"Sergeant?"
"Lieutenant Kasib said I was to give you one of these," Sergeant Dahaka said. "You know how to use this thing?"
"I do," Jamin said. He didn't add that it had been their avowed enemy, Lucifer, who had taught him how to use it, or just how badly he craved another lesson in picturing his enemy at the wrong end of the powerful weapon and watching their head vaporize beneath the magic fire.
"Good," Dahaka said. The lizard shoved the pulse rifle into Jamin's hand. "Don't shoot your own foot off."
Jamin glanced up at the Sergeant. The entire time he'd known Dahaka, the lizard had shown no sense of humor, only the patience to teach him things which took far longer than someone familiar with their magic.
Jamin's muscle twitched beneath his cheek.
"It's not like I can make fire from it without the little magic square," Jamin said. He caressed the small, black rectangle which slipped into the handle. Kasib always made sure the weapons were drained of magic before they let so primitive a creature as himself handle one. The only reason they let him carry one was because it behooved the lizards to let his fellow humans think he'd earned far more trust than he actually had.
"The power cartridge is live." Sergeant Dahaka's dewlap waxed a deeper burgundy. "Kasib thought it might be more convincing if you gave your friend the demonstration of power than if one of us did it."
"And what of this?"
Jamin pointed to the sword Kasib had given him, along with a lengthy lecture about the proper oiling and sharpening of a soldier's blade. He had yet to master the weapon.
"A good soldier always has his backup ready," Dahaka growled. The grizzled sergeant-at-arms caressed the hilt of his well-worn sword. "Shay'tan is a beneficent old god, but parsimonious when it comes to outfitting grunts like you or me with enough of those." The lizard pointed to the pulse rifle's power cartridge. "Not to mention, you don't want to see what happens if you accidentally breach the outer hull."
Jamin nodded even though half of what Dahaka said didn't make any sense, not because he didn't understand the pidgin of Kemet and the Sata'anic language, but because he was still figuring out the rules to their system of magic.
The pilot's voice came over intercom again.
"We are now over the jump zone. Prepare for landing."
Jamin's stomach lurched even though the pilot flawlessly switched over from what Jamin thought of as the going forward oars to the going up and down oars. Bile rose in his throat as the entire sky canoe gave that now-familiar feeling of sinking.
Sergeant Dahaka moved towards the hatch and grabbed one of the numerous hand-holds to remain standing. While Jamin couldn't yet understand every single word, he'd been into battle enough times to get the gist of what Dahaka said.
"All right you numbheads," Dahaka barked in the Sata'anic language. "You know the drill. The minute the shuttle touches down, go with your team to your side of the shuttle. Weapons set to shock, but if you come under heavy fire, you have permission to shoot to kill."
"Aye!" the creatures all shouted in unison.
Jamin glanced into the small, eager blue eyes of his pig-like Catoplebas hunting partner, Private Katlego. He and Katlego both shared a love for the hunt, but Katlego was a truculent creature, prone to senseless brawling when Jamin had the sense to play things cool. During their hunt yesterday, Katlego had lamented how bored he was with being stuck on the base rather than sent out to quash rebellions like they usually did during an annexation. Today's soldiers were heavily weighted towards what Kasib referred to as 'our more enthusiastic soldiers.'
"Don't shoot yourself in the foot," Katlego grinned at him through his boar-like tusks.
Jamin gave him a serious reply.
"Don't shoot anybody to kill unless they shoot at you first."
It wouldn't take much for Shay'tan's battle-eager soldiers to open fire on the Ninevians.
"What?" Katlego laughed. "With a spear?" Katlego gave a long guffaw that sounded like a wild boar grunting just before it charged.
"You're not afraid of a primitive weapon?" Jamin said. His dark eyes burned intently black. "You already killed their chief. Once you open fire, the opportunity to parley with them will be lost forever."
Katlego caressed the hilt of his pulse rifle.
"This is all the parleying we need."
Jamin placed his hand on the pugnacious boar-man's forearm.
"These are my people we're trying to win over," Jamin said. "Give me a chance to screw things up myself before you do it for me, okay? I've got a lot riding on this today."
