by Phil Tucker
“And there’s no need to go lifting her hopes, either.” Jarek set his bowl down roughly, causing it to spin away.
“You weren’t this upset yesterday at the tavern,” said Acharsis. “What’s changed?”
Jarek scowled and stood. He stalked to one wall and then back, feeling trapped inside this tiny hovel. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You should leave the lying to me. I, at least, can be convincing. What is it? The thought of the sacrifices being endemic? Your healing?” Acharsis paused, watching Jarek carefully. “The idea that the gods may not be permanently dead?”
“They are dead!” Jarek came close to slamming his fist through the brick wall. “This talk of rebellion and returning gifts – it’s worse than madness. It’s suicidal. We do what we can, we keep our heads down, we avoid attention, and we get out.” He stalked over to Acharsis and towered over him. “I’ll have none of this talk of reviving the faith. Of hidden cults and spiritual revolution. Understood?”
“Hey,” said Acharsis, gesturing with his jar of beer. “I hear you. No cults. No talking about the dead gods. Let’s pretend nothing’s ever going to change.” He took a pull from his straw, but his eyes gleamed rebelliously. “But how do you explain those new scars of yours? Are you getting tougher in your old age?”
Jarek’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.” He pulled up his shirt again. “Those cuts should have split me open like a pomegranate.”
“No kidding. You should have seen the look on that deathless’ face when he failed to chop you in two. Well, the look on his mask. He actually checked out his blade as if he was making sure it hadn’t turned to wood while he wasn’t looking. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so busy sobbing with fear.” Acharsis hesitated. “And you can lower your shirt now. We’re all aware of how impressively muscled you are.”
Jarek scowled. “It’s soaked in blood. I’m going to need a new one, anyway.”
“My point is, your healing has improved since you got here. It’s nothing like it used to be twenty years ago, sure, but it’s better than it was. Maybe there’s a residual faith in Alok still floating around in the air, like smoke from an old fire. Maybe you’re breathing it in, and it’s making you just a little more powerful.”
“Maybe,” said Jarek.
“And, if so, where there’s smoke, there’s the potential for a huge, raging bonfire of fanatical devotion. So, before you write off this whole return of the faith thing, ponder that.” Acharsis took a final pull from his beer and set it down. “Now, let’s go apologize to Annara for your being an insensitive ass, and then head out to meet this daughter of Scythia.”
Jarek rubbed the base of his palm against his eye. “If she’s anything like Numias was, we’re all in big trouble.”
“Numias.” Acharsis sighed. “You know, we never slept together? Funny. Me, the son of the god of male fertility, and her, the daughter of the goddess of war and female sexuality. You’d think we’d have set the world on fire. But she was never interested.”
An old sadness stole over Jarek. “She only had eyes for Piamat.”
“Yes,” said Acharsis, his rueful grin fading away. “And he only had eyes for Kinziru. Which was ironic, given that they spent all their time pitting their armies against each other before the Athites swept in and took over.”
Old sorrows, old wounds. Jarek had spent half his life lamenting the loss of that glorious, glittering world, and he didn’t want to indulge in those memories any longer.
“Come on. Let’s go meet with this daughter of Scythia.”
Acharsis rose. “She’ll be no Numias.”
“Of course not.” Jarek thought of her, tall and fell, her voluptuous body clad in her famed bronze armor, scorpion whip in hand, laughing as cities burned. “Which might be a good thing, come to think of it. Let’s go.”
The city of Rekkidu came to life just before dawn as the great armies of the dead marched out stiffly to work on the endless fields. Hundreds of specialists set forth to manage the irrigation sluices and canals, while others launched their small crafts onto the broad Leonis, flooding its vast, placid surface with their flotilla.
Acharsis, Jarek, and Annara followed Ishi through the narrow streets, and Jarek couldn’t help but marvel at the industry he saw taking place on all sides. Once, this energy, bustle and activity had been customary, but after decades spent in solitude, he was almost overwhelmed. The streets were thronged with people, an endless swirl of visitors and locals, goods being carted by oxen or carried on shoulders, voices raised in song or anger, small children scampering underfoot, colorful songbirds alighting on building corners or on the clotheslines strung high overhead.
