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Swordsman's Legacy
Alex Archer
In need of a break from work and some recent near-death adventures, archaeologist Annja Creed visits France to indulge one of her greatest fantasies: finding D'Artagnan's lost sword. The rapier was a gift from the reigning monarch and has been missing since the seventeenth century.And Ascher Vallois, one of Annja's treasure-hunting friends, believes he has located the site of the relic.But when Annja meets with Vallois, she learns that he's made a huge sacrifice to protect the sword and its secret from a relic hunter. Annja discovers that the artifact holds the key to a fortune. And the man won't stop until he gets everything he wants–including Annja.
Lambert made his move
Annja bent her knees slightly, prepared for defense, but cautious.
“I’ve got my eye on a new treasure,” he announced. The epee swept the air in a hiss. “It is another sword. A magical one.”
“You believe in magic?” Annja countered.
“I believe what I saw when I watched you in the file room on the security cameras. You wielded a fine sword, Annja Creed. And you produced it from thin air. Where is it? Bring it out of wherever it is you keep it. I want to see it.”
She remained silent. Alert. Ready.
“I know something about you,” he said in a singsongy tone. “Your Monsieur Roux wasn’t quite so careful as he should have been.”
Roux had come here? What was the old man up to now? She didn’t like what that implied.
“I’ve done my research on your Roux and Joan,” he said. “I know, Annja, I know.”
Titles in this series:
Destiny
Solomon’s Jar
The Spider Stone
The Chosen
Forbidden City
The Lost Scrolls
God of Thunder
Secret of the Slaves
Warrior Spirit
Serpent’s Kiss
Provenance
The Soul Stealer
Gabriel’s Horn
The Golden Elephant
Swordsman’s Legacy
ROGUE ANGEL
Swordsman’s Legacy
Alex Archer
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Michele Hauf for her contribution to this work.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Prologue
Iowa, 1978
Jack and Toby Lambert had been inseparable until the day Toby collapsed after baseball practice. Twelve hours later in the hospital, Jack clung to his seven-year-old twin’s hand. Toby’s skin was a funny yellow color. He couldn’t speak, but his eyelids did flutter when Jack spoke.
Not far from the bed, behind a curtain, Jack heard a doctor announce to his parents that Toby’s liver had failed. He called it something like acute. Toby would need a transplant. Jack’s parents were instructed not to be too hopeful, for the waiting list was long, and there weren’t a lot of donors out there.
Pressing his face against the hard hospital mattress beside his brother’s prone body, Jack sobbed quietly. He didn’t want his parents to hear. They had enough to worry about.
He and Toby had planned a raid on Nasty Black George’s awful gang of four tonight. The entire neighborhood—boasting seven boys under the age of ten—regularly organized pirate raids and booty captures. Jack and Toby wore the monikers “Mad Bloody Jack” and “Evil Gentleman Tobias” proudly. No one stood in their way when they came a-pirating. Their plunder was piled high at the bottom of Evil Gentleman Tobias’s closet. Dirty Joe still fumed about his pillaged Atari.
If his parents had money, they could buy a new liver for Toby.
Jack knew that wasn’t possible. His mom had been putting on a skirt and jacket every morning before he and Toby left for school. She was looking for work, they both knew, because dad’s job was “cutting back the fat.” Whatever that meant.
“I’ll help you,” Jack whispered. His brother had not moved since his collapse. “Mad Bloody Jack will plunder a real treasure so we can buy you a new liver. I promise, Toby.”
M AD B LOODY J ACK KNEW just the landlubbing wreck of a ship to raid. Hidden in the tower at the center of the playground gym, he and Toby—er, Evil Gentleman Tobias—had kept a keen eye over the goings-on across the street from the city park using their plundered telescope.
The purple house with the gray shutters and wild hedges always kept its curtains pulled shut. The craziest stream of traffic steadily pulled up the driveway, and then away. Some visitors were there less than five minutes. Toby timed them on his Cap’n Crunch watch.
Pirate Silly Ned had once said his mother was always calling the cops on that LSD house. They did nasty things, and shouldn’t be in this neighborhood.
