Assassin's Creed Odyssey: The Official Novelization

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thanks to Caroline, Anthony, Anouk, Melissa, Aymar, Clémence, Stéphanie-Anne, Jonathan, Miranda, Sara and Bob Schwager, and everyone at Ubisoft and Penguin for giving me this chance to immerse myself in the world of Assassin’s Creed. It has been a hugely enjoyable journey, and your expert guidance and support along the way have been greatly appreciated. An equally big thanks to my agent, James Wills of Watson, Little Ltd., for helping to make this adventure happen.

WAIT TO STRIKE

Kassandra took the guard ax stolen from the Cyclops’s den in one hand and the Leonidas spear in the other, watching, waiting for the first to move. The meanest-looking of the thugs, bald with heavy gold earrings and a leather kilt, wriggled a little. When he lurched forward, she threw up spear and ax in an X to block, but the blow sent her staggering back toward those behind. She pivoted midstride to meet the expected attack from that direction, only to see the streaking shadow of Ikaros, swooping down to claw at the eyes of the brute behind her, saving her from his wicked-looking sickle. She swung to face her next attacker, parrying then chopping the ax into his shoulder, cleaving deep and bringing a gout of black blood. The foe fell away and she saw the next coming for her. She bent her body around his sword thrust and jabbed the Leonidas spear into his face. He fell with an animal moan, his head ruptured like a melon. Two more lunged at her now. One scored her breastbone with a swipe of his spear, and the other nearly crushed her head with a heavy iron mace. Too many… and the Cyclops himself was weighing up his moment to strike the killing blow. A Spartan must have the eyes of a hunter, see everything, not just that which lies before them, Nikolaos berated her. From the edges of her vision, she saw something on the Adrestia’s decks: the ship’s spar and the rope holding it in place—one end knotted by the rail. As the two oncoming thugs screamed, she ducked, avoiding their twin strikes, and tugged the ax from the cloven chest of the first she had killed. Rising, she hurled the ax toward the ship. She did not wait to see if her aim had been good, turning to block another attack. The next thing she heard was the thunk of the ax biting through rope and into timber, the groan of wood, the roar of the Cyclops charging at her, his heavy blade tensed and ready to slice across her belly. Then the shadow of something passed overhead. The spar—freed—pivoted around on the mast, the rope flailing past overhead. Kassandra leapt up to grab the brine-wet rope and clung on for dear life, just as the Cyclops’s blade cut through the space she had been occupying.

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