Jamin's mouth tightened into a grim line. So? Qishtea really had swallowed his pride and subjugated his men to the winged demon's command? Marwan had told him thus, but Jamin hadn't believed it. Qishtea would rather eat his foot coverings than take orders from any man other than himself.
Qishtea stepped through the gate, one of the few men in Ubaid territory equal to his stature and bulk. He must have sent a runner back to his house, because despite the unexpected nature of this parley, he wore his five-fringed kilt, his golden armbands and chief's gold torque. His elaborately fringed shawl was wrapped around his shoulders in such a way to mark him as a chief. Qishtea's rank was now superior to Jamin's, and he wished to remind him of it.
Jamin gestured to the three women to gather around him and took several steps closer to the defensive group of warriors. He glanced up at the woman on the wall he knew was Nineveh's best archer from the time she had come and trained under Mikhail. He gave her the Sata'anic gesture of respect, a hand to his forehead, his lips and his heart. The woman drew her bow, aiming straight at his heart; but as he expected she did not let loose her arrow. He was now just barely within weapons range. He wished to let her know this was deliberate; that he knew that she, and only she, had the capacity to kill him if she felt Qishtea was threatened.
Jamin held out his arms to indicate he did not carry a weapon, an old dance he had learned treating with the people of the desert. Qishtea did the same, his muscular chest puffed out and arms spread wide in the intimidating pose which would have made any other man quake. Even without Sergeant Dahaka standing at his back, Jamin found the puffery to be amusing. Rather than reciprocate and approach Qishtea like two cockerels begging for a fight, Jamin behaved as he had seen Lucifer do when flanked by the hostile lizards. He forced himself to visibly relax, to drop his hands and lean towards Kuaya as though they whispered secrets as they went shopping in the market.
"I forgot how badly the open sewers smell!" Jamin gave Kuaya his most winning grin, the one which had enticed many a woman into his bed. "You will have a conversation with them about proper sanitation, I hope? It would aggrieve our new friends greatly if they had to walk amongst this stench with their heightened sense of smell."
Kuaya glanced back at their captors. A shadow crossed her plain, brown features. Unlike Jamin, who was certain the lizard people would let the women go so long as Qishtea didn't do anything stupid, she was less than trusting this was anything but a ruse.
"I will do my best," Kuaya said.
She used her veil to cover her mouth. Yes. It did stink far worse than she remembered. Jamin could almost picture the arguments she would have with her husband, children, and mother-in-law to scrub their hands in the days to come.
Qishtea stopped three paces from them, his right hand clutched to his belt where sat the finest obsidian blade embedded in a hilt of elaborately carved deer antler. Despite Qishtea's hastily donned finery, the young chief had not had time to oil his hair or curl his beard as he normally appeared for public ceremonies.
Jamin put one arm around Kuaya's shoulders and led her forward. Sergeant Dahaka growled at the other two women to stay with him. While Qishtea did his best to appear fearless, Jamin noted the way his eyes kept darting to the enormous five-cubit-tall lizard and the two women who huddled closer to him for protection than to each other.
"Are you well, cousin?" Qishtea asked Kuaya. His eyes wrinkled with concern. The even-tempered Kuaya was well-liked. It had been her abduction which had finally compelled Qishtea's father to send archers to Assur to train beneath Mikhail.
"The Amorites," Kuaya said. She stopped and glanced at Jamin, unsure if she was allowed to speak. Qishtea looked to him as well, his eyes narrowed like a raptor about to pounce upon his prey.
"Speak freely," Jamin said. "Even if it is unflattering to our benefactors. You will be free to say it anyway soon enough."
Kuaya turned back to her cousin, far more aware than he was that the fate of their village quite literally hinged on her ability to sway him. Even-tempered she might be, but she'd been raised in the same caste of power as Qishtea and knew what to say.
"The Amorites who kidnapped me treated us abysmally," Kuaya said. "The only reason they did not rape us was because the lizard people threatened them with death if they defiled our persons. But that did not prevent them from beating us or forcing us to walk for weeks on end with little water and almost no food."
Qishtea drew his knife. "I should kill you, traitor,"
Behind him, Jamin heard the click of pulse rifles being readied for fire.