He inwardly winced as he realized just how much he sounded like his father.
Katlego snuffled with his large, flat pig-like nose. He bared his fangs, but it was a generalized gesture of disgust, not anger or dislike of him.
"Yeah, yeah," Katlego grunted. "I know what it's like to dance to the lizard-people's standards. Three-hundred-fifty years since the lizards annexed my homeworld and Shay'tan still doesn't trust us to be anything but skull-crackers."
Jamin nodded, glad he'd taken Katlego up on his offer to go hunting yesterday, away from the lizards who scorned his and the Catoplebas' taste for meat. While Kasib had not lied to him about his prospects to someday fit into Shay'tan's massive empire, the pig-man had given him a much more realistic appraisal of just what concessions he could win for his people. If he was to woo his people into supporting the lizards, he must entice them with goods he could actually deliver.
The sky canoe stopped, and then began the pendulous rocking motion which always occurred moments before the ship touched down upon the ground. Jamin's stomach threatened to evict what little breakfast he'd eaten this morning.
Sergeant Dahaka barked from his position by the door.
"That's our signal, boys!"
All around him lizard-men, pig-men, and the curious blue-men who looked a bit like humans except for their lapis-blue skin, unclipped their safety harnesses and prepared to leap out of their jump seats. The men raced for the door the instant the ship touched down. A breath of air, rich with the scent of the Hiddekel River, rushed in as the ramp-hatch slid down. Jamin inhaled the fragrance of Ubaid land. The soldiers hustled down the ramp in two orderly lines to form a defensive formation on either side of the shuttle.
Sergeant Dahaka stood waiting at the off ramp, chest puffed out to appear intimidating as possible, his dorsal ridge reared to give him the illusion of extra height. Dahaka was a huge, burly lizard, not quite as large as General Hudhafah, but cut from the same measure of linen, parsimonious with his words and loyal to the general to a fault. He reminded Jamin a bit of his father's chief enforcer, Varshab.
"You ready for this, kid?" Dahaka tasted the air with his long, forked tongue.
Butterflies danced in Jamin's stomach, a different flavor than his usual anticipation before the hunt. At least he no longer had the urge to vomit.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Jamin said.
He ran his fingers through his now-short hair and felt along his beardless jaw. He looked different now than he had the last time Qishtea had seen him. He needed to play up those differences if he wished to convince Nineveh to side against the rebels who still clung to Mikhail's views. Nineveh was the most powerful village in Ubaid territory, more powerful, even, than Assur, and there was forever rivalry between the two. It was time to stir things up in the power-vacuum created by Mikhail's injury.
The deep, throaty sound of a ram's horn split the air, followed by shouts from the direction of the village. Unlike Assur, whose fortifications had been built upon a hill, Nineveh sat in the flood plain at a crook of the river. While both villages possessed outer walls, Nineveh had, by necessity, built theirs higher.
Jamin straightened the buttons on his Sata'anic military uniform. His father had always been a showman. Wear this five-fringed kilt or, in Jamin's case, four. Always wear your golden torque and the leather bracings which mark you as a chief. Toss your shawl over your shoulder just so, to demonstrate you come
from a good family. All these things his father had taught him, and yet it had never been enough to impress the wealthier village, especially not Qishtea, his equal in every contest. No, if he was to impress Qishtea, it would not be using the same, old tired techniques tried by his father.
He heard human shouts from far outside the shuttle and the growled retorts of the nearby Sata'anic soldiers. No doubt Nineveh had archers lining up on their outer wall.
Flipping back the tails of the cloak the lizards called a trench coat as though it was a robe of state, it was not his father Jamin pictured now, but the only man who'd ever made him want to throw himself prostrate onto the ground and shout, 'let me serve you.'
Jamin closed his eyes and focused on his inner-Lucifer…
'Why should I force them to do my bidding when it's oh-so-easy to grant them their heart's desire,' Lucifer had whispered in his ear.
