Raphael turned his attention back to the Lieutenant assigned to care for his living ship. “Where can I find General Jophiel and my son this fine afternoon?"
“She is in her quarters anxiously awaiting you to relieve her of duty, Sir,” Hadraniel said with a flat expression. The hint of mirth in his voice betrayed his amusement at how much extra work the sudden insertion of a five-month-old ‘airman’ into their midst was causing their commanding officer.
He noticed the envious looks some of the hybrid members of the crew gave him. Their relationship was causing morale problems amongst the fleet. Already, female hybrids were balking at giving up their offspring while males were demanding the right to choose one mate. As Jophiel went, so went the entire Alliance fleet.
Raphael gave the lower-ranking crewmen a crisp salute, careful to neither grin at them, nor appear too stern. They saluted back. Raphael gave them a respectful nod. Although they resented his special privilege, he wanted to make damned sure they had no obvious reason to resent him.
As he wound his way through the labyrinthian hallways of the enormous Alliance flagship, he mused about how he could accomplish his long-term goal of convincing Jophiel to say yes to his frequent proposals of marriage. Although their relationship had become much closer since Uriel’s brush with death, Jophiel worried about the message adopting a double-standard would set for the fleet and tried to keep things professional between them. She'd not yet given an answer to his request to make their relationship a permanent one.
Raphael chuckled. Actually, she had... She'd told him ‘no.' But he wasn't about to take ‘no’ for an answer. He was every bit as determined to undermine her resistance as he'd always been to get Mikhail to smile.
He paused outside her door to straighten his collar and a few errant feathers and then knocked. The moment he stepped in the door, he could see how frazzled she appeared. Although Uriel was not crawling yet, his son had recently mastered the art of belly-wiggling. The little imp was pulling on the wires which connected his mother's electronics, gurgling and cooing contentedly as he risked pulling the equipment down upon his head. Curled up fast asleep at his side was the gourock water-dragon, Uriel’s second-favorite form of entertainment. His first most-favorite form of entertainment was distracting his mother. Jophiel was trying to process some status reports on Sata’an incursions and Uriel was not helping her concentration.
“Reporting for duty as requested, Sir!" He gave her a crisp salute. She was still, after all, his commanding officer.
Her genuinely relieved smile as she looked up and made eye contact took his breath away. Whoever had accused the unflappable Supreme Commander-General of icy emotionlessness had never seen her like this. Warrior queen. Mother of his only child. Breathtaking.
The stacks of folders containing smart-pads and old-fashioned paper reports sat in disarray, unlike the neat stacks which had greeted him the first time his Supreme Commander-general had summoned him into her office and coldly asked him if he'd like to sire offspring number twelve. She brushed a strand of white-blonde hair out of her eyes that had fallen out of her tightly-coiffed regulation bun and, when it refused to stay, simply blew it out of the way with an exaggerated 'puff.'
“I am hereby ordering you to take YOUR son and get him out of my hair!!!” she laughed. “He's getting into everything!”
“MY son?" Raphael's brow wrinkled in mock indignation, but the dimple gave away his mirth.
“Yes …" She gave him a smile that made his heart skip a beat. “When he misbehaves, he is YOUR son.”
“Yes, Sir!!!" He saluted before grabbing the wiggly five-month-old and swooshed him around in a circle. “Hey, little guy, Daddy’s here."
Uriel cooed and reached for Raphael’s golden feathers, causing a malodorous air to waft up to his sensitive nose.
“Whew!!! Little buddy … you need a diaper change!”
“He’s all yours…” Jophiel laughed. “Dismissed! Both of you! That’s an order … and oh … take that with you as well." She pointed towards the dog-sized gourock, which had popped up like a jack-in-the-box the moment Raphael had come into the room and gotten entangled in the wires with its flat, paddle-like tail.
“Yes, Sir!" Raphael held up their son's tiny fist to make a mock salute before tugging at the gourock's collar and heading out the door. “Let’s go see about that diaper…..”
