Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Assassin's Creed 4)

“Stop them!” Ahmet roared as his carriage passed the bewildered soldiers “They are trying to assassinate your prince!”

The soldiers hurried to lower the barrier’s arm as Sofia charged toward them, smashing through the barrier and scattering soldiers like chickens in her wake.

“Sorry!” she cried, then proceeded to knock down a whole row of market stalls lining the main street.

“Oh!” she called. “Forgive me!”

“Sofia, you must be careful,” Ezio said.

“I don’t want one single crack out of you about women drivers,” she snapped back, her teeth bared as their carriage clipped one of two poles supporting a banner across the street, bringing it down on the heads of the infuriated villagers storming in their wake.

“What are you doing?” said Ezio, his face white.

“What do you think I’m doing? Keeping us on track!”

Meanwhile, Ahmet’s coachman had gained ground, and the front coach was flying out of the village as Ahmet urged his men on. Looking back, Ezio saw that a cavalry patrol had set off in pursuit of them. The crossbowmen at the back of Ahmet’s carriage were bracing themselves to try to fire again, and this time they succeeded in getting a couple of shots off. One bolt grazed Sofia’s shoulder.

“Aië!” she cried. “Ezio!”

“Hang on!” He ran his fingers over the slight wound, touching the soft skin. Despite all that was going on, he felt a tingle in his fingertips. A tingle he’d only felt once before, during an experiment Leonardo had shown him, when his friend was tinkering about with something he’d called “electricity.”

“It’s a graze, nothing serious.”

“It’s one graze too many! I could have been killed! What have you got me into?”

“I can’t explain now!”

“Typical! Any excuse!”

Ezio turned in his seat and scanned the cavalrymen riding behind. “Get rid of them!” Sofia implored him.

He unleashed his pistol, checked it, and took careful aim at the front rider, bracing himself against the jolting and bucking carriage. Now or never! He took a deep breath, and fired.

The man flung up his arms as his horse swerved out of control across the path of his followers, and there was a mighty snarl-up as several horses crashed into one another, stumbling and falling, and bringing their riders down, even as those coming on from behind were unable to veer, and cannoned into the turmoil themselves. In the complete chaos of yelling men, whinnying horses, and dust, the pursuit came to an abrupt halt.

“Glad you’ve made yourself useful at last!” said Sofia, as they sped away from the confusion behind them. But looking ahead, Ezio could see that the road led through a very narrow gorge between two high cliffs that reared on either side.

Ahmet’s carriage just passed between them. But their own vehicle was wider. “Too narrow!” breathed Ezio.

“Brace yourself!” said Sofia, snapping the reins.

They flew into the gorge at top speed. The bare rock flashed past inches from Ezio’s shoulder.

Then they were out the other side.

“Eeah!” Ezio gasped.

Sofia flashed him a triumphant grin.

They had just come close enough to hear Ahmet cursing his crossbowmen, who had managed to reload and fire again but whose bolts flew well wide.

“Incompetent children!” he was hollering. “What’s the matter with you? Where did you learn to fight?”

After emerging from the gorge, the road wound to the west, and soon the glittering waters of the Black Sea were in view to the north, on their right.

“Shape up or throw yourselves into the ocean!” Ahmet was bellowing.

“Oh no,” said Ezio, looking ahead.

“What?” asked Sofia. Then she saw what he’d seen, and in her turn, she said, “Oh, no.”

Another village. And, beyond it, another Ottoman guard post. Another pole across the road.

“I must say you’ve got those horses under pretty good control,” said Ezio, reloading his pistol with difficulty as the carriage bucked and jumped. “Most people would have lost them by now, and they’d have bolted. Not bad at all—for a Venetian.”

“You should see me handle a gondola,” said Sofia.

“Well, now’s the time to put them through their paces again,” said Ezio.

“Just watch me.”

It was market day there, too, but as the two carriages shot toward them the crowd parted like the Red Sea did for Moses.

“Sorry!” cried Sofia as a fish stall collapsed in her wake. Then it was the turn of a pottery stand. Shards flew everywhere, and the air turned blue with the trader’s oaths and imprecations.

Next thing, a live chicken landed squawking in Ezio’s lap.

“Did we just buy this?” he asked.

“It’s a drive-through.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

The chicken struggled out of Ezio’s grasp, pecking him for good measure, and half flew, half scrambled back to the relative safety of the ground.

“Look out! Up ahead!” Ezio shouted.

The guards had let Ahmet through, but they’d got their roadblock down behind him this time, and stood ready, pikes held out toward Sofia’s horses. Unpleasant looks of anticipated triumph lit up their mean, swarthy faces.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Sofia.

“What is?”

“Well, look—they’ve got their roadblock in the middle of the road all right, but there’s nothing but bare ground either side of it. Do they take us for fools?”

“Perhaps they are the fools,” said Ezio, amused.

Then he had to grab hold of the seat fast as Sofia pulled hard on the left reins and dragged the horses in a tight turn, to gallop round the roadblock, leaving it to their right. Then she hauled hard right and regained the road thirty yards past the soldiers, some of whom hurled their pikes impotently after them.

“See any cavalry?” asked Sofia.

“Not this time.”

“Good.” She snapped the reins, and once again they began to close the gap between themselves and Ahmet.

But there was yet another village, a small one, up ahead.

“Not again!” said Sofia.

“I see it,” said Ezio. “Try to close with him now!”

Sofia whipped up the horses, but, as they reached the hamlet, Ahmet’s coachman craftily slowed. The soldiers on the backseat had replaced their crossbows with short-poled, vicious-looking halberds, whose axeheads gleamed in the sun. Despite her efforts to slow down, too, Sofia couldn’t help drawing level, and Ahmet’s coachman managed to veer and clip them again. This time, he succeeded in throwing their carriage off balance, and it began to topple. But the crash had had the same effect on Ahmet’s vehicle.