Kuaya stepped between them and raised her hand.
"It was not his doing!" Kuaya said. "You know as well as I do that the Assurians had not yet evicted him from their village!"
Qishtea glowered at him. Jamin forced himself to don that damned unreadable expression he had witnessed Mikhail wear, the one which communicated neither hostility nor disgust. Kuaya put her hand on Qishtea's blade and whispered something to him. With a sneer, Qishtea slipped it back into his belt.
Behind him, Jamin could almost feel the Sata'anic soldiers relax. Crisis averted … for the moment.
"And how were you treated once delivered into our enemy's hands?" Qishtea asked. His eyes bored into Jamin's instead of making eye contact with his cousin.
Kuaya shrugged. "We were terrified … at first. We begged to go home, but the lizard people said it was a woman's duty to learn the skills upon which Shay'tan's empire is built." Her eyes grew bright and eager. "Cousin … we have seen things. Wondrous things! They said they will share them with us as soon as we have proven we are worthy of their magic!"
Qishtea jutted his chin into the air.
"Mikhail says there is no such thing as magic! Only things we do not yet understand. Like the use of arrows."
Jamin felt his gut clench at the mere mention of his nemesis's name.
"Mikhail is a dead man," Jamin said.
Qishtea stepped towards him, his face filled with hatred.
"He is not dead," Qishtea hissed. "But my father is because of you!"
"All you ever did was complain that your father refused to include you," Jamin said.
"I loved my father!"
"You couldn't wait until he died so you could assume the mantle of Chief," Jamin said. "The lizard people did you a favor."
It was, once again, Kuaya who stood between them.
"That was not his doing!" Kuaya said. "Do you think any one of us, even the son of a chief, has the power to command the armies of Shay'tan?"
Qishtea scrutinized the Sata'anic soldiers. Jamin forced himself to meet Qishtea's gaze. Perhaps he had overplayed his hand?
Sergeant Dahaka, who could not understand a single word as they spoke in Ubaid, growled something in the Sata'anic language which Jamin mostly understood.
"There is movement up on that wall, little chieftain," Dahaka hissed. "Whatever you plan on doing, you'd better do it soon, because this young chief of Nineveh does not have the control of his men he thinks he has."
Jamin scanned the wall, grateful Dahaka really did have his back. The female archer still stood, bow strung, her arrow aimed at his heart. She would follow orders. The melee at the far end of the wall, however? Jamin knew those men, rabble-rousers and bluster-mouths with more tenacity than common sense. They reminded him a bit of his friend Private Katlego.
He glanced back at Katlego, who had aimed his pulse rifle at Qishtea instead of the wall where he was supposed to aim. This exercise in diplomacy was heading downhill fast.
What would Lucifer do?
'Why should I defeat them when I can give them their heart's desire?'
What would tempt Qishtea enough to overlook even the death of his own father?
"Follow my lead," Jamin hissed at Dahaka in the Sata'anic language. "And don't kill him when his first move is to strike at me. Watch Katlego over there. He thinks he's trying to help."
Dahaka glanced back at Katlego, his gold-green eyes narrowed as he ass
essed the situation. The burly lizard moved to stand between Katlego and a clean shot at Qishtea. If anybody was going to kill an enemy so lofty as a chief, it would be him, a high-ranking Sata'anic male, and not a lowly private. It was simply the way things were in Shay'tan's army.
Jamin turned to Qishtea, who reminded him of that auroch which had gored him through the belly when it had charged. Jamin had killed the auroch, but the beast had nearly killed him before he'd taken it down. This time, there was no sorceress daughter-of-a-shaman to heal him.
"Tell me, Qishtea," Jamin gave a knowing smirk. "While we are on the topic of what liberties our new friends do and do not grant us, what has the winged demon taught to you?"
"He has taught me to use a sword!" Qishtea bragged.
"He has taught you?" Jamin asked. He glanced up at the female archer. "Or was it his little protégé, Pareesa, a thirteen-summer girl?"
"That girl has far bigger balls than you ever had!" Qishtea growled.
"Oh?" Jamin raised his eyebrows. "So it was Pareesa who taught you? Not Mikhail himself?"
