"Where's the Eternal Light?" Shay'tan asked.
"The Supreme Commander General has not moved from where she exited hyperspace," the radioman said. "But the Alliance frigate which shadowed the Prime Minister here from the Jehoshaphat -is- moving into position to defend the Prince of Tyre and those three destroyers will be there momentarily.
Shay'tan's gut-clenching instinct screamed that something stank, but he had no time to think!
"Sir!" the weapons master shouted. "One of our own battleships just broke formation and has moved to overtake the Tsalmaveth!"
"Who's captain of that ship?" General Musab shouted.
"Major Gamali, Sir," the weapons master said.
"Major Gamali," General Musab screamed into his radio. "What in Hashem's name are you doing? Get back in line."
They all watched in horror as the Sata'an frigate raced within weapons range of the Tsalmaveth and fired a full barrage of missiles at it. The Tsalmaveth exploded.
"Oh … crap," Shay'tan rumbled. "There goes my planet."
'Mayday … mayday … mayday,' Lucifer shouted into the video screen. 'We are under fire by the Sata'an Empire. Jophie! Please don't leave me here to die!"
"What is he doing?" the weapons master shouted at the rogue Sata'an frigate beeping across his monitor, now towards the Prince of Tyre. "No! Sir!!! What in Haven are you doing?!!!"
Shay'tan watched in horror as the rogue frigate opened fire on the Prince of Tyre before it even occurred to him to risk using his ascended powers to incinerate his own ship. A flash blinded their monitors as the Tsamlaveth's rail guns hit something in space just short of the Sata'an-Alliance border and ignited it, no doubt debris left over from Ba'al Zebub's destroyed flagship. The fireball cleared, unable to remain on fire in the vacuum of space. Shay'tan blinked. The Prince of Tyre was gone.
"Where in Haven did it go?" the radioman pounded upon his screen.
Before he even had a chance to speak, the Alliance frigate Caleuche which had shadowed the Prince of Tyre fired that last few inches over the border into Sata'anic airspace to take out the rogue frigate which had just destroyed their Prime Minister.
"Sata'an ships," the Eternal Light hailed them. "You have fired on the Alliance flagship. You have just committed an act of war."
"Put me through to Supreme Commander-General Jophiel," Shay'tan turned to shout into the transmission screen. "Now!"
The radioman queued up a different monitor than the one Shay'tan had earlier destroyed, one that necessitated him twisting his neck into a bizarre angle that made him look more ominous than he already was. A Mantoid major sat at the helm of Jophiel's ship. Not the Supreme Commander-General herself.
"Where is she?" Shay'tan rumbled. "Our ship did not aim over the border. This was all a misunderstanding."
"Jophiel is not on board," the unknown major said, undaunted that he stared at the old dragon himself. "And you, Sir, will have to answer to our emperor for the murder of his son."
With a click, the Eternal Light ended the transmission.
"Get him back on the line!" Shay'tan ordered. That gut instinct that told him this couldn't be happening shouted louder. How in Haven had everything just gone so wrong?
"The Eternal Light and her three destroyers just jumped back into hyperspace, Sir," the radioman said. "Only the Caleuche that shadowed the ship here from the Jehoshaphat is still here, Sir. They appear to be instituting a search grid for survivors. They are on our side of the border. Should I hail them?"
"Don't bother," Shay'tan rumbled. "They don't have the authority to do anything but what they're already doing. Firing upon them will only inflame the situation. Are you sure Ba'al Zebub's ships were destroyed?"
"But they fired over the border!" the munitions specialist protested. "And destroyed Gamali!"
"I'm not reading any survivors," the radioman touched his radar screen. "From any of the vessels."
With a wave of his hand, Shay'tan teleported his entire fleet home. Their presence on the Sata'an-Alliance border would only inflame the war he had just inadvertently started. Dragonshit! Would Hashem thank him for eliminating the man who had just stolen his empire? Or retaliate because he had just killed his adopted son?
