Revelations

SIXTY-FIVE

The muskets fired. Ezio threw himself flat on the jetty.

Arrows from behind and above them fell on the Byzantine soldiers like rain. In seconds, all Prince Ahmet’s soldiers lay dead or wounded by the lake’s edge.

One ball had seared Ezio’s hood, but otherwise he was unscathed, and he thanked God that age hadn’t slowed his reactions. When he got to his feet, it was to see Dilara standing at the other end of the jetty. From vantage points at the top of the stairway that led down to it, her men were descending, and those who’d already reached ground level were moving among the Byzantines, checking the dead and tending the wounded.

“Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” said Dilara.

“So it would seem,” said Ezio. “Thank you.”

“Get what you came for?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’d better get you out of here. You’ve raised hell, you know.”

“Looks like it.”

She shook her head. “It’ll take them years to recover from this. If they recover at all. But there’s enough kick left in them to send you flying if they find you. Come on!”

She started back up the stairs.

“Wait! Should I take a boat out of here?”

“Are you mad? They’ll be waiting for you where the river comes out into the open. It’s a narrow gorge. You’d be dead meat in a moment, and I don’t want to see my work here wasted.”

Ezio followed her obediently.

They climbed back up through several levels, then took a street winding away to the south. The smoke there had cleared somewhat, and the people who were about were too preoccupied with putting out fires to pay them much attention. Dilara set a very brisk pace, and, before long, they’d arrived at a gateway similar to the one Ezio had opened on the west side of the city. Dilara produced a key and opened the ironclad wooden door.

“I’m impressed,” said Ezio.

“So you should be. Tell them in Kostantiniyye that they can rest easy that their people here are doing a good job.”

Ezio squinted against the sunlight that poured in through the door, which seemed blinding after the dimness of the underground city. But he saw a road winding away to the south, with the dismal little village of Nadarim hunched in its path.

“Your horse is saddled and freshly fed and watered in the stables there. Food and drink in the saddlebags. You can pick her up without danger. The village has been liberated, and they’ve already started whitewashing the buildings-Allah knows it needed cheering up, and now it’s broken free of its oppressors,” said Dilara, her nostrils flaring in triumph. “But get out of here now. It won’t be long before news reaches Ahmet of what’s happened. He won’t dare come back himself, of course, but you can be sure he’ll send someone after you.”

“Has he got anyone left?”

Dilara smiled-a little tightly, but she did smile. “Go on, go. You should be able to make Nigde by the end of the week. You’ll be back in Mersin by the full moon if nobody cuts you down on the way.”

“Ahead of schedule.”

“Congratulations.”

“What about you?”

“Our work here isn’t finished. In any case, we don’t move without a direct order from Kostantiniyye. Give my regards to Tarik.”

Ezio looked at her in grim silence for a moment, then said, “I’ll tell them at the Sublime Porte how much they owe to you.”

“You do that. And now I’ve got to get back to my men and reorganize. Your little fireworks display wrecked our headquarters, among other things.”

Ezio wanted to say something more, but she had already gone.