"Mikhail is…"
Qishtea cut off his words before he betrayed his ally's weakness. Jamin prayed Marwan's piddling crumbs of intelligence were correct.
"Have you seen Mikhail since they cut him down?" Jamin used the patronizing voice a parent might use with a naughty little boy. "Or have you only seen Pareesa, claiming to be acting under his authority?"
Qishtea glowered at him, but refused to answer.
Jamin caressed the hilt of his sword, deliberately drawing Qishtea's eye to the weapon.
"Tell me, Qishtea," Jamin softly taunted. "There were five swords taken during the last battle with the lizard people, six if you include Mikhail's. If Nineveh is Assur's most important ally, why aren't you wearing -your- sword?"
"It is none of your affair!" Qishtea hissed.
Jamin turned to Kuaya, who looked all the world like she was about to bolt for the gates of Nineveh.
"Kuaya," Jamin said. "Take my sword out of my belt, slowly so our lizard friends don't mistake your movement to be aggression, and hold it out in front of you, flat, the way you'd make an offering to the goddess at the temple."
Kuaya's brown eyes were filled with fear as her hand moved towards his belt, painfully slow, and clasped her hand around the hilt of his sword. Jamin spread his arms wide to show her movement was consensual. He prayed she would not martyr herself by stabbing him with it as she slid it from its sheath. Her hands trembling, she held it out in front of her as if offering it to him.
"Do you wish to confer upon your village the benefits of an alliance with Shay'tan?" Jamin asked her solemnly.
Her eyes wide with fear, Kuaya nodded. She had been in the Sata'anic encampment just long enough to perceive, as he did, how much easier their lives would be with the benefit of Sata'anic magic.
"Then give your cousin a symbol of that intent by giving Qishtea my sword," Jamin said.
Qishtea eyed his cousin with distrust as she approached him, arms trembling, and stood, waiting for him to take the sword. Kuaya knew as well as he did that Qishtea's first act would be to strike at him. Behind them, Sergeant Dahaka shifted so Jamin could readily pull his sword the minute Qishtea struck. Jamin held up one hand to the Sata'anic soldiers who all had pulse rifles aimed at the wall, praying forbearance as he and Qishtea engaged in a grudge match.
Qishtea took the sword from Kuaya's hand.
Kuaya darted out of the way.
Qishtea lunged towards him, sword raised over his head.
Jamin turned and reached, not for Dahaka's sword as everyone expected, but for the pulse rifle Lucifer had taught him to shoot.
How many times had the Mikhail's own Príomh-Aire coaxed him to picture his enemy and then pull the pulse rifle from his holster to smite him, again and again and again until he'd been so heady with the bloodlust that had Mikhail appeared, he probably could have smote the man using nothing but his teeth? He could almost feel Lucifer's wings spread out protectively behind him as he stepped aside to avoid Qishtea's bumbling downswing and aimed the pulse rifle, not at him, but at the base of the wall where the archer stood ready to bury an arrow in his chest.
"This one's for you, Lucifer," Jamin whispered.
He pulled the trigger.
Blue lightning erupted from the muzzle and hit the cornerstone at the base of the wall. Rubble exploded outwards. With a screech, the archer who'd had him in her sights tumbled downwards along with the wall she'd only moments before been standing on.
Like a striking cobra, Jamin turned the muzzle of the pulse rifle onto Qishtea and grinned.
"You got any other archers who can strike me from this distance?"
Qishtea froze, and then dropped the blade.
Behind him, the Sata'anic soldiers burst out into guffaws. Sergeant Dahaka growled a pleased snort.
Jamin gestured towards the sword with his pulse rifle.
"Kuaya, could you please retrieve that for me?"
Kuaya picked up the sword and stood, hand trembling as she held the weapon like a limp basket. She took a step towards Jamin.
"Not me," Jamin said. "Give it to him. He's the one who's always wanted a sword."
Qishtea stared at him owl-eyed, fear, humiliation, anger, hatred, and another emotion in his dark brown eyes, the emotion Jamin had hoped to foster. Envy. He eyed Jamin warily as he took the sword from Kuaya's hand and, this time, held it point down, the way Pareesa had no doubt taught him was proper, the little snit.
