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Where did he go…?
Annja peered around the edge of the reef and the shadow was gone.
It really was almost as if the unknown figure had disappeared right off the coral reef.
What were the chances that he’d been taken by a shark? She shook her head. No, there’d be some sort of evidence of an attack. His oxygen tanks would be lying on the ocean floor. His weight belt would have been shredded.
Annja’s mouth went dry and she glanced down at her oxygen gauge.
It was running close to empty.
She needed to get back to the boat. But in the next instant, she knew where the shadow had vanished to.
He’d resurfaced.
The boat engine roared overhead, its sound muffled through the water, but Annja glanced up and saw the white foam as the boat suddenly shot back the way they had come out.
Leaving Annja all alone in the dark ocean.
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
Polar Quest
Eternal Journey
Sacrifice
Seeker’s Curse
Footprints
Paradox
The Spirit Banner
Sacred Ground
The Bone Conjurer
Tribal Ways
The Dragon’s Mark
Phantom Prospect
Restless Soul
False Horizon
The Other Crowd
Tear of the Gods
The Oracle’s Message
Rogue Angel™
The Oracle’s Message
Alex Archer
THE LEGEND
…THE ENGLISH COMMANDER TOOK
JOAN’S SWORD AND RAISED IT HIGH.
The broadsword, plain and unadorned, gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade. The broadsword shattered, fragments falling into the mud. The crowd surged forward, peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards from the trampled mud. The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd.
Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.
Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France, but her legend and sword are reborn….
Contents
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
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
1
The turquoise waters of the South China Sea swirled into the flow of the Mindoro Strait and the Sulu Sea to the south, bobbing the small catamaran over gentle swells. The motion was almost hypnotizing to a very tired but very relaxed Annja Creed as she steered toward the GPS coordinates she’d punched in for a little-visited coral reef off the northeastern part of Palawan in the Philippines.
She’d fled New York City two days earlier, amid a stretch of work that had left her positively drained and eager for any excuse to leave town. Sharing a bottle of Santa Margherita pinot grigio with her good friend Bart McGilley, she’d remembered that she’d wanted to go diving in the Philippines for a long time. On her last trip there, the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf had cut that dream short by taking her hostage and Annja had seen a lot more of the tropical rain-forest jungles of the south than she ever wanted to see again.
In the wake of her experience, she’d found out that the government had rounded up a lot of the Abu Sayyaf followers and most experts considered the group fairly neutralized. Annja knew there was a chance they’d regroup, but for the time being, they were content to lie low.
And that seemed like enough of an opening for Annja.
The twenty-two-hour flight from New York with a brief layover in Osaka, Japan, had left her even more tired, but the thought of some alone time and diving at the little-known coral reef inspired her.
She’d flown from Manila to the southwest island of Palawan, jutting out into the South China Sea. She and her fellow tourists had landed on a small dusty airstrip that looked like it might have been used for smuggling, transferred to a jeepney—one of the gaudily decorated World War II U.S. Army jeeps that had been converted into buses—and bounced their way through a stretch of jungle down to a river.
On the river, a small boat snaked along the tributary until they emerged into a bay. Once there, they transferred to a larger boat that skimmed its way across the waves toward the island of Apulit. As they’d neared the shore, Annja heard music and saw the resort workers coming down to the beach strumming guitars and bearing trays of fruity drinks.
One sip told Annja that Club Noah was going to be an absolute delight. The tiny resort consisted of just forty cabanas perched on stilts over the gently lapping waves of the little U-shaped bay.
Annja spent her first few hours ditching the last remnants of her overly stressed world by having a few more of the incredibly refreshing and intoxicating fruity welcome drinks and by taking a long nap in a beach hammock. The breeze blowing in from the beach rocked the hammock and Annja had passed out. After a quiet evening exploring the beach and resort she retired to her cabana for a good night’s sleep.
When she awoke the next morning, she polished off a large breakfast and then made plans to rent a small boat and diving gear. The dive master had not wanted her to go off alone, but Annja had insisted and eventually handed him a hundred-dollar bill that convinced him.
