July - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
Mikhail looked at the eight volunteers, plus Immanu and Ninsianna, who had answered the Chief’s call for archers. Seven were female, eight if you included Ninsianna. The last was an elderly man in his late sixties.
He'd asked them to meet at the edge of the rapidly dwindling river so they'd have some relief from the opressive afternoon heat, but now he wished he'd chosen a field closer to the village in the hopes of enticing a few more archers to join their ranks. Much to his chagrain, Jamin had undermined his efforts by insinuating any warrior willing to train alongside women lacked a manhood.
Mikhail snorted in disgust. The Chief had made the request voluntary, not mandatory, and the warriors from surrounding villages were not due to arrive for a few more days. Still … they were his first command. He would train these women as best he could.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mikhail said, “we don't have the resources for a standing army. You'll have to train in addition to things you already do at home.”
A groan went through the group, but he knew the candidates had already been apprised of this fact.
“However,” he said. “Many of us have the same duties every day. We all draw water from the river to water our crops. We all go into our fields and rake out the weeds so our crops don't get strangled out. These activities, if done mindfully, can help you build strength to draw the bow or defend yourself against an enemy.”
“That never occurred to me,” one of the young women said.
“It has for me,” the old man said. Mikhail recalled the man's name was Behnam. “You don't get to be my age and not figure out a few shortcuts.”
Mikhail pulled out one of the crude bows he'd fashioned earlier and some hastily assembled arrows. The workmanship was nothing to brag about, but they would suffice until he'd a chance to fashion some more.
“Halifian insurgents have been raiding villages up and down the river and kidnapping young women,” Mikhail said. “They can get away with it because they have these." He held it up so the trainees could see. "With one of these, a warrior can shoot at you from hundreds of paces away and never get close enough for you to strike back.”
A nervous murmur went through the troop. There was a good reason, he suspected, why the volunteers skewed towards females. Women had a lot more to lose. This was the first time anyone had ever offered to formally train them. Although the Chief was pragmatic about not forbidding women to learn weaponry, he'd never actively encouraged it before now, either.
“This is how this weapon is used." He slipped an arrow onto the string and drew his bow. Taking aim, he let it fly towards a target set up 100 paces down the field. It hit nearly dead-center.
“Ooh!" A buzz of excitement went through the future archers.
“It will take time to build the upper body strength to wield this weapon.” He pulled another arrow from his quiver and let that one fly as well. “But once you master it, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female. Women tend to be better shots because they practice more.”
To accentuate his point, he strung two arrows simultaneously and let both fly. They landed within the inner circle, although not dead center the way he would have preferred. He surmised he’d had little practice with the weapon since the Cherubim masters had taught him to use it as a boy.
“Can this weapon also be used for hunting?” Behnam asked.
Mikhail paused. Although he had no recollection of ever using the Cherubim weapon thus, why hadn't he remembered the primitive weapon, and its possibilities to put food on the table earlier? Gods only knew he was a decent enough shot. All this time he'd been a drain on Immanu's resources when he'd possessed the means to provide all along.
“Yes,” Mikhail said. “You can shoot game before it has a chance to sense your approach." He gave Immanu an apologetic look, hoping his future father-in-law didn't have the same shameful thought that he did. "Immanu … if you would, please?”
In rapid succession, Immanu threw three weighted balls of straw into the air. Reaching into his quiver in rapid succession, Mikhail grabbed each arrow, strung the bow, and shot each bale down. The candidates murmured enthusiastically.
“I could get me some serious roast duck with such a weapon,” Behnam said with a toothless grin.
“Or goose,” Immanu added. The two gave each other a look two males might give before placing a wager.
“Hunting sounds like excellent practice for the day you might need to defend yourself against an armed assailant,” Mikhail said. “Therefore, hunting is an after-class activity I encourage.”
He made a mental note to follow his own advice. He glanced at Behnam who eyed his bow with an eager, covetous eye, his toothless lips smacking as he doubtless imagined what it would be like to use such a weapon to hunt the elusive waterfowl who rarely came close enough to shore to catch. He would ask him, not Immanu, to teach him the best places to hunt.
“When will we get our own weapon?” one of the candidates asked, a curvy, dark-eyed beauty. She looked down at her feet, her cheeks pink with embarrassment.
“I'll loan you a bow for training today,” Mikhail said, “just to give you a feel for it. These ones belong to me, but if you want to have one of your own, you'll need to make it yourself.”
“We don't know how to make such weapons,” a slender girl said, barely at the threshold of being a woman.
