Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (68 page)

His eyes met
Glicki's green-gold compound ones.  Glicki nodded.  She knew what he needed to
do, and she agreed.

"We complete
the mission."

Tucking Glicki into
a low point in the dirt with a tourniquet around her wounded leg, he covered
her with brush, and then signaled his remaining team to fan out through the
underbrush.  It was time to hunt.  Clicking the Cherubim meditations for
stalking prey, he pressed his wings against his back and crept up behind a
squadron of lizard-people trailing a rumbling tank.  His team was vastly
outnumbered.  He was about to even those odds.  It was not to his pulse-rifle
he looked to now, but a silent one.  His knife.  He crept up on the first
lagging lizard soldier, the man's tail bobbing from side-to-side with a bayonet
strapped to his tail.  With sharp claws on both their hands and feet, as well
as their fangs, Shay'tan had bred them to do their best fighting up close and
personal.

Just the way the
Cherubim had taught -him- to fight…

Clutching his knife
in his hand, Mikhail crept up silently behind him and slit his throat.

Mikhail's eyes shot
open.  He sat up, his wings slamming against the wall as he reached for the
knife he could almost
feel
in his hand and came up empty handed.  He
hyperventilated until he recognized he'd fallen back asleep in Ninsianna's
room.  Downstairs, the drone of voices reassured him everything was fine.  A
dream.  It was only a dream.

The lizard people! 
The Sata’an must be the demons Ninsianna foresaw invading her homeworld, but
with so many memories missing he couldn't understand their motivation.  He must
prepare his adopted people for the battle to come.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

July – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Ninsianna

"Now we shall
offer the dead a drink of water," Papa said.  "So they do not grow
thirsty on their journey into the dreamtime.  Ninsianna?  Will you do the
honors?" 

Papa handed her the
ceremonial water bowl.  She received some odd glances from villagers surprised
to see a woman openly aiding the shaman in the recitation of the magic, not
simply in the support capacity she'd always performed in the past, but none
dared speak against her or accuse her of being a sorceress.  These were
peculiar times and word had gotten around that she was the Chosen of
She-who-is.

"May you never
know hunger or thirst again," Ninsianna chanted in a sing-song voice. 
"And may the goddess always grant your spirit pleasant dreams."  She
poured the first bowlful onto the head of the cairn marking the grave, then
moved on to the next one to repeat the ceremony until she got to the seventh
one.  Chills ran up her spine as she
felt
the dead touch her. 
Revulsion.  Their hands were wispy and insubstantial.  Somebody with unresolved
issues, pleading with her to give them a voice. 

Although she could
sense the disruption they made in the flow of the dreamtime by lingering here,
she'd never been able to understand what they asked.  She'd always
hated
death
rituals for this reason.  Despite all of her talents, she'd never been able to
communicate with the dead.

"Papa?"  Her
voice came out as a fearful squeak.

"It's just
Ashusikildigir," Papa whispered.  "Worried who will take care of her
children.  You must ask someone to step forward and swear the death oath that
they'll care for them, and then she will cross over."

Ashusikildigir had
been unfortunate enough to live in one of the newer houses built outside outer
ring.  They had gathered the archers and banged upon the doors to rally the
warriors, but by the time they'd gotten to the gates, the Halifians had already
raided the houses built outside their village.  While privacy was nice, it was
also an open invitation to raiders.  The Halifians had tried to kidnap
Ashusikildigar's two daughters.  She and her husband had died protecting them. 
The daughters stood now at their parents grave, sobbing.  One was eleven, the
other nine.

"Ashusikildigir
is trapped between the realms," Ninsianna held her hands aloft the way
she'd seen Papa do many times.  "She may not enter the dreamtime until
someone steps forward and swears the death-oath to finish raising her
children.  Let us pray for guidance so that Ashusikildigir doesn't haunt our
village."

She waited.  The only
reason the dead woman's spirit lingered was because she was not confident her
extended family would care for them.  In a land that required hard work to
survive and was prone to periodic famine, few families were eager to step
forward and rear somebody else's children unless there was a hefty estate to go
along
with
that burden.  Sometimes, like now, the extended family needed
to be
shamed
into fulfilling their moral responsibilities.  She waited,
singing the song of guidance to She-who-is, waiting for the other villagers to
grow weary of the immediate family's cowardice and start hissing insults.

She glanced over to black
eyes staring out of a pale, gaunt face, owl-eyed at the sight of a woman
shaman, and felt a twinge of guilt.  She pushed the thought aside.  Uncle
Merariy was still alive.  Let Gita look to her
own
drunken father to
take care of her!

The villagers began to
hiss at the couple hiding at the back of the crowd.  "Shame on you!"

A young mother with
three small children hanging off of her, one still on the breast, stepped
forward, Ashusikildigir's sister.  Her husband stood far behind, an angry
expression upon his face.  It was obvious which one hoped to shirk their family
obligations.

"Do you swear
upon your sister's grave to give shelter to and raise her two daughters as
though they were your own?" Ninsianna recited the death oath.

Ashusikildigir's
sister gave her husband a fearful glance.  Ninsianna could see the angry red
light coming off of the man.  He had no intention of keeping
her
promise, and refused to swear it himself.  The girls would be turned out of
their house the first opportunity he got, potentially along with his
own
wife
and children.  That thread of energy she always felt from She-who-is grew
stronger, whispering how she could shame the wayward brother-in-law into
really
keeping his word.

