Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga)

by Anna Erishkigal

  Abaddon rose from his commander's chair and gave his falcon-grey wings an exaggerated stretch.

  "Lieutenant Valac," he called out loudly enough for the entire bridge to hear, "I need to go put my house in order. Please escort Major Pharzuphel down to the weapons locker and help her select the biggest, baddest pulse rifle you can find to help her protect my wife. Major Pharzuphel … I'll meet you at the evacuation shuttle in one hour. Lieutenant-Captain Shzzzkt," he pointed to the next lowest-ranking officer on the bridge, his Mantoid communications officer, "you have the bridge until I return."

  "Yes, Sir," all three of them answered simultaneously, secret wife, secret husband, and the crewman who'd suddenly been elevated to his acting second-in-command. The green-exoskeletoned Mantoid moved to the commander's chair and sat down gingerly, looking far too small to fill it out. Abaddon gave the kid a nod. In time, if you were sensible and ruthless, the seat of a commander would reshape itself to fit you.

  He moved through corridors memorized over the centuries like laugh-lines in a lover's face, each battle-scar familiar, each blemish beloved. As he walked, the Jehoshaphat purred reassuringly beneath his feet. Beneath that hum the Judgment of God whispered a plea of excitement. Set me free. Set me free, husband. Let me off my tether so I can hunt and bring you prey.

  "Soon," Abaddon pressed his hand against the door. "Soon, beloved. As soon as I have seen your sister-wife off to safety."

  As if in response, Captain Shzzkt's voice came over the comms panel, announcing they would reach the target in T-minus seven hours. Abaddon could swear he felt the ship lurch with excitement, ready, eager to begin the blood sport that had been denied ever since the Emperor had returned. The Jehoshaphat was not a jealous wife so long as it was with her he chose to hunt with, but she did demand he humor her blood lust, and it had been too long since she had last been satiated.

  Abaddon softened his body language before he accessed his room. Around Sarvenaz he did not fear showing the softer, more romantic side he had inherited from his Seraphim ancestors. His scar became less insidious; his eyes softened to a velvety grey, even his feathers became fluffier, a falcon settling into its nest. This was home, and home was wherever Sarvenaz resided within the Jehoshaphat.

  "Husband!" Sarvenaz threw herself into his arms before he had even finished shutting the door. Her mahogany brown eyes were red-rimmed from crying. "You no leave me behind!"

  The subtle aroma of HCGT filled his senses and awoke that portion of his brain which originated, not from humans, but from his animal half, the raptors which had given him his wings. To a species teetering at the brink of extinction, the scent of a fertile female, heavy with pregnancy was far more potent than the fanciest perfume.

  "It's for your own safety, mo ghrá," Abaddon said. "We're about to go up against the dragon."

  "You no leave me behind!" Sarvenaz wept. "I no want to be left behind!"

  The gentle swell of her abdomen pressed into the hard, washboard flatness of his own reminded him why he was sending her down to a safe zone, though he'd probably have sent her anyways even if she hadn't been carrying his first and possibly only child. His lips softened as he tangled his fingers in her long, dark hair,

  "It's only until we finish this first campaign," Abaddon's eyes glistened bright with emotion. "And then I will come back for you. I will always come back for you, that I swear."

  "Take me with you!" Sarvenaz slammed her fist against his chest. "I brave. You teach me use a sword, I fight at your side like Angelic woman! Sarvenaz not a coward!"

  Oh, goddess she was beautiful! This love of his life who had tempted him to defy his god! Even the puffiness around her eyes added to her beauty, this woman who cried for him. Old blood-and-guts. The Alliances' most feared, and often reviled general. In her eyes, he was not an ugly old goat with a scar, too crotchety and used to getting his own way for any female to put up with. No. In her eyes he was her Husband. Forbidden word. Ecstatic word. She was the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and when they grew old together and her wrinkles grew to equal his, he would still find her beautiful, because she loved him, and once you had that, what else did you need?

