Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (125 page)

February: 3,389 BC

Earth: Zagros Mountains

Pareesa

It was the familiar tickle at the crown of her head that alerted Pareesa they were out of time.

"Hey, Pareesa?" Ebad asked. "Is that what I think it is?"

The potter's son pointed off in the distance, where a blinking red star moved closer to where they hauled up the hill.

Pareesa broke into a run. "Varshab! I think that's a sky canoe!"

The Chief's man turned and barked orders at the warriors under his
command. That included her, technically, although ever since the incident with Mikhail she'd been given great leeway to direct the actions of her B-team. While not a steep hill, the pathway wove up a rocky path, and there were many places the forty or so warriors had to walk single file or help one another up.

"Let me go to him," Pareesa begged Varshab.

"Mikhail was very explicit that it is your
aim
he wants on this mission," Varshab said. "Not your sword arm."

Pareesa gave a muffled curse and fell back into line. She
hated
being told what to do, especially when she was far faster and a better swordsman than any person here! She considered disobeying orders and running ahead anyways, but while that familiar tickle the old god always gave whenever he wanted her to pay attention urged her to hurry, the moment she tried to veer off the path, it left her mind scrambled and she stumbled and almost fell.

'Damantia,'
she muffled the Angelic curse-word. The old God of War wanted her to practice what she preached and act as a single military unit.

"C'mon! Move!" Pareesa shoved into the back of big old poky Ipquidad.

"What's your rush?" Ipquidad grumbled. "Mikhail said he'd fly back here if the situation on the ground changed."

"Pareesa just wants to be the boss," Yaggitt said. The wheelwright's son gave her a broad grin and winked at her.

"You know darned well Mikhail isn't going to wait for us if the opportunity presents itself to grab that sky canoe," Pareesa said.

Her entire B-team sped up, easily passing Varshab who ran at a steady, though slower pace, the speed of a middle-aged warrior and his men. The moment she tried to surpass him, that curious sensation of being disoriented blurred her vision again.

'Will you knock it off?' Pareesa cussed at the god of war. 'How am I supposed to get anything done with -you- slowing me down?"

If gods of war could laugh, she imagined he did so now. At last they crested the hill and began down the other side. The blinking red lights glided over to the place where the hill hit bottom and then started back up a second hill, in clear sight, but so very far away. Pareesa nearly tripped when the sky canoe lit up like ten thousand suns and the vessel split open like a cracked egg.

The God of War urged her to hurry, but he didn't want her getting ahead of her people. Whatever they were about to face, she sensed he wanted them to face it together, the way Mikhail had taught them.

The path widened into a grassy meadow. The entire group sped up as they hit the bottom of the hill and leaped over a babbling brook, not too high, but enough that water soaked into her pampooties. The wet leather squished uncomfortably as they began to climb again towards the staging area. At least it was flat here, with not a lot of rocks. Mikhail had explained their magical floating carpets could navigate small rocks, but not amongst larger ones without tipping their loads. It occurred to her that the lizard people must have come here prior to the attack to determine the best place to set up this staging area.

All of a sudden, the God of War urged her onwards, flooding her body with the strength she'd been begging him for the past league and a half of running.

"It's about time," Pareesa muttered.

Her sense of irritation disappeared as her emotions were supplanted by cold, cool logic. From the staging area in front of them, all lit up as if it was daylight between the bonfire and the light from the sky canoe, she heard an explosion that sounded like lightning when it hit a date palm.

"Move!" Varshab shouted at his men. "Get up there and help him! If we lose
this
sky canoe, the Chief will have our heads!"

That was all the urging Pareesa needed. She ran as fast as she could, no longer just
her
strength, but the added strength loaned to her by the Cherubim god. As she ran, she received images, reminding her it was her shooting arm Mikhail wanted and not for her to put herself in danger. Pareesa reached back and pulled the arrow from her quiver, almost tripping as she slid her bow over her head and shoved it in front of herself to string the arrow in a practiced movement.

"Ready your arrows!" Varshab shouted.

Pareesa only cared to shoot one thing … whoever was firing their pulse rifle at Mikhail. In the bonfire she caught the silhouette of a huge, dark wing. She took aim and pulled the arrow back to her chin, still running as her intuition told her which target to shoot at first. She paused just long enough to perfect her aim before releasing her fingers and allowing the arrow to fly. No sooner was it out of her bow than she reached back and grabbed another one.

The thwung-thwung-thwung of the other warriors' bows prompted her forward. Mikhail was down, but his wings flailed, so she knew he was still alive. She let fly her second arrow, hitting a lizard, and then let out a ululating war cry as she cast aside her bow and pulled her sword. This time, the god of war did not deter her. She rushed into the clearing where perhaps two dozen lizard demons had Mikhail pinned to the ground.

This time, it wasn't a firestick the lizard demons aimed at her, but a sword exactly like hers. A massive shape materialized in front of her, and a sharp, silver blade struck hers with the force of a charging auroch. Pareesa stepped back and cried out as the reverberation shook her to her bones. These weren't human mercenaries facing a weapon they had never seen before, but seasoned soldiers who knew how to use their weapons even better than she did.