“Every archer should know how to fashion their own bow and arrows from materials found in nature,” Mikhail said. “That way, if you're ever stranded, you'll be able to make a weapon to hunt and survive. You will learn how to make your own in the coming days. Until then, you need to take turns." He gestured to five more bows leaned up against a bush. "Line up … and take a bow.”
He'd feared a lack of bows would be a problem as he was only marginally practiced in building the weapon and it had taken him far longer to find suitable wood than he'd anticipated, but with so few candidates they would only need two groups. He hoped to get them into the scant underbrush to make their own bows before the trainees arrived from the other allied villages. The low turnout was not his problem. If the Chief was not willing to make the order mandatory, Mikhail wouldn't argue with him. The best way to win support for your own cause was to show your method worked under fire. Mikhail gestured for the first five candidates to line up.
“What's your name?” he asked the voluptuous young woman who had asked him a question earlier.
“Yadidatum,” a dimple appeared on one cheek. She looked down at the ground, blushing. “It means ‘one who listens.’"
“Pleased to meet you Yadidatum." He turned to the one, lone elderly man. “And I recall that you're called Behnam, right?”
“Yes,” the elderly man flashed a toothless grin. “It means ‘reputable.’”
“Pleased to meet you, Behnam." Mikhail moved down the line to a young woman who couldn't have been more than twelve years old. “And you, young lady. Who are you?”
“Pareesa,” the girl said with an enthusiastic grin that only the very young possess. “It means ‘fairy.’”
“Very good, little fairy.” Mikhail moved to speak to a woman with reddish streaks in her brown hair. “And you, Miss?”
“I'm called Orkedeh, after the flower,” the pretty thirty-something year old woman said. Her figure was that of a married woman with children.
“Glad to have you, Orkedeh,” he said to her. “And Immanu … my Ubaid father … who I'm sure you all know.”
The candidates buzzed around him like excited bees, eagerly grabbing the unfamiliar weapons and running their fingers along the sinew.
“Let's move closer to the target,” Mikhail said. “It's too far away for your first shot. But in two weeks you should be able to hit that target from here. This is how you string the bow.”
He demonstrated how to insert the sinew into the notches at either end, no easy task. The
candidates did so with determined expressions on their faces.
“Ouch!” Yadidatum exclaimed as the sinew slipped her grasp and thwacked her in the leg. “That hurt!"
Mikhail showed her how to push down on the wood of the bow, rather than pull up on the sinew, to get it strung. “Grip your bow like this … with your non-dominant hand. This is your aiming hand.”
The other candidates followed suit. Behind them, the second string of candidates waited their turn.
"Put your arm straight out, at a right angle to your body,” he explained. “If you don't hold your arm straight, you won't shoot straight."
He glanced over at Ninsianna, his internal radar always aware of her presence. Although trying to not play favorites, a smile escaped one corner of his mouth. Between visiting the flintknapper to teach him how to make arrowheads, the butcher to get sinew and feathers, and trips into the sparse underbrush to harvest wood, more than a week had been lost. He’d had no time to woo her in the manner Immanu said was their custom.
“Now, put three fingers on the string beneath the notch, like … this …” he demonstrated. "Be careful not to bend the fletching … the feathers … as you do. The fletching is what makes your arrow fly straight."
The candidates followed his example, except for young Pareesa, who plucked at the fletching with curious fingers.
"Are these your feathers, Mikhail?"
"No," Mikhail stated bluntly. He rustled his feathers with indignation and turned to the older archers. “Draw back your arm all the way to your cheek … like this. Your three fingers should line up along your chin.”
The archers complied, pulling back the sinew with eager awkwardness.
“Oops!" Pareesa's string slipped her fingers. Her arrow sprang out and onto the ground. She gave Mikhail a sheepish look, her brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Sorry.”
A flash of a memory, him making the exact same mistake the first time he'd taken up the bow, caused him to almost grin. Instead he schooled a serious expression and gave her the exact same words he recalled the Cherubim master had told to him.
“That will happen until you build up more strength in your fingers,” Mikhail said. “For now, just hold on as best you can … and don't aim towards anyone you don't want to hit."
He turned to the larger group. “It will take a few weeks to build the upper body strength to draw the bow. Don't get discouraged if, at first, you can’t hit the target.”
He walked behind his trainees, correcting their stances, as they held their bows drawn ready to shoot. Every one of these trainees, including the youngest, drew their bows with serious intent. He made them hold it until their arms began to shudder with the effort of holding the ready position.
“Very good,” he said. “Now … look down the string along the arrow and line it up with your target. Where you look, that's the direction your arrow will shoot … and … ready … aim …. shoot!”
