City of Swords

by Alex Archer

  Someone else landed beside her on the car, which rocked on its shocks. She crouched to steady herself and stepped sideways so she could keep an eye on Archard and on the other…Luc.

  Damn, she didn’t want to face the expert fencer with these odds.

  “La police est là! La police est là!” one of the students hollered.

  “Finish this. Wrap it up.” Archard waved to his men and took another swipe at Annja, the tip of Durendal catching her jacket and ripping it, momentarily tangling her in the fabric.

  She heard sirens coming along the street on the front side of the building. Three distinct sirens. Tires squealing.

  More students were edging out into the parking lot. A campus security officer was shouting at them to keep back as he pulled his gun.

  “Don’t!” Annja called, but in the cacophony he didn’t hear her. She dodged another lunge from Luc. It wouldn’t be the flat of the blades connecting anymore. She easily sidestepped Archard’s attack; he wasn’t in Luc’s league. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Roux clock one of his attackers on the side of the head, dropping him.

  And she saw Sarah turn and fire on the security guard. Annja didn’t hear the gun, but she saw the result. The man tottered and Sarah fired again.

  Students started screaming.

  Then the rest of hell broke loose. Three police officers rushed out the back door, Sarah firing on them and taking two down before the third spotted her and raised his weapon. One of the students knocked him down and cheered her on. Sarah fired repeatedly on the downed cop, catching one of the onlookers, too. In the next breath the students scattered, some retreating into the building, the rest madly running in all directions like disrupted ants.

  That the swordsmen hadn’t scattered with the arrival of the first policemen was surprising. They were either that cocky or that loyal and driven.

  A siren screamed louder, announcing a police van pulling into the faculty lot. Annja tried to stay focused on the swordsmen around her, but she was distracted by the students and the police…and Sarah, whom she considered perhaps the greatest threat.

  Luc’s saber dug into her calf at the same time as Archard landed a blow against her back. The muscles of Annja’s legs bunched, and she leaped back toward two cars to use them as shields. But the man with the Wallace Sword grabbed her ankle, pulling her down and reaching up to grasp her sword. She struggled out of his grip. Her freedom was brief.

  Luc pursued her, slamming her against the asphalt and driving the heel of his shoe onto her left hand. She felt the bones break, and ground her teeth together to keep from crying out.

  Flat on her stomach, she managed to swing at the stocky man, connecting. The sirens continued, the blue lights bouncing against the buildings and the puddles on the asphalt. Police officers shouted for order as the students continued to scream and run in panic.

  “A gun!” one of the cops shouted. “The woman has a gun! She—” His words were cut off; Sarah must have shot him, too.

  Annja rolled over. On her back and cramped by the confined space, she tried to sweep her blade up, but hit nothing. She struggled to right herself, almost succeeding, but Luc jumped on her arm and drove his heel down on it again. She felt more bones break.

  “Stop it!” Archard said. He squatted and held Annja’s sword arm down. The three men, squeezed in between the cars, barely managed to keep her immobile. Annja was strong, but they were heavy, and Luc landed his heel hard against her arm one more time. The pain was awful, and she concentrated on staying conscious. “Stop,” Archard commanded.

  “She killed Gaetan.”

  “Alive,” Archard spat. “We need her alive.” He reached for Annja’s sword, but his fingers closed on nothing.

  “You can’t have it,” she told him. “You can’t…”

  Annja didn’t hear the sirens anymore.

  Chapter 28

  She registered stiffness, and when she tried to rotate her shoulders to work it out, she discovered she couldn’t move.

  It was worse than not being able to move; she twitched and pain racked her. A martial-arts instructor once told her that pain is the body telling you that you are still alive.

  Annja opened her eyes and saw only shadows. She was tied to an uncomfortable chair, secured so well that her attempts to wriggle free met with failure and only made her feel worse. In fact, she wanted to get the license-plate number of the pickup truck she was certain had run over her.

  There’d been too many of them, and they were too good. Annja had fought against swordsmen before, some individuals better than the ones she and Roux had gone against…how long ago? Minutes? Hours? How long had she been out? But there had been too many for her and Roux.