The lizard-demon lunged at her, not with the awkward overhead thrust the Ubaid had practiced amongst themselves, but a clever down-then-side cut she remembered using against the Amorites. Pareesa leaped backwards as the sideswipe cut her shawl, but left the skin beneath unscathed. That eerie sense of
knowing
what someone intended to do before they actually did it enabled her to get out of the way just in time to avoid being smote.

An image leaped into her mind of hitting the lizard while his momentum was committed to the downswing. Pareesa slammed her sword into his kidney. The lizard fell. Without even waiting to see if the lizard was still alive, she rushed towards Mikhail and was heartened when she saw him get back on his feet.

He leaned forward like a stalking lion and sprinted towards the open door of the sky canoe.

It was then that she saw Jamin….

And he saw her…

With a malicious grin, the Chief's son pulled a lever to make the door of the sky canoe close shut like a crocodile's jaw closing around its supper, but not without first aiming another shot of his firestick at Mikhail!

They were too late! She ran towards the vessel, but a huge lizard man stumbled in front of her. She stabbed him with her sword and kept running past him, desperate to catch up with the sky canoe before it ascended back into the sky. It blew debris and dust into her face, causing her to choke. It took off, but a dark-winged blur sped off after it, chasing after it as it tried to escape.

"Go get it!" Pareesa cheered.

She stood for a moment, wishing she had hung onto her bow as the two specks of darkness disappeared into the starry sky, and then realized a battle of sorts still waged all around her. She heard human cries of pain, and inhuman ones that sounded more like snorts and growls. The warriors surrounded the clearing and pushed inward, their expressions hateful as they picked up fallen swords or simply aimed their bows or spears at the lizard demons and other creatures that had been abandoned by the sky canoe to die.

Varshab? Where was Varshab? She realized that was
him
lying on the ground in the center of the circle of enemies, along with several enemy dead and wounded. An enormous lizard bent over Varshab’s body, poking at a gash in his belly with its claws.

Pareesa stepped forward and pressed the point of her sword against the lizard demon's throat.

"Get away from him," she hissed.

The lizard blinked its enormous gold-green eyes at her as though it was surprised, and then it tasted the air with a long, forked tongue that looked remarkably like a serpent's tongue.

"Please don't hurt me," the lizard spoke in passably understandable Kemet, the language of trade. "My name is Doctor Peyman, and I am a
pabeeb,
what you would call a healer."

~ * ~ * ~

February: 3,389 BC

Earth: Mesopotamian Plain

Mikhail

He glided above the fertile fields searching for her, the ear-grasses grown high and the lush orchards of úlla and piorraí grown heavy with fruit. He fluttered down to the ground next to an elderly lizard-man bent over a lattice filled with curcurbit vines.

"Are you looking for your beartaithe, little master?" the old lizard asked.

"Have you seen her?" Mikhail asked.

The lizard-man laughed.

"You know the rules," the lizard man said. "The Abmáthair will banish me to shovel out the animal pens if I help you cheat. If you want to find her, you will have to find her on your own."

Mikhail trudged through the orchard, remembering the lessons his seanmháthair had taught him about how to find Amhrán no matter how well she hid. He closed his eyes and focused on his heart, how close she was and in what direction he could find her.

He looked straight up and found her fathomless black eyes staring down at him from the very tree he stood beneath.

Amhrán giggled.

Haah-ha-ha-haah! Haah-ha-hah-ha-hah-haah!

She spread her ebony wings and fluttered to the ground, clutching the awkward carved statue he had made for her as if it was the most beautiful gift in the world.

Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

Something tugged at his wings.

Mikhail groaned and opened his eyes, squinting into the sun.

Hah-ha-haah-ha-ha-hah-haah!

A spotted hyena squinted back at him, its dark muzzle and large, round ears tilted forward with curiosity. It tugged at his wings again.

He lurched upright and swatted at the creature.

"Hey! Get on out of here!"

The hyena ran to join its pack-mates, giving its laughing call that sounded to be a gathering of children but not for the fact the creatures were deadly scavengers. Hyenas tended to shy away from man, years of experience having taught them that most men carried a knife or spear, but a single man alone, and wounded, was easy prey for the opportunistic pack hunters. He stood up and flared his wings to show the creatures he would not make a willing meal.

The hyenas gave their laughing call, and then moved away, off to hunt for an easier meal.

Mikhail spread his wings and examined the spots where Jamin's pulse rifle had burned some of his long primary feathers. The man might have deadly aim when shooting at a stationary target, but lucky for him, Jamin couldn't hit a moving target worth a hill of goat dung.

He distinctly remembered the plasma from the pulse rifle had grazed him, but while his feathers were charred, his skin had scabbed over and brand-new pinfeathers were already beginning to emerge. His hand found its way to his chest which had just as miraculously healed. The dream had faded, but the song he had heard while he dreamed had not.

He remembered the tiny, carved statue in the dream, a primitive thing, one of the many objects in his crashed ship that had always evoked a deep emotional response, but without his memories, he couldn't remember why. Now that his memory had been partially restored, he still couldn't remember why he had saved it, but in the dream it had seemed to have significant meaning. Ninsianna had made fun of the tiny statue, so he had hidden it away, though at the time he couldn't remember why it had bothered him enough to do so.