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  THE LEGEND OF ZORRO

  A Novelization by SCOTT CIENCIN

  Based on the Screenplay by

  ROBERTO ORCI & ALEX KURTZMAN

  Story by ROBERTO ORCI & ALEX KURTZMAN

  and TED ELLIOTT & TERRY ROSSIO

  Contents

  FROM THE LAIR OF THE FOX

  Thunder crashes outside the dark labyrinth of Zorro’s secret lair…

  PROLOGUE

  The tale begins long ago in a land called Franconia.

  CHAPTER 1

  Avery special bell tolled in the high reaches of…

  CHAPTER 2

  The rooftops blurred as Zorro blazed across them, his boots…

  FROM JOAQUIN’S CONFESSIONS

  Zorro, Zorro, I have seen El Zorro!

  CHAPTER 3

  Alejandro’s hand playfully explored the soft, sensuous landscape of Elena’s…

  FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF ELENA DE LA VEGA

  Several nights ago, the subject of popular author Edgar Allan…

  FROM A SCROLL FALLEN IN A CORNER IN ALEJANDRO DE LA VEGA’S HIDDEN LAIR

  Today. Big day. Nearly broke my hand on a bandito’s…

  CHAPTER 4

  The next morning, Elena de la Vega knelt in her…

  FROM JOAQUIN’S CONFESSIONS

  Mama? Papi? They don’t understand. They can’t understand.

  CHAPTER 5

  Morning light burned Alejandro’s eyes. Squinting, he stirred from the…

  CHAPTER 6

  Hacienda de la Fere perched above the rolling night-enraptured…

  CHAPTER 7

  The afternoon sun glared in Elena’s eyes as the carriage…

  FROM “ZORRO VERSUS THE SCALLYWAG” A WORK IN PROGRESS

  El Zorro leaped back, his boot catching the crumbling edge…

  CHAPTER 8

  Fray Felipe frowned as he stared down at the passage…

  CHAPTER 9

  The dark crimson hues of dusk seeped in through the…

  CHAPTER 10

  The clock in the Town Square struck twelve times, its…

  FROM THE CONFESSIONS OF JOAQUIN DE LA VEGA

  I am never changing out of these clothes again so…

  CHAPTER 11

  An ornate chandelier radiating a warm comforting bronze glow peered…

  CHAPTER 12

  Alejandro de la Vega was a prisoner. Trapped in a…

  CHAPTER 13

  Elena knocked at the front door to Armand’s glorious hacienda…

  CHAPTER 14

  The blades pressed in. Elena steadied herself for a desperate…

  FROM THE FOURTH VOLUME OF THE MEMOIRS OF COUNT ARMAND DE LA FERE

  Her beauty clouds my reason.

  CHAPTER 15

  Aknot constricting in her throat, Elena stared with fascinated horror…

  CHAPTER 16

  Half a dozen guards attacked as one, like a murderous…

  CHAPTER 17

  Joaquin’s chest felt as if it were going to explode…

  FROM THE LAIR OF THE FOX

  I stand before Zorro in his secret lair, staring deeply…

  About the Author

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  From the Lair of the Fox

  Thunder crashes outside the dark labyrinth of Zorro’s secret lair, the sound vying in my ears with the pounding of my own heart. His journals lie open, his secrets stand revealed. I know everything now about those thrilling days when the fate of our country rested with a brave but struggling father and his rebellious son. Or so I believe.

  Zorro approaches, his eyes revealing a final truth. Were it not for the mysterious depths glimpsed in his dark and searching eyes, I would see only the blaze of his roguish grin, the shimmering sweep of his sword, the flowing black reaches of his cape and costume.

  I would not see a man; I would see only a legend.

  As I stand before Zorro, the tip of his blade raised boldly in challenge, I find my voice at last. But what I have to say is not for him to hear.

  It is for you.

  Prologue

  The tale begins long ago in a land called Franconia. It was the Year of Our Lord thirteen hundred and fifty. The crusades had ended and a war destined to last a century raged between England and France.

  And yet…they say there are two histories. The one we read in books…and the true history, the one known but never written. As the countries of Europe squabbled like schoolchildren on a playground, a brotherhood of knights, corrupted by power and greed, waged their own Holy War with one ambition: to erect a shadow kingdom, to dominate the world as it was then known.

  They were the Knights of Aragon.

  Alexandre Laroche, the most highly regarded knight in this secret circle, plunged through a churning stream foaming with bright crimson blood as hellish fires flickered against the dusk at his back. The amber flames scorched his gleaming steel armor as the clangor of swords and the splitting of shields burst deafeningly around him. Hefting his broadsword, he smashed it down in a mighty arc, dispatching a leather-garbed enemy soldier. Whirling and slashing, the brutal and ferocious Laroche carved a wide gap through the screaming knot of Germanic defenders that had cut him off from his fellow knights.