  Her fault. She was the one who’d obligingly marched into Archard’s trap.

  Annja tested her jaw. It was sore, but it moved. Her mouth was dry. She’d been out for quite some time. Was there a part of her that didn’t hurt? Her eyelids maybe. Pain is the body telling you that you are still alive. Annja felt very alive.

  Her leg, which had been healing, was hurting again, and bleeding, though not a lot. She felt the congealed stickiness of drying blood against her leg, essentially gluing the fabric of her pants to her skin. Her neck ached from the way they had tied her to the chair. Her hands were behind her, and she cringed when she tried to wriggle free of the knot again. The cords were tied in such a fashion that even if she called for her sword she wouldn’t be able to hold it. It felt as if biting ants were crawling all over her left hand, and she could barely twitch her fingers. At least some of them were broken. She could tell that her left arm was broken, too. How badly? It had happened when she went against the man with the Wallace Sword, and Luc. She’d seen the viciousness etched on his face when he mashed her arm.

  Her ribs? A few of them might be broken, too. She should be on a stretcher in some E.R., not tied upright to a chair. She should be anywhere but wherever here was. It had been a while since she’d been beaten like this. Twice now, in a handful of days, she’d been battered to a pulp. Twice Lawton’s men had brought her close to death.

  Wherever they were holding her felt cavernous. She couldn’t see any walls, but it had that big feel to it, reminding her of times she’d spent in caves. The air was still, with no hint of a breeze. She concentrated to pick through the scents. Old wood, oil, dried sweat—hers. A hint of exhaust. She was still in the city.

  Was Roux nearby? Had they captured him as well or had he escaped?

  Listening, Annja couldn’t hear anything at first, and then sounds crept in. The whisper of traffic from a nearby street, a muted car horn, creaking from somewhere overhead. She squeezed her eyes shut, counted to ten and slowly opened them again. More accustomed to the dark, she sorted through the shadows. Blocky shapes, boxes…no, crates. The place was indeed big and cavernous, and given the smells of old wood, oil and now the crates, she figured she was in a garage or warehouse. The creaking was footsteps, but they sounded high overhead, as if someone was walking across a floor or rafters. She tried to crane her neck, but that wasn’t happening. Once more she attempted to worry at the rope holding her wrists; whatever held her legs and ankles was even more secure.

  Hot needles of pain laced through her hand, and she gave up.

  “Annja?” Roux’s voice. “Annja!”

  “Roux?” She talked in a stage whisper that carried, but hopefully not far enough to alert whoever was upstairs.

  “Are you all right?”

  No, she wasn’t. She hurt terribly, and she was tied up, things were broken. “Fine. You?”

  “I am—”

  Lights came on, bathing the warehouse in a dull mustard glow. The bulbs hung from inverted tin cones regularly spaced over the assortment of crates, tables and sections of open cement floor. Annja blinked at the suddenness of it and spotted Roux on the floor, tied like a rolled carpet. His face was crusted with dried blood.

  Footsteps grew louder, but she couldn’t turn to find the source. Three sets,
no, four…five…coming down a metal staircase she couldn’t see.

  “Good morning.” She recognized Lawton’s smooth voice. “I had expected you to wake up earlier. My paladins must have been a little too rough on you and your friend. Who is he, by the way? He’s not willing to speak with us…other than spilling expletives. So rude. Your father? Grandfather?”

  Lawton came around to stand in front of her. He’d changed into blue jeans and a long-sleeved turtleneck the color of wet slate. Archard was with him, as well as Luc, his face cut and swollen from the fight with Annja. A third man was new, distinguished looking, but very thin, as if his skin was pulled too tight. The fifth set of footsteps ended behind her. The big man who’d wielded the Wallace Sword?

  “Who is he, your companion?”