  "It would put our child at risk, mo ghrá," Abaddon kissed the top of her head. "You wouldn't want that to happen, would you? To harm our little girl?" He flattened his palm against her abdomen to greet their daughter, almost six months in the womb. As if in protest, their child kicked against his hand, as though she was as eager as her mother to pick up her father's sword and carry it into battle.

  "You come for me as soon as you can?" Sarvenaz sniffled, regaining some of that regality which was the image she projected to the rest of the world. "You send me picture-words every day, tell me how much you miss me?"

  "Three times a day, mo ghrá," Abaddon promised. "Once in the morning when I get up, once when I get off shift, and once before I fall asleep, so I can dream of you in the bed next to me and imagine you telling me about your day."

  Sarvenaz's lip trembled. This was not their first separation, but this was the first time he had left her to go into battle.

  "This is what you wanted, remember?" Abaddon enclosed her in his falcon-grey wings. "To let your husband kick the lizard people off of your homeworld?"

  Sarvenaz pressed her cheek against his chest and began to weep. As she did, it felt as though his own heart was breaking, as though Shay'tan himself had grabbed his heart and squeezed it. That older, animal part of his brain commanded his actions where his life's experience failed him; how to say goodbye to the woman who was your heart and soul when the last thing you wanted to do was let her go. With a sigh that sounded to his own ears halfway between a gasp of desire and the sound a lizard-soldier made when he severed its jugular with his sword, he picked her up and carried her to their marriage bed to worship her one last time.

  "Husband not leave me behind." Sarvenaz's eyes glistened with fresh shed tears. "Husband will always come back for me?"

  He had no words to reassure her, only kisses, and his own frantic, almost clumsy fumbling with the fastenings of her clothing as he stripped away what little stood barrier between them, his lifemate, his wife, the one gift the Emperor had forbidden his species to take so long as they were obligated to serve him.

  Sarvenaz tore at the buttons of his uniform and lay a trail of kisses from his abdomen to his chest. His sword-belt dropped to the floor, followed by his pulse rifle and ammunition clips. He shoved up her dress and barely got his pants down around his ankles before the instinct to merge overpowered him, causing him to slam his wings against the ceiling as they prepared to take flight into a world which was not a mortal one, but that place he could only go when he made love to her. She cried out as he impaled her upon his manhood, not gentle, not tender the way he wanted this parting to be, but the frantic coupling of a mated pair that feared this separation could become permanent if he lost the battle and died.

  No. Not permanent. Never permanent. His species had legends, stories about those who had gone before waiting for their beloved at the entrance to the Dreamtime, but even in life, every day he would be separated from her would be the ultimate cruelty.

  Sarvenaz arched her back, eager to take as much of him as she could. She dug her fingernails into the axillary muscles which powered his wings as she felt it too, that sensation they felt whenever they made love; that they were being carried in the current of a song, a beautiful song which sung its approval of their rebellion; that they had chosen love above all other concerns.

  The walls had long ago been stripped bare of pictures from his pounding wings. Something crashed off of the bureau, some knickknack Sarvenaz had forgotten to tuck away, but neither one of them cared. The only thing which mattered was this feeling of becoming one.

  The Jehoshaphat's hyperdrives hummed beneath them like the cheering squad at a game, chanting 'do it, cast away your mortal shell and ride this wave into the upper realms,' but they were only mortal. The closest they could come was to reach ecstasy in
each other's arms They cried out with a single voice as the tidal wave of emotion washed through his body into hers, and just for a moment he could hear her thoughts, and she could hear all of his. His body convulsed as they lost all sensation of time or space, as her feminine mysteries clenched around his manhood as his seed spilled into her womb, the physical act of union which was the closest a mortal creature could come to becoming a god.

  Sarvenaz looked into his heart, for he could feel her there living within it, and what she saw reassured her.

  "Husband not ever want to be parted from Sarvenaz," she whispered, not from mortal lips, but from her heart spoken directly into his.

  "No," Abaddon wept. "Not even in death."

