City of Swords

by Alex Archer

  The breath rushed out of Gaetan as he lunged, and she parried with her own thrust. He circled her like a cat, his twin mirroring the move to retain the flank, both stepping back beyond her reach. Then the unnamed twin darted forward and almost managed to hit her twice. He would have—scoring himself points in an épée competition—if she hadn’t blocked him. Points instead to Annja.

  Gaetan stomped his foot in a puddle, startling her. She sidestepped, at the same time feeling the other’s katana rip her T-shirt.

  “Last chance,” Gaetan said. “Hand over the sword.”

  “Is the sword worth your life?” his twin asked her.

  It wasn’t.

  “Is it worth yours?” she replied. They weren’t giving her much of a choice. She changed her grip on the sword, noticed Gaetan registering the move. She wasn’t using the flat of the blade any longer.

  He smiled slightly as he lunged and retreated, changing the tempo of his swings. Annja recognized the balestra maneuver, a French fencing technique. These two could teach her a few things.

  She sucked in a lungful of air and inched toward Gaetan’s brother, right foot in front of the left, suddenly sprinting past him and slashing, catching the katana and nearly wrenching it out of his grip. At the same time, Gaetan jabbed at her, the tip of the saber biting into her side. The air rushed from her lungs and she performed a forward recovery, stepping into the en garde position and unexpectedly throwing them out of their flanking roles.

  She feinted successfully toward Gaetan, sweeping in and slicing at his protective vest. It didn’t hurt him, but it forced him back, and that gave her a chance to attack the other one in earnest. The twin leaped forward and kicked, catching her in the stomach just as she brought her sword around at his leading arm.

  “Aïe!” he shouted, which Annja translated as “Ouch!”

  Gaetan recovered before she had a chance to come at the other one again. He shot forward with a dropkick, his heel connecting waist high and sending her back into the metal door. Her head hit hard and she nearly lost her grip on the sword. He’d used enough force that she was woozy. She tried to shake it off, but her vision blurred and she began to wonder if indeed she might lose this fight.

  Annja bounded to her right just as both of them stabbed forward. She whipped around the side of the structure, hearing at least one blade connect with the door. The rooftop was still out of focus, but she charged forward, feet flying across the slick surface, water splashing up behind her. She had to put distance between them. She could probably beat either man one-on-one. But together? Together they were actually better than her, and that realization settled in her stomach like wet cement.

  If she could separate them, she could take them. Separate… That’s when it came to her. She’d seen them before, in an Olympic fencing match she’d attended in China. They’d competed separately, but the local news had run a brief segment on them because they were quirky—black men raised by white parents, twins who excelled at the same sport. A sportswriter compared them to the American Williams tennis sisters. She couldn’t recall the last name of the fencers. She ran faster, knowing they were right behind her. She reached the edge of the roof and without pause leaped off, dismissing the sword and stretching her arms forward. The buildings were close together in this section of the city, and she cleared the gap and fell a full two stories to the neighboring structure. She tucked and rolled, landing with her knees bent and a painful jarring sensation shooting into her spine.

  Would they be daring enough to follow her?

  She sprang up, her pounding head still making her dizzy, and risked a glance over her shoulder in time to see both brothers flying toward her over the gap, Gaetan with his sword out. The other twin had sheathed both of his. They would clear the distance; she didn’t need to watch. They were in superb condition and their legs were long. They might hurt themselves in the drop. If not, they’d be on her again in a heartbeat.

  Annja continued to run, calling the sword to her again. This rooftop was covered with a gritty mixture that gave her better purchase. She idly remembered from her walk that this building had a café and a music store on the ground floor, and professional offices higher up. Would some businessman hear the pounding of feet overhead?

  She couldn’t just keep running. They were going to catch her.

  Little needles of pain flickered through her legs and up her back. She’d jarred herself worse than she’d first thought. If she made it through this brutal encounter, she was going to look for a chiropractor. She shot past the access door to this building, rusted and not sitting straight in its frame. But by the time she stopped to open it—if she could open it—the men would be on her.