  Annja stared, her eyes daggers aimed at the professor.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Now, it is not my desire to kill you. You are not an infidel polluting the purity of France. But you do stand in the way of my City of God, and so I will do what I have to. Unless you cooperate.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Touched? Yes, I will give you that. Divinely so. Charged by God and my ancestor with a mission. But not mad. A madman could not be the architect of God’s city.”

  “You don’t need my sword to build your city.”

  “Your sword is mine by birthright, Miss Creed. In effect, you stole it from me, and all I want is my property back. Simple.”

  “I don’t have the sword with me.”

  He bobbed forward, the move reminding her of one of those glass birds eternally dipping its beak into a vessel.

  “My men have watched you, sparred with you. They’ve seen you pull it out of nothing.”

  “Pull it out of nothing now,” Archard said. His cheek was scraped, and his nose looked as if it might be broken. He favored his right leg. At least she’d managed to hurt him. “Give us the sword and you can be on your way.”

  “And if you truly think you need a sword in exchange for yours,” Lawton said, “you can choose from extras I have in my armory.”

  “Though nothing with a name,” Annja guessed.

  “Nothing God-touched,” he corrected. “I explained to you before, Charlemagne—my ancestor, and I can trace a direct line to him—once owned the sword Joan of Arc wielded. I have a right to it.”

  “To drive out anyone in France who isn’t a Christian?” Annja took a leap there, but it made sick sense. His lecture about the City of God, a place only for Christians, and the news from Rouen about dead Buddhists…

  “My paladins and I have a lot of work to do.”

  “Why not go after Charlemagne’s personal sword? Or Edward the Confessor’s? Is the security for the crown jewels too much?”

  He slapped her hard.

  “I will have Charlemagne’s sword. But I will assign that one to my friend Ulrich. It is yours I intend to wield.”

  So she had a name for the gaunt man next to Archard—Ulrich. Not that it would do her a lot of good in her current predicament. Yes, names were power. But she was powerless at the moment.

  “Crescendo wielded another of Charlemagne’s swords,” Lawton said. “Now that will be passed along to the next man.”

  “I got it for Crescendo in Vienna,” someone said from behind Annja, someone female and young, judging from the sound. “It’s where I picked up mine, Tiew.”

  The sword of Attila the Hun. Had Annja read about that theft when she was in the hospital? She’d read so much about swords she had difficulty keeping them straight.

  “I will arm my men only with God-touched swords. Now, produce yours.”

  “And you’ll let me go?”

  “Of course.”

  “It would be that easy?”

  “Yes,” Archard replied.

  “Annja, do not—” The gaunt man stuffed something in Roux’s mouth.

  “Of course I will let you go,” Lawton said. He had that reptilian look that made her stomach churn.

  “Go to hell,” she said, bracing herself for the slap she knew was coming.

  “Ulrich, please set the stage. She needs a little more persuasion.”

  “My pleasure.” The gaunt man retreated into the depths of the warehouse. Annja heard him talking, his accent hard to place. German? American? He spoke in French to someone, but he wasn’t a native. So there must be more people here.

  Testing her bonds again, she felt only pain. She suspected all the fingers of her left hand were broken, likely her wrist, too.

  The gaunt man returned with two men behind him carrying split boards. She noticed they all wore swords. All except Lawton.

  She felt chilled when they arranged the wood around the base of her chair and retreated into the darkness again.

  “Sarah, she needs something more suitable to wear.”

  “Yes, Dr. Lawton.”

  Annja heard the swish of fabric behind her, and then something was dropped over her and tugged down so her head came through the neck hole. It was an oversize white choir robe, the sleeves empty at her sides. No.

  “Continue,” Lawton said.

  “Let me.” Luc produced a plastic bottle of lighter fluid and squirted the wood. The gaunt man and his two buddies returned with more wood and stacked it around the chair.

  “Maybe we should have a trial first,” the woman behind Annja said. “Joan of Arc had a trial, so Annja Creed should…you know…if we want to keep it authentic and all.”

  “For you, Sarah, we’ll have a trial.” Lawton propped his fingertips together in front of his chin. “The court of Dr. Lawton and his paladins is called to order. Miss Annja Creed, you are charged with…” His eyes narrowed in thought. “You are charged with theft of my property. My priceless property. How do you plead?”

