Chapter 76
July – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Ninsianna
They came at them not from the direction Gisou had encountered Pareesa’s captors, but a much larger band attempting to raid the houses at the western edge of the village. As had happened in the other villages, attackers peppered the defenders with arrows to push them back a safe distance while a second group tried to gain access by giving each other a hands-up over the outermost walls. The Chief's intelligence indicated they always attacked at night, while people slept, so that the villagers wouldn't have time to organize a defense. If not for Gisou’s warning...
"Light the arrows!"
Ninsianna gave the signal. Small bursts of fire ignited from the other rooftops where the archers crouched, dipping arrows wrapped in a thin rag soaked with tallow into clay pots with live coals. The Halifians may have discovered the weapons first, but Mikhail had taught them to create 'tracer arrows' only within the last few days, a strategy which had never occurred to the raiders. Ninsianna drew her bow back to her cheek, her arm aimed high so that the descending arrows would land in the midst of the advancing raiders. The other archers followed suit. Her arm trembled, wrent with tension from the bowstring.
"Shoot!" Ninsianna shouted. She loosened her fingertips the tiniest bit so the movement wouldn't cause her aim to go amiss. On either side the other archers did the same. The whoosh of arrows sounded like the goddess' breath, the wind, followed by the screams of injured and dying men.
"Again!"
She pulled another arrow from her quiver, a regular one this time, and led the archers through a second volley, and then a third. The fiery rags betrayed the attacker's nighttime position. Unfortunately, she and the archers were still awkward with their inexperience … or how many arrows they'd carved to fill their quivers.
"I wish Pareesa was here," Yadiditum shouted. "She's our best archer!"
"Pareesa, nothing!" Homa said as she restrung her bow. "I wish Mikhail was here!"
"Keep shooting!" Ninsianna shouted, but cover fire could only do so much. With shouts of rage, the Halifians slew the three Assurians defending the narrow alley between the outermost row of houses built wall-to-wall to create a barrier from just such an attack and poured through the gap like scarab beetles swarming a carcass in the desert.
"They're inside the village!" Alalah shouted.
Ninsianna looked from the Halifians swarming both sides of the rooftop where the archers were perched and made a decision. She didn't need the whispers of She-who-is to realize they were about to be trapped.
“Fall back!” Ninsianna shouted as the warriors retreated. “Alalah, Orkedeh, that roof over there! Take Kiana with you.”
Old Behnam crept up to her, elbow over elbow on the woven reed mats which covered the roof.
“I suggest three groups,” Behnam said. “I'll take that rooftop there. The mud brick crenellation should provide a bit of cover."
Ninsianna gave him a grateful nod. Behnam might be old, but until he'd become too frail to fight hand-to-hand, he'd been a warrior of her grandfather Lugalbanda's generation and also one of the few men in the village who had ever indulged Ninsianna's curiosity about the art of warfare until Mikhail had come to their village. His suggestions were welcome.
“Yadidatum! Homa. Follow Behnam,” Ninsianna shouted. “Gisou, you’re with me!”
They ran along the rooftops, the houses of the outer ring built so that the wall of one house met the next one to create an impenetrable outer wall, until they reached a place they could descend safely. One by one, they scurried down the pine log leaning against the side of the house, branch nubs left intact to make a ladder, and ran to the new positions she'd determined was the best place to make a second stand. They scurried up ladders to their new perches on rooftops on the next ring of houses across the street and resumed shooting cover fire.
"Ninsianna, we're almost out of arrows!" someone shouted.
Ninsianna took the next shot, and then the one after it before her quiver came up empty. She looked around, frantic to find something to shoot at the men who fought hand-to-hand against the raiders in the street below. She heard a noise whipped the bow around even though she had no arrows left to fire. Her breath came out as a pounding exhalation as she recognized Pareesa’s nine-year-old brother Namhu skittering up onto the roof carrying a quiver of his sister's arrows and a miniature bow.
