“Open your eyes,” Eligor said. “Before you get yourself killed.”
Chapter 104
Earth: September 3,390 BC
Mesopotamian Plain
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
Every fall, great herds migrated across the alluvial plain in search of the abundant grains that grew not only where the Ubaid planted, but anyplace else the flood waters deposited silt. The herd they stalked now was a creature the Ubaid called reem. Sand gazelles. A dainty, goat-like creature that moved in herds across the desert, searching for forage. Although hunting gazelles didn't carry the prestige that taking down a larger animal such as an Auroch would have, it was an opportunity to take his most promising warriors, young and old, on a bonding exercise.
He'd selected the thirty warriors to accompany him via the most democratic means possible. A contest. Whoever scored highest in a cornucopia of skills that included not only traditional warrior skills, but also newer ones such as ability to follow orders, had been selected … including three women. A contest was the best way to avoid accusations of favoritism.
"Do you have such creatures in the kingdom you come from, Mikhail?" asked Varshab, one of the Chief's older generation of warriors.
"Not these creatures, exactly," Mikhail pointed to the dainty creatures. "But I believe I may have seen something like these before."
"Don't be fooled by their diminutive size," Kiarash joined the conversation. "They are small, but exceptionally fleet of foot."
"And nimble over rough terrain." Varshab pointed off in the distance where the flat river plain rose up sharply to meet the desert, a steep rocky rock face even a man would have to work hard to climb. "If they make it up there, we'll have a hard time chasing them. By the time we climb after them, they'll be long gone."
"That shouldn't be a problem for you," Kiarash pointed to Mikhail's wings.
"It's not about me." Mikhail glanced over his shoulder at the younger warriors amassing behind them, eager to begin the hunt. "It's about them … working together. If supper gets away from them, I'm not going to fly in and save the day. It's a lesson they need to learn."
Mikhail gestured for Siamek to move towards the front.
"Sir?" Siamek asked.
"We'll separate into three groups," Mikhail said. "Ten warriors each team leader."
Although Siamek had not yet lost that wary expression, Mikhail had no complaints about how he carried out his duties. He was a solid performing, competent leader, perhaps not the best in each of the individual weapons skills, but the most consistent performer overall. More importantly, he had a modicum of common sense and not a lot of self-ambition beyond doing his best, two important traits for a second-in-command.
"Who has to take the three … um … Sir?" Siamek stopped himself from saying the word 'girls.' Pareesa had qualified on her own, male or female, but he'd done a separate contest to make sure two other women qualified for today's hunt, one of them a recent addition to the team.
"I want Pareesa to go with Kiarash," Mikhail said. "I'll take Azin. You should take Gita."
Siamek blanched. "I'd rather not, Sir. Why can't I have Azin?"
"I want the teams to be evenly balanced as far as abilities go," Mikhail said. "I know she's brand new, but she won her slot fair and square. I want her paired with you and Varshab "
He was trying to walk that fine line between encouraging Pareesa to be the best warrior she could be while not encouraging the 'crush' the little fairy purportedly nursed. Originally he'd intended to bring the newbie along in his group so he could keep an eye on her, but Ninsianna had erupted in a fit of temper, which seemed to be occurring more and more the last two weeks while she fended off a stomach bug. It was important to show the other warriors that women could perform under fire.
"It could be worse," Varshab ribbed Siamek. "He could have made you take along Ebad."
Siamek snorted, trying not to laugh. Pareesa's prize 'student' had not qualified for today's hunt. Nor had any of the other fifteen young men Mikhail had saddled her with bringing up to speed so that the sons of potters, weavers, and other tradesmen who had never hunted a day in their lives wouldn't accidentally shoot each other.
"You'll survive," Kiarash slapped Siamek on the back.
The team leaders briefed, Mikhail called the other warriors to gather around and assigned them to teams.
"Two groups will move in a V-formation to herd the gazelles towards that embankment," Mikhail said. "Meanwhile, the third group should circle around that ridge and make sure they don't escape."