She knew that diving alone wasn’t very safety conscious, but she’d done it enough times that she no longer felt worried about the possibility of something happening that she couldn’t resolve. She’d faced down danger enough times to know her own abilities. By 10:00 a.m. she was happily sailing out to the dive spot alone and on her own terms.
She was roughly two miles offshore, and the tiny island sitting far off in the distance seemed a lot farther away than she’d expected it, too. Briefly, she reconsidered whether she should have brought the dive master along. But then she shrugged it off and set about readying herself for the dive.
Annja let the small anchor over the side and attached the dive flag to it so anyone coming near would know there were divers in the water. The last thing she wanted was a large boat steaming over her as she explored the area.
Annja stripped off the clothes she’d worn on the way out. The sun overhead blazed down and she felt the first beads of sweat starting to form along her hairline. It would be good to get into the water.
She strapped the weight belt around her waist and checked to make sure it was secure. A quick look at the oxygen tank gauge assured her that it hadn’t leaked since she’d checked it onshore. She slid into the gear and tightened the straps around her shoulders. The open-circuit gear was the most commonly used around the world and Annja had no problems checking to make sure the oxygen flow was good.
She slid a pair of flippers on her feet and put her face mask into the water, smearing the inside of the glass before settling the mask on her face. She checked the straps around her head and sucked in, testing the seal.
The catamaran bobbed in place and Annja sat on the edge of the far side of the boat, away from the anchor. Looking around, she could see a boat in the distance, but it was too far away to be of any concern to her.
Other than that, she was alone.
Here we go, she thought.
And with that, she leaned back and pitched over into the water.
She’d decided not to wear a diving suit, opting instead for just her one-piece bathing suit. She figured the water wouldn’t be too cold, and she was right. As the sea enveloped her, she felt its cooling effect on her body. But it was still at least seventy-five degrees, if not closer to eighty. She suspected there would be cooler currents and warmer currents, given the proximity of the island to three different bodies of water.
She blew out and tested all her seals. All good. She descended slowly. In this area, the water depth was only about fifty feet.
Immediately, she saw schools of brilliantly colored fish dart away from her. Pilot fish swam closer and in the distance she spotted clown fish zipping through the water.
About twenty feet below her, Annja made out a brilliant array of bright pink coral. Her eyes widened when she saw the lush life swirling around the structure. A moray eel seemed to sense her approach and ducked back inside after opening its mouth and showing her a wide array of needle-sharp teeth.
I wouldn’t want to get a hand caught on any of those, she thought.
She allowed the weight belt to pull her down, only occasionally kicking her flippers. The tug of the current moved her gradually to the side and Annja had to right herself to keep on the level heading she wanted.
Unlike a lot of coral reefs, the one Annja now approached was classified as a small table reef, meaning it was mostly isolated and didn’t have a lagoon nearby. As she descended farther, Annja could see the incredible biodiversity present. Starfish littered one side of the reef, while saddleback butterfly fish with their distinctive black markings on their backs wove and dodged nearby.
A school of triggerfish passed close by, each one seeming to inspect Annja as if she was some unknown intruder.
Annja spotted more clown fish and marveled at the brilliant orange of their scales.
A dark shape passed in the periphery of her vision and Annja’s heart beat faster for a moment until she turned.
She spotted a grouper.
Annja considered them to be an ugly fish, the way they floated through the darker waters, with their mouths opening and closing and their dead eyes locked on to whatever they happened to be swimming toward.
If she hadn’t known better, she might have felt a twinge of fear. But groupers, for all their horrid appearance, presented no threat. And Annja had a sharp diver’s knife strapped low on her right leg, just in case.
She almost laughed. And if that didn’t work, she thought, she could simply bring her sword out. She felt sure that would take care of pretty much any threat the sea could throw at her.
Her breathing had settled down nicely, her inhalations coming slow and steady as she felt the last of her cares slip away for the moment. This was what she’d wanted for so long and to think that she was finally there, drinking it all in. Annja had left the rest of the world above and behind her.
She felt great.
