took a bad cut to the head.”

“It is being attended to as we speak.”

“Can I get there by using the zipline system?”

“Once you reach the south bank of the Horn. But you must cross that by ferry. It’s the fastest way to the peninsula.”

“Ferry?”

“There was to have been a bridge, but for some reason it was never built.”

“Ah yes,” said Ezio. “I remember somebody mentioning that.” He put out his hand. “Allaha ismarladik,” he said.

“Gule gule.” Dogan smiled back.

The Den Ezio needed to reach was located not far from the Bazaar, in the Imperial District, between the Bazaar itself and the ancient church of Haghia Sofia, now converted by the Ottomans into a mosque.

But the fighting Ezio reached was taking place a short distance to the southwest, close to the docks on the southern shores of the city. He stood for a moment on a rooftop, observing the battle, which was in full spate in the streets and on the quays below him. A rope from a wooden stake near him stretched down to a point near where he could see Yusuf, his back to the waters of the dock, in the thick of the fray. Yusuf was fending off a half dozen burly mercenaries, and his companions were too busy themselves to come to his aid. Ezio hooked onto the rope and swooped down, jumping from the rope at a height of twelve feet and spread-eagling himself, left-hand hidden-blade extended, to land on the backs of two of Yusuf’s attackers, sending them sprawling. They were dead before they could react, and Ezio stood over them as the remaining four in their group turned to face him, giving Yusuf enough respite to edge round to their flank. Ezio kept his hookblade extended.

As the four Templar troopers fell roaring on Ezio, Yusuf rushed them from the side, his own hidden-blade brought quickly into play. One huge soldier was almost upon Ezio, having backed him up against a warehouse wall, when he remembered the hook-and-roll technique and used it to escape from, and fell, his opponent, stabbing the man’s writhing body with his hidden-blade to deliver the coup de grace. Meanwhile, Yusuf had dispatched two of the others, while the survivor took to his heels.

Elsewhere, fierce fighting was simmering down as Yusuf’s brigade got the better of the Templars, who finally fled, cursing, into the depths of the city to the north.

“Glad you arrived in time to meet my new playmates,” said Yusuf, wiping and sheathing his sword, and retracting his hidden-blade, as Ezio did likewise. “You fought like a tiger, my friend, like a man late for his own-wedding.”

“Do you not mean funeral?”

“You would not mind being late for that.”

“Well, if we’re talking about a wedding, I’m twenty-five years late already.” Ezio pushed the familiar darkening mood aside and squared his shoulders. “Did I arrive in time to save the Bazaar Den?”

Yusuf shrugged regretfully. “Alas, no. We’ve only managed to save our own skins. The Bazaar Den is taken. Unfortunately, I arrived too late to regain it. They were too well entrenched.”

“Don’t despair. The Galata Den is safe. The Assassins we used there can join us here.”

Yusuf brightened. “With my ‘army’ doubled in size, we’ll take the Bazaar back together! Come! This way!”