"Namhu!" Ninsianna scolded. "Don't come up behind us announced!"
“I just thought Pareesa would want you to have these," Namhu said. The boy handed her the extra arrows, his expression apologetic.
“Thank you!” Ninsianna said, giving silent thanks to She-who-is.
“I can help you fight,” Namhu said eagerly. “Pareesa taught me.”
In spite of what was happening on the ground below, Ninsianna smiled. She opened her mouth to tell the boy he was too young, and thought better of it. That was not what Mikhail would do.
“Yes,” Ninsianna said. “You can help us fight. You have younger sisters at home, don't you?”
“Four of them,” Namhu said. "And a baby sister!"
“These men will try to steal them,” Ninsianna said. “Go home and tell them Mikhail wants them hide in your grain cellar. If they come after you, kill them, but don't shoot at them unless they find your hiding place. Do you think you can do that for me?”
“Yes,” Namhu said.
She held her breath as the boy skittered back down the ladder amongst warriors fighting for their lives and stray Halifian arrows to make his way home. Words of the Song of the Sword came into her mind, the part about raising armies from the dust. Yes. You didn't get much closer to raising armies from dust than recruiting a nine-year-old boy to do a man’s job, or at least sending him home to defend his family if the men failed. The Halifians had a long history of taking children for ransom or even selling them into slavery.
She watched her Papa fight the attackers hand-to-hand with the other warriors from the ground. He got off a few good shots before the attackers got too close to effectively use the weapon. Both sides switched to more traditional methods of fighting, hand-to-hand combat.
Conversations she'd listened to between Mikhail and her father about the need to fortify village defenses came into her mind. Through his eyes, she could now see all the places he'd warned them that they were weak, but in their arrogance, they'd bragged that no one had ever breached Assur's walls. She watched their warriors get beaten back by Halifian mercenaries, who had constant experience performing raids. In such close quarters, it was difficult to shoot the enemy without accidently shooting one of their own villagers. She didn't want to hit her own people.
She wondered where Mikhail had gone and if he had found Pareesa.
Chapter 77
July – 3,390 BC
Earth: Outside Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
The cry of a small animal, its sleep disturbed by a clumsy foot, betrayed the enemy's position. The last time they'd done battle, Mikhail's wing had been broken. It never occurred to them to look up as a dark shadow obscured the moon and an avenging Angelic swooped down from the sky, sword drawn, like a terrifying bird of prey.
No memory was necessary to do what what his body had been trained to do since boyhood. Memory did not matter in this heightened state of battle readiness, only sensation; not feeling, but a larger, more expansive sense of simply knowing. Muttering the Cherubim meditations which separated his ability to think from his ability to feel as his boots hit the ground, Mikhail flared his wings and crouched, arms in a ready stance to take them on from whichever direction they came at him. Breathe in. Breathe out. Become one with the battlefield. Use senses beyond the normal five.
The subtle glow of the enemy's thoughts preceded their actions like a faint, white echo; a phantasm of intent which had not yet manifested into action. Some part of his mind perceived where their arrows were aimed
before the kidnapper's fingers finished drawing their bows. Three arrows came at him simultaneously. He swung upwards and knocked the two deadliest arrows out of the air with his sword, but the third arrow slammed into the tender flesh of his wing.
Pain radiated down into his axial muscles, but the injuries were not sufficient to incapacitate him. He filed the pain impulses away in the back of his mind for processing later. The only data which mattered during battle was how badly the injury would inhibit his ability to fly. Mikhail straightened, showing them they'd been unsuccessful. Swinging his sword in an invitation to bring it on, the enemy hesitated, and then rushed at him all at once.
“Mikhail,” Pareesa cried out. “Look out!”
A fourth man came out of the shadows and rushed at him from the rear. That sixth sense he could only access during battle felt the subtle touch of the fourth attacker's hostile thoughts and the place on his back where the enemy intended to bury his spear. Mikhail spun and cut him down before Pareesa's words even had a chance to register. Warm, red blood splattered onto his his hand.
