Bathed In Blood. Alex Archer

assigned to watch over Joan, a knight named Roux and his apprentice, Garin Braden, were extended indefinitely. Both were over five hundred years old and still as hearty as they had been the morning their charge had met her fate.

      Roux had set out to retrieve the pieces of the sword, and one by one they’d been reunited. Annja had been present when the very last piece had been added to the puzzle and the sword had restored itself in a flash of power that bound her and the blade together in a stunning, and rather unexpected, fashion. The sword wasn’t bound by the rules of time and space and so was available to her at any moment with just a thought. It made getting out of tight situations much easier.

      The way the other woman was reacting, the obvious relief on her face that someone, anyone, had stopped to help, made Annja think that whatever this was, it wasn’t a trap.

      When Annja got closer, she realized the ground had given away on the side of the road. The woman was still talking nonstop, but now she was pointing frantically into the darkness.

      Annja suddenly understood what the woman wanted.

       Down there. He’s fallen down there.

      Annja turned around, intending to go back for a light, and the woman shrieked and rushed forward, grabbing Annja’s arm.

      “Easy now, take it easy,” Annja began, but the woman wasn’t listening. She was clearly in panic mode, more than likely thinking Annja was leaving. The backpacker was talking a mile a minute, pointing into the darkness over the edge, and paying no attention to what Annja was saying.

      Annja knew how to fix that, at least.

      She dug in her heels, pulled her arm back sharply and yelled, “Wait!” as loudly as she could.

      The sudden blast of sound broke through the woman’s panic, and she snapped her head around to stare at Annja.

      Annja held up her free hand in a “take it easy” gesture. “I’m not leaving,” she said soothingly, hoping the woman understand a little English. “I’m going to get a light, so we can see.”

      She mimed shining a light over the edge and looking down after it.

      Understanding blossomed on the other woman’s face and she calmed down.

      Annja turned and hurried over to her vehicle. Opening the rear doors, she pulled out one of the polymer cases containing the lights and carried it back to where the woman was waiting.

      “I’m Annja,” she said, pointing to herself. Then she pointed at her companion and raised her eyebrows.

      That, at least, the woman understood. She smiled wanly and said, “Csilla.”

      “Okay, Csilla,” Annja said, “show me what’s got you so upset.” She extended her hand palm up in a sweeping gesture, the universal “after you” sign, and then followed Csilla as she hurried over the edge of the drop and pointed downward at a spot a few feet to their left.

      Annja nodded and then set the case on the ground next to her. She flipped open the catch and pulled out a handheld spotlight. The light used only a single thirty-five watt HID bulb, but it generated a fifteen million candlepower light beam that was twenty-eight hundred feet long. If there was something out there, this light would find it.

      She hit the switch on the top of the rig and the beam of light leaped into existence, throwing back the darkness. The brush lining the edge of the drop jumped into view, seeming larger than life in the cold light of the spot.

      Csilla nodded and pointed again, more emphatically this time.

       “Siet! Siet!”

      Annja didn’t need to understand Hungarian to understand.

       Hurry.

      She did as she was told, pointing the spotlight in the direction Csilla was suggesting. Annja began to sweep the beam across the rocky slope below them.

      At first she didn’t see anything but the jagged shale for which the region was known, but then she caught sight of a flash of white against the harsh gray of the stone. Slowly, carefully, she swung the beam back and found the object a second time.

      It was a human hand.

      Female, judging by the size and shape.

      It thrust up from the slope as if it were waving to them. The hand was attached to a forearm—thank heavens!—and the arm presumably to the rest of the body, though she couldn’t see the latter. The woman was hidden by a depression in the slope.

      “Hello? Can you hear me?” Annja shouted.

      Silence.

      She might be too injured to shout back.

      “Hold on!” she called out. “I’m coming down after you!”

      She thrust the spotlight into her companion’s hand and ran over to the rear of her SUV. She grabbed her climbing bag and carried it over to Csilla, who was keeping the light on the hand.

      “Were you traveling together?” Annja asked as she pulled several pieces of gear, including a nylon climbing rope, out of the bag. “Did she fall?”

      Csilla shook her head, but Annja wasn’t sure whether the woman didn’t understand what Annja was saying or didn’t know what had happened.

      Annja pulled on a headlamp and switched it on, then grabbed the gear she’d pulled out. She looked around for a suitable spot to anchor her rope, finally selecting a tree that stood near the edge of the drop. Hurrying over, she pushed on it for a moment, testing its strength, before deciding it would do. Using a couple of slings and some carabiners, she quickly rigged an anchor and then fed the rope through it, tying the two loose ends together. She gave the rope—and the anchor—a good tug to double-check, then coiled the rope and tossed it over the edge.

      She pulled on her climber’s harness, secured a locking carabiner to the front and then clipped on to the rope.

      “I’m going down. Keep that light on her,” Annja said. Then she pointed at herself and down the slope in an effort to make her companion understand.

      Csilla nodded.

      Letting the rope play out between her hands, Annja began backing down the incline. The footing was loose, and therefore treacherous. Annja wouldn’t be able to get the other woman out of there if she cut herself on the shale while climbing down.

      Slow and steady, Annja, she reminded herself. Slow and steady.

      As she moved downward she began to edge sideways, angling toward the spot where the floodlight was shining. She called out several times, hoping for a reaction, but she didn’t get anything in return. That wasn’t a good sign; the woman was either too injured to respond or past the point of help. Annja hoped for the former.

      An experienced climber, Annja was able to descend the hundred feet or so in less than ten minutes. She called out as she drew close.

      “My name’s Annja. Can you hear me?”

      No response.

      Annja carefully maneuvered herself over to the lip of the depression and looked down.

      The woman lay facedown on the hard stone about two feet below Annja’s present position, her long dark hair hiding her features. She was nude, which meant she probably hadn’t been Csilla’s traveling companion...and her injuries likely weren’t accidental.

      The woman lay unmoving and didn’t respond to Annja’s repeated calls. Her skin was extremely pale—blood loss?—and the woman didn’t appear to be breathing.

      The fall down the rocky slope had cut her body in several places, but there was very little blood around the wounds, leading Annja to believe the woman had been killed elsewhere and dumped here. Whoever was responsible must have expected the body to fall all the way to the bottom of the slope.

      Fate, however, had intervened.

      The