She drifted deeper and could see the powder-white sand on the floor of the ocean where it met the edge of the coral reef. As she suspected, the water was a little cooler there, and she moved back toward the warmer waters, aware that she’d have to make sure she didn’t stay too long. She knew she’d risk hypothermia if her core temperature came down too much.
This dive was about reconnaissance, anyway. She had just wanted to get out and find the reef, take note of some of its features and then prepare to come back over the next few days for more investigative work. Documenting this reef and its life would make for a fun project and it would totally take her mind off the work she’d left back in New York City.
She blew out a stream of bubbles that floated skyward. She glanced up and saw the bright sunlight filtering down toward where she bobbed close by the edge of the coral.
A school of powder-blue surgeonfish seemed to be buzzing close by a section of coral and Annja could see they were dining on the algae that had encrusted one portion of the reef.
The levels of life here were simply amazing. Annja could see how coral reefs accounted for so many of the ocean’s species cohabitating in close proximity to one another. The reefs themselves supplied a level of food that brought small fish. And the small fish attracted larger fish that dined on them.
And so it went up the food chain.
Right to the apex predators.
Annja steered herself left and saw the sharp spikes of a crimson-colored crown of thorns starfish atop an outcropping of coral. The notoriously voracious starfish dined on the coral and Annja wondered how long it would take to reduce the outcropping until it was level with the rest of the reef.
She heard the faint sound of a motor and glanced up toward the water’s surface. Perhaps the boat she’d spotted in the distance earlier had moved closer. She thought she spotted a dark shape closer to the surface, but dismissed it as a shadow.
It was probably caused by a cloud, she thought.
She turned her attention back to the reef.
Long spindly tendrils of sea grass waved to and fro as the current moved it about. Annja spotted smaller clown fish threading their way through the stalks, no doubt trying to use it to hide themselves from predators.
I wish I’d brought my camera, she thought then. The images in front of her face were truly incredible.
Still, there’d be time enough for that. She had a week at the Club Noah resort before she’d be forced to return to the hustle and bustle of her daily existence.
That was seven days away, though. And she didn’t want to spend her time thinking of what the return to her world would do to her outlook on life.
No, she was here now and that was what was most important.
She turned back toward where she’d been watching the clown fish. But the little guys were gone.
She drew closer to the sea grass and peered inside.
She spotted a clown fish huddled farther back, closer to the wall of coral that was behind it.
Annja frowned. Is it me that’s got him spooked?
The answer to her question came a moment later as a jackfish shot past her face mask, through the sea grass and gobbled up the poor clown fish. Annja saw the blur of movement, but had hardly enough time to register the effect.
One second, the clown fish was there; the next, it was simply gone.
The jackfish didn’t hang around, either.
Life on the reef, she thought. Everyone’s got to eat.
Annja looked around again. She realized the motor noise had stopped, but she didn’t see any other anchors leading down to the bottom. Just hers. So there was no one else in the area.
She felt a sense of unease she couldn’t explain. She checked her oxygen gauge and saw she still had plenty left.
A moment later she felt herself torpedoed from behind and thrust into the sharp coral face itself.
2
The impact of the blow from behind sent Annja into the coral face-first. Her mask came loose and slipped off.
Annja slammed her eyes shut and took a breath.
What the hell hit me?
She flailed about in the water, feeling around for her mask. Calm down, she told herself, it’s here somewhere. She felt to the right and found the mask.
Bringing it over her head, she started purging the water from it by sucking in air through her regulator and then blowing out through her nose, hoping she could get the water level down so she could at least open her eyes.
She sensed the movement around her and fought to keep herself from panicking; her heart thundered in her chest as she kept purging the mask.
And then she felt the water level drop below her lids and she risked opening her eyes.
A dark maw of razor-sharp teeth filled her view.
Annja jerked herself to the side as the giant body shot past her. In her periphery, she saw the dark vertical stripes and now her pulse raced.
A tiger shark.