  “Your masters should have known to bow before their betters!” he roared, killing the final two that had challenged him. Laroche’s gaze shot to his main forces as they sped down toward the unnerved battalions of Germans from either side of the bracing valley, giving up hiding places behind high heavy trees. The Aragonian warriors charged in tight columns, one directly behind another, giving the illusion that their numbers were few so that their enemies would not even consider retreating until it was too late. Raising his sword, Laroche signaled the armored warriors to fan out until they surged into an all-encompassing swarm. Whipping his sword wildly to the right, he commanded his archers to loose hell on their enemies. Whistling arrows sliced the air as the archers broke the ranks of the five hundred Germans trapped here. Endless volleys of deadly shafts stung the sky from both sides of the vale.

  He started as a hand clawed up from the muddy water below and grasped his leg. “Fiend!” choked a dying warrior.

  The bloodthirsty Laroche callously shrugged off the German, his eyes narrowing with contempt. His wrought-iron faceplate, crafted to resemble a grotesquely leering demon, provided a glimpse of the unyielding hell his victims would soon be visiting. The mask—identical to those worn by his seven fellow true Knights of Aragon—also served another purpose, one that made Laroche grin even as he waded deeper into the midst of his enemies.

  Laroche set his sights on the opposition leader as the fighting raced like wildfire to the shore. The knight studied his foe’s snarling face, his pockmarked skin, the rough clutch of his gray receding hair in its tight ringlets, and decided that dispatching this man personally was a point of honor. As he plunged closer to his prey, Laroche kicked aside one of the bodies of the seventy men who had volunteered to draw out the infidels, their corpses bobbing in the shallows of the hissing, lapping stream. Laroche had baited his trap well.

  Other knights rushed to his side as rippling walls of enemy soldiers rose up, anxious to taste his gore-drenched steel.

  “Have at them,” howled Laroche, gesturing magnanimously to his fellows. “There’s plenty for all of you!”

  The clang of mail on mail shattered the early evening as Laroche dispatched a few more men then pressed on toward his prize, his thoughts flickering on the arduous journey he and his warriors had taken to reach this place of destiny. They had crested the Alps, sliced their way through the Bohemian Forest, sailed across the Danube, and marched finally to this spot. The country’s leaders had c
ome here to plan their defense, these waters reaching all the way to the western bank of the Rhine. Controlling Franconia—the heart of the Germanic territories, a fertile land of rich, rolling hills braced by high gray mountains—meant controlling the country.

  Laroche’s brief reverie was ripped asunder by a warrior’s scream of challenge. Ahead, the man Laroche had targeted stood with a handful of his best men, the entire lot bracing for death. Swords raised in a valiant attempt to claim vengeance for their losses, the survivors of the First Guard massed at the center of the swirling maelstrom of death into which they had wandered less than an hour before.

  All about Laroche, the thunderous sounds of battle ebbed as the dead grew to outnumber the living on the muddy crimson-stained battlefield rising up on either side of the stream. Before this night was done, fully a thousand warriors on both sides of the conflict would perish, and a spectacular prize would be won. Only eight men would live to claim it. Laroche would be one of them.

  With a bellow of laughter, Laroche attacked. The leather-bound Germans remaining in the stream fought bravely, but they were no match for the mad, possessed knight. Soon only Laroche and the enemy leader stood in this wet, windy stretch as the sky surrendered to deepest night.

  The German lifted his sword. A trio of broken arrows jutted from his arms and thigh.

  “They say a war leaves a country with three armies,” taunted Laroche in a tongue he felt certain his opponent would understand. “An army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of the dead. But they neglect to mention those for whom armies are nothing more than a means to an end. You fought well, my friend. You’ve earned a special fate. I curse you not only with damnation, but also with knowledge. Look to the hills.”

  The German soldier shifted his uneasy gaze to the steadily climbing hills, where his people hung impaled on huge poles and watchfires crackled among clusters of the dead. But something strange was happening. The victors themselves were falling. The steel-clad horde of armored soldiers careened about wildly, clutching at their throats, their skulls. In a tumult of agonized screams, they dropped writhing to the ground.

  Soon, only the eight who wore the masks of demons remained. One of them hefted a whipping banner on which a serpent appeared to be circling the globe.

  “Our food was poisoned,” explained Laroche. “A handful of us had the antidote in our masks.”

  “Some enemy—” began the German, grinding out the words between clenched teeth.

  “Hardly,” Laroche said, laughing. “I mixed the deadly blend myself. Our cause does not bend to the will of foolish kings, it does not recognize the boundaries of country or state set by the pathetic, fearful masses. This battle not only hands us the territory we desire, it allows us the chance to rid ourselves of weaker elements who would betray us given time. The world is our dominion, whether it is aware of that fact or not.”

  The German’s eyes blazed murderously as he glared at Laroche. “You are a demon.”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  They raced for each other, swords flashing.

  The stars shivered in the distance as the fog-enfolded river flowed to the east and night gathered the gray chapel’s thick walls and high turrets in its cold embrace. All was dim within, the chapel’s narrow halls leading to somber vaults and dank chambers hidden deep below the ground. A scurrying man gathered his brown robe to keep from tripping on it as he sped to a pair of huge wooden doors at the base of a winding subterranean stairwell. Winded, he caught his breath and gulped in the damp musty air as soldiers pressed their shoulders to the doors, swinging them open wide to allow the priest entry.