No sooner did he drop his fleet back into orbit around Hades-6 than he teleported himself to a remote sector of his empire, a place where the sun had long gone dead and nothing remained but a volcanic world where nothing could survive, and let loose his anger where it could do little harm.
How in Haven had he just managed to start a war?
Chapter 85
November - 3,390 B.C.
Earth: Village of Assur
Angelic Special Forces Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili
Mikhail
At some point he clutched for his wife and his hand came up empty.
"Ninsianna?"
Sunlight streamed through the window of their tiny room, far beyond the time even Little Miss Spider could weave the illusion of keeping the sunlight out a few moments longer. He knew she had been here because her red cape was tucked into his arms as though he was holding her. Her scent lingered fresh on the cloak, the blankets, their pillow, even the spot on his arm where she had rested her cheek. At least that part of the blur was not a dream.
He sat up and grimaced as pain stabbed into his wing. He could not see the place that hurt, being in a part of his wing that was blind, but his fingers found where his feathers had been plucked and the rough feel of stitches. He vaguely recalled being hit by an arrow as he'd rushed at one of the men who'd taken Ninsianna. He knew she was okay because he recalled she'd come, then gone, and then come home again.
The sunlight was obnoxious at perhaps an hour past noontime. Why did his head hurt so badly? It wasn't a physical pain, like he'd felt after his ship had crashed and dropped a roofing panel onto his head. No, this was like the worst hangover, multiplied by a thousand, with a residual side-order of molecularly reconstituted dirty dishwater for limbs. He crawled to the edge of the sleeping pallet and forced himself to sit upright, entangling himself in his own wings because he felt so rubbery he could not get them to obey.
Scrounging for his boots, he squinted into the sun and grabbed a clean pair of socks from the shelf, grimacing as he laced up his boots and noted the bloodstains. They were damp. Ninsianna must have taken them down to the river to scrub off the gore. Downstairs he could hear voices. Opting not to change his shirt and pants, which appeared to be clean though he had no recollection of changing, he stumbled down the narrow step, silently cursing his wing's inability to work in coordination with his mind. What the hell had happened to him last night?
It was not Ninsianna whom Needa spoke to, but Pareesa.
"Good morning?" Mikhail asked hesitantly. "Is Ninsianna okay?"
"She went to help her father perform the death rituals," Needa said. In her hands lay her healer's basket, nearly empty of supplies. She looked exhausted. "I just came back to get some more herbs, but I am out of bandages."
"Every woman in the village has sacrificed old shawls to provide you with more," Pareesa placed her hand over Needa's trembling hand, looking far older than her thirteen summers. "Go do what you have to do. I'll make sure Mikhail is briefed."
Needa gave him a fearful look. She hurried out the door, leaving behind her the countertop piled high with unwashed dishes. Fear ignited in Mikhail's belly, that frantic need to reconnect with his wife.
"Is Ninsianna really okay?" Mikhail's voice trembled as he spoke. He took advantage of the seat Needa had just vacated and plopped down, crushing a few feathers in the process.
"She is fine," Pareesa's demeanor was cautious. "You've been asleep for two days. She's been making rounds of the injured."
"Two days?" Mikhail's eyebrows raised in surprise. "How many men did we lose?"
"Forty-two warriors," Pareesa said. "Three of them women. Needa and Ninsianna fight to keep another fourteen alive who might not make it, as well as lesser injuries sustained by every single warrio
r. They needed her more than you did."
He did the math. That was almost one-quarter of their heavy infantry. If those clinging to life also died, they'd be down by one-third. They didn't have enough warriors to begin with!
Mikhail glanced out the door. "She should not have let me sleep. I should be out there helping her."
"Mikhail," Pareesa cleared her throat, she being the one asking the questions now, and not him as should be the situation. "What do you remember about the raid?"
"They tried to kill my wife!" His voice came out as an anguished cry. He looked away, not wishing for Pareesa to see the tears that threatened to erupt. He knew he should feel angry, but it felt as though someone had wrung all of the anger out of his body the way Ninsianna wrung his clothing after washing it in the river.
