The Dragon’s Mark (23 page)

She shot for the surface, filled her lungs with another gulp of cool spring air, and then dove back down. Annja could see that Roux had stopped struggling; he was just hanging there in the chains, his mouth open and filled with water.

Annja had run out of time.

She wasn’t ready yet to give up the fight, however.

She repeated what she had done before, sliding the sword between the pole and the links of chain. Planting her feet against the pole, she hauled down on the sword with all of her might.

As if in answer to her prayer, several links of chain parted and Roux’s body began to slip downward toward the bottom of the pond.

Annja dropped her sword and grabbed for him before he could drift out of reach. Hugging him to her, she kicked for the surface.

Below her, the sword flickered and was gone.

With her arms wrapped around his chest from behind and his head resting in the crook between her shoulder and neck, Annja struggled to get Roux to shore. The minute she stopped kicking with her feet, their combined weight would start to drag them down and she’d have to heave him upward with her arms to keep his head from going under again. It was tough, tiring work. Eventually her feet found the bottom and she stood, relieving her back of some of the burden. She dragged him up and onto the shore and laid him flat on the ground.

He was a mess. His face had been severely beaten and the right side was so swollen that his eye was barely visible. The fingers on one hand were broken and it felt as though his shoulder was dislocated, as well, though whether that happened before he went into the water or when struggling against the chains that bound him, Annja didn’t know.

It had taken so long to get him across the pond and out of the water that she feared for the worst. Would CPR even work after this long? If she did get his heart beating again, would his brain be damaged by the lack of oxygen it had sustained? What was the longest someone could go without oxygen, anyway?

She didn’t know and, as usual, it was the lack of knowledge that scared her the most. Things did not look good. Still, she would give it her best. She wasn’t one to quit before she even began.

She rolled him on his side to let some of the water drain out of his lungs and then set to work. It had been a while since she’d had any formal CPR training, so she quickly found herself repeating the steps aloud to be sure she didn’t miss anything.

“Tilt the head, pinch the nose and breathe.”

His lips were cold and hard beneath her own. She could taste the brackishness of the pond water.

“Check for air.”

She put her ear in front of his nose, hoping for an exhale.

Nothing.

“Hands on the chest. Pump one, two, three, four,” Annja continued the count to fifteen.

Nothing.

“Come on, old man.”

She went back to breathing again.

Tears streamed down her face as she worked, afraid that for once she hadn’t been good enough, hadn’t been quick enough.

“Pump one, two, three…”

Roux couldn’t die like this. Not drowned while chained to a pole in a public park. Not sacrificed so that someone else could be the new bearer of Joan’s sword. Not because she had failed him when he needed her most.

“Breathe.”

She was crying so hard that she couldn’t even see. Not that she needed to. Her whole world had devolved down to three simple activities.

Breathe.

Pump.

Check for air.

“Don’t die on me, Roux. Not yet.”

In a way she was surprised at the depths of her grief. Roux could be an infuriating, stubborn, old-fashioned pain in the butt, but he was also her friend and her mentor and until now she really hadn’t understood what he meant to her.

She pumped harder.

“Breathe, damn you!” she said.

As if in response, Roux suddenly convulsed, coughing up what looked to her to be half the water in the pond behind them.

She quickly rolled him on his side and pounded his back, helping him evacuate the water from his lungs. He gasped for breath several times and then settled into a more normal rhythm.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and blinked up at her.

As always, he was direct and to the point.

“Did you kill her?” he croaked.

“Not yet,” she said, and the cold gleam of justice danced in her eyes. It wasn’t a question of
if,
but simply a question of
when.
She would not let this go unpunished.

Roux went through another fit of coughing, then said, “I heard them talking. Before they…”

He waved his hands vaguely at the water and Annja understood. Before they tried to drown me, he was saying. Continuing, he said, “The shrine is the rendezvous.”

“The one behind us here in the woods?”

He nodded, then turned his head and spent a few minutes spitting up more pond water.

When he had cleared his throat and realized she was still there, watching him, he asked, “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Annja nearly laughed. Save him from drowning, drag him out of a lake, pound on his chest until he starts breathing again and he wants to be critical of her choice in priorities?

“You sure you’ll be all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said, and then retched up more pond water.

She reached for him but he waved her off. In between coughs, he said, “Go. She has to be stopped.”

He was right.

Annja went.