They called them the garbage cans of the deep. Annja’s brain ran down the laundry list of facts she knew about them. Galeocerdo cuvier in Latin, they were one of the most dangerous sharks in the ocean, second only to the great white. They were predators, and dozens of human deaths had been attributed to them over the years. They were well known in the South Pacific and the waters of the Philippines, although Annja hadn’t thought there’d be much chance of one being here near the reef.
That would account for the lack of other sharks around the reef, though, she thought. Normally, there’d be other species—especially reef sharks, blacktips and others more at home near the coral.
This guy must have frightened them off.
And now, getting some distance from her pursuer, Annja could see why. The shark was massive, at least fourteen feet running from the tip of its blunt snout to the notch in its tail.
She took another breath and kept blowing out through her nose, clearing more of the water from her mask. She’d need her eyesight in order to get out of this scrape unscathed.
The tiger shark swam in lazy circles around the reef, but always kept Annja in his vision.
She ran her hand down her right leg and freed the knife from its sheath. The serrated edge could cut into the tough shark hide without much problem. But in order to do that, Annja would have to get close.
Really close.
She took another few breaths and then watched as the shark suddenly turned and shot away from the reef, its dark striped form vanishing as it gained distance from the reef.
Was it gone?
Annja frowned. She’d heard about this particular tactic before. The tiger shark would sometimes leave, hoping to entice its target into the open only to return and attack more violently than before.
I’ve got time, Annja thought. And I won’t fall for that move.
She kept her back to the coral and the knife up in front of her. After two minutes of bobbing in the water, she was forced to confront the idea that maybe the shark had grown bored and left.
Annja looked around the reef. Some of the smaller fish had returned. But the jacks and grouper were nowhere to be seen. And there were no turtles anywhere close by, either.
A dark shape shot past her and she knew the tiger shark was back. It had gone overhead, close, and Annja had ducked down to avoid it.
It turned itself around and she marveled at how perfectly streamlined its body was. It looked like a banking fighter jet as it came in closer again. Its eyes never left her, but Annja had found a reasonable spot from which she could defend herself, if necessary.
If you’re going to attack me, she thought, you’ll have to commit and come in.
That would give her the opening she’d need to take it on.
But fourteen feet worth of apex predator wasn’t an even match, she decided. The tiger shark could cut her in half without much effort.
Suddenly the knife looked pitifully small in her hand.
Annja sensed the attack instead of seeing it. The shark shot straight at her, coming in hard and fast, seemingly unconcerned about the coral.
Or the knife.
Annja shot up and brought the knife down, embedding it on the top of the shark’s snout. It jerked once, wrenched the knife free from Annja’s hand and then swam away, a thin tendril of blood trailing behind.
Annja sucked in air and tried to still her hammering heart.
She glanced down and more worry seeped into her as her oxygen gauge showed that she’d have to surface soon.
That would mean leaving the relative protection of the reef.
Overhead, her boat looked far away.
And small.
Annja looked around, but the shark had vanished again. I hope that knife hurts like hell, she thought.
The level on her gauge continued to drop.
Annja was going to have to make a run for it.
I’m not doing this alone, she thought.
She summoned the mystical sword she’d somehow inherited from Joan of Arc, and the gleaming blade was snug in her hands, right where she wanted it to be.
She looked around but couldn’t see the tiger shark anywhere.
It was time to go but the problem was that on the ascent she’d have to rise no faster than her air bubbles. To rush it, she’d be risking the bends—when her body couldn’t get rid of the nitrogen in her blood. That could be as fatal as being attacked by the shark. She was only in about fifty feet of water, but she still had to maintain proper protocol.
That meant she’d be exposed for what would feel like an awfully long time.
But the level of oxygen she had was dwindling and she’d have to go for it, regardless of the risk from the shark.
Another quick glance and Annja kicked off, her fins churning behind her as she rose from the coral reef.
Instantly, she felt the presence of the shark, as if it’d been waiting behind the coral for her to show herself.
It came fast as Annja drifted higher.
She could see the rows of teeth in its mouth as it came toward her like a missile. Annja brought the sword up in front of her and swiped it through the water. It felt like she was moving in slow motion, though, cutting through the liquid of the ocean.
