Reborn in The Most Serene Republic of Venice – Rise of a Doge

Zaccaria’s sword came up.

”Form up!”

He never got to say another word.

More figures burst through the smoke behind the first, a dozen or more of them. One threw back his head and bellowed in a language none of the Venetians knew.

”Fram, fram!”

They came on with axes raised, and there wasn’t time left for any formation.

The charge crashed into the company before some men had even turned to face it. There was no neat battle ranks, no ordered clash of shields. It was a wave breaking against a rock, sudden, ugly, and close enough to smell the breath of the man trying to kill you.

The Venetian company had numbers.

At that moment, it had little else.

Vito found himself swallowed by it before he’d made any choice at all. The press of bodies pushed him forward, and by the time he thought to wonder what he was doing, he was already trying to put steel through somebody.

Pellegrino landed at his side, or perhaps Vito landed at Pellegrino’s. There was no use to the difference at this point.

The pair of them looked up just in time to find one axe coming for both their heads.

It swept around in one broad arc that ought to have finished them together. The only reason it didn’t was because the street let just enough room to throw themselves backward over the spilled goods from the overturned cart before the axe completed its path.

”Madonna... they don’t grow them small up north, do they?”

”San Marco, get us out of this and I’ll start buying candles tonight,” Pellegrino panted.

The Varangian came on without breaking stride.

He stepped straight through the wreckage as though crates and baskets were no more troublesome than puddles after rain. One sweep of the axe stove in the cart’s side and sent splintered boards and bruised fruit skittering over the stones.

”Til Óðins!”

Pellegrino darted in while the axe was still chewing its way free. His sword flicked out, slashed the Norseman’s forearm, and skipped away before the axe came back around.

The Norseman spared the wound less notice than the apples beneath his boots.

He did not stop.

One step at a time, and each seemed to have more weight than the last. The broad chest, the thick shoulders, the axe swinging in slow rhythm with his stride, it all built the impression of one landslide making its patient way downhill.

Vito retreated with Pellegrino, neither willing to meet that axe head-on if there was another choice to be had.

The Varangian came on with the axe low, into both hands without slowing, shoulders and hips turning together until the whole of him seemed to follow the weapon.

The sweep would have taken both men at the neck.

Vito caught the haft on his blade and gave with the blow, forcing the edge past them by little more than a hand’s breadth.

For an instant it seemed enough.

The Norseman never yielded the ground he had already taken, but instead crashed forward behind the stroke, his shoulder driving into Vito’s chest with the weight of a battering ram. The cart burst apart beneath him, rotten planks flying as he disappeared through them.

Pellegrino needed no invitation for the chance Vito had bought.

His sword slipped beneath the raised arm and found only rings of mail. The steel grated onto steel before the blade skidded harmlessly away, and the axe came back around with dreadful speed.

The haft whipped across and caught Pellegrino squarely on the shoulder, folding him onto one knee with a cry that vanished beneath the din.

The axe climbed overhead once more.

Vito forced himself up from the splintered remains of the cart, every movement sending a sharp pain through his ribs. His breath caught, and for an instant the whole street seemed to sway before his eyes.

”Right. That one I deserved.”

Even then, there was little time to waste. He threw himself at the Norseman, driving low beneath the raised arms as his sword swept for the forward leg where the mail gave way below the hem of the byrnie.

The blade found the mark, a deep cut through the knee, enough to drag a grunt from deep inside that barrel chest of a man.

The Varangian replied with his elbow, that came around with startling speed and crashed into the side of Vito’s face, enough to spin him about and into the ground.

”Þórr!”

”Sweet Mother of God, does nothing stop him?”

Pellegrino hauled himself upright with a sharp breath while the Varangian was distracted.

His sword darted in beneath the swinging elbow and bit across the man’s ribs, enough for rings of mail to burst apart beneath the blade and draw out fresh blood.

The Varangian snorted, either in pain or annoyance.

He turned with frightening speed and drove a boot into Pellegrino’s chest.

The kick hurled him backward across the cobbles like a ragdoll.

He struck the ground hard, the breath blasted from his lungs, his sword skittering from his grasp before he scrambled after it.

Vito had recovered by then, though the world still swam for an instant whenever he moved too quickly.

Pellegrino’s sword had done little more than tear the mail and draw blood, yet that was enough for Vito to drive his own blade into that very wound with all the strength he had left, forcing the steel through the rent rings until the hilt struck mail.

The Norseman let out a wet grunt and lurched half a pace, more from surprise than weakness.

Vito seized the moment and tried to tear the sword free.

It would not move, the blade had buried itself too deeply beneath the broken mail.

Only then did the Norseman turn back toward him.

”Oh, don’t be possessive.”

”Óðinn, styrk!”

His expression was ugly, whether from pain or anger Vito could not have said, but the axe was already overhead while Vito still fought to wrench his sword loose.

The axe hung there only for the space of a heartbeat.

”Now would be an excellent time for divine intervention!”

Then the Norseman let out a grunt, sudden and rough, and his whole back jerked as Pellegrino drove himself upright behind him.

For a heartbeat he looked every bit the man who had only just been flung half across the street. His hair was full of dust, one shoulder hung lower than the other, and his face had some strained, offended look.

”Did you call?” he growled.

His sword went in under the raised arm and found the space beneath the byrnie from behind, hard and deep, with enough force to lift the Norseman up on the balls of his feet.

The blade went through mail, flesh, and more than a little temper. More blood spilled down Pellegrino’s hand at once, warm and bright, and the Varangian let out a cough and a curse in his own language.

The axe, which had been coming down to part Vito from crown to collarbone, faltered in the air.

”Valhöll...”

Vito tore his sword free with a snarl and threw himself sideways as the blow lost its purpose. The axe struck stone instead, smashing a white spark from the cobbles and biting deep enough to lodge there for a breath.

The Norseman swayed, one massive shoulder sagging as if the whole man had suddenly remembered it was made of meat after all.

Pellegrino, breathing hard enough to whistle, leaned in another inch and twisted the blade.

”Oh, for the love of God,” he muttered. ”Are you too stubborn to notice you’ve been killed?”

The big man made one last ugly cry and went to one knee, the axe dragging after him with a scrape like iron on a millstone.

Pellegrino looked at him through the sweat and dust and blood on his face.

”That is going in the confession.” He drew another ragged breath. ”Every blessed bit of it.”

Then the Varangian toppled forward, and the two of them had to jump clear to keep from being taken down with him. The axe hit the stones again with a clang that rang up the lane, and for one holy instant there was nothing left of the monster but a heap of mail, limbs, and the kind of silence that followed a man who had finally, at last, been stopped.

Vito dragged a breath into bruised ribs and looked about the lane.

The company had finally remembered there were more of them than there were Varangians.

Three Venetians dogged every axe now, one drawing the swing, another darting in with steel while the third looked for somewhere unpleasant to stick it. It was not dignified work, but Vito found himself thinking dignity had always been overrated.

It was working.

Mostly.

Not every man lived long enough to enjoy the advantage. One Venetian lay with half his skull cracked like an overripe melon, another folded across a shattered cart with enough of his insides hanging out to make a butcher proud, while a Varangian still hacked at a third as though he meant to reduce him to pieces small enough to count.

Then Vito saw Zaccaria.

The captain was giving ground.