Swordsman's Legacy. Alex Archer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ bringing more than the girl. Guns. Christ, two guns. Evening, gentlemen. What’s up?”

      “You have the sword?” the thug who held the gun on Annja demanded.

      “Ah.” The man considered that request for a moment. He eyed Ascher, who remained stoic, the gun at his temple. “The sword.”

      British, Annja decided of the man. Probably midthirties, and slender, with long graceful fingers. He had expected Ascher to bring her along with him, but the gunmen were a surprise.

      Of course, when were gunmen not a surprise?

      “Are there others in the tent?” Annja asked, and then mentally kicked herself, because if there were others they might have been planning an ambush. Until she had opened her big mouth.

      “Just the one,” the Brit offered. “Jay is sleeping.”

      “With the sword?” Her henchman was persistent.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