Ipquidad and Yaggitt nodded. She could trust them. They would quietly pass word to the other B-team members to discourage questions.
"Have you spoken to Ebad?" Yaggitt asked.
Pareesa blushed. Yes. She had. Quite a bit, in fact. A curious little flutter tickled the inside of her tummy. The old god had been right. Ebad wasn't half bad.
A raucous commotion erupted from the encampment which had sprung up outside Assur's walls. The Ninevians strolled onto the training field like conquerors, hair neatly secured behind them into ponytails and beards oiled into showy ringlets. Pareesa stared at Qishtea’s elaborate four-fringed kilt. The other warriors, at least, had come dressed practically in their work-kilts.
"Qishtea," Pareesa greeted the Ninevian chief coolly.
"You promised me a sword."
Qishtea stepped closer to tower over her, body language intended to intimidate her, although his expression was more curious than hostile. The scent of sandalwood drifted in the slight breeze along with him, the expensive oil he used to adorn his hair and beard.
"I promised to teach you how to use a sword," Pareesa stood her ground and did not budge. "So that you could ambush the lizard demons and steal one of theirs. Whether or not you obtain one is up to your skill and the favor of She-who-is."
Had there not been other tribes represented here, no doubt Qishtea would have pressed the issue, but there were only five new swords and eleven villages. They'd all agreed only she would wield Mikhail's sword since it felt sacrilegious to allow anybody else to touch it. Until then, it was up to her to impress how unfair it would be to grant Qishtea custody of the sword he coveted. Varshab had lectured her about how to leverage one tribe's hostility against another to discourage any single tribe from dominating the training.
Why had Mikhail always made it look so easy?
“Well,” Qishtea bared his teeth through his black, lightly braided beard, “I hope your old god friend considers me fit to wield one of these, because I look forward to learning how to use one!”
“Ooo-rah!” his Ninevian warriors rallied behind him.
Siamek handed Qishtea one of the swords. Nineveh was the only village which had someone as high-ranking as their brand-new chief in attendance, but for Qishtea, she knew this was personal. The lizard demons had killed his father. He would kill them in return.
“Let’s begin,” Pareesa said.
She and Siamek demonstrated the training routine they’d spent the morning perfecting, pretending it was something they’d both known all along, and then broke the warriors into groups to practice with their sticks. After a while the grunts of pain as sticks made contact with flesh was replaced by the reassuring thud of stick against stick.
Qishtea swaggered up to her, a real sword flung carelessly over his shoulder.
“So when you going to teach us to use the real weapon, little girl?”
The thudding of sticks tapered out and then stopped.
“After you’ve mastered the training swords,” Pareesa said.
A bead of sweat dripped down her lip and exploded salt into her mouth. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to take on a warrior as proficient as Qishtea who would not hold his punches the way that Mikhail did. Not when Qishtea didn’t realize she really wasn't as proficient as she pretended.
“-I- say I’ve already mastered the stick lesson!” Qishtea extended his sword to point at her. “I want to see what you can do.”
The other warriors circled around them, eager to see the spectacle. Pareesa held her sword two-handed in front of her, not single-handed the way that Mikhail always did. She noted that Qishtea mirrored her movement, not Mikhail’s. Qishtea had never personally seen Mikhail fight. Somehow, she must use that to her advantage.
“Give it your best shot,” Pareesa said.
Qishtea lunged at her in a classic jab, as if the sword was a spear-point. Pareesa swung down to deflect it and stepped to one side. The air filled with the ring of steel against steel as Qishtea stumbled forward.
Pareesa squelched her urge to taunt him the way she often teased Mikhail or the other warriors. With a hothead like Qishtea, it was smarter to keep things impersonal. She imagined the way Mikhail always taught his training. Expression … unreadable. Voice devoid of criticism as he corrected the warriors in their lessons.
“That’s good,” Pareesa said, “but the cutting edge runs the entire length of the blade, not just the point. Try it again.”