  “Go to hell.” She wasn’t about to play along with this farce. Besides, she knew he wouldn’t kill her. If he wanted the sword so badly, he’d have to keep her alive.

  “Guilty,” Archard said. “Annja Creed is guilty.”

  “I pronounce sentence, and that sentence is death. It shall be meted out immediately.” Lawton dropped his hands. “Luc…”

  The swordsman lit a match. “For my brother,” he said, tossing it on the planks.

  Annja’s throat tightened as the sound of flames followed. She heard Roux speaking around his gag and thrashing, heard the crackle of the fire. She was in the worst of her nightmares, the chill replaced by a heat that made her heart pound furiously. The wood started to smoke. Old and dry, it was going up quickly.

  “Your sword?” The professor gestured, and the woman behind Annja stepped around to the front. She had a fire extinguisher in her hand and a sword strapped to her hip. “Sarah can put the fire out if you’ll produce it.”

  Everyone dies, Annja thought, though she’d expected to have more years on this earth.

  The flames grew higher, the heat increasing.

  Her choir robe caught fire at the hem.

  Through the smoke she saw the men and the woman raise their swords, like she’d seen the crowd do in one of her nightmares. It wasn’t a City of God; it was a city of swords Lawton was building.

  Annja cried out when the flames touched her legs. She’d only imagined the agony Joan of Arc must have felt when she’d been burned at the stake, and now some nutjob was doing the same thing to her. She tried to rock the chair backward. Maybe if she could get the fire to spread to the cords around her wrists, she could break free.

  And then what? Face all these people in another sword fight? She thought of Rembert back in New York, of her producer, Doug, of Garin and Roux. Roux, tied on the floor. He’d survived for centuries. He’d survive this…somehow. And for the second time in his very long life, he would have failed in preventing a woman he was charged with protecting from being put to death by fire.

  Annja’s throat burned as the fire spread farther up the robe and reached her pants beneath it. She sucked in a smoky breath, hot tears streaming down her face. The
n she was coughing uncontrollably as the chemicals from the fire extinguisher hit her and the wood.

  The woman Lawton had called Sarah emptied the contents of the fire extinguisher and tossed the empty canister against the concrete.

  “She won’t give up the sword,” Sarah said. “So what do we do next?”

  “Luc, Ulrich, put her in a cell downstairs,” Lawton growled. “Archard, Sarah, get rid of her companion.”

  The young woman screwed up her face. “Kill him, right?”

  “As painlessly as possible,” Lawton said. “Shoot him in the head. Drown him. Your choice, Sarah. As for Miss Creed, maybe she’ll have a change of heart with a change of scenery. We’ll let her stew for a few hours, and then we’ll bring her back. Let’s make a more suitable pyre in the meantime.”

  Annja was carried through a manhole at the back of the warehouse and then bounced down a crumbling set of stone steps. She was in the Paris underground, the tunnels that had brought her to the city in the first place. To shoot episodes for Chasing History’s Monsters.

  Luc pushed her into a cell and slammed an iron door shut behind her, turning a key to lock her in. There was an oil lamp hanging from a peg in the hall, turned so low she couldn’t see much of her surroundings.

  “Bring your sword out now, Miss Creed,” Luc taunted. “I’ll take it away from you properly…in honor of my brother, whom you murdered.” He spat at her and gripped the bars, his face contorted in anger. “Bring it out!”

  Annja was still so tightly tied that she couldn’t even manage a sitting position. They’d bound her like a pig to be hauled to market.

  “Bring it out!”

  She felt for it, at the edge of her mind in the otherwhere. But she still couldn’t move her fingers to grasp it. But maybe…

  Luc pushed away from the bars. “It is you who will be going to a fiery hell, unless you give the professor your sword. I hope you don’t give in. I really hope you don’t. I want to see you burn, bitch.” He grabbed the lantern off the peg, carried it with him for several feet and then smashed it on the floor.