Still, it sliced into the tiger’s snout before the shark suddenly backed away and shot back down toward the reef.
Annja turned her eyes up and judged she was perhaps halfway to the surface. Her bubbles rose faster than she did, but only just. Annja didn’t want to remain underwater any longer than necessary.
The grim expression of the dive master lurked in her memory. She could hear his scolding now, telling her how foolish she’d been to go diving alone. Annja frowned. Maybe it had been foolish, but maybe she’d needed to do it.
She looked back just in time to see the tiger shark lurking near the seafloor. Annja’s diving knife still poked out of the top of its snout. Annja wondered if the shark would spend the rest of its days with that blade permanently planted there.
She kicked some more and cut the distance to the surface. Her heart was thundering and Annja tasted stale air.
Her tank was almost empty.
She glanced back and scarcely had time to bring the sword up as the shark rammed into her again.
Her regulator was knocked free and Annja had only a second to grab the last gulp of air before the hose was ripped away by the rush of movement.
Annja tried to put it back in her mouth but the hose was torn open. A slow stream of bubbles was being released from the tank on her back.
So much for that, she thought.
Annja shrugged one side of her straps free and then the other.
The tank fell down toward the reef, trailing the last bits of air behind it.
Annja jerked around and saw that the tiger shark was level with her at a distance of maybe fifty feet.
She brought the sword up in front of her.
The tiger shark’s eyes seemed to register the threat but cared little about it. Annja was on the menu and it meant to finish this.
It glided at her so smoothly that Annja barely registered the movement, so streamlined was the shark’s body that it caused no disturbance in the water. All that did register was the fact that the shark suddenly seemed to grow in size.
Time slowed.
Annja marveled at the magnificence of the creature coming to try to kill her. The teeth so perfectly suited for cracking sea-turtle shells were also perfect for shredding human skin and bone.
And then it seemed to gather more speed.
Annja readied herself and felt her body take over. She cut up, stabbing right at the tiger shark, and plunged the sword straight into the shark’s nose. She knew that all sharks had sophisticated electrical sensory systems in their snouts, and she hoped by attacking it so savagely the shark would virtually short-circuit.
The effect was instantaneous. The shark seemed to stand straight up on its tail in the water and then jerked back, freeing itself from Annja’s sword. A dark flow of blood spilled into the water, clouding Annja’s vision.
And then the shark turned and shot away, trailing blood behind it.
Annja looked overhead and saw she was only eight feet below the surface. She kicked, surfaced and gasped air into her starved lungs.
Her boat bobbed on a swell a few yards away and she clawed through the surf toward it, willing the sword away to the otherwhere with the power of her mind.
As she reached the catamaran, she felt herself rise up as something struck the boat from below.
The shark hadn’t fled, after all.
Damn, Annja thought.
Disregarding the boat, she ducked back under the surface and saw the tiger shark, grievously wounded, circling around, preparing for another attack.
Annja summoned her sword and waited.
The shark had a look that told her it would attack her until one of them was dead.
There would be no quarter.
Annja steeled herself and the shark came at her, moving with an almost supernatural level of speed through the water.
Annja bent backward as the shark’s jaws snapped close by her head. She saw its belly pass over her face and plunged the sword as far as it would go into the underside of the massive beast.
The blade cut deep, scoring a line across the belly. Entrails slipped out while blood spewed into the ocean around her, turning everything dark and cloudy.
Annja imagined that she heard a deep rumbling gasp from the shark and then it simply turned over and slipped away from her.
Dead.
She watched it sink down to the ocean floor. Instead of Annja being its dinner tonight, the tiger shark would be dinner for the smaller fish around the reef.
Annja nodded grimly. There was no joy in killing the magnificent beast, but she’d had no choice.
She turned toward the surface and broke through, again taking a deep breath of air. She turned toward her boat, but misjudged the distance. In the choppy water she was thrust forward and knocked her head on part of the catamaran.
She saw stars and felt blackness rushing for her.
Her final thought before she slipped under the waves was that at least she’d killed the tiger shark.
Somehow, death by drowning seemed better than being eaten by a shark.
