Lucifer bared his teeth into a false smile and rumbled something to the fat lizard king who fawned all over him despite Kasib's assurances the two were social equals. Jamin leaned forward, straining to translate the few words of Sata'anic language he had learned thus far and realized Kasib and Hudhafah were doing the same. Whatever the language they spoke, Jamin's nerve endings shuddered with every word. Ba'al Zebub trembled and waddled forward to argue with his upstart general.
Jamin had seen enough coup d'états to comprehend that Ba'al Zebub only ruled with the support of this lizard general. Ba'al Zebub first hissed pleasantries, then growled, and then shoved his clawed hand into General Hudhafah's snout. The lizard general stood firm, secure in the forces he could bring to bear, either for, or against Ba'al Zebub's intrigues. Although Jamin couldn't understand the words, he'd accompanied his father to enough parlays to recognize when one tribe's chief could not ratify a treaty because he lacked the support of the warriors who kept him in power. Kasib stood behind his commanding officer and wrung his claws, his long, forked tongue darting nervously as he looked anxiously from Hudhafah to Lucifer to Jamin.
Jamin realized the lizards fought over him. He was a prize?
Lucifer's eyes met his. Glittering. Silver. Ferocious. The Angelic tilted his head and sniffed, nostrils flared as he listened to the two lizards argue. If the Príomh-Aire wanted to make the lizards dance like puppets, Jamin knew Lucifer could make them do it, but for some reason it pleased him to get people to do his bidding voluntarily. When Jamin had asked him about it. Lucifer had given him a fatherly smile and caressed his cheek as though he were a delicious little boy.
'My son,' he had said, 'isn’t it better if people serve you because you give them their most heartfelt desire?'
Yes. Jamin had learned a thing or two watching Lucifer manipulate others to do his bidding, but Hudhafah, it seemed, was immune to that manipulation, as was Lieutenant Kasib. Should he warn Lucifer that Kasib had let pass the knife Jamin had almost used to stab him? That small voice which whispered to him to keep Ninsianna close whispered now that the lizard-man was somebody he could trust.
And for some reason, Lucifer had not yet picked up that tidbit of betrayal out of Jamin’s mind…
Jamin locked it away in the tiny little treasure box his mother had taught him to imagine hiding his wishes in to keep them secret. He'd kept those treasures to himself until the day Ninsianna had healed him. She had opened that reservoir and made him share it with her. Jamin frowned. Ninsianna … perhaps turning the unfaithful witch over to her husband’s enemies hadn’t been the wisest thing he’d ever done?
With a snarl, Hudhafah turned towards Jamin and grunted in barely-understandable Kemet, 'you … lucky."
With a twitch of his thick tail, the burly general turned his back on Lucifer as though he was no one of consequence and ambled away, but the six lizard-soldiers flanking the man did no such thing. They backed away, their gold-green eyes narrowed into slits as they watched Hudhafah's back until he'd retreated into the closest sky canoe, leaving only Kasib standing there, still carrying his glowing magic flatscreen.
Lucifer tugged Jamin towards him as though he was being forced to relinquish a favorite toy, his white wings ruffled with irritation.
"It seems our good friend General Hudhafah is worried that, without you to act as an intermediary between his people and your own, there might be many unnecessary, how shall I put this tactfully, misunderstandings?" Lucifer spoke smoothly as though what he said was the most reasonable thing in the world. "You understand, don't you, young chieftain? If you want to rule these tribes, then their people must get to know you."
Jamin's jaw dropped, not certain he understood the insinuation. "Rule them?"
"Why, of course." Lucifer slipped his arm around his shoulders and turned to face the direction where gathered the meeting of regional chiefs … the ones they were about to ambush. "Your tribe, the Uruk to your south, and, oh? Who were those dreary desert-dwellers you told me about? The ones who sold you into slavery?"
An image of Aturdokht's hazel-green eyes, the rest of her face hidden beneath a veil, filtered into Jamin's mind. From the way Lucifer's nose twitched into a smirk, Jamin knew he saw the image as well.
"Halifians," Jamin said. "They call themselves the People of the Desert."