  Sarvenaz pulled his lips back onto hers to exhale her commitment back to him, this mating vow they had given to each other many times, the one the Emperor had forbidden any Angelic ever to give, the one which worshipped a higher goddess than even She-who-is.

  He collapsed against her, weeping. As much as it would pain her to be parted from him, it would be him who would bear the brunt of it, the sensation of loss his species had evolved to feel so much more acutely than their human ancestors. Not even millennia of selective breeding and six centuries of indoctrination had been adequate to breed an Angelic's instinct out of him to never be parted from his mate. It was the reason the Emperor had forbidden their species to ever marry, to never form permanent unions because to do so meant he would constantly have rebellion on his hands.

  It was she who comforted him, this time, for in this moment of sacred union, she could feel how desperately he was in love with her, and that part of her which had been trained to be a leader understood that by lingering, she increased the likelihood she would lose the very thing she cherished most.

  "It okay," Sarvenaz kissed a tear-stained cheek. "I be okay with Second you send with me. She protect me. I protect her. We keep each other company while our husbands go off to war."

  Without even being told, somehow Sarvenaz had picked the thought right out of his mind. Proof, perhaps, that maybe the legends of his people were true? That there really was a Bond of Ki?

  Abaddon pulled her onto his side, to enclose her in one wing and grant warmth to their shivering even though the room was not even cold. Ever since he had met her, there had been a fullness in his chest, a warmth, as if all was right in the world. Now ... he didn't feel empty, for that fullness still existed ... not even a separation could take that sensation away from him. But every other aspect of his physiology screamed at him to hold her closer and never let her go.

  Sarvenaz traced the scar which had nearly taken his eye, her expression tender as she looked upon his war injuries.

  "You send me picture-words?" Sarvenaz whispered. "Tell me how your battle go? Drop hints when you come see me again? But no tell me what your battle plan! Never know when lizard get your picture words and tell old dragon what Abaddon plan to outsmart him."

  Abaddon's heart filled with pride. What had he done to deserve a prize such as her, this warrior queen that Lucifer had transported across the heavens to be his mate? Shay'tan would be defeated, not by the Destroyer his opposing emperor had genetically engineered to do battle on his behalf, but one of the very humans the old dragon sought to enslave. That thought pleased him immensely...

  "Three times a day," Abaddon promised with a hawkish grin, an expression those who had done battle with him before knew well. "Four if I can sneak away to send an extra transmission from the battlefield."

  The sound of Captain Shzzkt's voice announcing it was T-minus-six hours until engagement, interrupted them before he could recover enough to make love to her a second time. The announcement was repeated, adding that if people intended to evacuate to the safe zone, they needed to do so now before the ship was out of shuttle range. That last tidbit was a reminder for him, for none dared knock upon the Destroyer's door and interrupt his time with his wife if they valued their head still attached to their body.

  "It time to go, Husband," Sarvenaz said sadly. "Sarvenaz already pack things. Even baby things. Just in case…"

  She did not finish the thought, and he did not finish it for her. Just in case this battle was the one the Destroyer finally lost and forced Sarvenaz to rear their daughter alone. They arose from the bed in silence, only the occasional sob breaking the moment as Sarvenaz strapped back on his weaponry as though she installed him into a suit of ancient armor.

  Major Pharzuphel met them in the designated launch bay, her own state of dishevelment attesting to the fact the Destroyer wasn't the only person on the ship who'd succumbed to the urge to say goodbye to their mate the proper way.

  "She's in good hands, Sir," Phazruphel said. "Valac picked out a widowmaker for me to carry." She pointed to a nasty-looking pulse rifle which bordered between a rifle and miniature pulse canon. "Anyone who bothers her will have to answer to me."

  "See that it is so," Abaddon said. He glanced up at where Sarvenaz had sat in the co-pilot's seat and placed her hand against the glass. "Because if anything were to happen to her, it would kill me more certainly than if Shay'tan, himself, incinerated me with his fire."