"What am I supposed to do with this," Qishtea asked.
Jamin shrugged.
"Whatever you like," Jamin said. "I have no need of it anymore."
He slid the pulse rifle back into its holster, praying he didn't accidentally shoot himself in the foot. He did not dare click the safety back on until he was certain Qishtea wouldn't rush at him again.
"Unlike Mikhail," Jamin said, "my allies share their bounty. Not make promises they have no intention of keeping."
Qishtea stiffened.
"My father gave Mikhail his word that Nineveh would respond if Assur was ever attacked," Qishtea said. "So long as the Angelic lives, I cannot break my father's word."
Jamin nodded, the implication clear.
"I will explain this to the lizard people," Jamin said. He gestured towards the carefully cultivated fields which surrounded the village, at the moment submerged beneath the winter deluge. "But whether or not you ally with them, the lizard people covet your fields. Either you can trade with them willingly, or they will aim that much larger firestick attached to their sky canoe," Jamin pointed to the enormous pulse cannon which extruded out of the front of the shuttle, "at Nineveh's walls."
Qishtea eyed the line of Sata'anic soldiers, every single one of them possessing a weapon like the one Jamin had just used to vaporize a portion of Nineveh's impenetrable walls.
"How long do I have?" Qishtea asked.
Jamin glanced at Sargeant Dahaka. Kasib had given them a fortnight, but if Mikhail fought the poison as Marwan's spies said he did, how long before he succumbed? The man had, after all, once before survived a wound which should have killed him.
"You have one complete turning of the moon," Jamin said. "After that? I am only the messenger. I have no power over what the lizard people do. But I can tell you this. Like you, the lizard people keep their word."
Jamin unbuckled his belt, slid it through the loops, and held that plus the sheath for the sword outwards so Kuaya could hand it to her cousin. She took it, visibly relieved. She knew, as well as he did, that the lizard people were impatient to get their hands on Ubaid fields. It was up to her to convince them that the lizard people could help them increase their crop yields so they could both meet tribute and feed themselves.
Jamin gave Kuaya the Sata'anic prayer-gesture of hands to forehead, lips and heart.
"May the blessings of Shay'tan fall upon your village," he said in the Sata'anic language
Kuaya returned the gesture. "Shay't
an be praised.
Sergeant Dahaka whispered the prayer behind him as well.
"Go, now," Jamin said to Kuaya and the other two women. "Pass along the knowledge you were taught. And remember, our lizard friends are not the Amorite scum."
The three women nodded. Hands held together, they broke into a run towards the gates of Nineveh.
Jamin turned his back on Qishtea just the way he'd seen Marwan do, trusting Sargeant Dahaka and his men to watch his back. It was a gesture demonstrating he did not consider Qishtea to be a threat.
"They keep the winged one hidden," Qishtea called. "How do I know if he is as sick as you insist?"
Jamin froze, but did not turn around.
"You're his ally," Jamin shrugged. "Just ask to see him. If they refuse, then you know he does not have long to remain in this world."
Without another word, Jamin strode back up the ramp of the sky canoe, silently gesturing to their men to fall back and join him inside. In silence, the Sata'anic soldiers fell into step behind him like the gears of the well-oiled 'machine' that Kasib kept telling him the armies of Shay'tan really were.
The soldiers had the wherewithal to hold their guffaws until the shuttle door shut behind them before they erupted into cheers. Private Katlego slapped him on the back, grinning through his boar-like tusks.
"Balls of steel!" Katlego laughed. "Not even Ba'al Zebub could have pulled off a performance such as that!"
They all moved into their seats as the pilot powered up the oar-engines and the shuttle lurched upwards, no longer sitting upon the ground. This time, the sensation was a welcome one, not the stomach-wrenching mess it usually was.
He glanced up and realized Sergeant Dahaka stood before him.
"I gave them thirty days," Jamin said softly. "Not a fortnight. If the Angelic dies, they will come over to us willingly, without bloodshed."
Sergeant Dahaka caressed the hilt of his sword.
"And if he does not?"
"We just need to make sure he does," Jamin said.
Dahaka nodded. He tasted the air with his long forked tongue, and then pointed at Jamin's pulse rifle.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 35