"Ah, yes, the Halifians," Lucifer waived his hand towards General Hudhafah. "They are of no use to the Sata'anic Empire. Hudhafah has agreed to give them to you as a gift if you deliver to him the goods the Amorite slavers promised the day they convinced him to part with his treasury to buy you."
A feeling of dread settled into Jamin's gut. So. He was to be treated like a slave?
"What would I do with the Halifians?"
"Anything you want," Lucifer shrugged. "If nothing else, it will give you a second wife. One more worthy than the one who carries your enemy's bastard."
A pang of regret settled into Jamin's gut.
"Aturdokht no longer needs me," Jamin said. "She is a wealthy woman now ... from selling me to the Sata'anic lizards."
Kasib had told him Hudhafah had nearly emptied the Sata'anic treasury to purchase him from the Amorite slavers. Jamin had the feeling such a price mattered little to Lucifer ... -if- he was in the mood to pay it.
Lucifer tilted his head. His scent grew muskier, stronger, more powerful, blended with the scent of fire. Jamin could almost hear his mother's voice whispering from the treasure box, a memory of a favorite story about a little boy who snuck into his father's granary to snitch olives out of the enormous urns of olive oil. Olives. That was precious. Not this gold the lizard people threw around like mustard seeds upon the fertile soil alongside the Hiddekel River.
"Olives?" Lucifer's mouth formed the unfamiliar word. His lips curved up into a smile as he reached into Jamin's brain and plucked a memory of eating the rare, decadent fruit. He closed his eyes as though he were truly savoring it. "Yes. The Emperor would like this fruit." He brushed his fingertips beneath Jamin's chin. "Fear not, young chieftain. I shall return to fetch you … and a jar of these … olives … to salve his disappointment when I tell him I had no choice but to put down his favorite watchman."
The image which burned into Jamin's mind did not match Lucifer's beneficent smile. Him holding down an unknown white-robed man while Lucifer rammed a jar of olives down his father's throat. The image changed into him doing the same thing to his own father, Chief Kiyan, the man who had chosen a stranger over his own son.
"Yes," Jamin said, even as that part of him that still wished to earn back his father's favor warred with the hatred Lucifer fostered like a man blowing notes into a wooden flute.
"Serve your masters well," Lucifer whispered in his ear, "and when my armies join me, we shall offer these lizard-people a choice. Turn you over? Or keep you … and face annihilation?"
Lucifer sent him an image of armies so vast they dwarfed his imagination. A competing image, whispered into Jamin's mind from the treasure box he'd trained his mind to lock away all the things that might make him act less of a man. Green eyes, peeking from beneath the veil of a desert shaykah. Aturdokht's actions had not been betrayal, but an act of mercy to spare his life.
"And what if I no longer wish to go with you," Jamin said.
"But you will," Lucifer gave him a benevolent smile. He gestured towards the ship. "As soon as that which your heart most desires rids herself of the abomination she carries within her belly, I shall bring her back with me and use her to have my way with you."
The two cold-eyed goons who stood on either side of Lucifer chortled and passed a look between them, the first sign of any emotion Jamin had seen the entire time he'd known them. What was the joke? Did they somehow find this funny?
"Is that a promise?" Jamin asked.
The two goons sniggered louder.
Lucifer curled one wing forward to caress Jamin's cheek with a snow-white wing-tip. Without answering, Lucifer whirled on his heel, gracefully tucking in his wings ag
ainst his back so he would not knock Jamin over with them, and strutted up the ramp of his sky canoe as though he were a much bigger man than the already-huge five-cubit-tall, thirty-foot-wingspan Angelic who towered over him by nearly a head. Lieutenant Kasib hurried to stand next to him as the ramp slid up and was swallowed into the belly of the sky canoe.
A lump rose in his throat. Had he really just turned Ninsianna over to Lucifer and allowed himself to be left behind?
"You're very lucky I was able to convince General Hudhafah to intervene," Kasib spoke to him in hissing, broken Kemet, the lingua franca of trade amongst most tribes in this region.