"May She-who-is welcome you into the Dreamtime," he whispered as he sliced backwards a second time to pierce the kidnapper through the heart and guarantee he was permanently out of the equation
Two more enemies rushed at him with spears. Mikhail snapped one spear with his blade and kicked the enemy in the chest to knock him back into the second man. He grabbed the second spear and used it to skewer both of them as though they were meat set out to roast upon an enormous fire. He felt no emotion as they screamed and writhed, but simply decapitated them to put an end to their suffering.
The three unknown women tied up alongside Pareesa sobbed in terror as the little fairy struggled to get herself free.
Several more enemies came out of the shadows and fired arrows at him, but he could see the intent to release the bowstring before they actually did it. Swinging his sword to create an arc, he knocked the arrows out of the air. One slipped past his sword and thudded into his shoulder, causing more pain than even he could ignore. He whispered the Cherubim prayer for unfeeling, for discipline of the mind, for the ability to choose which stimuli he wished to feel. Work. Methodically. Take out the biggest threat. Ignore your pain. You can attend to your injuries later.
Take … out … the leader. He leaped after the bowman he calculated was the best shot, cutting him down with one swing of the sword. He cut down a second enemy who rushed at him to defend the first with an obsidian blade. Mission … free Pareesa. He picked up the knife and tossed it to her to cut herself free before turning to deal with the remaining three kidnappers.
They were out of arrows. The enemy came at him with their spears.
The arrow which had lodged in his shoulder inhibited his ability to move. He snapped it off, and then put his sword back into its sheath, beckoning to the trio in a universal gesture of ‘bring it on.' They circled, trying to figure out their best angle of attack. He studied them, watched them, observed the flicker of knowing as their minds replayed various scenarios and then settled upon a course of action. He could see the forward rush of their energy before they even moved. They shouted and all rushed at him at once.
He leaped into the air, flapping his wings to gain just enough height that the three stumbled into each other, off balance as their spears met empty air. He dropped back down and grabbed the first one by the neck, twisting the man's head to snap his neckbones. The second enemy he threw to the ground and pinned his neck beneath one boot, stomping his neck to crush his larynx.
The man gurgled and writhed, unable to catch his breath.
The third enemy came at him a second time with his spear. A ‘whoosh’ cut through the air before Mikhail had a chance to take him out. Pareesa appeared from the shadows, a Halifian bow in her hands as she shot the last raider in the heart with his own arrow.
“That will teach you to kidnap women!” Pareesa hissed at her dying assailant.
She ran towards him, and then stopped and pointed her bow at him, her brown eyes wide with fear as she strung another arrow.
"Mikhail … your eyes…"
That sixth sense of knowing, the one which ruthlessly calculated action, could see no echo of intent in his young mentor's aim. She was frightened. This was a side of him she had never seen.
He tilted his head, unable to recall how to speak her language.
"Osoreru koto wa arimasen," he said in the language which filled his mind. Don't be afraid.
He held up his empty hands to show he'd sheathed his sword.
Pareesa trembled, but stood her ground even though, in her spirit-echo, he could see she only wanted to throw herself into his arms and weep. She was a natural warrior, but she was also a twelve-summer girl. In her eyes, he could see the reflection of his own unearthly blue eyes, no longer just irises in a sea of white, but filled with an internal luminescence. His mind whispered this was normal, that this was part of what he became when the gods wielded him as a weapon, that all was well so long as he never lost control of his anger. He stored the information into that portion of his brain which grasped at patterns to fill in the spots where his memories had been erased. Right now, this detail was unimportant.
Pareesa lowered her arrow.
“I overheard the Halifians say they were sending a larger band to attack Assur," Pareesa said. "I'm okay. You must go and help Ninsianna!”