Jamin fingered the sword strapped to his left hip. Marwan had been right. The lizard people had erred by relying on the Amorites instead of approaching his people directly and engaging someone like him to explain the benefits of Sata'anic rule. The Ubaid were forever concerned with trade because most wars were fought over a lack of resources. The lizards needed access to Ubaid fields, Nineveh wished to harvest a surplus of grain, and the lizards could teach them to harvest even more grain so they'd all grow fat and wealthy. It was unfortunate Mikhail's machinations had forced the lizards to kill Qishtea's father, who like his own father, had always been more mindful of the state of his treasury than the well-being of his own son.
Qishtea, on the other hand, would only care to wreak revenge.
"Watch my back for me, will you?" Jamin asked Sergeant Dahaka.
Dahaka tasted the air with his long forked tongue, and then scratched his ear-holes in a gesture Jamin recognized was thoughtfulness. Katlego had explained that the lizards could taste what someone was feeling. With a thumbs-up, the grizzled Sergeant took a position at Jamin's back.
Jamin pictured the way Lucifer had walked, far more arrogantly than even the wealthiest Ubaid chief. Conqueror. Leader. Statesman. He had to convince these people he was more than he'd been before…
Carrying himself regally as though he was in charge, Jamin strode down the ramp like a conquering hero. He had played this game before, but never had the stakes been so high.
An arrow shot off the wall and landed several paces from his feet. A warning. Do not approach our wall. Behind him, he heard the subtle click of Sata'anic weapons being flipped over to the setting which turned an opponent into a hunk of smoldering meat. Nineveh had no idea how much firepower the lizard people could bring to bear.
Jamin lifted his hand.
"Hold your fire!" he hissed in heavily accented Sata'anic language.
Sergeant Dahaka snorted from just behind his right shoulder. At least the lizards had the wherewithal not to laugh loudly enough for the Ninevians to hear at his butchered attempt to speak their language. Jamin ignored their fanged smirks as he glanced from his left to his right, making eye contact with the men as though he stared them down. Katelego's pig-like snout quivered with a suppressed guffaw. Only yesterday they'd commiserated about what a pile of lion-dung the fat lizard king, Ba'al Zebub was, for the way he always over-acted.
All that mattered right now was what the Ninevians saw, and what they saw was one of them had just descended from the sky and commanded an army of heaven…
"What right do you have to bring these foul creatures to attack our village?" A voice called down from Nineveh's walls.
Jamin stared up, searching for the owner of that voice, a voice he knew well.
"Who said anything about an attack," Jamin said. He gestured to the Sata'anic soldiers as if he were a trader displaying his wares. "These good people are under the impression that all Ubaid are savages. I have convinced them otherwise. They wish to speak with somebody with the authority to negotiate treaties on behalf of your village."
He searched for Qishtea's dark head amongst those that peered over the wall, but the newly-minted Nineveh chieftain was too well trained to stand up and make himself an easy target.
"The people of the river stand together," Qishtea shouted down.
"Aye, they do," Jamin called back. "Which is why I have come here. What Nineveh does, the other villages will follow."
"You come here because you have been banished from your own village as a traitor!" Qishtea shouted.
Jamin stepped forward and picked up the arrow, bringing himself within weapons range of their best archer. He handed it to Sergeant Dahaka, then turned back to face the wall.
"I was banished because I warned my father I had heard rumors of lizard-men," Jamin said. "My father did not believe me."
Old anger boiled in his gut. He gestured to the soldiers who stood, kneeled in a tight military formation with their pulse rifles aimed at the wall.
"Tell me, Qishtea? Do you still believe the lizard men do not exist?"
It took a moment for Qishtea to compose a suitable retort.
"You said these lizard demons stole our women!" Qishtea shouted. The young chieftain who was now a Chief stood up, daring the Sata'anic soldiers to open fire.
Qishtea always had had balls of stone…
"It was all a misunderstanding," Jamin said. "The Amorites were hired to approach our people to arrange for a citizen exchange secured with trade goods and lizard gold. Not pocket the gold and steal our women."
"You lie!" Qishtea shook his fist down from his lofty perch. "No woman has ever been returned."