Countless tradesmen were working in the doorways of their homes, weaving and cobbling, fixing nets and tooling leather. Through countless windows, Jarek saw potters seated at their wheels, sculptors at their plinths, carpenters fashioning furniture in airy workshops, jewelers bent over their workbenches. The schools were filled with scribes and students printing with their styluses on clay tablets and droning out their lessons.
But it was also different from how he remembered it. Everywhere, he saw vertical banners to Nekuul and Irella, great black cloths with their symbols emblazoned in white. Monuments and columns in their honor had been erected within every open space, looming massively overhead. Irella’s likeness was carved wherever he looked, her eyes wide and blank, her mouth severe. Despite the industry, everyone Jarek saw seemed gaunt, hollowed out by hunger; the number of beggars who thronged the streets with empty bowls had grown tremendously, and he saw far too many children sitting listlessly on steps and in corners, staring out at nothing, their eyes overlarge in their emaciated faces.
Finally, they reached a square in whose center a statue of Irella rose, painted in vivid hues, flanked on both sides by Nekuul’s Soul Panthers. Palm trees had been planted at each corner, and their luxurious fronds shaded the square.
The sounds of the city were overwhelmed here by the clamor of metal striking metal, and Jarek saw that the buildings surrounding the square were all smithies. Their fronts were open, with large canvas awnings held up on wooden poles giving each smithy the appearance of a cave.
Men were laboring at their anvils, assistants and apprentices hurrying around them, fetching tools, pushing wheelbarrows filled with ore, working on tools, porting buckets of water, and innumerable other tasks. The flames of the furnaces lit the gloom within each smithy luridly, casting the workers in the guise of fiery demons.
Bronze smiths, he noted. No iron was being worked in this square.
“Here?” asked Annara.
“She loves it here,” said Ishi. “She stands out like a white goat, but nothing I’ve ever said has made a lick of difference. In there.”
Jarek walked around one of the palms, the bole of which was carved with names and old images, and peered into the smithy. Inside, a dozen people were laboring intensely at their stations, and the din was terrible, a cacophony of ringing metal. His eyes flicked from one man to the next, dismissing each in turn, and then he saw her.
She was standing at the center anvil, a large hammer held in each hand, ropes of black hair hanging down to her bare, muscled shoulders. A leather mask was pulled down over her face, a horizontal slit for her eyes the only feature, and she was wearing a thick leather apron cinched at the waist and large leather mitts. That was all she seemed to be wearing. The long tendons and compact muscles in her arms rippled as she raised the hammer high overhead and brought it ringing down on the spar of metal that an assistant held in place with a pair of tongs.
Acharsis stepped up next to Jarek, and both of them watched as the woman worked, hammering at the glowing metal tirelessly, lifting her heavy hammer over and over again, her skin gleaming in the ruddy light with a fine sheen of sweat.
Acharsis suddenly yelped, and Jarek looked down to see Annara staring at him, clearly having just elbowed him in the ribs.
“Wait here,” Ishi said. She stepped
into the smithy, nodding to those who greeted her until she reached the woman’s side. Kishtar - for it had to be her - paused, about to swing the hammer up on high once more, then greeted Ishi happily, tossing the hammer aside and pulling up her mask so that it rested atop her head.
“Well, she’s attractive,” said Acharsis in a studiously neutral voice.
Even in the gloom, Jarek could tell he was right. She beamed at Ishi and leaned down to squeeze her in a tight embrace, drawing a string of protests from the old woman that only caused Kishtar to laugh. Smears of soot were drawn across her cheeks, and her hair was plastered to her sweaty brow, but somehow that only seemed to make her look more vital, more alive. Breathing heavily from her exertions, she listened as Ishi spoke rapidly to her, then looked up at them.
Jarek fought the urge to give her a small wave.
Kishtar studied their little group, then nodded and pulled off her leather mitts, tossed them down onto her hammer and nodded to her assistant, who protested but then fell silent as she ignored him and followed Ishi outside.