The candidates let fly the arrows. Yadidatum’s shot hit the ground a few feet in front of her. Pareesa hit the target, but it bounced off without sticking. Behnam hit the straw beneath the target and it stuck in … not bad for an elderly man. Orkedah and Immanu both made it approximately three-quarters of the way.
“Not bad for a first try,” Mikhail nodded approval. “Yadidatum … don't close your eyes when you release your arrow. That's why it fell flat. Immanu, Orkedah, not bad. We'll work on building strength and control in your upper body so you can get more distance. Pareesa, Behnam, nice job. Excellent for a first shot.”
The candidates congratulated and slapped each other on the back. Up next was Alalah ‘to sprinkle’, a middle-aged woman in her forties; Gisou ‘flower’, a young girl around 17 or 18; Homa ‘phoenix’, a short, sturdily built young woman around 20, and Kiana ‘nature’, a mid-thirtyish woman with long brown hair that reached below her backside. And of course, Ninsianna. Mikhail coached them how to shoot, with similar results. Alalah, the oldest, hit the target on the first try, though by no means a bullseye.
“Nice shot, Alalah,” Mikhail complemented her. “Switch! We'll keep switching back and forth until you all get the feel for the bow.”
The candidates took turns shooting over the next two hours. Towards the end, his archers-in-training began to cheer and joke. Camaraderie was important for warriors who might someday need to support each other in a battle situation. Satisfied they were on the correct track, he switched to something different.
“Now it's time to do some strength training,“ he said. “Did everybody bring their buckets?”
The candidates brought two buckets as requested. Mikhail demonstrated how to fill them with water and lift them various ways to build upper body strength. The young women twittered and giggled as he demonstrated each position. The elderly man vigorously lifted his two buckets with all of his might.
“Behnam,” Mikhail said. “It's not a competition…”
“I can’t let the young ladies get the better of me,” Behnam flashed his toothless grin. “A man's got to have his pride!”
Mikhail suppressed a grin. Although he couldn't remember what he'd done back in … wherever … it was that he'd come from, he was having a good time. Teaching seemed to come a lot more naturally to him than milking the goat. He had the candidates lift the buckets in an exercise designed to build up the pectoral, back and triceps muscles.
“My arms are about to fall off,” Homa complained.
“Do you think this will make my boobs look bigger,” Gisou asked. She turned pink with mortification when she realized everyone had heard her.
“I don't get it,” Yadidatum complained. "I keep getting water on my dress." The curvaceous young woman heaved the buckets upwards in a jerking motion and sloshed water everywhere.
“It might help if you imagine your arms are wings,” Mikhail demonstrated the proper form. “Like an eagle.
“Like your wings,” Pareesa giggled.
“I don't have hands on my wings,” Mikhail replied with a deadpan expression. “I have to lift my buckets of water with my arms the same as everybody else."
This response struck the young women as hilarious for a reason he could not grasp. Raphael used to think everything was funny like this…
Raphael? He stopped and tried to coax the memory out of his scrambled subconscious.
“Mikhail?" Ninsianna came up beside him. “Are you okay?”
His mind was in two places at once as flashes about going through basic training with his friend flitted through his mind and then disappeared. He grasped at the memories like a man grasping at fireflies, most of them escaping, but a few of them ending up in a jar.
“Mikhail,” Ninsianna said. “They're waiting for you to finish the lesson.”
“Oh, sorry,” he came back to the present moment. “I just had … I was thinking … about a friend of mine.”
“Another memory?”
“Yes … a good one.”
He glanced down at Ninsianna and what little concentration he had still possessed after the flash of memories disappeared in a puff of longing. What was it he'd been doing again?
“Buckets … water … upper body strength … draw the bow,” Ninsianna prompted, getting his mind back on track.
“Oh, uh, yes," he said. "From now on, ladies and gentlemen, every time you go down to the river to get water, I want you to do these exercises. Not only will you build upper body strength, but you'll also get your daily chores done." He gestured towards the village perched above them on the cliff, indicating they were dismissed. "I will see you all here at the exact same time tomorrow.”
Immanu gathered the bows and gave Mikhail a knowing nod before excusing himself. They were alone at last. Mikhail turned to Ninsianna, nervous about how to proceed now that he wouldn't be breaking any promises.
“Ninsianna,” he asked. “Would you like me to show you how to shoot some more?”
She absent-mindedly looked down the field at the target, wearing that dreamy expression she o
ften wore when half of her mind was here, and the other was off in a daydream, talking to She-who-is. “Okay.”
