The Dragon's Mark

He went down without a sound.

Three down, three to go, she thought.

Gunfire sounded from downstairs, indicating that Roux and the others had encountered the enemy themselves, but Annja couldn’t worry about them right now; she had her hands full.

Seeing how well their comrades had done against her, the two attackers now facing her chose a different strategy. With a sudden shout they rushed her as one, blades out and ready to strike from either side.

Annja waited until they were nearly upon her and then jumped upward with one powerful shove of her muscular legs.

The swords passed harmlessly beneath her as she somersaulted over their heads, twisting in midair to land behind them, facing their exposed backs. Her sword was already in motion as she landed on catlike feet and she slashed the backs of their legs without a second thought, taking them out of the fight.

One more…

She whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.

That wasn’t the case.

The other man hadn’t moved.

He stood watching her, his hands held calmly together behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.

Her opponent said nothing.

“I’ll give you one last—”

She never finished the sentence.

One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese katana suddenly appearing in his hands. He lashed out in a vicious strike even before he landed, using his forward momentum to add force to the blow.

Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her sword up, backpedaling as she did to give her some much-needed room, her mind grappling all the while at what she thought she’d just seen.

One minute his hands were empty and the next…

Where the hell had that sword come from? It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of midair….

The very notion was unthinkable.

She didn’t have time to dwell on it as her opponent pushed his attack forward, the ferocity and force of his blows driving her backward across the floor as she sought to defend herself.

She had faced off against talented swordsmen before, but this guy was in another league. It was all she could do to protect herself from harm as she twisted and turned, keeping her weapon between her body and her opponent’s deadly blade. Several times he managed to get the tip of his weapon past her defenses, leaving minor wounds in its wake. It didn’t take her long to realize that he was toying with her; that, had he chosen to do so, he could have dispatched her more than once during their engagement. In no time at all she found herself backed into a corner, fighting for her life.

She could see several of the fighters she had already dispatched getting back to their feet and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was again horribly outnumbered.

If you’re going to do something, Annja, you’d better do it now, she thought.

She gave a shout, putting everything she had into it. It distracted her opponent for the split second she needed to duck his current blow and strike out with her own.

For a moment she thought she’d done it, that she’d punctured his defenses and would score a strike against him, perhaps even a fatal one, but then his weapon came around impossibly fast and caught the hilt of her own. Annja was left watching in dismay as her sword spun out of her hands and away from her, tumbling through the air to clatter against the floor several yards to one side.

As soon as the sword struck the ground that it vanished into the otherwhere.

But even as Annja called it to hand once more, she realized that her assailant’s strike was already inside her defenses and time seemed to slow as she caught sight of that shining steel blade arcing toward her.

The gleaming blade grew in her vision, descending in a lightning-quick strike aimed at her exposed neck. But rather than take her head off at the shoulders, as Annja fully expected it to do, the sword was diverted at the last second so that it merely cut free a lock of her hair.

For a moment Annja’s gaze met that of her opponent and she could have sworn the other was silently laughing at her. I could have taken you at any time, those eyes said. And for the first time since taking up Joan’s sword, Annja felt outclassed.

Then Garin was looming in the doorway, pistols in hand, and gunfire filled the room. He mercilessly cut down those Annja had been unwilling to slay only moments before, their bodies twisting and jerking like marionettes as the bullets thundered into them. He was firing with both hands, so he wasn’t as accurate as usual and a few stray shots whined in Annja’s direction, forcing her to dive to the floor to avoid being hit.

When she looked up again, her attacker had turned from her and was already halfway across the room, headed for an open casement window that she had failed to notice when she’d first arrived.

So that’s how they got inside, she thought. And apparently that’s how they intended to get out again. But not if she could help it.

“Garin! The window!” she shouted.

Garin spun in her direction and brought his arms up, the guns roaring in the small confines of the room. Bullets split the air and slammed into the area all around the window, but Annja’s attacker managed to slip through the opening without being hit.

Annja wasn’t ready to let him get away that easily.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said through gritted teeth, angry at having been bested so handily. With her sword in hand she ran for the window herself, trusting Garin to stop firing when he saw her move.

Garin shouted something at her, but Annja didn’t hear. She was almost to the window itself when a hand appeared from outside and tossed something dark into the room in front of her.

It hit the floor and rolled toward her.

She had a split second to think, Grenade! and throw herself to the side before the explosive device went off.

4

It felt as if a giant hand picked her up and threw her against the floor, the concussion hammering her senses until her head reeled. She bounded off the marble floor and slid into the wall with enough force to nearly knock her senseless.

Only the fact that it had been a concussion grenade, rather than an explosive one, saved her life. She was still trying to figure out which way was up when Garin rushed to her side.

“Annja! Are you all right?” he asked, his voice seeming to come from miles away as the roaring in her ears continued.

She nodded, still too caught up in the emotion of the moment to speak. Her heart was beating like crazy and she fought to get her breathing under control as Garin helped her into a sitting position.

At last she found her voice.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”

Using his arm for support she pulled herself all the way to her feet and then stood on still-wobbling legs. Her gaze landed on the lock of hair that the intruder’s sword had cut from her head.

Too close.

She glanced over at the intruders. Or rather, what was left of them. Garin hadn’t spared any ammunition it seemed; every body was riddled with bullet holes and blood leaked across the marble floor beneath them.