Jamin glanced over to the lizard-man he'd begun to think of as … not a friend … he hadn't known Kasib long enough to think much of anything about him other than the fact he now considered it normal to find himself speaking to a five-cubit-tall lizard. Moisture beaded in his eyes. Accursed dust! He turned away so Kasib would not mistake the reflex for crying.
"You should have let me go," Jamin stared at the vanished doorway.
If Jamin could read the all-too-human facial expressions of the lizard people, he would swear the lizard-man pitied him.
"Did you love her?" Kasib asked.
The lump in his chest grew heavier, more insistent, as though Ninsianna pounded at the inside of his heart, pleading with him to save her. It was her. He knew she pleaded for her husband to save her using the same sorcery she had once used to trick him and bind his affections to her. Now that he had seen Lucifer use that same power, he would never fall for Ninsianna's manipulations again.
Jamin's mouth twitched downwards.
"Yes," he said. He turned to face the ambush he had sold her out to buy. Any minute now, Mikhail would come flying in to save her and mistake the ecstatic girl dancing around the bonfire to be his wife in peril.
His wife…
"At least I did love her. Once." He stared at Shahla dancing around the raging inferno. "Not anymore. That man died the day she let them bury me in a pit and then banish me for her husband's philandering."
"Good," Kasib tasted the air with his long, forked tongue. He glanced down at the unintelligible black scribbles displayed on his magic window. "Because Lucifer has a history of breaking his toys."
Kasib gestured towards the east, the direction where lay their next target the moment Mikhail was killed, the men who gathered to discuss fighting back against the Sata'anic Empire.
"Come. It is time to cut off the heads of the snake."
"Are you positive this will prevent unnecessary bloodshed?" Jamin asked.
Kasib twitched his tail and shrugged.
"That all depends upon how convincing you are once they learn their leaders are dead and you have been appointed to shepherd them into Sata'anic rule."
Jamin followed Kasib mindlessly into the squat, grey sky canoe, every step he took causing his heart to scream he was not supposed to abandon Ninsianna. Jamin pushed it down and ignored it. The witch had made that choice for him the day she'd broken off their engagement and married Mikhail.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 4
November 3,390 BC
Earth: Mesopotamian Plain
Pareesa
It felt as though she could see her enemy’s intentions; the shadow-enemy which flowed into their muscles and betrayed their thoughts even before their limbs had a chance to carry out the command. It was not the magic she had always assumed the gift to be whenever she had witnessed Mikhail enter the killing dance, but oh! What a wondrous gift the old god wielded!
The Cherubim battle incantations heightened her reflexes, enhancing her speed and the ability to defend against a spear-thrust or find a place where the enemy was weak. She positioned her body between Mikhail and the human excrement which came at them like the winter flood, eager to finish him off. They were unable to get behind her thanks to their own raging bonfire.
A rumble of satisfaction emanated from deep within Pareesa's chest. The God of War was not without a sense of humor. He drew her eyes to the five dead lizard-demons she had smote, one enormous body piled atop the other like green-scaled levies. To get at her, the mercenaries needed to climb over the bodies of their own dead lizard-masters; bodies which, even now that they were dead, many of the mercenaries still feared. Fortune, it seemed, had created a defensible position.
Shouts rippled through the enemy. Their language was alien to her, but even though she could not understand the words, the enhanced state of the killing dance enabled her to hear their intentions. One rushed at her and tripped on a long, green lizard tail. He looked up, his eyes filled with disbelief as he stared up at the unearthly blue glow Pareesa knew must glitter in her eyes … and the light of the bonfire reflecting off of Mikhail's sword.
"Bir kız?" the man asked with befuddlement.
"On'nanoko yori mo."
Words spilled from Pareesa's lips, but they were not her words, but his. The God of War prompted her to run the man through. He forced a prayer past her lips as she kicked the still-twitching body to plug the hole in the wall of bodies which now surrounded her. It was disconcerting, listening to two minds think within a single head, one a frightened thirteen-summer girl; the other detached, calculating, and cognizant of things which lay beyond her field-of-vision. She felt satisfaction, but the Cherubim god regretted not having the luxury of granting the downed man mercy.