“Hold your bow the way I showed you." He stood behind her to help her aim, relishing the close proximity of his body to hers. She held the bow just a little too low, aimed just short of the target. He ran his fingers along the underside of her forearm to nudge it up into the correct 90 degree angle.
“Like this?” she asked.
“Mmm…hmm…” He held his left hand in place, just barely touching the underside of her wrist to encourage her to maintain the correct form. With his right, he reached around to touch her drawing hand, his hand lingering on hers.
“Now slowly draw back the string with your other hand,” he murmured in her ear.
He thanked the goddess it wasn't him taking the shot right now, because his heart raced so fast he swore he would have missed it! Ninsianna rattled his concentration more than the most terrifying battle situation. All he could think about right now was the light scent of soap root that lingered in her hair. Flaring his wings to block any wind that might throw off her aim, he helped her pull her drawing arm back that last little bit.
“Like this?” Ninsianna asked. Squinting down the shaft, she aimed at the bullseye.
She leaned back so the length of her body nestled neatly into his. Heat radiated into his torso, along with a most pleasant tingling sensation. He was afraid to breathe. If he did, the moment would be broken and he would lose his chance to do what he'd wanted to do ever since the first time he'd laid eyes upon her.
“Your drawing fingers should come to your chin,” he murmured into her ear, realizing she was focused on getting the shot, not him. “Don't flinch as you release the string. Just loosen your fingers and the string will do the rest.”
Ninsianna took the shot and squealed, jumping with delight as she hit the bullseye. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, whacking him with the bow. Mikhail closed his eyes and took a deep breath, composing what he wished to say.
“Mikhail,” her golden eyes flashed with delight. “That was great. Thank you.”
The carefully rehearsed speech he'd been practicing all week flew out of his mind as he stared into her golden eyes. Tilting her chin up with one finger, he bent down and tasted the sensuous lips he'd been dreaming about kissing again. Some instinct caused him to curl his wings around their bodies so they were both enveloped in a feathery cocoon. Tangling her fingers in his hair, Ninsianna pressed into his body as she explored his mouth with her inquisitive tongue and moaned his name.
His manhood rose up to greet her, pressing insistently into her abdomen as she melted into him. Even without his memories, he knew no woman had ever instilled such desire. His heart beat faster, threatening to break his control, Cherubim training or not. He had no intention of making love to her until after they had completed the steps required by the customs of her people to mate. If he didn't draw back now, he wouldn't be able to.
“Ninsianna,” he shuddered. “We have to stop.”
“Mmm hmm….” she murmured, not stopping at all.
“Ninsianna,” he said. “If we don't stop now, I'll not be able to stop.”
“Mmmmm….” Her voice lilted upwards, more like a 'yummy sound' when you eat something delightful rather than the agreement the words were supposed to convey. She melted further into his body and slid her hands between his back and his wings. Oh, gods! What, was she trying to kill him with desire? She kissed down the side of his neck, causing his manhood become so hard he thought he might explode. Not now, not now! He fought to prevent himself from taking her right there in the middle of the field.
“Ninsianna … we can do this later!" He desperately tried to steer this encounter the way he'd intended for it to go. Not the way their mutual desire seemed to be herding them to rut in the middle of the field like howling, ravenous beasts.
“Later?" She moved her kiss down to the spot on his chest where she'd pulled out the steel rod. He felt as though his heart would leap right out of his ribcage into her dainty hand. Sliding her hands down his back to his buttocks, she tilted her pelvis into his as she sought his lips once more.
“A-af-after we ask your parents….” he stammered, barely caging the urge to rip off her shawl and mate with her on the spot.
She drew back and looked into his eyes, her lush, pink lips drawing into a moue.
“Ask my parents???" Her voice was pure innocence, as though the siren of three seconds ago had never existed.
“Ask your parents if we can marry?"
He held his breath, waiting for her answer.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Yes!” Ninsianna squealed the way she'd squealed after her near-perfect shot and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him until he was senseless.
Mate. Mate. She had agreed to become his mate. Oh, goddess! He would not survive another kiss!
He did what came naturally to all winged creatures when they are very, very happy. He flared his wings to their full wingspan and carried his squealing beloved up into the air. Beating his wings to gain height until he found an updraft, he leveled off in a lazy glide.
Ninsianna pressed along the length of his body, wrapping her legs around one of his in the position she knew would allow her the stability to kiss him mid-air.
“Tell me that you love me, Mikhail,” she kissed his neck.
“I love you more than life itself."
He drew her closer and kissed her until she was as breathless as he was.
Chapter 68
July - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Jamin
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One Page 73