"But the river has dropped below the level of the embankment, Sir," Siamek said. "They'll slip past us on that narrow spit of land."
"That's where the teamwork comes in," Mikhail said. He pointed to the grazing gazelles. "A-team[5] should move ahead so that their end of the V stretches out that way. B-team will block them from coming back this way. C-team will surprise them when they try to climb that embankment. They'll have the high ground, so they should be able to intercept enough gazelles for a respectable hunt."
He'd made them leave their bows behind so they would be forced to work together to get in close to the quarry. Gazelles were swift creatures. It would force the warriors to think quickly on their feet and use the command signals he'd been teaching them to let the other person know what they needed to do.
"Why does C-team get to do all the killing?" Firouz lamented, sans his sidekick Dadbeh, who had not made the cut. Mikhail had assigned him to Kiarash's group, trying to break up the 'elite' warriors amongst the newer ones who were showing promise in skills such as the ability to follow a chain of command.
"How many gazelles does a hunting group this size usually kill?" Mikhail asked.
"Thirty men?" Siamek said. "We usually get one each. Jamin always got two."
"Well let's see how many we get if we do it my way, okay?" Mikhail said. "The worst that can happen is we all go home hungry and take our lessons on teamwork more seriously next time."
With a 'hoo-rah' and bumped fists, the groups broke up. The sun began to climb in the sky towards its apex as they waited for C-team, headed by Kiarash, to move into position. After half an hour or so, he spied Pareesa scrambling up the rocks, fleet as a gazelle herself. With a nod to Siamek, the B-team began to circle around the water's edge, cutting the gazelles off from the river. The herd milled about and stomped their feet, sensing predators were moving in for the kill.
"Let's go," Mikhail signaled his group when Siamek gave him the signal to move into position. A-team began to spread out in a line, the fastest members moving their end of the V towards the tail end of Siamek's group. Mikhail anchored the far end, giving his team a series of hand signals to communicate they needed to straighten out their line and move in unison. As expected, when the two lines converged and began to move towards the grazing herd, they began to stampede.
"Hey-yah!" Mikhail gave the signal to rush at the gazelles. The gazelles made a break for it.
The warriors were under orders not to throw their spears until the gazelles approached the rocky embankment. Mikhail couldn't remember ever hunting a herd animal such as this before, but many of the Ubaid had. Once the creatures hit the obstacle, experience dictated half would attempt to climb to safety while the other half would try to break back through the line. They were more likely to make a clean kill when an animal ran at them, keeping their spears in their hands so they could make another kill right away, than when one was running away, disarming themselves.
"Now!" Siamek shouted, beginning the hunt.
The warriors moved into rough lines, not perfect, but Mikhail noted the way some of the groups gelled to move the way they did during training. The warriors still tended to cluster into social groupings, but little by little, as gazelles ran back towards them and broke through the lines, the warriors were forced to close their ranks and move with better coordination. The largest buck nipped at the flanks of the female gazelles and began to herd them
up towards the cliff, exactly the way that Varshab had said they would. When the gazelles got halfway up the hill, C-team erupted out of the rocky hill and panicked the creatures, turning half of them back as expected. The big buck spied a weakness in Siamek's line, a place where the warriors had not kept their line straight, and made a break for it.
"Close that line!" Mikhail shouted. His words were drowned out by the sound of hundreds of tiny hooves pounding against the rocky soil. As he'd hoped, the gazelles had found the places they were weak and dozens of them escaped, demonstrating better than a week's worth of words why they needed to become better coordinated.
Kiarash signaled one of the C-team warriors close to the failing line left by B-team and scrambled down the rocks. Firouz rushed after the disappearing herd.
"No!" Mikhail shouted in vain, his words lost in the ruckus. "You're supposed to close the line!"