“Jarek, Acharsis, Annara, this is Kishtar,” said Ishi as they stepped back outside under the awning.
“A pleasure,” said Acharsis, giving her a self-mocking bow.
“Hello,” Annara said, strangely reserved.
Kishtar smiled unabashedly. “Hello. Friends of Ishi are friends of mine.” She turned to Jarek then and raised an eyebrow. “You’re a big one.”
“Jarek,” he said.
He felt awkward - she radiated such an intense healthiness and was so clearly comfortable in her physicality that he couldn’t help but be aware of it as well - and was made even more uncomfortable for being twice her age.
“Is there somewhere we can speak in private?” asked Acharsis.
“Private? Sure. ’Round the back of the smithy should do. Come on.”
Kishtar led them through the smithy and out into a small yard that was surrounded on all sides by high walls and was filled with piles of wood, junk piles of scrap metal and a large cistern of scum-covered water.
“So. Ishi says you’ve something important to share with me. What’s going on?”
Acharsis took a deep breath, hesitated, then gave her an apologetic smile. “We wanted to ask your help in assaulting Akkodaisis’ ziggurat.”
Kishtar raised her eyebrows and laughed. “Should we storm Uros while we’re at it?”
“No, I’m serious,” said Acharsis. “Annara’s son is going to be sacrificed in the upcoming ritual. He’s godsblooded, like you. We want to rescue him before that happens.”
To Jarek’s surprise, Kishtar didn’t dismiss them immediately. “Break into the ziggurat, hmm? And how do you plan to do that? What do you need me for?”
Acharsis’ smile became sly. “We don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll reveal our plans once we’re assured of who’s on our team. And why do we need you? From how easily I just saw you swing that hammer in there, I think the reason should be obvious.”
“Hmm,” Kishtar said, and looked over to Ishi, who gave her a slight nod.
“They’re serious,” said the old woman. “And what Acharsis hasn’t told you is that this is Jarek.”
Kishtar frowned. “No, I heard that part.”
“No,” said Ishi impatiently. “Jarek. Jarek. The son of Alok.”
“Son of Alok.” Kishtar blinked. Then understanding dawned on her, and she turned to face him. “That Jarek? I thought you were dead!”
“As good as,” he said.
“Wow. A demigod. Right here before me.” She stared him up and down. “You look more like an old man.”
“I’m not that old,” he rumbled.
“Huh. Aren’t you supposed to be covered in stone?”
“Kishtar!” said Ishi. “Show some respect.”
“Well, fine. I’ll help.” Kishtar stepped away and undid the apron’s thongs behind her back. She pulled the loop over her head and tossed the apron onto a pile of metal. “On one condition.”
She was wearing scandalously little clothing: a tight wrap around her breasts, which were ample, and a short skirt that ended just above the knees. Which made sense, Jarek supposed; she spent all day laboring over an incredibly intense fire. But he had a hard time averting his eyes from her defined torso and the freckles across her chest.
“Condition?” Annara asked, her tone speaking volumes.
“Yes. If this really is Jarek, son of Alok, demigod of rock and stone and all that, then I want proof. One fight. Right here.”
“Oh, grow up, Kishtar!” exclaimed Ishi. “This isn’t a game! Can’t you stop thinking about fighting for just one moment?”
“Why should I? That’s what they want me for. So, what do you say, old man? A quick bout. First one to touch both shoulders to the ground loses. Agreed?”
Jarek shook his head. “No. First, I’m not going to punch a woman. Second -”
Kishtar stepped forward, lithe and graceful, and, with a sudden, vicious movement, buried her fist in his stomach.
It was like being slammed by a battering ram. He grunted and folded over, then staggered forward as she slipped behind him.
“What was that?” She sounded annoyingly pleased with herself. “Something about women?”
With a grunt, he straightened, rubbing his stomach, and turned to eye her warily.
“You all right there, Jarek?” Acharsis had leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, and he was grinning widely.
“Fine,” Jarek grunted.
