Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (63 page)

She watched her Papa
fight the attackers hand-to-hand with the other warriors from the ground.  He
got off a few good shots before the attackers got too close to effectively use
the weapon.  Both sides switched to more traditional methods of fighting. 
Hand-to-hand combat. 

Conversations she'd
listened to between Mikhail and her father about the need to fortify village
defenses came into her mind.  Through
his
eyes, she could now see all
the places he'd warned them they were weak!  The Halifians had breached the
walls of the outer ring of houses, the village's best defense.  Now inside the
wall, their warriors were being beaten back by the better trained Halifian
mercenaries, who had constant experience performing raids such as this.  Most
Assurians only had informal training to improve their performance during a
hunt.  With the exception of a few older warriors such as her father, who had
fought in long-ago wars, the younger men fought every-man-for-himself.  Even
the archers were only of limited use.  In such close quarters, it was difficult
to shoot the enemy without accidently shooting one of their own villagers.  She
didn't want to hit her own people. 

She wondered where
Mikhail had gone and if he had found Pareesa.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

July – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Outside Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

Mikhail

The cry of a small
animal, its sleep disturbed by a clumsy foot, betrayed their position.  The
last time they'd done battle, his wing had been broken.  It never occurred to
them to look up and see the avenging Angelic swoop down from the sky, sword
drawn, like a bird of prey.

Memory was not
necessary to do what his body had been trained to do since boyhood.  Muttering
the Cherubim meditations which separated his ability to think from his ability
to feel, he crouched, arms at his side in a ready stance to take them on from
whichever direction they came at him. 

The kidnappers had
bows, but he could almost
see
the subtle glow of their thoughts
preceding their actions, some part of his mind perceiving where they were aimed
before
the kidnapper's fingers finished drawing their bows.  He knocked
two arrows out of the air with his sword, but a third hit him in the wing.  It
hurt, but not enough to incapacitate him.  He filed the pain impulses away in
the back of his mind for processing later.  The only data which mattered was
how much the injury would affect his ability to fly.  Swinging his sword in an
invitation to bring it on, they hesitated, and then rushed at him all at once.

“Mikhail,” Pareesa
cried out.  “Look out!”

One came from behind. 
Some sixth sense felt the subtle touch of the fourth attacker's thoughts brush
against his back where he lunged with a spear, the man's intent preceding his
actions.  Mikhail spun and cut him down before Pareesa's words even had a
chance to register in his brain, his training causing him to slice backwards a
second time to pierce the kidnapper through the heart and guarantee he was
permanently out of the equation.  The Cherubim only killed when justified, but
when they did, they did so with terrifying efficiency.

Two more Halifians
rushed at him with spears.  Mikhail easily deflected the primitive weapons,
kicking one insurgent in the chest to knock him back into the second one.  He
used the kidnapper's own spear to skewer both through the abdomen as though
they were chunks of meat.  He felt no pity as they screamed and writhed, but
simply decapitated them.  The three unknown women tied up alongside Pareesa
sobbed in terror.

Several of the enemy
fired arrows, but he could see the intent to release the bowstring before they
actually did so.  Swinging his sword to create an arc, he knocked the arrows
out of the air.  One slipped past his sword and thudded into his shoulder, but
he ignored the pain.  Work.  Methodically.  Take out the biggest threat.  He
leaped after the bowman his ruthless calculations isolated as the best shot,
cutting him down with one swing of the sword.  He cut down a second who rushed
at him with an obsidian knife.  Mission.  Free Pareesa.  Even the odds.  He
picked up the knife and tossed it to her before turning to deal with the
remaining three kidnappers.

Snapping off the arrow
lodged in his shoulder, he put his sword back into its sheath and beckoned to
the remaining three in a universal gesture of ‘bring it on.’  They circled with
spears, figuring out their best angle of attack.  He could see the forward rush
of their energy before they even gave the signal.  The enemy shouted and rushed
at him simultaneously.  Grabbing the first one by the neck, he twisted the
man's head, snapping it.  The second he threw to the ground and pinned beneath
one foot, stomping his neck to crush his larynx. 

The third came at him
with a spear.  A ‘whoosh’ cut through the air before Mikhail had a chance to
take him out.  Pareesa appeared from the shadows, a Halifian bow in her hands
as she shot the last raider in the heart with his own arrow.

“That will teach you
to kidnap women!” Pareesa hissed at her dying assailant. 

She ran towards him
and stopped when she saw the unearthly blue glow of his eyes.  She was smart
enough to recognize that the ice-cold creature that had just saved her was a
very different version of her teacher than the one she'd gotten to know during
archery lessons.  Although very young, Pareesa was a natural warrior.  Right
now he was a weapon to be aimed.