Pareesa's expression was guarded.
"And afterwards?"
"I … I don't remember," Mikhail said. "I took her into the air to search for Needa, and then … I don't remember." He looked out the door, fear clenching at his gut. He would not be reassured his wife was unharmed until he saw it for himself. "Where is she?"
"Ninsianna is fine," Pareesa placed her hand over his. Her hand was tiny, but he could feel strength pouring off of her into him, as though something had ripped away all of his emotional defenses and left him raw and bleeding. "She was knocked unconscious. That's all. She and the baby are fine. But you are not fine. You flipped out. You broke every rule you've ever taught me about not letting your emotions run away with you so you don't do something stupid!"
Mikhail touched the pounding ball that sat on top of his neck, his vision fuzzy. Everything had a penumbra about it, especially Pareesa, who appeared to glow a pretty shade of blue. It hurt his eyes. He covered them so he would not see this hallucination which made him see things. Had he sustained another head injury? That was all he needed! His brains were scrambled enough without adding hallucinations!
"I'm sorry," was all he could say.
"Mikhail," ancient eyes peered out of Pareesa's young ones. "The others think it was heroic the way you single-handedly turned the tide of battle. It was dark and only a few of them had ever fought at your side before. But I know you. That is not the way you fight. All it would have taken was one well-placed arrow and we would have lost you! And then where would we be?"
"I'm sorry," he said again. It was a strange reversal of their roles, he being scolded by a thirteen-summer girl. And why, oh why, did he feel so weak and empty? He couldn’t even be angry at her audacity!
"Nobody will fault you for losing your temper," Pareesa said, her expression wary. "But every warrior in this village looks up to you. You need to think about what kind of example you set from now on. The man who fights his enemies with compassion? Or the man who succumbs to his anger? It's bad enough we still have people whispering you fathered Shahla's baby!"
"I'm sorry," he said for the third time. Why did he feel the need to apologize so much? And why did he have the feeling Pareesa talked about, and he apologized for, far more than either one of them wished to discuss.
"Oh, Mikhail!" Pareesa cried out. "You scared us! Just don't take risks like that ever again! I was afraid you had gone and gotten yourself killed!"
That eerie echo of something old peering out of her young eyes vanished, replaced by the little fairy as she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug. He stiffened, not sure whether it would be appropriate to hug her back, or if doing so would arouse Ninsianna's jealousies. He was saved from making that decision when she pushed him away and rubbed her nose, gathering her dignity after her childlike behavior. Perhaps he should have hugged her back? Just quick? Like he often saw her mother do to her little brother?
"How many people … saw me?" He was not certain what he was asking because he couldn’t remember what had Pareesa spooked.
"Every man in the village saw you fly right into the thick of it and start hacking away at them until they'd realized they'd taken on a bigger enemy than they'd counted on and ran away," Pareesa said. "You were so mad you roared at them worse than that big lion you smote. You're going to have to eat goat-dung and explain to the men that your going off like that was wrong, or the next thing you know, they will try it."
"I agree," Mikhail said. If there was one thing Ninsianna forever pounded into his head, it was that he needed to set an example for these people. He noted the worry in Pareesa's face.
"What other foolish things did I do?" Mikhail asked.
"When they ran away, you pursued them," Pareesa said. "Right into a trap. I'm not sure how you managed to defeat them, but you're lucky to be still alive."
"Who else knows about the trap?" Mikhail asked.
"Just me and Gita," Pareesa said. "She found you first, bent over your sword and unable to stand, surrounded by bodies. It was over before we got there."
He noted that she did not make eye contact as she said this.
"I must help bury them," Mikhail said, curious to see this kill box. He had a feeling it would be every bit as gruesome as the time he had become aware he was on the roof of his own ship, with eighteen dead Halifians scattered on the ground.
"We already took care of it for you," Pareesa looked away. "Me and the B-team. We buried them where we found them."
"I must say the death rituals for them," Mikhail said, not certain why he felt so strongly about it, but he did.