Qishtea’s nostrils flared with irritation. He swung at her again, this time using the maneuver she had taught him instead of one he had made up on the spot. He swung at her ferociously, expecting her to block it. Instead, she used her small stature to dance out of the way.
Qishtea’s momentum made him stumble. Yes. Qishtea didn’t even have the benefit of Mikhail’s basic staff-weapon training. This was an entirely different weapon for him, and not simply because it was made of an unearthly metal.
Pareesa squelched her urge to smirk. They fought back and forth until she saw an opening to execute a perfect basic overhead-diagonal cut and come down on the back of Qishtea’s neck with the dull edge of her blade. With a grunt, Qishtea went down.
“Ooh!” the other warriors exclaimed.
Had she not turned the blade, it would have been a killing blow. The fact that she was as awestruck about the movement as Qishtea was she kept to herself.
She reached down to help Qishtea up.
“Teach me how to do that,” Qishtea said. His expression was curious, not the bellicose one she usually associated with him.
For the next several hours, they circled one another, practicing three basic moves; a basic overhead cut, a diagonal cut, and a side cut; until they all felt they'd achieved some level of proficiency. They wouldn’t win any battles, but it was a start. The Ubaid now had a crude sword-training program.
"You're not half bad," Qishtea grinned at her. "For a little girl." He hit at her with the sword. "I guess you'll do until the real teacher gets here."
"You're not half bad, either," Pareesa said. She thwacked Qishtea in the backside with the blunt edge of her blade. "For a pompous old man who's full of himself."
Qishtea hit at her harder, but it was accompanied by a chuckle. Pareesa beat him back, some of that sword agility she'd discovered during battle suddenly visiting itself down upon her now that she wasn't fretting about hitting the man perfectly and just plain hitting him.
Pareesa laughed.
"What's so funny?" Qishtea asked.
“I think my arms are going to fall off,” Pareesa admitted, her sides heaving with exertion. "I'm not used to practicing this much with a sword."
“Mine too,” Qishtea said. "I feel like my wrist is about to snap off from the weight of the blade."
Slapping each other on the back, they dismissed the warriors and told them to go get some supper.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 25
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.11 AE
Victor Sector: Beylan
Leonid Major Orias
Orias
Once upon a time, the Alliance's half-lion, half-human multi-purpose fighters had numbered in the millions, but with less than 2,500 Leonids left in existence, Major Orias was painfully aware that each life this war against Shay'tan took from her pride meant one less life to introduce genetic diversity into her dying species. Situated where they were on the volatile border with the Tokoloshe Kingdom, Parliament had not yet pulled her flight group from defending the resource planets which the cannibals coveted for their precious metals … yet.
But she knew it was only a matter of time…
She stared into the Beylan's rec room at the new hope Lucifer had gifted to her species. A male. A single, human male. Small and frail, his dark skin unprotected by fur, Babajidas was an unlikely hero to a species which had been bred for its strength and courage. Thirty-six pairs of cubs the man had sired upon infertile lionesses to lift their species out of extinction. The other lionesses had ma
tes they would return to in this strange little exercise of 'Let She-who-is Decide,' but her own daughter? When Habibah bedded down at night, she did so with Babajidas lying between her paws.
"What message would you like me to relay, Sir?"
Major Orias glanced at two competing reports. Flatscreen A contained a list of all the lionesses in her sector that soon would be coming into heat. Without Babajidas, nearly all of those heat cycles would pass without the lionesses being able to conceive. Flatscreen B contained the orders which had come down from none other than Abaddon himself ordering that all non-Angelic human wives were to immediately report to the Eternal Emperor's palace so their pregnancies did not cost the Alliance any further precious human lives.