  With a crisp salute, Phazruphel marched up the gangplank, her eyes filled with tears as she gazed across the hanger bay to her own mate lurking in the shadows as the hatch closed. Neither of them dared to flaunt their secret marriage further. The penalty for breaking the anti-fraternization laws was to be reassigned to opposite ends of the galaxy, rotation schedules desynchronized so that the lawbreakers never got to see each other again so long as they were legally obligated to serve their 500 years in the military.

  Abaddon saluted Sarvenaz as the shuttle lifted off and then turned to exit the shuttle bay doors. Valac fell into step behind him as Abaddon made his way back to the bridge where two lines of triangles blinked closer to one another across an imaginary, gerrymandered border. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Two spectacular armies edged closer to start a war. Beneath his feet, the thrum of the Jehoshaphat grew more insistent, a ship whose engines had been stuffed with fuel cells so she'd have as much power as she needed to navigate in and out of battle.

  There was a moment of silence across all radio channels as his fleet pulled up to the spot the Prince of Tyre had disappeared, presumed destroyed, the place where Lucifer had died. Even the Jehoshaphat grew more silent. Now, not only was his species godless, but they no longer had their morning star to guide them into the dark. A half-light year away, Shay'tan's war fleet did the exact same thing.

  "What do we do, Sir?" his navigation expert whispered. "We're outnumbered six-to-one."

  "A good plan, violently executed now," Abaddon snorted, "is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

  He flared his wings like a raptor about to dive off a cliff and kneeled, pressing the palm of his hand against the floor of the bridge. He shut his eyes and imagined he was one with his ship, this first-wife who had been his first, although no longer his greatest love. He imagined it was she he made love to now, she he would guide to ecstasy, this warship who loved to hunt. He imagined taking off the imaginary tethers Hashem had placed upon the Jehoshaphat's wing-like hyperdrives and casting her into the air.

  "Let's go hunting, beag gorm," Abaddon whispered to the Jehoshaphat.

  Straightening and sitting down into his commander's chair, Abaddon flared his wings and gave the order to cross into Sata'anic territory.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Chapter 12

  November 3,390 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Pareesa

  The sentries fell silent as the sad procession wound its way into the gates of Assur. Never had Pareesa felt so weary, not even after they'd fended off the attack where hundreds of enemies had died. With each step, Mikhail's sword grew heavier, an unwelcome burden now that she understood what that burden entailed. Why, oh why, had the Cherubim god chosen her to bear this responsibility? She … a thirteen summer girl?

  'Because you asked for it.'

 
That reassuring hum of power tickled the crown of her head and reminded her the Cherubim God of War yet hovered around them, ready to let her draw upon his strength if their procession was ambushed by the enemies who'd run off to escape the onslaught of the other village's warriors. A grim laugh escaped Pareesa's throat.

  "What's so funny?" Yaggitt asked.

  "He won," Pareesa said.

  "Who won?" Yaggitt stared at the enormous pair of black-brown wings which cascaded off the wagon where Mikhail had been placed like a sacrificial offering.

  "Mikhail did," Pareesa said. She pointed at their escort of warriors from every Ubaid village. "Mikhail went to that meeting for one reason, to make the other villages realize there was a bigger threat than their petty differences. Even with a knife sticking out of his chest, he beat them. He won."

  "It sure doesn't look that way to me," Yaggitt said.

  "Well that's the story we need to tell." Pareesa lifted her chin with grim determination. "You didn't look into the Evil One's eye as it sat there and gloated."

  "Immanu said the sky canoe is nothing but a soulless golem," Yaggitt said, "what Mikhail would call a 'machine.'"

  "I felt the malevolence coming off of that thing," Pareesa said. "Ninsianna was on that ship. I am certain of it."

  Yaggitt's look was doubtful.

  "You think she is dead?"

  Yaggitt shrugged.

  Pareesa stared at Gita walking mournfully beside the cart at Mikhail's head, bending occasionally to whisper encouragement into his ear.

  "If he believes that," Pareesa said softly, "then we shall surely lose him."

  "Then let's pray Gita can fool him," Yaggitt said. "If anyone can fool him, she can."