Alex Archer - Swordsman's Legacy

“Er…most likely. Yes, the…sword.” Again the Brit looked to Ascher, who offered nothing by means of physical comprehension.

“We all go inside,” the gunman said.

Shoved roughly, Annja tripped forward, past Ascher, until she stood before the confused Brit. They exchanged furious gazes, but no matter how hard she tried, Annja couldn’t decide whether to compel anxiety or reassurance. She knew nothing, beyond that she wanted to stay alive—and figure out why everyone was being so evasive. To do so required following orders. For now.

“Go in! Go in!” the gunman shouted.

Annja shuffled in behind the nameless British man, with Ascher on her heels. As the pair of gun-toting thugs tromped into the tent, another man, looking like a teenager and lying upon a makeshift camping cot, woke and pulled a pillow from his face. “What the bloody hell?”

“Ascher has brought along some friends,” the other explained, with a flair for understatement.

“The woman from the television—” Jay suddenly noticed the guns, and chirped off his sentence.

“Hands up!” Annja’s gunman shouted, and the recently risen boy dropped his pillow to the tent floor and complied.

“What do they want?” he asked, standing and shuffling over to the older Brit’s side. He wore long flannel sleeping pants and a clean white T-shirt. His feet were bare.

“The sword,” Ascher said. “The one you found last night. You know?”

Last night? But he had only just called her this morning to announce they had yet to completely unearth the sword.

Annja couldn’t read Ascher’s expression in the dull light, but beyond him, she noticed a folding table laid out with a few pieces of crockery—obviously dig finds—and another item covered over by a white cloth. The sword? It couldn’t be. Well, it could be. But that would mean Ascher had lied to her when he’d promised he’d wait to unearth it.

“Where is it?” the gunman asked.

“On the table,” the younger man answered, bowing his sleep-tousled head and toeing the ground. “Under the cloth.”

“D’Artagnan’s sword?” the other gunman finally spoke, and his deep, throaty tones startled Annja. It sounded like a ten-pack-a-day rumble.

“I guess so,” the teenager said. With an elbow nudge from his cohort, he continued. “It is. We uncovered it last night. Bloody hell, you’re not going to take it, are you? That’s a valuable—”

The gun that had been focused on Annja found a new target on the nervous teen. He immediately shut up, offering a pantomime of zipping his fingers across his lips.

“It hasn’t been authenticated,” the other Brit spoke up. “There’s no proof it is real. I’m not an expert in weaponry—”

“You are trying to trick me,” the gunman said. He motioned at Annja with his gun. “You. Get it for me. Keep your hands up where I can see them.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she muttered under her breath.

Annja walked carefully toward the table, hands up near her ears.

For years she had researched, tracked and searched for this very sword, and now, before she could barely glance at it, it would be taken from her hands?

But I will have seen it. Touched it. All that matters is that it exists.

“Careful,” Ascher directed over his shoulder.

Careful? No freakin’ kidding, she thought.

The dry, chalky scent of limestone-infused earth wafted up from the table. A dusting brush sat upon a piece of terra-cotta pottery. Not worth salvage, the shard, but no find is ever overlooked on a dig. All bits and pieces of size are cataloged in field notebooks. Nearby one lay open upon the table.

And there, beneath a wrinkled white cloth, that she now saw to be a pillowcase, sat the shape of a sword.

Peeling back the cloth, Annja slid her fingers over the dull metal blade, crusted with dirt and probably rusted or eroded for its rough texture. The camp light did not illuminate the table well with her body blocking the light source. The hilt, perhaps blued steel, did not shine. Common for a sixteenth-century weapon—but for all the dirt she could not be positive.

D’Artagnan’s sword should be seventeenth century.

“Bring it here, quickly!” the gunman said.

Tucking the pillowcase about the hilt, Annja then took it in a firm grip. She stood there, waiting to feel the infusion of power, that triumphant surge of knowing that always came with claiming the talisman, medallion or sacred cup the hero quested for. It had to be there. It wasn’t right without it.

It didn’t happen. In fact…

“This is—” she started.

“A fine specimen,” Ascher broke in. “Handle it carefully, Annja.”

The hilt was not gold, Annja realized.

Right. A fine specimen, indeed.

Walking forward, the sword held out before her, Annja reached Ascher’s side and glanced to him. Perspiration sparkled on the bridge of his nose. And yet, she didn’t feel the nervousness he displayed.

The sword was torn from her grip.

“Careful with it!” the teenager said, which ended with an abrupt tone. One of the gunmen kept the foursome under watch.

Annja felt her body relax, her shoulders falling until one nestled against Ascher’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch at the contact. Despite appearances, his posture and breathing seemed equally relaxed as hers. Almost…content. To be watching the grail be stolen away?

The gunman near her tucked away his Glock. He then grabbed the sword, rather roughly for an artifact, and gestured with it toward the back of the tent. “Back by the table. All of you!”

The foursome, Annja, Ascher, Jay and the man who had not been allowed an introduction, shuffled backward, hands up. The other gunman returned with a red gas can and began to soak the edges of the tent.

Annja shook out her hands, her fingers aching to grip a weapon, a sure defense against all that was wrong.

She did not want to reveal her secret to the three witnesses. Ascher, she wasn’t even sure whose side he was on. The risk wasn’t worth the payoff—yet.

The tent lighted to a blaze and the gunmen took off.

“Allez!” Ascher shouted. “Let’s get out of here!”

“If we flatten the tent we can smother the flames,” Jay said.

“Get out, Annja!” Ascher shoved her, and she stumbled toward the tent opening.

She did not stick around and wait for a second warning. Though intuition whispered that the sword wasn’t the sword, she wasn’t about to let it get away until she knew the truth.

Dashing over the two-foot-high border of flame eating the canvas tent, and into the clean night air, Annja did a scan of the surroundings. The night had quickly grown dark; there wasn’t a moon in sight. A Jeep was parked on the other side of the marked dig. Had they driven across the field and around the forest?

The thugs would return the same direction they had come. Their only escape was the waiting SUV.

Taking off at a sprint, Annja vacated the blazing campsite and entered the dark confines of the trees. It wasn’t exactly a forest, more a strip of birch and maple, probably edging an arable block that was once an old medieval plot.

Her suspicions about the sword the thugs had taken off with felt right. And Ascher’s silent but effective eye signals had further confirmed her doubt about its authenticity.

But that didn’t mean the bad guys were going to get off scot-free.

Generally thugs were just that—big loping oafs with muscle. They usually answered to someone. And Annja wanted that someone’s name.

Branches snapped under her rushing steps, but she didn’t worry for stealth. Already she could hear her prey ahead, plodding through the undergrowth and cursing the darkness. The forest opened onto the field. A hundred yards ahead, the SUV’s parking lights beamed over Annja’s rental car.