  God, what am I doing? She was soaring again, propelling herself off the roof and onto another, this time only a one-story drop. She’d kept the sword out this time and landed better, but the pain shooting up her legs was worse. She caught her breath and twisted around to see both brothers leaping, too. But one was a beat ahead of the other.

  A chance…

  She stepped to the edge of the roof and swung with all her strength, catching Gaetan across the stomach. The vest protected him from the edge of her blade, but not from the force she’d used. For a heartbeat he hung suspended, horror on his face, eyes so wide they threatened to pop out. Then he fell, hands flailing for any kind of purchase, but coming up with nothing. She’d managed to knock him far enough out that he couldn’t grab the edge of the building.

  His scream was like fingernails raking a chalkboard, and Annja clamped her teeth shut at the sound of it. A dull thud against something metal followed.

  “No!” his twin shouted, landing on the roof within an arm’s length of her. He looked over the side. “Gaetan! Gaetan, no!”

  Annja used the precious moment to gain some distance, darting toward the center of the roof and another access door. She heard shouts in Spanish from below.

  Across the street a window of a taller building flew open and a woman stuck her head out, shouting. Annja didn’t even try to understand what she said, but could tell the woman wasn’t looking at the ground where Gaetan had fallen. She was gazing at her and at the man charging her with both swords swinging.

  Annja put her back against the access door, dropped a hand to the roof and caught her breath as both his swords passed through where she’d stood a breath ago.

  “Murderer!” he shouted.

  Annja didn’t answer, but slipped under his next swings, changing position with him so that now he had his back to the door.

  “My brother! You killed him!” His rage was saving her, his attack uneven and his attempt at footwork off.

  Annja parried each blow and then took the offensive, lunging and recovering, then lunging again, an unanticipated move that let her land a blow. But it was against his chest, her blade scraping the Kevlar and not hurting him.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” she repeated.

  His face twisted into a grotesque mask. “You’ll be joining my brother, bitch. You’ll be the one to die.” He extended his left arm with the saber and then swept at her with the katana.

  She skittered back a few steps. Finally her wooziness had passed, but her head throbbed, her side ached from where she’d been slashed, and with each step it felt as if she was walking barefoot on glass. Annja had thought separating them would let her win. She’d thought she could take either one of them alone.

  But this man was better than her, and he didn’t have her injuries.

  “Why does Lawton want all these swords?” Annja’s words came out in a rush, revealing that she was winded. She needed this chance to catch her breath.

  Her opponent leveled a sharp, controlled blow against her sword, not managing to knock it aside, but loosening her grip. She clamped both hands around the pommel in response and held tight as he followed through with the saber, bringing it down hard at an angle, as if chopping a piece of wood.

  The woman across the street continued to shout, and other voices j
oined hers. Out of the corner of her eye, Annja saw several windows open and faces appear, some of the watchers waving frantically.

  “Policía!” She heard this repeatedly until the shouts were drowned out by the sound of approaching sirens.

  Annja jockeyed for a better angle, thrusting low and trying to catch her opponent beneath his protective vest. She feinted and tried again, cutting his saber arm instead, when he brought it in for a failed parry.

  Blood sprayed in an arc from his wound, and he cried out. But he didn’t drop either sword.

  “Murderer! Bitch!” he raged. Then he struck with a compound attack, twin feints designed to catch her off guard. He hit her sword, nearly wresting it from her, and scored a second hit with the katana deep into her leg.

  Annja dropped to her knees and slammed her teeth together to keep from screaming.

  “Murderer!” he shouted, as he came at her once more, aiming for her throat this time.

  She couldn’t ignore the pain, so she used it as fuel, driving her sword up like a spear, finding a seam in the Kevlar and pushing in.

  He gasped and stepped away from her blade, dropping the saber and pressing his hand to the wound, all the while slashing at her with the katana, keeping her from stabbing him a second time.

  The sirens wailed louder, and she heard the screech of tires. Car doors slam. He continued to swing at her with the weapon, but he was distracted, and his gaze flashed between Annja and the edge of the roof.

