He waited awhile, until the voices finally receded, and silence fell. Then, tentatively, he flexed his hands and feet, then his arms and legs, as, gratefully, he spat out the dirt.
Nothing seemed to be broken. Slowly, painfully, he wormed his way out of the bushes and got to his feet. Then, cautiously, and keeping to what cover there was, he clambered back to the road.
He was just in time to see the Templar captain passing through the gate in the walls of the fortified village, a couple of hundred yards away. Keeping to the side of the road where bushes grew and he could conceal himself, he brushed himself off and started to walk toward the village, but it seemed as if every muscle in him protested.
“This used to be so easy,” he murmured to himself, ruefully. But he willed himself onward and, skirting the wall, found a likely place to climb it.
Having stuck his head over the parapet to check that he was unobserved, he pulled himself over and dropped into the village. He found himself in the stockyard, empty except for a pair of heifers which shunted off to one side, eyeing him warily. He took time to wait, in case there were dogs, but after a minute, he passed through the wicket of the stockyard and, following the sound of raised voices, made his way through the apparently deserted village toward them. Nearing the village square, he caught sight of the captain and stepped out of sight behind a shed. The captain, standing on the top of a low tower at one corner of the square, was berating two unhappy sergeants. Beyond them, the assembled villagers stood mutely by. The captain’s words were punctuated by the chop-chop of a waterwheel on the other side, worked by the rivulet that ran through the village.
“I seem to be the only one around here who knows how to handle a horse,” the captain was saying. “Until we’re sure he’s dead this time, I command you not to drop your guard for a moment. Do you understand?”
“Yessir,” the men answered sullenly.
“How many times have you failed to kill that man, hmn?” the captain continued angrily. “Listen up and listen close: If I do not see his head rolling in the dust at my feet within the hour, yours will take its place!”
The captain fell silent and, turning, watched the road from his vantage point. Ezio could see that he was nervous. He fiddled with the cocking lever of his crossbow.
Ezio had made his way into the crowd of villagers during the captain’s tirade, blending in with them as best he could, which, given his battered and downtrodden appearance, wasn’t difficult. But the crowd was breaking up, returning to work. The mood among the people was nervous, and when a man in front of him suddenly stumbled, jostling another, the second turned on him irritably, snapping: “Hey, get out of my way—get a move on!”
His attention caught by the disturbance, the captain scanned the crowd, and in an instant his eye caught Ezio’s.
“You!” he shouted. In another moment he had cocked his bow, fitted a bolt, and fired.
Ezio dodged it adroitly, and it flew past him, to embed itself in the arm of the man who’d snapped.
“Aiëë!” he yelped, clutching his shattered biceps.
Ezio darted for cover as the captain reloaded.
“You will not leave this place alive!” the captain bawled, firing again. This time, the bolt stuck harmlessly in a wooden doorframe, which Ezio had ducked behind. But there was very little wrong with the captain’s shooting. So far, Ezio had been lucky. He had to get away, and fast. Two more bolts sang past him.
“There’s no way out!” the captain called after him. “You might as well turn and face me, you pitiful old dog.” He fired again.
Ezio drew a breath and leapt to catch hold of the lintel of another doorway, swinging himself up so that he was able to get onto the flat clay roof of a dwelling. He ran across it to the other side as another bolt whistled past his ear.
“Stand your ground and die,” hollered the captain. “Your time has come, and you must accept it, even if it is far away from your wretched kennel in Rome! So come and meet your killer!”
Ezio could see where soldiers were running around to the back of the village, to cut off his line of retreat. But they had left the captain isolated, except for his two sergeants, and his quiver of bolts was empty.
The villagers had scattered and disappeared long since.
Ezio ducked behind the low wall surrounding the roof, unstrapped his bags from his back, and slipped the pistol harness onto his right wrist.
“Why will you not quit?!” the captain was calling, drawing his sword.
Ezio stood. “I never learned how,” he called back in a clear voice, raising his gun.
The captain looked at the raised weapon in momentary panic and fear, then, shrieking “Out of my way!” at his attendants, he shoved them aside and leapt from the tower to the ground. Ezio fired and caught him in midjump, the bullet catching him in the left knee joint. With a howl of pain, the captain hit the ground, dashing his head against a sharp stone, and rolled over there. The sergeants fled.
Ezio crossed the deserted square. No soldiers came back. Either their fear of Ezio had persuaded them that he was indeed a supernatural being, or their love of their captain could not have been very great. There was silence except for the steady clatter of the waterwheel, and the captain’s agonized whimpering.
The captain caught Ezio’s eye as he approached. “Ah, dammit,” he said. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go on—kill me!”
“You have something I need,” Ezio told him calmly, reloading his gun so that both chambers were ready. The captain eyed the weapon.
“I see the old hound still has his bite,” he said through gritted teeth. Blood flowed from his knee and from the more serious wound on his left temple.
“The book you carry. Where is it?”
The captain looked crafty. “Niccolò Polo’s old journal, you mean? You know about that? You surprise me, Assassin.”
“I am full of surprises,” Ezio replied. “Give it to me.”
Seeing there was no help for it, the captain, grunting, drew an old leather-bound book, some twelve inches by six, from his jerkin. His hand was shaking, and he dropped it onto the ground.
The captain looked at it with a laugh that died, gurgling, in his throat. “Take it,” he said. “We have gleaned all its secrets and found the first of the five keys already. When we have the rest, the Grand Temple, and all the power within, will be ours.”
Ezio looked at him pityingly. “You are deceived, soldier. There is no ancient temple at Masyaf. Only a library, full of wisdom.”