The sun had set while she had been in the water with Roux and it was fully dark. The old-fashioned street lamps that lined the walkways had come on with the growing dark and now lit the path with a soft light. Yet despite their ambience, the calm, tranquil feeling she’d experienced earlier was gone, replaced by a sense of imbalance, a disruption in the flow, as if the landscape around her was reacting to the events playing out upon its surface.

She followed the path a short distance until she came to a fork in the road. A little sign stood nearby, with an arrow pointing down each arm of the fork. The first was directed to the right and the word
Shrine
had been etched into its surface. The second pointed farther along in the direction she’d been traveling and read,
Esplanade.

Annja chose the right-hand fork.

It didn’t take her long to spot the small structure set back in its own nook amid the white pines. It was made from wood and had a green tiled roof that made it seem as if the structure itself had simply grown out of the ground rather than having been built by human hands.

Leaving the pathway, Annja crept through the trees until she had a clear view of the front of the shrine. Four steps led up to the entrance. Beside the steps was a pair of stone foxes, symbols of Inari, god of the harvest. The Dragon was nowhere to be seen.

Annja moved forward.

When she reached the side of the shrine, she stopped and listened. She could hear the Dragon’s voice from inside the structure, though she couldn’t make out what was being said.

It didn’t really matter though, she’d found what she was looking for.

Annja walked to the front of the building, calmly climbed the steps and entered through the front door.

The interior of the shrine was lit by an entire wall of candles. By their light Annja could see the Dragon speaking to two men dressed in the uniforms of the park maintenance crew.

As one, they turned to look at her.

“You can’t have the sword,” Annja said, looking directly at Shizu.

The Dragon laughed. “Do you think you can take it from me?”

Annja smiled, and by the way the two men stepped back upon seeing it, she knew she had conveyed her intent clearly enough. “Oh, I think so,” she said.

Reaching into the otherwhere, she summoned her weapon.

The Dragon’s eyes fell on the sword and then on the wrapped bundle she had set aside several minutes before. Annja could almost see her playing it back in her mind, wondering how Annja could have managed to regain possession of the sword when it had been in the Dragon’s custody since she’d left the pavilion.

Chew on that one a bit, Annja thought, and now it was her turn to laugh.

Fury seized Shizu in its iron grip. “Kill her!” she screamed, even as she drew her own sword with a lightning quick maneuver.

The men were already in motion, rushing toward Annja with their own weapons drawn.

She didn’t wait for them to reach her, but moved to intercept instead. She was done running; it was time to stand and fight.

She would avenge what they had done to Roux and most likely Henshaw, as well.

She met the first of the Dragon’s henchmen in the center of the room. She knew right away he was no match for her; he held his blade poorly and relied on his brute strength to get him through. He came forward with clumsy, overhand attacks that Annja had no problem avoiding. Annja gave back a little ground, forcing him to move closer to keep her in range, and when he followed she made her move.

Annja deflected the swing of his sword and continued to turn, spinning around to bring her left elbow smashing upward toward his face. When she hammered him on the temple, he stumbled backward, dropping his sword in the process. Annja moved in on him, kicking his sword away as she did so. When he turned to run, she slashed her blade across the backs of his knees, cutting his hamstrings and effectively taking him out of the fight.

A knife whistled by her head, taking her attention away from the downed man at her feet. The other man was standing where he’d been originally, but rather than facing her with sword in hand, he was pulling knife after knife from slots on his belt and hurling them at her.

She used her sword to knock them out of the air as she advanced. Just like swatting a fly, she thought. When she reached him, he drew his own sword and put up an inspired defense, but the end result was the same.

Annja shortly found herself standing over his dying form, the blade of her sword slick with the man’s blood.

Annja looked around. Where did the Dragon go?

The notion occurred to her just as the Dragon came running out of the shadows, sword in hand, and almost managed to cut her head off at the shoulders. Only the fact that Annja stumbled over something on the floor kept her from losing her head.

They moved around the interior of the shrine, trading blow after blow. Eventually the battle began to wear on Annja. Where Shizu was fresh, Annja was not. She’d fought to save Roux’s life, and the events in the pond and the effort to deliver CPR afterward had sapped her strength. Her timing was off; her attacks were a split second too slow and getting slower all the while.