Something soft squished beneath her goat-hide pampooties. Even without looking down, that part of her which was still Pareesa sobbed. Mikhail's wings! The God of War forced her to calculate the detriment to her footing, where she needed to step, and ways those same feathers could be used to cause an enemy to slip instead of her. In a life or death situation, nothing was sacred. Not even Mikhail's magnificent, dark wings.
"Patān o miru," the old god forced her lips to speak. Her eyes darted about, taking in the way the enemy moved, no hint of disdain as he whispered how much difficulty the sword would have cutting through the woolen cloaks, animal skin mantles, and padded shirts.
So many enemies…
Pareesa gulped. Her men were not too distant behind her, but it a battle situation, every breath was a moment in which your heart could be silenced forever. She had not given one iota of thought to her own well-being when she'd thrown herself through the hoard to save her mentor, but for the first time, hopelessness began to steal her courage. What it would be like to die?
Blue light filled her vision and great hall opened up into the world beyond. If she fell, the Cherubim god reassured her, it would be a good death. A proud death. A meaningful death. If she fell, he would take her, and Mikhail as well, to this place where heroes watched over the lives of mortals and whispered courage in their hour of direst need.
Death wouldn't be so awful, but she'd much rather live!
With a grunt of satisfaction, the God of War prompted her to calculate which enemy would make the most lethal opponent, who was in charge, and which would attack only after another, stronger opponent had already weakened her. It was an odd juxtaposition, to watch her body move while a hum of alien images flitted through her brain. It felt as though she watched a puppet-show. Yes. Somebody else acted out a play in which a puppet had been fashioned in her likeness, but the puppet-master had rewritten her role to be the heroine and not just the hero's mascot. Alien thoughts began to make sense as images paired with bits and pieces of the Cherubim language she had thankfully had the foresight to learn.
A warning…
She sensed a change in the shadow-pattern of thoughts from the circling enemy. Their numbers parted. A fearsome bear of a man, four cubits tall, with shoulders so broad his knuckles appeared to drag upon the ground swaggered towards her wielding a war club, a horrific instrument embedded on both sides with multiple sharp, flint spear points. Pareesa noted with morbid humor the weapon for which Mikhail had nick-named her çok puan ile mızrak [spear with many points] or, as he liked to call her in his native language, arm beag ollscriosta [little weapon of mass destr
uction].
She clutched the sword, determined to fight even harder as War Club Man climbed over the wall of bodies and stared at her as though she was a two-headed goat. The man stank like sour milk and rancid meat. A thought flitted through her mind, though she wasn't certain whether it was her thought or the God of War's. Why was it that mercenaries everywhere were never well-acquainted with water?
"Tsuki kanojo wa - daredearu watashi wa, kono teki o utsu yō ni watashi ni chikara no tekisetsuna shiyō-ken o fuyo." The God of War taunted the enemy champion in the clicking Cherubim language.
War Club Man bared his teeth in a leering grin, exposing a gap where once upon a time he had possessed teeth, but now, top and bottom, nothing remained but a single jagged incisor. He reminded her of a hyena. "Yani Assurians bir adamın işi yapmak için küçük bir kız göndermek?"
With near-blinding speed he swung his war-club, a crushing blow that would have shattered her skull and torn great chunks of flesh out of her body if it had landed. Pareesa raised her sword to block it, but not even Cherubim-enhanced reflexes could prevent her from being knocked backwards. With detached interest she noted the pain which vibrated into her bones.
A recent training lesson danced into her mind.
'You lack sufficient mass to fight in this manner,' Mikhail had said. 'You must first move out of the way, then strike when your enemy is trapped in the momentum of his downswing.'
War Club Man swung a second time. This time, instead of using her sword to block the blow, Pareesa stepped to her left. The man shifted forward, so close his spittle splattered onto her cheek. Ugh! He hit the bottom of his downswing and, just for a moment, left his neck exposed. With a war cry, Pareesa slammed down the sword. It hit resistance at the spinal column, then with a 'snap' continued effortlessly through the meat of the man's neck. Warm, slippery blood squirted onto her legs as War Club Man's head plopped next her feet, his eyelids blinking with surprise. Ugh! She kicked the grim specter towards the wall of bodies so she wouldn't trip on it as the next man came at her.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 5