What about the lives of all the cubs who would not be born if Babajidas was taken from them and subjected to the whims of the Emperor, and Parliament, and Lucifer, and now two Supreme Commander-Generals, not one of which she trusted? Sure, the offer of amnesty would extend to Habibah, Babajidas first and preferred mate, but what about all the other lionesses, the ones who were happy to share? What about their husbands, poor bastards, who were so desperate for cubs that they would gladly look the other way when their lionesses lay down with the human male as for some reason artificial insemination had never worked for their species?
"How many Centauri came forward?" Major Orias asked.
"Thirty-seven," the Spiderid said. "Each carrying a half-Centauri foal."
"Did any males come forward?" Orias asked.
"No," the Spiderid said. "So far, it appears we possess the only male."
"And what about the Angelics?" Orias asked. "Have any of them turned over their mates to the Eternal Emperor?"
"Not that I have heard of," the Spiderid said. "What are your orders, Sir?"
Orias' paw slid down to caress her own, long-empty womb. Her whiskers drooped. She'd birthed four cubs and given three of them, along with her husband, to the Alliance as cannon-fodder for Hashem's endless wars against Shay'tan. And now? Now there was a new war? And so few Leonids to help the Alliance win…
She watched the way Babajidas leaned back into Habibah's fur, Orias' last surviving child. A child that, for the first time, was carrying cubs of her own…
"We shall tell General Abaddon the truth," Orias said. "That there are absolutely no human females on any ships within this sector."
"And what of the human male?"
Orias stuck the flatscreen in front of the Spiderid's eight eyes. "Do you see anything in this order asking us to turn over a human male?"
The Spiderid scrutinized the order. His chelicera perked up with understanding as he realized what she proposed.
"No Sir, Ma'am," the Spiderid said. "I shall relay the message that there are absolutely no human females on any of our ships."
Orias handed the Spiderid the second flatscreen.
"Contact the ship's doctors on each of these vessels and line up appointments for these lionesses to visit my daughter's husband as each of them comes into heat," Orias said.
The Spiderid's palps rose in surprise. "So many, Sir! Do you think the human is, uhm, vigorous enough to service so many females?
"We shall take every cub he is able to give us," Orias sighed. "And Habibah? If she wants to keep him, she will share him so that no lioness gets jealous and reports us to the Emperor."
The Spiderid's hard exoskeleton clack-clack-clacked away as his eight armored legs clicked against the flight deck, on his way to relay her falsehood to both factions in this foolish civil war.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 26
November: 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Mikhail
He drifted, neither here nor there as his fever rose and fell, hot, then cold, hot, then cold. One minute he burned so badly it felt as though a colony of fire ants ate their way out of his lungs, each breath painful, each breath a struggle. The next minute he'd be curled up in a ball, wings wrapped around himself, his body wracked with shivers. Time was meaningless as people drifted in and out of the room. The only constant was the small, cool hand pressed into his.
"Ninsianna?" he whispered. His tongue felt clumsy, as though it was filled with clay.
"Yes, mo ghrá?"
Her voice was rich and mellifluous as she spoke the endearment he'd always yearned to hear. Mo ghrá. Why had he never noticed how beautiful it felt to hear his beloved's voice?
"Why won't you lay down beside me?" he pleaded with her. "Ninsianna. I need to feel you."
Ninsianna's hand grew stiff, as though she was afraid.
"Our bed is too small," she said at last, "and each time you thrash, you re-open your stitches. The last time I tried, you threw me out of the bed."
"I did?" Mikhail gave her a remorse-filled sigh. "I'm sorry. I have no memory of it."
His head hurt and everything had an odd haze, as though he stared at the world from beneath the water. How long had he been delirious? Was he delirious right now? It was hard to tell what was real.
"You did," she said. "Can't you remember?" She touched his cheek. "Mo ghrá, you said you could not feel me."
He remembered no such thing. All he knew was how he ached to feel her small frame snuggled into his, to reassure himself that she was alive and well, and also because, well, he didn't know why. All he knew was that some instinct screamed at him he needed to feel his wife.