Sensing this, the Dragon pressed her attack, driving Annja back. Step after step, blow after blow, Annja could do nothing but retreat. Her sword was heavier than her opponent’s, bulkier, and if this went on for much longer her ability to fight back would be severely hampered by fatigue. At that point, it would be all but over. The Dragon would be able to deliver the coup de grâce whenever she felt like it.

As Annja’s strength ebbed, her doubts began to creep in.

She couldn’t do it, a voice in the back of her head whispered. Who did she think she was, anyway? Joan had been a hero, a true warrior. But her? She was nothing more than a glorified trench digger looking for broken bits of pottery and other garbage. She didn’t deserve to carry Joan’s sword.

Her mind flashed to the first fight between them, the one at Roux’s estate. The Dragon had bested her then and was sure to do so now. What did she have that the Dragon did not?

The answer was at the heart of all she did.

Annja did have faith in her own destiny, in her right to bear the sword.

And that faith was enough to silence the voice of doubt in her head.

The Dragon chose that moment to smile at her, just as she had during their first encounter, as if to say,
See? You can’t face me and expect to win.

That little grin, that slight quirk of the mouth, was enough to turn the tide of the battle.

Annja felt a newfound strength pour through her limbs as adrenaline flooded her system, and she used it to her advantage, her blade like a dervish whirling in the dim light.

This time it was the Dragon who was forced back. This time it was the Dragon who came out of the exchange bleeding as the tip of Annja’s sword slashed her skin when she failed to move fast enough.

This time it looked as if it would be the Dragon who lost the battle, and apparently the Dragon thought so, too. She maneuvered her way around the building until she stood in front of the stairs leading back down to ground level.

After delivering a powerful blow, she turned and ran down the stairs.

Annja gave chase.

By the time Annja managed to get outside, the Dragon had disappeared into the trees. Annja caught the barest glimpse of her just before she was lost from sight and without hesitation Annja raced to catch up.

There was no path, no easy route, and Annja was forced to push her way through. Branches tore at her, brambles cut her flesh, and when she came out on the other side she was certain she was bleeding from a dozen new wounds. She could imagine she looked quite the sight, covered with cuts and blood and gore-stained clothing.

Annja emerged on a grassy hill above a walkway and once she reached it she realized that it was the continuation of the left-hand path she’d encountered earlier. Since the path was well lit and would provide both her and the Dragon the fastest and most direct escape route, Annja chose to follow it.

Eventually she emerged from the trees and found herself standing near what could only be the Cherry Esplanade.

It was a wide-open area on which seventy-six individual cherry trees had been planted in four identical rows, leaving a wide carpet of green grass in the center. Large spotlights had been set up all around the edges of the esplanade, illuminating it even though the park was closed.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom, their bright pink and purple petals transforming the space into a riot of color. They rustled, like the whisper of a thousand voices, in the cool evening breeze.

In their midst, death awaited her.

The Dragon stood in the center of the grass. In her hand she held the Muramasa blade—the Ten Thousand Cold Nights—that Garin claimed was the dark counterpart to Annja’s own sword. Maybe it was her imagination, but to Annja the steel seemed to gleam with eagerness for the blood that was about to be spilled. The sword and the Dragon expected her to fall.

Annja had no intention of letting that happen.

With a thought her sword materialized in her hand and she stalked forward onto the field, coming to a halt several yards away from her enemy. She could see Shizu almost vibrating with fury. Good, she thought, maybe she’ll make a mistake.

Annja kept her own anger bottled up and locked away behind a wall in her mind. The woman in front of her had almost killed Roux, and had probably taken care of Henshaw, too. She had more than likely broken into her home, chased her through the streets and had endangered her life. But Annja knew she couldn’t think about that now. There was no place in a sword fight for anger—just attack and counterattack, thrust and parry, until only one was left standing on the battlefield.

The Dragon looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Surrender the sword and I shall let you live,” she said.

Annja shook her head but did not say anything in return. She knew the Dragon’s words were meant as a distraction and when she sensed her opponent shift her weight from her rear foot to her front, Annja knew what they were supposed to conceal.

Without another word the Dragon launched herself at Annja, in a spinning whirlwind of an attack, her sword coming around and down toward Annja’s unprotected flesh.

But Annja was no longer standing there, she had moved several feet to the right. She’d seen the shift in weight, had known what it signified, and had reacted by twisting to her right, away from the deadly blade.

The Dragon was on her in an instant, trying to overwhelm her with the sheer ferocity of her attack, using the same tactics she had utilized that night in Paris when they had first crossed blades. Slash and parry, cut and jab. Back and forth they went, neither of them gaining any significant advantage, their blades ringing in the night air.

