Annja stumbled in the growing darkness as they descended into the shallow roadside ditch, but kept her balance. Her hiking boots squished over soggy gra.s.s, but didn't sink in far. An owl questioned them from somewhere in the distant forest. A cloud of gnats pinged against her shoulders and neck. She didn't shoo them away. Any sudden moves could result in a bullet wound, which was less desirable than a few insect bites.

As she trudged up the incline and through the long gra.s.s, she felt fingers touch her hand. Ascher tugged her up the opposite side of the ditch and they continued onward, close, hands clasped.

"Trust me," he whispered.

"So not going to," Annja replied. Keeping her voice to a whisper, she asked, "Are there others at the site?"

"Two. They camp overnight."

Not good. Annja didn't want to endanger anyone else, and it wasn't as if she expected a rescue team to be waiting for their arrival. Archaeologists did not the cavalry make.

At the moment, no other option presented itself. She'd play this one with a feint, holding back the riposte for the right moment. Now was no time to bring out the sword. Not until she determined if their guides were eager to use their weapons, or if they were more for show. She wouldn't kill unless her life was threatened or the lives of others were. But a few slices to injure were warranted.

Ascher stumbled and she instinctively reached to catch him. A shout from behind, "Don't touch him!" parted them quickly.

Ascher and Annja entered a copse of maples capping the tip of the forest. Surrounded by trees, twisting branches and leaf canopy obliterated any light lingering in the sky. Verdant moss and autumn-dried leaves thickened the air with must. They slowly navigated the uneven ground, snapping twigs and dodging low branches. Boots crunched branches; leaves brushed her skin. Briefly, she hoped there was no poison ivy.

"It is growing difficult to see without a flashlight," Ascher hollered over his shoulder. Rather loudly, Annja noted. The dig site must be close. Ascher might be trying to warn whoever was camped there.

A fine red beam zigged across the ground between the two of them. It came from the rifle scope one of the men had pulled out of his coat. It was bright, but only beamed a narrow line across the forest floor. It illuminated nothing.

It occurred to Annja to be worried about wild animals as they tromped over an obvious trail worn into crisp fallen leaves between birch trees. Wolves were rampant in France, though Annja knew they were most prevalent in the southern Alps.

Right now, taking her chances with one of them almost sounded favorable. At least with a wolf she stood a chance of escape, or if she was attacked, knew it wasn't personal.

Was this personal for Ascher?

Knowing little about this situation notched up her apprehension. Annja flexed the fingers of her right hand, itching to hold her sword. Was Ascher an ally or foe?

"Just ahead!" Ascher suddenly shouted.

The small golden glow of a camp light beamed across the front of a large pitched tent. Inside the tent, another muted glow lit up the two visible sides of the structure.

She hoped no one would rush to greet them and thus freak out the gunmen and result in someone getting shot.

The tent was pitched outside what Annja determined to be a shallow dig site. Pitons and rope marked off a territory about thirty feet square-a guess, for darkness cloaked most of the area. A small leather case, likely for tools, sat open next to the roped-off area alongside two buckets and a short-handled shovel.

Pale light illuminated the interior of the tent, and as the foursome approached, a man in slouchy blue jeans and crisp yellow b.u.t.ton-up shirt emerged, saw the situation and immediately put up his hands.

"Vallois," the surprised man said in English. "Didn't know you were 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 not a surprise? 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 rea.s.surance. 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 b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l?"

"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. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, 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!" 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 the sword, she wasn't about to let it get away until she knew the truth. 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.

Annja reached out to her right, exhaled a cleansing breath, and focused her will to that untouchable otherwhere that served her wishes. With her inhale, she felt the weight of Joan's sword fit to her grip.

This sword belonged to her. She had claimed it when she'd fit the final missing piece to the other pieces her mentor Roux had collected, quite literally, over the centuries. It answered no one's bidding but her own. And it had become her life.

She curled her fingers around the familiar hilt. Wielding the well-balanced weapon expertly, Annja swept it through the air before her in a half circle and then to en garde en garde position. position.

One of the thugs sat on the ground, huffing, both palms to the gra.s.s. Obviously he'd tripped.

"Get up! The entire forest will soon be ablaze!" The other man beat the air in frustration with the stolen sword.

"Now boys, that's no way to handle a valued artifact," she announced.

Both looked to the woman who stood at the edge of the forest, medieval sword wielded boldly and determination glinting in her eyes.

4.

Knowing both thugs carried guns, Annja dashed across the gra.s.sy meadow, cutting their distance, and the range for an easy shot, to a minimum.

The one standing reacted by defensively stabbing the stolen sword at her.

Annja took the bait. But she didn't connect her blade to the ancient blade. Instead, she delivered a thrust to the air just over the opponent's shoulder and slapped her elbow against the very tip of his blade, which bounced it out of threatening position.

The man on the ground thrust out his right arm. Annja knew a gun would be in his hand. She swept her blade across his forearm, slicing through his leather jacket. The gun dropped. Blood spattered her wrist as she did a one-foot reel, swinging forward to grab the gun and spinning up into a twirl to land on the other side of the grounded thug.

A cold jab poked her neck. The man with the sword smiled, and charged again. He'd actually poked her with the thing! Yet a slap to her neck did not find blood, only a sore spot.