Firouz chased after the buck, pursuing the status symbol of taking down the largest gazelle himself rather than the group goal of capturing the greatest number of gazelles. Meanwhile Siamek had regained some control over his team and signaled Gita to close the line. Their easiest route of escape now blocked, the gazelles acted as the older warriors had predicted. Half of them began to climb to where C-team waited to ambush them, the other half tried to break through the combined lines of A-team and B-team.
A doe with two kids rushed at him. Mikhail lifted one wing and let them pass. Immanu had tutored him before the hunt that a wise leader allowed the very young to escape so there would be gazelles to hunt next year. A young male rushed at him, his horns showing he was about a year old. Perfect eating. Mikhail stabbed at the creature with his spear. The poor thing flailed, crying out as the spear missed its heart. Mikhail pulled his knife and finished it off. He had no problems with hunting, but he couldn't bear to watch it suffer.
"Whoo-hoo!" the warriors shouted, stabbing away as gazelles practically impaled themselves upon the warriors spears.
"Don't let that line open up!" Mikhail warned one of his own team members, a middle-aged man who showed promise despite claiming he'd never hunted the animals before. The man closed up the line as they tightened around the herd of frantic gazelles like a noose.
He killed a second young buck, and then an aging doe. All around him, his team members were doing the same. The death-screams of frantic gazelles cried out from the rocky embankment, where C-team was engaged in a bloodbath of animal slaughter. Another doe rushed at him, her belly swollen.
"Let her go!" Azin shouted. "She is with fawn. It's bad luck to kill her."
He lifted his wing and let the creature pass. A second one slipped away, good reflexes allowing it to get the better of him. Immanu had lectured him to not allow the warriors to kill the entire herd, something rarely accomplished, but of concern with a well-organized group. No more than a third or She-who-is would punish them for their greed by denying them meat next year. Mikhail gave a rough count and estimated they were almost there. A few more, perhaps.
A blood-curdling scream broke through the air, not one of the gazelles. A human scream. A roar, and then another scream. But where? He scanned the warriors. A-team … ten men. B-team … Siamek had paused killing gazelles and pointed down towards the narrow peninsula where Firouz had disappeared. Another scream, and a roar.
Céilí mór!
The gazelles forgotten, the warriors rushed in the direction Firouz had disappeared. Mikhail spread his wings and leaped into the air, flying above the embankment to see where the screams were coming from. No sooner had he reached the top than he spied a large predator with a golden pelt leap towards a second such predator which dragged the screaming Firouz off by the leg. An enormous…
Mikhail dropped to the ground, his wings trembling with the memory that wanted to come to the surface, but wouldn't.
"Just let him go!"
He held out his hand to the creature which had Firouz by the leg, trying to reason with it. A deep rumble growled in its throat. The second creature snarled at him, baring enormous fangs. The larger of the two had a reddish mane like a king wearing a crown. It dropped Firouz's arm and crouched to leap at him, sensing he was a threat. Firouz cried out and tried to roll away. The female leaped on the prey animal dropped by her mate, pinning Firouz to the ground. It was a … a … a…
"Please," he told the creature. "We can work this out. Who is your commanding officer?" The overwhelming sensation he should remember who these creatures were muddled his brain.
With an ear-splitting roar, the big male leaped at him, fangs going straight for his throat. An errant thought went through his mind. Why was one of his own men attacking him? Disbelief slowed his reaction time. He fell backwards, claws raking at his wings and tearing out clumps of feathers as the creature bit at his head, trying to bring him down the same way it brought down a gazelle. Standing up, the creature was the same size as he was without his wings, but for some reason all he could think about was how small this creature was compared to what it should be.
"Don't make me kill you," he pleaded. Every fiber of his being screamed that killing this creature would be wrong!
Fangs broke through the flesh in one wing, claws dug into his arm. Whatever he thought these creatures were didn't matter. He needed to fight back or he would be killed.
He heard the shout of the other warriors rushing up behind him, spears held aloft as he pulled his knife and rolled, he and the creature locked in each other's embrace. The big male outweighed him. It came down hard on one wing and knocked him onto the ground, flat on his back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other warriors rush towards Firouz, stabbing at the second beast. The female roared as a spear pierced its hide, rushing at the warriors who were stabbing at it with spears. A second spear landed in its hide. The creature screamed
"No!" Mikhail shouted. Killing these creatures was wrong!
