Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (68 page)

December, 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Namhu

"If you don't go up to bed right now, young man," Mama shook her wooden spoon at him, "I'm going to assign
you
chamber pot duty for the entire week instead of Zakiti!"

Namhu glanced across the room at the aforementioned pesky little sister. At five years old, Zakiti had taken to acting as his shadow ever since Pareesa had grown too busy to look after her.

"But Namhu already…" Zakiti started to tattle.

"Shh!" Namhu gave her a dirty look.

Zakiti smirked, and then glanced over at the small bowl of dried dates he'd hidden underneath the fold of his shawl. Oh? So that's how it was going to be? Zakiti was blackmailing him into sharing? Namhu scowled, trying to intimidate her.

She shifted her cunning smirk to that darling little smile he found impossible to resist. Unlike Pareesa, who was a bossy know-it-all who forever told him to scram, Zakiti worshipped
him
the same way that his older sister worshipped Mikhail.

It was kind of nice being looked up to…

Oh. Alright! Namhu lifted up a single finger. One. One date in exchange for his sister’s silence.

Zakiti’s smile grew victorious as she held up three fingers. Three dates, not just one.

"What did you say, Zakiti?" Mama asked.

Zakiti glanced over towards the chamber pot, already half-full. In each family the youngest child was expected to empty the chamber pots as soon as they were big enough to carry them. If Zakiti tattled that
he’d
been relieving her of that duty and using the contents to decorate the front of the linen-trader’s house, Mama would
tan his backside with a belt.

Namhu held up three fingers and nodded. Three dates. He would acquiesce to his little sister’s blackmail.

Zakiti gave her mother a smile which was pure innocence. "Nothing, Mama. I was just saying how tired I am tonight."

"Alright then," Mama snapped. "To bed now. All of you!"

"How come Pareesa doesn't have to be home for bed?" Namhu said.

A frown of worry crossed Mama’s brow. Not only had Pareesa never come home to milk the goat, but she'd never shown up for supper, either. An inquiry amongst the warriors revealed she’d never gone to training. Pareesa had always done what she darned well pleased, but it wasn't like her to disappear, merely to argue about it until she got her way.

"Pareesa is doing something important for the Chief," Papa said. "Now go to bed. We don't have enough tallow to keep the lanterns burning until the wee hours like
some
people in this village!"

Behind Papa, Granny made a shooing motion with her hands. Yeah…  Namhu wasn't stupid. The adults wanted the common area to themselves. There was much to be concerned about and they still thought him too young to overhear their talk of the village defenses.

He paused for a drink at the bucket of water he'd drawn earlier from the well and passed the ladle around to his brothers and sisters. As he did, he slipped the dates out of his shawl and tucked them under his armpit so his Mama wouldn’t see them. He’d spent the afternoon at the flint-knapper's house helping him fletch arrows and drinking in the latest gossip about whether or not Mikhail would live.

The other warriors laughed at him whenever he shadowed them, but Rakshan, the flint-knapper, let him watch him knap arrowheads out of shale. Why, he even let Namhu keep any arrowheads that came out less than perfect! This afternoon, Rakshan had given him three almost-perfect arrows and the handful of dates for helping him clean up the workshop.

Namhu kept his arm pressed tight against his side as he climbed up the ladder one-handed.

"What's wrong with your arm?" Papa asked.

"He's pretending he's wounded like the chief," Zakiti chimed in.

"Oh?" Papa raised one eyebrow.

Zakiti winked at him. "Sure."

Namhu forced himself not to roll his eyes. For a five summer girl, Zakiti's gift with words was almost frightening.

He scurried up the stairs and ditched the dates underneath his sleeping pallet, quick, before Mama came up to kiss them all goodnight. If his parents saw he had them, they'd make him share them with all six of his brothers and sisters, his granny, and
them
. Zakiti wasn't helping him out of kindness, but to preserve her
own
share of the bounty.

Namhu crawled beneath his blanket and engaged in the usual elbowing and nudging of legs and elbows as he and his four brothers jammed into a single bed. Beside them, lucky Zakiti crawled into bed by herself. Their baby sister Gemeti was still too small to sleep with the bigger kids, and even when Pareesa
did
come home, she went to bed late. Granny slept with the girls, ostensibly because she was cold, but Namhu suspected it was really so their parents could -
do-
things to one another, icky, disgusting things that involved lots of grunting and funny noises in the dark.

He waited for his brothers to fall asleep so he could eat the dates, listening to his parents talk about the traitor and her friend, the one they couldn't kill because Mikhail thought she was Ninsianna. Granny and Papa thought they should just stone her to death like was rumored was done to her mother, but Mama was adamant that such a death would be barbaric. None of the adults agreed with Pareesa, who insisted that Gita was innocent of conspiring with Shahla to hurt Mikhail.

At last his brothers fell asleep. Namhu crawled silently out of the bed and pulled out the bag of dates and the three brand-new arrows Rakshan had given him today. Zakiti
always
wanted to hear him tell stories about what a good shot he was and how many squirrels he had taken.

"Zakiti?" Namhu whispered.

"I'm still awake," Zakiti whispered.

"Did I ever tell you that you're a pest?"

"Every single day."