Without a word, he leaped into the air, ignoring the arrow still stuck in his wing as he raced through the ink-black sky to defend to the woman he loved.
Chapter 78
July – 3,390 BC
Earth: Outside Assur
Ninsianna
A night owl.
Ninsianna heard a rustle of feathers as her love swooped down from the sky and landed in the attackers midst, his sword already drawn. As he'd done that night at his ship, he cut down his assailants like a scythe harvesting wheat, ensuring with an automatic backstab to the heart or quick decapitation that his attackers wouldn't be getting back up. Leaping into the air when necessary, not only did his wings help him levitate before dropping down to strike again, but they also provided him with two additional fighting limbs, blunt instruments, as though they were clubs.
The first time she'd seen him thus, she had mistaken his efficiency for darkness seizing control of his body, but now that she knew him, her goddess-enlightened eyes saw the pattern to his moves, the smooth choreography of the beautiful killing dance, the ice which ran through his veins as he separated that part of himself that could feel from the part that could kill. His sword sang with delight as it swung through the air and made contact with human flesh. Although his dance was deadly, Ninsianna recognized from the blue light which streamed through his body that he had turned himself into an instrument of HER will.
With Mikhail’s return, new hope kindled in the defenders. The warriors rushed in to engage their attackers once more, having enough sense to stay clear of Mikhail’s arcing silver blade. He stood head and shoulders above them all, a mighty winged oak anchoring her people's resolve, urging them to stand together and fight as an army instead of every man for himself. Ninsianna released arrow after arrow, signaling the archers to provide cover for the tide of Assurians who now teemed forward, the mere sight of the demi-god fighting in their midst giving their warriors heart. Chief Kiyan sensed the shift and directed the flow to block the attackers escape.
The enemy recognized Mikhail was now the greater threat, not the defenders rushing at them with spears. Their leader shouted for his men to regroup and focus on the symbol of Assurian hope, wings flapping as he reaped Halifian lives like stalks of grain.
The Chief had fought enough battles in his lifetime that he recognized the shift in tactics away from killing him to killing Mikhail. The older warriors from his own generation moved solidly behind the Chief, both following and protecting their leader. The Chief was still their secondary target. There were too many enemies surrounding him to come to Mikhail's aid. The Chief turned to his son
who battled their enemies with no rhyme, reason, or heart.
"Jamin … provide cover!" The Chief pointed his spear towards Mikhail. Siamek and the younger warriors fell into line behind him, ready to follow Jamin into the thick of battle.
Jamin took a step towards Mikhail, turned into a golem[1] once more, and froze…
Ninsianna could almost see the flashback that leaped into Jamin's mind. Damn! Not only was Mikhail still exposed, but so now was the Chief! Chief Kiyan witnessed his son's hesitation and signaled Siamek to step forward and take over the task. The Halifian mercenary the Chief had been battling moved forward to stab him while he was occupied, stepping out of the cover provided by an Assurian warrior who had been blocking Ninsianna's shot. The pathway suddenly clear, she drew her bow and let the arrow fly, shooting the Chief’s opponent in the heart. The Chief glanced up and met her gaze, nodding appreciation before he moved on to engage the next attacker.
With a shout, Siamek led the younger generation of warriors to fight at Mikhail's side, smart enough to stand out of his flight path as he hacked and whirled. The young men moved with disorganized determination, but with Mikhail moving methodically from the greatest threat to the least talented opponent, their individual skills made up for their lack of coherence. Halifian taunts quickly turned into screams of the dying as the tide of battle turned in favor of the Assurians and the enemy only sought to escape.
Within a matter of heartbeats it was over. Forty-five Halifians and eleven Assurians lay dead. As one wounded Halifian reached for his bow, Mikhail cut him down without so much as a backwards glance.
"Come, we must tend the wounded!" Ninsianna shouted to the other archers.
They climbed down from the rooftops and moved through the carnage to help their wounded warriors. The chief approached Mikhail to thank him.
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 39