  Shrugging off his monk’s habit to reveal silk finery, the latecomer quickly took his place among a dozen similarly dressed men at the large central table gracing the grand, torch-lit hall. Shadows danced across the elegant stonework as the temple’s grand master, Alexandre Laroche, acknowledged the young bearded knight Tougaine, who stood apart from the other high ranking members of the circle.

  “With this victory over Franconia, all of Europe lies at our feet!” announced the tall, wiry bearded knight, thumping his hand against the map of the world spread across the west wall. A serpent bounded all the known continents and appeared ready to stretch across any yet to be discovered.

  “A toast,” cried Laroche, his large, dark, inquisitive eyes gleaming as he raised his goblet from the head of the table. “That the Knights of Aragon shall rule the world for the next thousand years!”

  The knights banged their goblets together and drank heartily, the swirling red wine soothing their throats, made sore and scratchy by the choking mustiness of this tomb. Laroche grinned with satisfaction, the flickering torchlight stealing across the well-sculpted planes of his handsome face.

  “Perhaps…’’ came an eerie rasping from the darkness at their backs. “Perhaps not.”

  The knights turned as one. A wizened figure crept forward from the shadows, his withered hand clutching the bejeweled serpentine head of his gnarled walking cane, his labored breath echoing off the stone walls.

  Laroche’s hand crept to the scarlet strip of cloth he’d bound about his neck, a lady’s favor paid for in exquisite blood. He scowled at the soothsayer, anxious to hide his bewilderment. “I don’t recall arranging for this amusement, seer.”

  The seer stepped forward, raising an aged and shaking, spotted hand. “Hear me now, for I have had a vision…a nation not yet born threatens to grow so strong, the brotherhood and its dreams may be rendered to dust.”

  Silence spread upon the room.

  “Explain,” demanded Laroche.

  The seer lifted his cane and tapped it on the map, the twisted wood grazing the serpent crest. “Though it does not yet appear on any map, there is land waiting to be discovered. You will have but one chance to strike down its threat.”

  “Tell me when, so we can prepare…’’ urged Laroche.

  “The burden will fall to your heirs,” added the soothsayer cryptically. “Five hundred years must pass before you can claim the world as your own.”

  Laroche rose from the table, aware of the uncertain gazes assailing him from his brethren. Whether the old man’s words were true or not, Laroche would be damned if he would allow his position of power amongst these men to be threatened. He approached the soothsayer and spoke in a low growl. “You tell us that a nation we’ve not yet heard of will rise from a land that doesn’t exist—steal from us the destiny that is ours—and there is nothing we can do about it for five hundred years?”

  The soothsayer nodded. “I cannot will my tongue to lie.”

  Laroche’s steely gaze narrowed as he considered the soothsayer’s warning. “Indeed, your tongue speaks with such conviction, we’d be fools not to listen. And to insure our heirs do as well…’’Laroche’s words trailed off as he signaled to a pair of knights standing near the door, one of great height and fair-haired as a Viking, the other even taller, bald, with mocha flesh, a prince of the Moorish lands. They seized the soothsayer.

  The old man struggled, but he was too weak to break free.

  Laroche yanked a dagger from his belt, its handle molded in the familiar shape of a serpent coiled around the globe. The soothsayer squirmed, his eyes wide, as Laroche clutched the seer’s tongue and raised the dagger. Laroche laughed and promised, “We shall pass it down as a reminder of your warning.”

  The blade swung down, and when the deed was done, Laroche poured a goblet of wine over his red-specked face and through his lustrous wavy black hair. He ordered the whimpering seer taken away and clapped his hands to command the others to resume their festivities. His brethren did so without hesitation.

  Laroche sank into his chair, his dark eyes troubled. The old man’s blood was easy enough to wash away. If only the same could be said of the uneasiness wrought by his strange and terrifying prophecy. Laroche’s gaze shifted to the map—where blood dripped from a patch of coastal land that had no name so far as he was aware. Had he also been granted the stra
nge sight of the seer, he might have known that this land would one day be known as California, and that the battle spoken of would indeed come to pass. It would be waged by a man wearing quite a different mask. And would, in fact, define Laroche’s bloody legacy—and that of his order.

  Somewhere in the distance—perhaps over the gulf of the great stretches of time itself—sounded the low echoing of a tolling bell.

  Chapter 1

  San Mateo, California. 1850.

  Avery special bell tolled in the high reaches of Mission Santa Lucia. The bronze bell, cast in Peru and tuned to a strident minor chord, rang so hard that Brother Felipe imagined it swinging clear of its campanario and diving headlong into the swelling mass of visitors thronging the street below.

  A pair of young wash women giggled as the balding, bleary-eyed Felipe raced past them from his private office, where the brother was known to catch an additional siesta from time to time. He was headed toward a low stairwell on the mission’s ground floor. So was a rush of water from the mouth of a gargoyle which flowed into a trough next to the sweating ladies as they washed the mission’s laundry, spattering their cow-elk hide blankets, aprons and petticoats—along with the slippery bottom stone step. With surprising grace, Felipe danced over the slick step and bolted up the stairs.