"Well if you want them, you'd better eat them quick," Namhu said, "before Granny comes up to bed."

Downstairs the topic of conversation turned to Qishtea's abandonment of Assur and how the other tribes had all followed suit. Why was Nineveh so important anyways? Shouldn’t each village think for itself?

Zakiti grabbed her three dates and popped the first one into her mouth. Namhu did likewise, savoring the sweet, somewhat gritty burst of flavor onto his tongue. They ate in silence, the only sound the occasional groan of pleasure as brother and sister relished the forbidden treat.

He somewhat grudgingly split his last date and shared it with her without being asked. Zakiti was a devious little thing, but more than once she had covered his backside. He then pulled out his brand-new arrows and let her feel the arrowheads, explaining how
he
had personally chipped them out of slate and fashioned the fletching out of duck feathers.

Downstairs, a loud
crash
reverberated through the house.

Mama and Granny both screamed.

"What is the meaning of this?" Papa said.

"Where's Pareesa?"

"Get out of my house!" Papa said.

Downstairs there were loud crashes and screams. Papa shouted. Mama cried out in pain.

Zakiti's eyes grew large and frightened. Namhu grabbed his bow and strung the arrow he'd just been teaching his little sister how to measure and crept to the entrance of the stairwell.

"Answer the question, man, or we'll slit your woman's throat!"

"D-d-don't tell him anything," Mama's voice warbled.

Namhu peeked down the stairs at the three men wearing Uruk attire. One of them held Mama with a knife pressed against her throat. He strung his lone arrow into the bow. One arrow. Three men. He gestured for Zakiti to bring him the other two arrows.

"Answer me, man!" one of the Uruk shouted.

Zakiti fumbled under his bed, and then crept quietly towards him on her hands and knees, pausing when the floor creaked beneath her hands. Oh, please gods, let his little sister have enough common sense not to cry out and let the invaders know there were people sleeping upstairs.

Namhu stiffened his aiming arm and drew the bowstring all the way back to his ear. The man had Mama in front of him. To shoot him dead, he'd only have a matter of a finger's breadth.

The Uruk holding Mama looked up. He opened his mouth to shout as he spotted Namhu kneeled at the stairwell.

Namhu loosened his fingers and let the arrow fly.

The Uruk called out a warning.  Namhu's arrow slammed into his neck, cutting off his words.

Mama screamed as the knife pulled inwards to her throat.

Papa leaped towards the man with the knife.

Zakiti pressed the second arrow into his hand.

A second Uruk dove at Papa with his
own
knife aimed for Papa's chest.

Namhu pulled back the bowstring and let his second arrow fly, right into the second raider's heart.

Papa tackled the gurgling, neck-shot Uruk away from Mama. The two fought while Mama kicked him.

The third Uruk dove for Granny. Granny grabbed the nearly empty water bucket and swung it at the man's head. The man ducked. As he rose, Namhu strung his third arrow and let it fly.

His arrow hit the Uruk in the side. The man cried out in pain.

Granny kicked the man and then picked up the bucket again and bashed the man over the head with it.

Papa got the knife away from the man who held Mama by the throat and buried that knife in the man's chest. The man twitched for several moments, and then finally stopped moving. The man Granny hit with the bucket's face was smashed beyond all recognition. The second Uruk who had dove for Papa had died before he'd even hit the ground.

All three adult
's eyes turned to Namhu, kneeling in the stairwell, a now-empty bow in his hand.

"See!" Namhu shouted at them. "I
told
you I was old enough to go to warrior training! Mikhail said I was
big!
"

~ * ~ * ~

December, 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Jamin

Assur's central square was the only place big enough for all of the villagers to gather at once. All hours of the day people lingered here, but not tonight. Tonight, the only people in the square were doubled over in pain, clutching the buckets of the water which had been their downfall. An odd sense of satisfaction over their misery blended with remorse. These were
his
people. No! These people had cast him out after choosing the winged demon over
him
… and now he'd returned to make them pay.

Jamin stared at the temple of She-who-is, faithless goddess, the goddess who had turned against him the same way that Ninsianna had. An odd pang of apprehension settled into his gut. Once upon a time he'd sloughed off all talk of gods as nothing but wishful thinking, but then a winged demon had fallen from the sky and Ninsianna had started speaking in tongues. If She-who-is was real, would she smite him before he crossed the square?

Jamin squared his shoulders. If She-who-is was so all-seeing, then how come a man like Lucifer could snatch her
Chosen One
right out from under her nose? Were the gods all-powerful beings? Maybe. But the way Kasib explained it, the gods depended on mortals such as
him
to be their eyes and ears, their hands and feet and tongues.

"May Shay'tan shield me from the eyes of She-who-is," Jamin whispered. He clutched his long, black
trench coat
around him like a shield and crossed the square in the shadows, never once making eye contact with the carved statue of She-who-is.

He paused at the threshold to his father's house. Emotions warred within him, hot anger and a hatred so profound it made him want to punch something; all blended in with a feeling of longing. He lifted the door latch, some part of him disappointed that his father had not bolted it shut against this incursion. It slid open with a familiar scratch of wood dragging across the clay-tamped floor, a primitive door lashed together with leather bindings.