The big male which was on top of him snapped at his head, its enormous claws ripping out chunks of feathers and clawing at his flesh. It knocked the knife he'd hesitated to use right out of his hands. It was him … against the beast.
"Get out of the way!" Varshab shouted at him.
"Don't kill it!" Mikhail shouted. He rolled so that his wings shielded the creature, preventing them from plunging a spear into its heart. Fangs grazed his cheek, barely missing taking out an eye. Mikhail grabbed the jaws and pulled them apart, the creature's hot breath bellowing in his face. His hands were a paltry weapon against jaws so powerful. The creature furiously clawed with both front and hind legs, trying to get its kill. Their close proximity was Mikhail's saving grace, too close for the creature to claw at anything except his enormous wings. He flailed, no more able to hit the creature with the club-like leading edge of his wings than the creature was able to get at him with its claws. Mikhail spied his knife and moved his hand, yelping as enormous jaws clamped down around his wrist. He punched it in the head with his other hand and reached for the knife he'd dropped.
The creature snapped at his head. It left open its chest, a mistake any first-year cadet learned to avoid.
He had no choice. Training took over.
He stabbed the creature in the heart.
The creature's death-cry reverberated through his very soul, making him cry out along with it. No! He pushed it off of him, pulling out the knife and pushing his hands over the wound to staunch the bleeding. The other warriors rushed in to finish it off.
"No!" he shouted. He waved them off, his eyes blurry as he pleaded with the creature. "Don't die. Please don't die."
He waited for the big male to speak to him. To say something. To explain why it had felt the need to attack him. But it didn't. There was intelligence in those golden eyes filled with pain, but no words came from its mouth. It breathed, and breathed again, and then it was silent. Staring at the blood on his hands, Mikhail raised them up to the sky.
"Why?" he shook his fists into the sky. "Why why why?"
The female was already dead, filled with spears. The
warriors danced around her like carrion birds, celebrating the death of the noble creature. Pareesa helped Firouz to his feet, a little worse for the wear, but he would survive. Warriors slapped him on the back and congratulated him on his kill. Tears streamed down Mikhail's cheeks at how wrong this all felt.
They stopped celebrating when they realized he was crying.
"I'm sorry," he told the beast whose name he couldn't remember, but knew he should know.
He stared at the blood on his hands, red against his pale flesh. Wrong. He ran his hands through its pelt and put his head down to listen for its heart. It was silent. He'd killed it. Even though he couldn't remember this creature's name or where he'd seen one of them before, in his soul he knew he'd killed one of his own. He put his forehead down upon the still-warm comrade he'd just killed, sobs wracking his body as he drooped his wings and finally allowed seven months of mourning lost memories to spill from his shattered psyche.
The warriors gathered around in silence, not understanding why he grieved.
"Mikhail?" Pareesa asked. She placed a hand on one wing. "Are you okay?"
"This was wrong," Mikhail hiccoughed, forcing himself to regain some sense of composure. "I don't know why, but I feel as though I just killed my own brother."
"These are lions," Pareesa said. "Big cats. Sometimes we have to hunt them or they'll eat our goats."
Pareesa put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze, surprisingly strong for such a young woman. It was the gesture of comfort one equal gives to another, this warrior princess. He tried to suppress the sobs that kept shuddering in his chest, but he couldn't. They didn't understand.
"Where he comes from," a soft voice said. "There are lions who are also people. Just as he is part eagle."
He looked up to stare into the blackest eyes he'd ever seen, so black it was impossible to tell where the pupil ended and the iris began. The scrawny black-eyed girl kneeled before him and the dead creature, tears streaming down her cheeks at the sight of his tears. He shivered at the sensation of having his soul laid bare before those bottomless black eyes. It felt like being naked.
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 53