  “They’ll come up here, the cops,” she said.

  “Salope meurtre!” he hissed, retreating to French. “Je vais vous tuer!”

  Maybe he didn’t know she was fluent in French, or maybe he was just railing at her in his native language.

  “Vous allez mourir!”

  “Everyone dies,” she replied. “I just don’t intend to today.” Despite the agony, she forced herself to stand, meeting his next blow, feinting and sliding her sword against the edge of the katana, catching one of the deeper nicks. She beat her sword against his, stepping in and standing on his dropped saber.

  “How about you?” she asked. “Are you ready to die today?” She was ready to kill him. A part of her wanted to.

  He swung the katana back, the tip touching the access door behind him. Before he could bring it forward, Annja moved lightning-fast, kicking high at his head, then kicking lower and ramming him in the stomach.

  The air left his lungs, but he didn’t go down. He held his right leg back, but straightened the left, his heel catching her across the kneecap of her already wounded leg. Annja dropped again. Dizziness crashed over her, and she watched as he raised the katana once more.

  He looked like an executioner.

  She tried to bring her sword up to counter, tried to roll away.

  Her sword…Joan’s sword. Would she die before she learned its name?

  “Fichu!” he cursed.

  The access door behind him opened.

  “Un autre jour!” he called to Annja, as he whipped around, running across the roof, sheathing the katana as he went. Another day.

  Annja saw him leap, and then blackness claimed her.

  Chapter 22

  “The police have a lot of questions,” Roux said. He sat next to her in the hospital room. Her flannel shorts and ripped T-shirt had been replaced by a hospital gown. “I have a lot of questions, too.” He stared at her for a moment. “They have an officer outside your room, to question you when you’re up to it.”

  Annja blinked, bringing the old man into focus. She tried to say something, but only a croak came out. Her mouth felt full of cotton, her tongue swollen. He held a cup with a straw in it for her.

  “You were in surgery for a while.”

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “You were cut badly, Annja. The doctors thought you might lose your leg.”

  The wound had been that severe?

  “My leg?” The words came out a hoarse whisper. She took another sip of water and tried to prop herself up. Roux held her down.

  “You didn’t,” he said. “It’s still there under all the bandages.” He set the cup on the stand. “No doubt your indefatigable constitution saved it.”

  Annja looked up at an eggshell-white ceiling. Sun streamed in through a window to brighten the already yellow walls. She smelled flowers—a small bouquet on the stand, probably from Roux—and the stringent scent of antiseptic. She had a clamp on her finger, taking her pulse, and a machine next to the bed with a blood-pressure cuff hooked to it and a panel that showed her heart rate.

  “How long?”

  “Were you in surgery? I didn’t ask that. All I know is they brought you in yesterday morning. Someone told me it was before six, so the night-shift doctors stayed on longer to work on you. I didn’t get here until last night.” He leaned back in the chair and let out a long breath. “You heal remarkably fast, Annja, but you could have died.”

  “I know.” A dull ache permeated her body, despite whatever painkiller they’d given her. “He was good, Roux. Maybe the best I ever fought.”

  “Who?”

  She pictured his face, seeing the face of both of them: Gaetan, whom she had pushed to his death. “I don’t know. But his brother—”

  “Ah, that would be the man they found on the Dumpster in the alley?”

  She nodded. “His name was Gaetan.”

  “I suppose if I buy a newspaper today, I might find the report and the obituary.”

  “They were swordsmen, Roux. Good. And the one—”

  “Who got away?”

  So the other twin had managed to leap to another building and elude the police. But he was wounded; he’d have to get medical help somewhere.

  “He was better than me.”

  Roux shook his head. “I don’t know about that, Annja.”

  “I do.” She drank the rest of the cup of water and told him about being rousted out of bed by the two men, forced to climb up to the roof. “I know that he was better than me.”

  Neither said anything for a while. The sounds of the hospital crept through the gap under the closed door.