She pressed a goatskin of water to his lips. He took a sip, but his stomach clenched the moment he swallowed, unable to keep it down. He pushed away her next attempt to get him to drink, determined to spare himself the indignity of puking in front of her.
"What day is it?" he asked.
Silence ensued.
"Ninsianna?" he asked. "What day is it today?"
Her small, cool hand brushed his forehead as she murmured something which had nothing to do with the question he had asked.
"Ninsianna?"
He opened his eyes, fighting to see her in the dim confines of the room. It was daytime, but they had thrown a blanket over the window to keep out the late-autumn chill which was just as well because the faintest light hurt his eyes. He considered asking her to open it, but Ninsianna gathered her red cape closer around shoulders as though she was cold, the hood pulled up to cover her head. Dark tangles of her once-luxurious hair jutted out helter-skelter against the red, as though she hadn't had time to brush it, her one great vanity.
He reached towards her, eager to touch her silky tresses, for he had always found her irresistible whenever she wore her hair unbound. He loved the way it felt whenever those long, chestnut tresses brushed against his skin, especially when she made love to him. Despite his headache and his pain, he could not help but smile.
"Don't," she whispered. She took his hand and pressed her lips against the back of his hand, and then pressed it against her cheek, bowing her head so he could not see her face. What she sought to hide was obvious from the sensation of dampness which kissed his skin. Her cheeks were wet from tears.
"Don't cry," he said. "You said you wanted to spend more time with me?" He forced himself to smile even though the gesture still felt unnatural to him. “Now we have it.”
She did not answer him, but murmured something nonspecific.
"Ninsianna?" he asked. "Why do I feel as though you are hiding something important from me?"
She hesitated, and then squeezed his hand.
"Mikhail, I have a confession to make."
Fear tore into his gut.
"The baby?"
"No. Not that," she said. "It's … just…"
"What?"
Ninsianna began to cry.
"She-who-is is angry at me," she choked out. "She has decided to punish me for allowing you to be hurt."
"Punish you?" Mikhail whispered. "How?"
There was a moment of silence.
"How?"
Ninsianna touched the bandages which bound his chest. His own rancid stench rose up to offend his nostrils. The scent
of infection. The scent of puss.
"I am no longer Chosen," she said. Her small body shuddered with tears. "Mikhail! She-who-is has taken away my gift of tongues!"
He knew he was supposed to share her sorrow that his wife had been cast from her lofty pedestal and made ordinary, but all he could feel was an overwhelming sense of relief. The goddess. Gone from their lives. Oh, how he’d grown tired of being a play toy for the gods!
He reached up and pushed back her hood. The light hurt his eyes, giving him the momentary impression her hair was darker than he remembered before he was forced to close them and rely solely on his sense of touch.
"It doesn't matter," Mikhail reassured her. "I loved you long before you were Chosen." He ran her silky hair through his fingers, softer and thinner than he remembered. How could he have gotten so busy he'd forgotten what it felt like to caress his wife's hair?
"Tell me about it," her voice warbled. "Tell me your impressions of the first time we met?"
And so he told her. He told her how he'd thought she was a spirit come to guide him into the dreamtime the day she’d crawled through the hull of his shattered space shuttle to save his life. He told her how much he craved her touch, and how shocked he'd been the first time she had stripped off her clothing because he did not think his people did that, and the sweet ecstasy of the time she'd washed his wings for him in the stream. He told her about the moment he'd realized he'd fallen in love with her, and how hard it had been to keep his promise to never lay a hand upon her. He told her how miserable he'd been as he'd become too busy training her people to fight to spend time with her anymore, and that as she'd pulled away, it had hurt him more deeply than the knife hurt now.
He told her that he loved her, and that even if he didn't make it, he would always watch over her from just but on the other side, because she was his maité saoil, his lifemate, the woman he had traveled across the stars to find, and that he intended to not only spend this lifetime with her, but all lifetimes, so long as there were lifetimes left to live.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 27