Jamin turned to gesture to the blue-skinned Marid private who stood at the off-ramp, waiting for the signal. Unfortunately, most of the women had already been sent into the heavens for arranged marriages, unions which Lucifer himself had guaranteed were happy, but a few had not yet been shipped off-world due to some snafu which Kasib had been dodgy about explaining.
Three women appeared at the hatchway to the sky canoe, clad from head-to-toe in the finest linens the traders at Ugarit had been able to procure. Three Ninevian women.
Shouts grew louder from the other side of the wall as the three women moved to stand beside Jamin and uncovered their hair. Jamin turned to the eldest of the three, a tall, plain woman in her late-twenties who had left behind seven motherless children. Kuaya was her name, and she was Qishtea's cousin.
Jamin waited until the people hidden behind the wall recognized the three women and sent word to their families to come and see their missing relatives. His father had always been loath to deal with hostage-taking, but Nineveh had never been above such tactics when it had suited Qishtea's father. Jamin silently thanked the wily old desert chieftain, Marwan, for his insight into this plan.
"So now you wish to trade hostages?" Qishtea shouted.
Jamin took Kuaya's hand and held her arm up between them.
"Hostages? No. Kuaya is not my hostage. She wishes to speak to you, that is all. And if you speak to me in return, to simply hear what I have to say and nothing more, then the lizards will let her return to your village. Though you may find, perhaps, that she does not wish to stay?"
Kuaya's eyes narrowed. She most certainly did wish to return to her village … because of her children. But hers was an unhappy marriage, and as she'd conversed with Jamin about the wonders of Sata'anic technology, she had sworn she would miss running water and the sanitary systems which eliminated the constant stomach complaints and illnesses which plagued the Ubaid.
"What assurances do I have that if I come forth from these walls to parley," Qishtea shouted, "that you will not simply order your lizard demons to smite me with their lightning sticks?"
"You have none," Jamin said. "Other than my word."
"The oath of a traitor!"
Jamin gestured to Kuaya and the other two women.
"After my father refused to listen to the truth about the lizard people," Jamin said, "I swore I would prove the Angelic's own people were the end-buyers for Ubaid women. Well … now I have such proof. In t
he body of your own cousin."
Kuaya murmured something to her two peers. Even before Jamin had been sold to the Sata'anic lizards, an odd rumor had begun circulating amongst the women that it was better to marry a lizard than an Angelic, who their tutors spoke of with open contempt. According to Private Katlego, shipping women off-world to their enemies instead of rewarding their earliest allies with suitably educated wives was highly irregular.
Behind the wall it sounded as though Qishtea had a riot on his hands. A refusal to negotiate would undermine the young chieftain's authority. Jamin grinned at Marwan's deviousness. The trio of women had just spent the last two solar cycles basking in the wonders of Sata'anic magic at a finishing school for young women. It would be their arguments, not his, which would win their people over.
Nineveh's enormous wooden gates, crafted from the finest hardwood trees, groaned as the ropes which bound them to their posts cried out in protest under their stupendous weight. On the walls, the archers Jamin knew had all along crouched down, hidden, stood up and made themselves visible, two rows of archers, the first aimed downwards to take direct shots against the lizard soldiers, the second aimed high to provide further-ranging cover fire. The first row would be ineffective unless the lizard soldiers stepped within range, but the second would provide some grief if an arrow happened to fall upon a lizard soldier.
Jamin prayed neither side would be foolish enough to open fire. He wanted this to work so badly his chest ached as though he gasped for air. No matter what Lucifer whispered in his ear, some part of him would always yearn to regain acceptance within the Ubaid.
The gate opened just far enough for a man to slip past. Nineveh's walls were little protection against the lizard people's magic, but even those men who'd witnessed the attack on the Regional Gathering of Chiefs had only seen the lizard people cast down lightning to eradicate a bunch of tents. Katlego assured him the Sata'an Empire had far more firepower at their command, including a weapon he claimed could eliminate the sun. A string of Ubaid warriors slid out, all men Jamin knew by name, and took up a defensive line with spears and shields.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 34
