The Epic Conclusion: Part 1
The next morning the battlefield looked much different than it had the day before. The Romans had been pushed up and away from the town, thanks to the surprise attack from Antonio and the Duke of Milan. On the down side, they now held positions on the high ground. They had encamped on a long ridge and the surrounding hills. What was left of Luigi's battalion had been folded into Uberto's after Luigi's death so Uberto had the largest battalion in the army at the moment. This was a good thing because he and the brother of Lorenzo di Medici were going to storm the right flank of the Roman army, the part they had fortified the best. The only advantage he had was that the Antonio and the Duke of Milan were going to launch another attack on the left flank of the Romans.
When the advance was sounded, they led their combined 5,000 men across the plain and up the hill. They were immediately met with arrows and crossbow-bolts. Crossbows take a long time to reload and after the first volley, there was very little resistance. However, when they were just 75 feet from the crest of the hill, a large force of archers that had been stationed on the next hill over, appeared on their flank. Now that they were being hit from both sides, the soldiers immediately began taking cover behind trees or just lying down on the forest floor. Uberto called a messenger over. "Sir," the boy yelled over the din of the battle, "What are your orders?" "Tell Mario to send all the reserves he has over the far west hill. All of the troops they had stationed over there are out of position to attack us."
As the boy turned and ran, Uberto heard a terrifying sound. The sound of 100 armored knights charging downhill at his men. "Stand up," he cried, "Form a pike-wall. Hold your ground" The other commander, Medici's brother took up the call as well. "Stand up. Form a pike-wall, hold your ground." But the arrows whistling overhead had cowed most of his men and they plowed through the pitiful pike-wall a few men had managed to make. Many of the men were trampled and countless more were cut down. But Uberto noticed something else. The arrows had stopped. They wouldn't fire into their own men.
Drawing his sword he charged up the hill yelling at the top of his lungs, "To arms, rise and fight, they won't shoot their own men." Relatively few men were behind him, but those that were took up the cry.
As if to mock him, a crossbow-bolt suddenly took the younger Medici in the leg, all but severing it at the knee. He screamed as he rolled down the hill and out of sight. Uberto however didn't allow himself to be phased. He continued the charge and as he burst into the ranks of where the cavalry actually were he began to cut down the few who pikemen had pulled out of their saddles.
The men who followed him in the charge were right with him, and they began to drive the cavalry back. The archers were still afraid to fire into the ranks of the cavalry and the archers on the flank had pulled back to where they were supposed to be. After hours of fighting Uberto was almost to the crest when a lance pierced his chest-bone. He fell against a tree, and slid down to the ground. He tried to fight off the blackness that ultimately came for him.
Antonio finally led his men forward and into the fray. He and the Duke of Milan were hours late in their attack on the left flank of the Romans. To their advantage however an overconfident Roman had led the cavalry that was supposed to be on the far right hill to the base of the hill he was going to be attacking. A hastily formed pike-wall had left more than half of that force in their death throes.
Antonio turned to yell some encouragement to his men before storming the heavily wooded hill but just then an arrow took him in the throat. He fell out of the saddle, gurgling the encouragement he had meant to give to his men.
The Duke of Milan was now in charge as he led two battalions of pike up the hill. It wasn't hard to storm because the trees made the archers extremely ineffective in breaking up his formation and the cavalry couldn't attack an already formed pike-wall. Upon reaching the crest, his men immediately began fortifying it. They also sent messenger to Mario telling him to send any infantry he still had up the hill to the right because the Duke had cut them off from the rest of the army. Roughly a few hours later, Bartolommeo's men had seized the hill, but an order came for the Duke to send a force to occupy it, so that Bartolommeo could prepare for and assault the next morning.
At sunset, a Roman counterattack finally came. The crest had been cleared of trees so his men made easy targets for the Roman archers. The Duke ordered his men to lie down, so they weren't such easy targets. Once the archers realized that they weren't doing any damage, they stopped firing.
The reprieve was slight as a large force of pikemen charged up the hill. It was pike against pike in bloody combat atop the hill. As the blood red sun sank lower and lower in the sky the pile of corpses grew larger and larger on the ground. The men of Milan were slowly driven back. The Duke was desperately trying to rally his men as the fell. They just couldn't hold against the onslaught.
They had lost the crest and were being pushed back down the hill. The enemy pike lines had stopped advancing and they were just letting the archers finish the job. The Duke men dug in for the night 70 feet below the crest with the less than half the men he had started the day with. The Duke hadn't given up hope yet. There was no sign of any attack on the hill to the right and the Duke theorized that the Romans didn't know he had troops up there.