LSD was a drug. Jack had looked that up in the encyclopedia on the bottom shelf in his dad’s office. It made people see visions and act funny. And people paid a lot of money for it. It was also illegal.
Putting two and two together, Mad Bloody Jack decided where there was LSD, there had to be money.
He eyed the purple house through the telescope. The sun had risen an hour earlier. Jack should be in school. But he knew the purple house would be quiet until at least noon, so he had to act now. Toby’s life depended on it.
Skipping across the street, Mad Bloody Jack insinuated himself behind the freestanding purple garage, which was where he’d seen most of the visitors go when they stopped. Tramping a patch of dandelions, he pressed his body flat against the wall. A good pirate should practice stealth—he’d learned that word from last week’s spelling test. The window on this side of the garage was blocked with black paper. He checked and saw it was the same on the other side.
A thick steel padlock secured the door, but the wood was old and warped. Mad Bloody Jack was able to slide a finger under the crack at the bottom. And there, under some kind of rug, he felt something cold and metal.
A key.
“I DON’T KNOW where he could have gotten this….” Jack’s mother choked on her astonishment and clung even tighter to her husband’s arm.
Her son had dumped out a pillowcase on the floor in the bathroom attached to Toby’s hospital room. “Plunder,” he’d muttered, and then had gaily announced the family now had enough money to buy Toby a new liver. He dashed to his brother’s side.
Jack’s father toed the pile of rubber-banded bills. Hundred-dollar bills. “There must be tens of thousands here.”
“We can’t—”
“Of course not. I’ll ring the police,” he said and instructed his wife to remain in the bathroom and keep an eye on the money.
A PIRATE NEVER GAVE UP the location of his best plunder. Never. But when two police officers escorted Jack’s mother from the hospital room where they’d been questioning Jack and his father, Mad Bloody Jack became irate.
“Don’t touch my mother!” he shouted.
“They’re not going to hurt her, Jack,” his father reassured. “Though I don’t know where they’re taking her. You have to tell us where you got the money. Please, Jack, to keep your mother safe.”
In a rush of fear and utter exhaustion, Mad Bloody Jack gave the details of his raid. He didn’t take it all. There had been too much to carry. Now would they please let his mother go and get to ordering that new liver for his brother?
Toby died three days later. The police had confiscated the money. Jack had been inconsolable. He’d done it. He had found a means to save his brother’s life. And the adults—they’d done nothing! What was wrong with them? Didn’t they want to save Toby?
“It was never that simple,” his father said. Keith Lambert’s face was drawn and his sigh chilled across Jack’s shoulders.
1
France, present day
Ascher Vallois unlocked the trunk of his car. The hydraulics squeaked as the trunk yawned open. He was ready for a new car, but given the finances, the ten-year-old Renault Clio would have to serve.
He set a practice épée and mask onto the trunk bed. Tearing the Velcro shoulder seams open on his jacket, he then tugged that off.
Wednesday afternoons demanded he wear the leather-fronted plastron. The teenage students he taught were overly confident about their lunges. Actually, they thought themselves indestructible. They didn’t give consideration to their teacher’s destructibility. That was why he also wore a full mask. The scar on his jaw had been a lesson to ensure he wore complete protection around kids at all times.
Tomorrow he planned to bring his collection of instructional videos to the studio. The students could learn the importance of a well-designed weapon from watching a master forge a blade. As well, there was much to be gained from watching fencing masters in competition.
Ultimately, he wanted to have a camera set up in the studio so he could record students, and then play back their practice matches for them to study. The best way to learn was by observing your own bad habits and then correcting them.
All things in good time, he told himself. And if his latest expedition proved successful, the aluminum fencing piste he’d been dreaming about could become reality. It was wireless, which would be more practical for movement and scorekeeping, considering he hadn’t the cash to hire an assistant.
He slammed the trunk shut. It was well past sunset, yet a rosy ambiance painted the horizon, reminding him of a woman’s blush. An autumn breeze tickled the perspiration at the back of his neck, drying his sweaty hair.