They broke apart, gaining a momentary respite.

Annja tried circling to her left, watching Shizu closely, searching for some opening in her guard that she might exploit, when the opportunity presented itself.

The Dragon was doing the same, however, and apparently saw one before Annja.

Shizu exploded in movement, her weapon swinging toward Annja’s midsection in a vicious strike, and the assassin was faster than Annja had expected her to be.

Annja dropped the point of her sword and met Shizu’s blade with the edge of her own, channeling the energy of her attacker’s strike away from her and toward the ground instead. She twisted and brought her own weapon around in an arc that was aimed at the Dragon’s midsection.

But Shizu was gone before the blow landed, dancing out of range on nimble feet.

Back and forth they went, blow after blow, twisting and turning, moving across the grass while cherry blossoms drifted through the air around them, each of them striving to gain the upper hand and deliver the winning blow.

It was Shizu who drew first blood, cutting in beneath Annja’s guard and slashing the tip of her sword across Annja’s shoulder. Blood flowed, staining her jersey, and Shizu grinned in triumph.

“The beginning of the end,” she mocked.

Annja ignored her and the wound, as well. She could tell it wasn’t too deep and she wasn’t in any real danger from it at the moment, though eventually the blood loss would take its toll, she was sure.

She’d just have to redouble her efforts and put an end to this before that happened.

Shizu came at her again and they traded another series of blows, the sound of their swords colliding ringing out across the field. This time, when the Dragon stepped in close, Annja took advantage of the situation and lashed out with her leg, striking the Dragon straight in the chest and causing her to stumble backward.

Annja kept up her forward momentum, driving the Dragon back across the field with a combination of sword fighting and martial-arts moves, throwing out strikes and kicks between sword blows.

Finally the Dragon began to tire and came in with a new overhand blow, trying to end it all.

Seeing it coming out of the corner of her eye, Annja shifted her hold on her weapon and struck out at the hilt of her enemy’s.

Their swords slammed together and the Muramasa blade rang like a crystal bell in the second before it flew out of Shizu’s grasp, tumbling through the air.

Annja hadn’t expected the maneuver to work. The Dragon was shocked. She turned her head to watch the blade go flying from her.

Afraid that Shizu would simply call her weapon back again, just as Annja regularly did with her own sword, she didn’t hesitate but drove home a short, sharp thrust.

Looking the other way, the Dragon never even saw it coming.

The broadsword entered Shizu’s body between the third and fourth ribs and exited out the back just to the right of her spine.

Annja released her sword and stepped back.

The Dragon tottered for a moment and then sank slowly to her knees, her bloody hands searching for and finding the hilt of Annja’s weapon but without the strength to pull it free.

“How did you take the sword from me?”

Her eyes glazed over and she crumpled to the ground.

The Dragon was dead.

And with her death Annja’s sword, which just a moment before had been shoved horizontally through the Dragon’s body, vanished back into the otherwhere, ready for the next time Annja would need it.

Annja knew she should have felt satisfaction at the end result, but all she could think about was that final question.

She didn’t understand. She knew instinctively that the Dragon had not been talking about her own weapon, but about how Annja’s sword had vanished right out of the Dragon’s very hands. And that didn’t make any sense.

How could the Dragon not know about the sword’s ability to vanish and reappear at will? Surely the weapon the Dragon carried had been able to do the same?

Annja looked across the field, expecting the Dragon’s weapon to have vanished the minute its wielder died, only to find it right where it had fallen, jammed point first into the earth about ten feet away.

For a long moment, Annja couldn’t look away.

The sword was still there.

Her thoughts churning at the implications, Annja climbed to her feet and cautiously approached it.

The sword was as she remembered it, right down to the etching of the dragon on the surface of the blade just below the hilt. Even now the etching seemed to be snarling in defiance.

Reaching out, afraid of what might happen should she touch it but needing to know nonetheless, she wrapped her hand around the hilt.

Nothing happened.

Where she expected to feel something from the blade, some sense of its bloody history and evil reputation, she felt nothing.

It was just a sword.

An inert piece of metal.

While it might have historical value, there was nothing otherwise special about the weapon.

Garin and Roux had been wrong.

Priceless historical artifact it might be, but that was all. The only mystical sword Annja knew of was the one she carried.