Ezio and the rest of the Assassins met around the table of Volpe's inn in Rome, The Sleeping Fox. The mood was extremely somber. Ezio had been in a fearful rage and the others had just finished calming him. The Templar has Christina and all three of his children. Compared to that he didn't care that they also had Paola and Teodora.
"Here is what we are going to do" said Niccolo, who Mario had left in charge months ago. "Fredrico, you alone know where the Armor of Altair is. We are going to need that. Take are only standing recruit, Julius, with you. Uggo and Rosa, you must go and retrieve Leonardo da Vinci. Ceserae had put him out to pasture in a villa 22 miles from here. If you leave now you can be back tomorrow. Volpe, I am giving you the most important mission of all. The Apple of Eden is hidden in a valley 60 miles from here. You can be back in three days if you leave soon."
Just then a knock came at the door. Lucille, another recruit timidly stuck her head in the door. "Thank God, you are all right" Rosa said. The two had become close friends in the last few months. "How did you escape?" asked Ezio. "I didn't" Lucille admitted. "They found me hiding on the top floor. I was taken to their commander who gave me this message for you. 'You Assassins are going to leave the Apple of Eden in a box at foot of the bridge to the Vatican. If I don't have it, I will kill one of the prisoners in a very slow, painful, way. Every day at noon someone will die, and every time will be worse than the time before.' He also wanted to tell you, Ezio, that he will save your family for last. He said it was a tradeoff; more time, for a more excruciating price of failure.
"We have to do something" Petruchio said, slamming his fists down on the table with fire in his eyes. "What can we do?" Uggo asked. "Any rescue attempt and they will probably kill all six hostages." "Seven" Lucille inserted, "Ezio's wife, his three kids, Paola, Teodora, and our other recruit Angelica."
"For now we will do whatever we can to fight back." Niccolo said. "We have 18 hours before the first execution. Ezio, Lucille, Giovanni and Mario are hiding behind the door to the underwater entrance. Go and retrieve them. Petruchio, Claudia, we have a mission. Uggo and Rosa discovered these six scrolls while hunting down the pagan Followers of Romulus. I believe these scrolls are the keys to unlocking a suit of armor similar to the Armor of Altair. The Followers were bought and paid for by the Templar Order and it would be safe to assume the Templar know about the Armor. We must go and retrieve it before they find a way to open it."
Niccolo then turned to the entire Brotherhood that had assembled. "We have been struck a grievous blow by this new Templar foe. But he seriously underestimates us. He thinks we are beaten. But I tell you Brothers and Sisters; We Are NOT Beaten. We have been knocked down but we will rise. Remember our Creed for it gives us strength. Nothing is true. This foe believes he is unbeatable. This is not true. Everything is permitted. We will go to all lengths to stop the Templar and to get our people back. Remember, We work in the Dark to serve the Light. WE ARE ASSASSINS.
Ezio didn't get out of the speech but he saw almost every other face in the room light up, and become firm with resolve. Even Volpe, who should have been far beyond believing in such simple, shallow speeches, but as they left to go to their assigned tasks there was a renewed vigor to their step.
As Niccole and the two youngest Auditore siblings approached the armor they noticed that the locks had been damaged in an attempt to force entry. As they drew closer, the Templar Commander and 12 men appeared behind them. There was no call for surrender or the prefight banter and taunting that was so common for Templars. The three were completely divided, with each fighting four Templars.
Claudia rammed her stiletto into the first attacker's belly. She ducked under the second attacker's swing, and slit his throat. A third attacker swung his mini ax but she caught his wrist and planted her knife in his chest. But she realized in horror that it wasn't a killing blow and the man shoved his own long-bladed knife into her diaphragm.
Niccolo managed to kill the first attacker. However, the other three just toyed with him and slowly wore him down. He managed to stab a second Templar but the leg that had been critically wounded at the Tiber Island Hideout gave out. Petruchio saw him scream as one of the remaining Templars jumped on him and four times with his hand ax.
Petruchio had now slain six guards. Only two remained standing, but these two worked much better as a team than the others. Petruchio never got a chance to strike because one of the two was always attacking. The two were backing him towards the armor, but suddenly an iridescent gold glove clamped over his mouth and a long-bladed knife entered him from behind. The Commander walked around in front of Petruchio who had fallen to his knees and drew a pistol that the Borgia had been building. Petruchio yelled in defiance as the bullet pierced his skull