  “So I know some of it,” Roux said. “Indulge an old man and tell him the rest.”

  She did, about Archard Gihon and Dr. Lawton, about the auction and Tizona, the sword of El Cid, about Honjo Masamune, which was wielded against her, and before that the theft of Durendal from Rocamadour and the Wallace Sword from near Stirling.

  “And there might be more,” she said. “I’d only started, really, to dig into it.”

  He scowled. “I warned you, Annja.”

  Be careful that history’s monsters don’t come chasing you. “But I have to see what it’s all about. This guy is more than just an obsessed collector. He knows something about Joan’s sword, too. I need to find out what it is.”

  Roux stood and worked a kink out of his neck. “And even if you didn’t want to pursue it, I fear it would pursue you.”

  “That man I fought…he’ll be back.”

  “And what about this Dr. Lawton from the auction?”

  She propped herself up. This time Roux didn’t stop her. “I’m going to get out of here.”

  “Not today, Annja. You do heal fast, but not that fast. You’re impressive, but you’re not immortal.”

  “Like you?”

  “You really were close to death.”

  “I’m going—”

  “You’re going to stay here at least until tomorrow.” His expression was stern. “Promise me. Any other soul who suffered that cut probably would have lost a leg. You had other cuts, too. And any other soul would be laid up a week…or more. You can give it until tomorrow.”

  She shook her head.

  “Promise me.”

  “Fine.”

  “Get better. Rest. I’ve got a feeling we’ll have to be at our best.”

  We?

  He stooped and picked something up off the floor. Her laptop. He set it on the nightstand. “I checked you out of your hotel. Your suitcase is over ther
e.” He pointed to the small closet. “When you feel better, start pursuing your quarry through the mystical space of the web. Information is strength, Annja. Knowledge indeed is power.”

  There is also power in names. She’d get the name of Gaetan’s twin brother, for starters. That shouldn’t be a difficult search by going through reports on Olympic fencing matches. And she had two more: Archard Gihon and Charles Lawton.

  “I’ll be back to check on you tonight. Then you can tell me where we’re headed.”

  The uncharacteristic “we” again. Annja was at the same time pleased with and dreading the notion that Roux was involving himself in this. She watched him leave, and then opened the laptop and started typing. She didn’t start with Gaetan or Archard or Charles

  Lawton—the men’s names would come later. She pulled up the Google search engine and typed in named swords.

  Chapter 23

  Sarah couldn’t pronounce the name of the place she’d slipped into twenty minutes ago. The Kunsthistorisches Museum. It was the biggest building she’d ever set foot in. Enormous and old, looking like a castle and some grand government building at the same time, it stretched across several blocks of Vienna. The sight of it this afternoon had taken her breath away.

  “It’s too much,” she told Ulrich. “The place is simply too huge. I’ll get lost inside.”

  “Your faith will keep you safe,” he’d said.

  But her faith, and her belief in Dr. Lawton’s plan, wasn’t keeping her nerves in check. The voices in her head weren’t helping; they were only adding to her doubts, questioning if she was up for this. Maybe if someone was with her, if she wasn’t prowling the halls and stairwells alone, she wouldn’t feel so skittish. Sarah looked at her watch. She had forty minutes left.

  One hour. That was all the German was giving her. He was elsewhere in the building, had used his expertise to finesse the security system and reroute monitors and replay loops so guards wouldn’t notice her. But he wasn’t going to stay long. Ulrich said one hour; longer than that was too risky. He had a car a block away, parked in an alley outside a service entrance. She had to be there in an hour—forty minutes now—or he would leave without her. There was another man with them. He called himself Crescendo, though Sarah knew that wasn’t his real name. Pierre DePaul was a thirtysomething graduate student assigned to Dr. Lawton. She didn’t know why he called himself Crescendo, and wasn’t going to ask; she just went along with it, like everyone else. One of the professor’s paladins, Crescendo’s specialty was restoration and maintenance. The sword she was tasked with retrieving tonight would be passed along to him for sprucing up.