Chapter 97
August - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Jamin
He'd waited for them for more than an hour and not one of them had shown up for practice. It was bad enough their time to perfect their real combat skills had been whittled down to nothing thanks to his father's order to march around carrying buckets of water, but now they hadn't bothered to show up at all? How could they care so little about the village defenses! He moved through the village like a sandstorm, his blood boiling when he found Siamek and the others in the date-palm orchard, surrounded by giggling girls and a bunch of kids shooting sticks at trees.
“You train with children now?”
“Give it a rest,” Siamek said, the offending bow in his hand. “We're here because your father ordered us to be here.”
Alalah had been placed in charge of all new archer training. She stepped between him and his warriors, bold as no woman would have dared speak to him before the winged demon had fallen from the sky and turned everything in this village onto its head.
“You should try training for a change!” Alalah waggled her finger in his face as though he were a little boy. "How can we defend this village if you undermine everything your father tries to do?"
"Fools!" Jamin whirled to Siamek and hissed. "Don't you understand he makes you do this to humiliate you? I wouldn't get caught dead practicing with a bunch of little kids!"
“You will get caught dead one of these days, young man," Alalah said, "if you don't start paying attention to what's going on around you! By a Halifian arrow!”
Not. Likely. But they didn't know he'd crawled back to the Halifian leader and made some headway figuring out where the kidnapped women were being taken. The fairy tales the Halifians told about lizard-demons were hard to believe, but somebody offered bags of gold to purchase slaves, an unheard of price for a commodity as cheaply and easily obtained as snatching some hapless young woman. He reached into his pocket and touched the tiny nugget he'd traded for as tangible proof to show his father. The Halifians had told him the Amorites were paying them to collect the best and brightest from each village.
Rumor had it the end-buyer was Mikhail’s own people, but instead of simply taking Ninsianna and disappearing as had happened in the other villages, for some reason the winged demon had stuck around. Why? He hadn't figured that part out yet. But when he did, he needed warriors ready to stand at his back so they could kill them! Warriors who knew how to use a real weapon. Not these silly little sticks!
“This is a man’s weapon!" Jamin proudly hefted his spear above his head, the best his father's money had been able to buy. Perfectly weighted, the obsidian spearhead was sharp enough to pierce the heart of a lion, unlike the more mundane flint ones the other warriors used.
Pareesa wrinkled her nose and pantomimed speaking the words he'd just said, rolling her eyes and crossing them as she mocked him. That ever-present anger which had been seething just beneath the surface since the day Ninsianna had embraced Mikhail bubbled to the surface. It was time for him to take back control of his own village! He aimed the spear inches from the little snit's foot and hurled it into the ground. The spear stood there, quivering with unspent energy, his message clear.
“Foot!” Pareesa called. In one seamless move, she reached into her quiver, strung her bow, and let an arrow fly. It landed in the ground against the edge of his footwear. Tit. For tat.
“Goddamn you, girl!” Jamin bellowed. “I’ll teach you your place!” He lurched towards her, intending to wipe the smirk off her face.
“Hand!" Pareesa reached into her quiver in a
move so fast it was barely visible and let fly a second arrow.
Some portion of his mind noted the twang of the bowstring after pain registered in the hand he’d been about to use to strike her. He shrieked, holding it as he stared with disbelief at the arrow shot through his palm. Sniggering rippled through the children standing at her back, egging her on. Pareesa had just shot him?
“Bitch!!!” He yanked his spear out of the ground with his non-dominant hand and swung it up to thwack her off the side of her head, ignoring the stab of pain which streaked up his other arm. He'd survived worse wounds than the insignificant toy sticks!
“Heart!" Pareesa grabbed a third arrow and drew her bow, aiming straight for his heart. Her eyes took on an icy stare that was familiar.