Kishtar bounced on the balls of her feet, shook her arms out as if removing any lingering stiffness, then fell into a fighting pose, fists raised, knees bent. “Ready?”
“No,” he said. “You’ve proven that you can throw a punch. Most people would have broken their wrists hitting me like that. I’m satisfied.”
“Well, I’m not.” Her smile was razor-sharp. “It’s your turn to prove yourself.”
“Prove myself?” I’m fucking Jarek, son of Alok. I don’t need to -
But Kishtar sprang forward, as quick as a lioness, and launched a flurry of punches at him, quick jabs that he deflected with raised forearms and then a swinging roundhouse that forced him to sway back and step away.
“Come on, old man. Try me. I promise I won’t break.”
“Just knock her down,” Annara said sharply. “Get this over with.”
Jarek scowled. “I don’t hit girls.”
Kishtar peppered him with a series of quick punches once more, then lashed out with her leg to slam her shin against the side of his thigh. The muscle snarled with pain and cramped. Then, before he could react, she spun all the way around, her foot never touching the ground, and slammed her heel into his gut in the same spot she’d punched, thrusting with all the force in her hips.
The blow lifted him off his feet and sent him staggering back, arms windmilling. He caught himself, palm against the wall he’d nearly run into, and when Kishtar laughed, sounding very pleased with herself, he decided that enough was enough.
“Shoulders to the ground,” he said. He shook his leg, working out the pain still smoldering in the muscle, then inhaled deeply and started forward.
“There we go,” she encouraged, moving back lightly, almost bouncing on her feet. “Come on, Grandpa. Surely, you remember something about fighting?”
“Don’t goad him too much,” said Acharsis. “You don’t want to make him angry.”
“Too late,” said Jarek.
He closed in toward her and reached out, trying to grab hold of her arms. She swayed away, then stepped in and cracked her elbow against his ribs. He grunted again just as she stomped down on the back of his calf.
Jarek went down to one knee. She wrapped both hands around the back of his head and smashed her knee into his face.
Jarek saw stars and felt his nose crunch.
“Ouch,” he heard Acharsis say. “Anybody got a beer?”
Jarek rose, arms in front of him in a protective shield, but Kishtar had d
rifted back, smiling wickedly.
He wiped away the blood from his upper lip. His anger was growing, dull and pounding, like the beginnings of a headache. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“Been fighting my whole life,” she said. “Half the time, it’s to keep old creeps off me. The rest of the time, it’s for fun and profit.”
He felt his skin begin to harden, felt the pain in his face fade away.
Ishi cursed and began to pat her clothing hurriedly, then drew a candle out of her pocket.
“Enough,” he growled. “Time for you to give in.”
“Give in?” Kishtar raised an eyebrow. “I’m just getting started. Though, I have to admit, I’m impressed. I thought you’d be laid out on your back like a flipped dung beetle by now.”
Jarek clenched his fists. His knuckles popped.
“Look out, now,” said Acharsis. “Here he comes.”
Jarek strode forward again. Kishtar licked her lower lip, then launched a kick at his chest. Her foot pounded his sternum, but he barely felt it. Surprise flickered through her eyes, and she hopped away, then stomped his knee when he stepped forward. He grunted, but it didn’t faze him.
He’d backed her into a corner. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings, then leaped up, pushed off the wall with one foot and flipped over his head.
One moment, she was there; the next, she was passing just over him, head tucked in, black hair streaming behind her. He felt something slam against his heel as she sought to trip him. His foot budged forward a grudging inch. Then, she slammed something else - her elbow? - against his lower back. That elicited a grunt.
Jarek turned around. He felt ponderous, unstoppable.
Kishtar danced back again, breathing heavily, and he saw a fey light in her eyes, a complete lack of fear, something perhaps akin to arousal. Her nostrils flared, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth even as her mouth tugged into a smile.
“Enough,” he said.
He blocked her high kick with a forearm, turned a shoulder so that her roundhouse slammed into his deltoid, then caught a powerful blow that was meant for his throat in the palm of his hand, stopping her cold.