“Mikhail …  I
overheard the leader say they were sending a larger band to attack Assur
tonight.  I'm okay.  You must go help Ninsianna!”

Without a word, he
sheathed his sword and leaped into the air, ignoring the arrow still stuck in
his wing or his wounds, racing through the sky to defend to the woman he loved.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

July – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Outside Assur

Ninsianna

A night owl. 

Ninsianna heard a
rustle of feathers as her love swooped down from the sky and landed in the
attackers midst, his sword already drawn.  As he'd done that night at his ship,
he cut down his assailants like a scythe harvesting wheat, ensuring with an
automatic backstab to the heart or quick decapitation that his attackers
wouldn't be getting back up.  Leaping into the air when necessary, not only did
his wings help him levitate before dropping down to strike again, but they also
provided him with two additional fighting limbs, blunt instruments, as though
they were clubs. 

The first time she'd
seen him thus, she had mistaken his efficiency for darkness seizing control of
his body, but now that she knew him, her goddess-enlightened eyes saw the
pattern to his moves, the smooth choreography of the beautiful killing dance,
the ice which ran through his veins as he separated that part of himself that
could feel from the part that could kill.  His sword sang with delight as it
swung through the air and made contact with human flesh.  Although his dance
was deadly, Ninsianna recognized from the blue light which streamed through his
body that he had turned himself into an instrument of
HER
will.

With Mikhail’s return,
new hope kindled in the defenders hearts.  The warriors rushed in to engage
their attackers once more, having enough sense to stay clear of Mikhail’s
arcing silver blade.  He stood head and shoulders above them all, a mighty oak
anchoring her people's resolve, urging them to stand together and fight as an
army instead of every man for himself.  Ninsianna released arrow after arrow,
signaling the archers to provide cover for the tide of Assurians who now teemed
forward, the mere sight of the demi-god fighting in their midst giving their
warriors heart.  Chief Kiyan sensed the shift and directed the flow to block
the attackers escape.

The enemy recognized
Mikhail was now the greater threat, not the defenders rushing at them with
spears.  Their leader shouted for his men to regroup and focus on the symbol of
Assurian hope, wings flapping as he reaped Halifian lives like stalks of grain.

The Chief had fought
enough battles in his lifetime that he recognized the shift in tactics away
from killing
him
to killing Mikhail.  The older warriors from his own
generation moved solidly behind the Chief, both following and protecting their
leader.  The Chief was still their secondary target.  There were too many
enemies surrounding him to come to Mikhail's aid.  The Chief turned to his son
who battled their enemies with no rhyme, reason, or heart.

"Jamin … provide
cover!"  The Chief pointed his spear towards Mikhail.  Siamek and the
younger warriors fell into line behind him, ready to follow the Chief's son
into the thick of battle.

Jamin took a step
towards Mikhail, turned into a golem
^[5]
once more, and froze…

Ninsianna could almost
see
the flashback that leaped into Jamin's mind.  Damn!  Not only was
Mikhail still exposed, but so now was the Chief!  Chief Kiyan witnessed his
son's hesitation and signaled Siamek to step forward and take over the task.. 
The Halifian mercenary the Chief had been battling moved forward to stab him
while he was occupied, stepping out of the cover provided by an Assurian
warrior who had been blocking Ninsianna's shot.  The pathway suddenly clear, she
drew her bow and let the arrow fly, shooting the Chief’s opponent in the
heart.  The Chief nodded appreciation and moved on to the next attacker.

With a shout, Siamek
led the younger generation of warriors to fight at Mikhail's side, smart enough
to stand out of his flight path as he hacked and whirled.  The young men were
disorganized, but with Mikhail moving methodically from the greatest threat to
the least talented opponent, their individual skills made up for the lack of
coherence.  Halifian taunts quickly turned into screams of the dying as the
tide of battle turned in favor of the Assurians and the enemy only sought to
escape.

Within minutes, it was
over.  Forty-five Halifians and eleven Assurians lay dead.  As one wounded
Halifian reached for his bow, Mikhail cut him down without as much as a
backwards glance.  Ninsianna and the others climbed down from the rooftops and
moved to help their wounded warriors.   The chief approached Mikhail to thank
him.

“I wouldn't do that if
I were you,” she warned.

“I was just going to
...” the Chief started to say.

“And once he has
calmed down, he will appreciate it,” she said, “but not now.  You haven't seen
him like this before.  I have.  Leave him be until the blood lust passes.”

Without a word Mikhail
took to the air, circling the village and keeping watch.  The villagers flooded
out to help the wounded and grieve for their dead.  Her father came up behind
her and put his hand upon her shoulder.

“You described it,”
Papa said.  “But I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself.  It's as though
the gods themselves act through him.  Now I understand why the old songs
describe his kind as the swords of the gods.”