“Jamin … stop!" Siamek jumped between them, knocking the spear out of his hand before he had a chance to strike her. “Please … just … stop!" Siamek's eyes were wild and fearful, although who he feared was not clear.
Pareesa stood as cold and emotionless as the mentor she now mimicked, bow drawn, so closely resembling the winged demon it was all Jamin could do to not imagine she had wings.
“Ichi-ho chikazuku, anata ga shinde, jakkasute iru!” Pareesa clicked in the Cherubim language.
Jamin froze. Her eyes didn't flash blue, but he knew she was one of them now. An enemy. Hiding in their midst. Possessed by demons. She even spoke their language.
“Pareesa is our best archer,” Alalah said coldly. “Second only to Mikhail himself. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior, and neither will the Chief! Now go home and take care of that hand!”
Jamin slunk home holding his hand, the arrow sticking through it for the whole village to see. No one dared say a word to him about it. Not even that pesky little voice that had taken to whispering to him in the wind.
He didn't care how long it took. He was going to kill her…
Chapter 98
August – 3,390 BC
Earth: Assur Village
Shahla
The people of the river bathed at least once per day, twice when the heat became oppressive. Today was one of those days people got their chores done by mid-morning so they could wallow in the current during the apex of the sun. Shahla usually bathed where the warriors could admire her curvaceous figure as she emerged from the sacred waters like a nymph and stretched out her shawl to lay supine in the hot Mesopotamian sun, the water glistening off her pert nipples for all to admire, but today she'd sought refuge upriver so the others wouldn't see her bruises.
She put her head down in Gita’s lap, weeping. The others made fun of her for dragging her peculiar sidekick everywhere she went, but they didn't understand. Shahla closed her eyes and listened to her best friend sing; a dull-feathered nightingale whose beautiful song was both a lament … and a beacon which could illuminate the darkest night.
“You shouldn't allow him to treat you like this,” Gita said as soon as she finished her song, pulling the comb through Shahla’s long hair. She touched the red mark on Shahla’s cheek where Jamin had slapped her.
“You’re one to talk,” Shahla said through her tears. “Your father beats the crap out of you.”
“At least I have enough sense to avoid him,” Gita said.
“It's not his fault,” Shahla sobbed. “He asked me to help him bandage up his hand and I told him he shouldn't have tried to hit Pareesa.”
“Ever since Ninsianna dumped him,” Gita said, “Jamin has been spiraling out of control. His temper has always been volatile, but not like this. You should stay away from him until he gets his emotions back under control.”
“You'd think you wanted to see him back with Ninsianna!” Shahla snapped, sitting up and yanking the brush out of her friend's hand. “Instead of me! Your best friend!”
Gita remained silent, her dark eyes looking through her with a bottomless black stare. A spider. Waiting for the tremor of a fly caught in the periphery of her web. Shahla shivered.
“Dadbeh loves you,” Gita said softly. “Even if he is too ashamed to admit it to his friends. Jamin has nothing in him but hatred right now.”
“Someday Jamin will be Chief,” Shahla proudly stuck up her chin. “He says when he is, he will marry me.”
“Why doesn’t he marry you now?” Gita yanked the brush through Shahla's hair. “If he really loved you, he would have married you as soon as he started sleeping with you again.”
“He says his father is against it,” Shahla said.
“Jamin is using you." Gita's black eyes flashed with anger. “Chief Kiyan just wants his son to be happy. If Jamin said he wanted to marry you, I'm certain the Chief would allow it. Goddess only knows your father has pushed often enough for a union!”
“I don't understand why everything has to be so difficult,” Shahla sighed. She put her head back down in her best friend's lap, closing her eyes as Gita brushed her hair.
Gita began to sing once more, only this time she sang one of the ‘marching songs’ the men sang as they carried buckets from the Hiddekel River, arms outstretched to strengthen their muscles, marching in perfect formation to water the fields. Exercises taught to them by Mikhail.