"We buried them with more respect than they deserved," Pareesa snapped at him. "And yes … we dumped water on their graves and said a prayer for them! We have enough of our own dead to bury without worrying about the bodies of our attackers!"
"And the Chief?" Mikhail asked.
"He wishes to speak to you as soon as you are awake," Pareesa said. "The only way those men found their way inside the village without breaching our gate was with inside intelligence. He sent me to wait for you."
Jamin…
Pareesa's presence now made sense. Feeling a bit unsteady, he lurched to his feet, strapped on his pulse rifle and sword, and followed her to the Chief's house. Along the way, villagers met him and cheered. Pareesa averted her eyes. Funny. For some reason he didn't feel like a hero.
* * * * *
Mikhail watched Ninsianna hang another batch of linen bandages onto the twisted linen rope they used as a clothesline. Little Nemesis had escaped her pen, but he did not bother searching for her. In fact, as soon as he had finished speaking with the Chief, he had taken to the air and searched until he found her standing in the river, washing these selfsame bandages. He'd stuck with her to carry the basket home and stoked a fire in the outdoors oven for her to boil water to sterilize them, a trick he'd explained killed the germs her father called evil spirits.
"Let me help you," Mikhail lumbered over. As he did, his long primary feathers snagged in the dozens of long, slender strips already fluttering in the wind and yanked them off the clothesline. He whirled to capture them before they hit the ground, but that only made things worse when his opposite wing snagged the second clothesline and tore the pole the rope was tied to right out of the ground. An entire hour's worth of wash fluttered to the ground, no longer clean enough to use as bandages.
“Mikhail!” Ninsianna's golden eye's flashed with annoyance. “Please. Go away! Do something! Get out of my hair.”
She shooed him with her hand. Cloth was a precious commodity. Even the tiniest scrap was recycled and used until it disintegrated. With so many wounded needing tending, every last bandage was in use.
“No,” he said. "They attacked you here."
“I am fine!”
Ninsianna untangled the last slender strip from his feathers and picked the ones up he'd dirtied off the ground, unceremoniously dumping them back into the large pottery crock they used to heat water to sterilize them. Her eyes were thoughtful as she stirred the water as though it were a type of soup and then fished them out with the stick, letting the steaming water drip back into the crock so they wouldn't need to keep reheating it from scratch.
“I thought I’d lost you yesterday,” he said, stone faced. “I’m not leaving your side.” He silently fed more wood into the fire at the base of the oven. He knew he wasn’t really being helpful. He was in her way!
“It's driving me nuts having you underfoot like this!” Ninsianna complained. “I’ve got work to do. You’ve got work to do. Go help them finish burying the enemy dead.”
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said. His eyes darkened to the color of a stormy sky as he allowed his worry to show. “I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”
Ninsianna’s expression softened. She put down the bandages she'd been hanging and moved into the circle of his arms and wings.
"You can't keep following me around like this," Ninsianna squeezed him tight. "Much as I enjoy spending time with you, this village isn't going to defend itself. Jamin told them how to sneak inside and find this house. We need you to help us fix these weaknesses so they can't get inside again."
How could he explain it physically hurt to let her out of his sight? Here he'd been sent by She-who-is to protect her, and he'd let her down!
"You're right," he sighed. "It's just … when I can't see you, if feels like I can't feel you."
"Of course you can't feel me when you can't see me!" Ninsianna's lips curved up in a mischievous smile. She ran her hand down his chest, over his pants to cup his testicles in her hand. Her golden eyes glowed brighter, the same way they had when She-who-is had compelled her to do that same gesture.
Mikhail stiffened…
He grabbed her hand and pulled it up to cover his chest, that empty heart that could not feel his wife.
"Tell me that you love me?" His voice came out an anguished cry. It had started even before the raid, that feeling that something was wrong with their marriage and he did not know how to fix it. Damantia! How could he fix it if he could not remember?
“I’m your wife,” Ninsianna's lip trembled at his rejection. "Of course I love you.”
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 82