“Somebody has been lurking in the shadows again." A smile lightened Shahla's dark mood as she pictured how ridiculous the villagers looked doing the awkward exercises which Jamin mocked. “And you accuse me of mooning over a hopeless cause?”
Gita pulled the comb through Shahla’s hair. She paused, her eyes focused far away. Shahla could almost feel the air around them change as her best friend made a life-altering decision.
“I am tired of always being a victim,” Gita said, her voice almost a whisper. “I'm going to start taking those self-defense classes Mikhail teaches. A lot of the girls are doing it. I'd like you to take them with me.”
Gita clutched her hand as though she wished to will Shahla to go with her so she didn't have to do it alone. Alone. Never in her life had Shahla seen anyone as abandoned and alone as the black-eyed girl nobody in the village but her had ever bothered to see.
“A chief’s wife must be supportive of her husband,” Shahla said with a haughty toss of her hair.
From the disappointed twitch of Gita's lip, she understood her only real friend had made up her mind to go without her.
Shahla lowered her voice to a whisper. “Besides, if Jamin thought –I'd- betray him, too? He would kill me.”
Chapter 99
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.08 AE
Earth: Sata’an Forward Operating Base
Lieutenant Kasib
Lt. Kasib
Lieutenant Kasib tucked his tail up alongside his right side in a crisp salute and knocked on the crude door they'd jury-rigged for privacy in the stone house they'd commandeered as part of their Sata'an Forward Operating Base on Earth.
"Come in," General Hudhafah called.
Kasib's long forked tongue tasted the air the moment he stepped into his commanding officer's office, searching for pheromones which would indicate the nuances of the general's mood.
“Our intermediaries came up short, Sir,” Kasib said. “We only have 283 women in this shipment. Not 300 as ordered.”
“Ba'al Zebub will be displeased,” General Hudhafah's dorsal ridge rose in irritation. “What excuse did they give?”
“Your orders were to only obtain a few women from each tribe to obtain the greatest genetic diversity, Sir,” Kasib said. “One of the tribes has organized and is fighting back.”
“Find out who their leader is and kill him,” General Hudhafah ordered, taking a sip of the fermented Earth nectar he'd begun to develop a taste for. “Without a head, the serpent will die.”
“Would you like me to assign a battalion to quash the rebellion?”
“No. We're spread too thin,” General Hudhafah's tail thumped against the floor, deep in thought. “We're almost out of supplies. Until the armada gets here with reinforcements, it's better to act through intermediaries.”
“What would you like m
e to do, Sir?” Kasib asked.
“Offer a bounty,” General Hudhafah bared his fangs in a grin Kasib knew from experience was a predator about to corral a prey animal. “For the ringleaders. Dead or alive. The idiots practically grovel at the sparkles we put in our paint to shield our ships from stellar radiation. Offer the morons a whole bag of the stuff. That will motivate them.”
“Yes, Sir,” Kasib saluted his commanding officer. “Right away.”
Chapter 100
Mid-August – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
The temperature changed perceptibly the closer they got to the river. They'd enjoyed solitude away from the hubbub of the village, but the stream which had babbled so delightfully alongside his ship in the spring had dried down to little more than a trickle. He'd ended up carrying her to the river each day, far from any village, to wallow in the currents and escape the summer heat. Although it was a strain upon the wing which still ached, the thrill of carrying his beloved airborne inspired him to soar higher, longer, and more gracefully than he ever would have thought possible. It was funny, how love inspired you to do things you never would have done otherwise?
Dogs barked and children ran through the streets, calling their names as he circled the village. Ninsianna waved and greeted each child by name, nearly pulling him off balance. Banking his wings to glide in for a landing, he touched down a few feet from the front door. Before she could wriggle out of his grasp, he carried her across the threshold, grinning at her giggles as he paused to figure out how to fit both her and the width of his wings. The temperature dropped several degrees the moment they got out of the sun, but it was still almost as miserably hot in here as it was outside.
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 50