"Wait a
moment," Ninsianna said.  She held up her hand.  Papa gave her an odd
look.  She put her hands across her eyes, using a trick she'd seen the other
shamans do on occasion when they wished to enhance what they were saying using
theatrics.  "I sense …"

She walked to stand in
front of the brother-in-law.  Her eyes glowed golden as she felt the call of
the goddess, inviting her to slip into that stream of consciousness just far
enough to receive
HER
wisdom.

"You borrowed
seed from Ashusikildigar's husband to plant your crops three years in a row,
and haven't repaid it."  Ninsianna felt as though she were a hyena moving
in for the kill.  Seed was expensive … and precious.  "The seed is part of
the girl's estate.  You must repay this debt immediately."

"But I'm
willing
to help raise them!" the brother-in-law protested.

"See that you
do," Ninsianna said.  "Or the Chief will demand recompense in the
form of all you own so that two innocents don't go hungry." 

It was well known
Chief Kiyan was a stickler about making people repay their debts.  Especially
when it left
him
holding the consequences in the form of two parentless
children.

"I will take the
death-oath as well," the brother-in-law shivered.

Ninsianna made the
brother-in-law swear first, and then the sister.  The death oath was legally
binding.  If either of them failed to follow through on it, the tribunal would
treat them the same way they treated any parent who abandoned their own child. 
The sister looked relieved.  The problem had never lay with her. 
Ashusikildigir's eldest daughter took the baby from her aunt and helped her
carry it. 

The goddess whispered
in the wind, so clearly that some of the villagers looked around at each other
as though
they
could hear it too and wished to see who had spoken: 
'This
man has lost my favor.  I shall
 
punish him and find a new provider for
the family.'

Ninsianna sensed the
dead touch her again, but this time it didn't have that ominous feel it had
always had in the past.  The dead had asked her for a solution to a problem,
and she had given it to them.  She was not helpless. 

The wind blew her
hair, whispering
'thank you'
as Ashusikildigir crossed over into the
dreamtime.  Resuming the ceremony of the dead, she finished offering water to
the remaining graves until all of the Assurians had been laid to rest.  Papa
took over and completed the death ceremonies for their own people.

The crowd broke up,
leaving only the warriors behind.  Mikhail stood at the back of the group, his
powerful wings pressed tightly against his back.  Jamin lingered on the
opposite side, as far away from the other warriors as he could get.  He'd
hesitated when the Chief had asked him to back up Mikhail and the other
warriors had all witnessed it.  Jamin was many things, but never before had she
seen him act like a coward.  More likely, he'd hesitated because he hoped the
Halifians would kill Mikhail. 

She could sense the
shift in energy away from Jamin now, even amongst his own warriors.  Whenever
the village was attacked, all petty disputes were to be suspended until the
village was safe.  What he'd done, or more precisely
failed
to do, had
cost him face.

"And now it is
time to bury our enemies," Papa said.  "These men attacked us without
provocation.  Kidnapping is an old Halifian trick.  They hoped to lure the best
warriors on a wild goose chase so we wouldn't be there when they attacked. 
Luckily, we
were
there.  But they have cost the lives of eleven of our
people, four of them civilians in their houses."

Papa lit the sacred
qat plant and moved to stand in front of the first grave, holding the
smoldering bundle of dried leaves above it to chase away the evil spirits.

"Although the
temptation is great to dishonor their bodies," Papa said.  "These men
have paid for their actions with their lives.  It's the law of She-who-is that
all who die shall enter the dreamtime so that their lifetime choices can be
made clear to them."  He paused until a mild grumbling which went through
the warriors ceased.  "It's not up to us to judge them, but
She-who-is."

With stiff solemnity,
Papa led the warriors through the death ceremonies for their enemies, far less
elaborate than what was done for their
own
people, but respectful
nonetheless.  The men of the village had worked for two days digging graves. 
Early this morning, Mikhail had disappeared from their house.  There was a
feather placed on the grave of each of the men he'd personally slain.  So many
dead.  So many feathers.

"Ninsianna?"
Papa asked.  He handed her the bowl of water.

Ninsianna poured a
bowlful of water onto each grave, repeated the water blessing aloud as she'd
done for their own dead, while silently praying that the enemy dead didn't come
asking for favors.  Luckily, they didn't.  When she reached the last grave, she
felt a familiar presence, asking permission to speak.  She'd done this once
before the day She-who-is had spoken through her to prevent Mikhail from
smiting Jamin.  She was not afraid.  With a smile, Ninsianna welcomed her
mentor and friend into her body to speak

“Today we honor our
enemies,” She-who-is-Ninsianna spoke with a voice that made the air vibrate
with energy.  “But a much darker time shall soon be upon you.  Darkness spreads
across the stars.  Ki's agent has failed.  The Evil One has seized his mortal
vessel and comes to claim your world."

A cloud appeared from nowhere,
blotting out the sun and momentarily casting a shadow across the enemy graves. 
A cold wind blew in the summer heat.  Ninsianna felt a tug, whispering for her
to move and stand in front of the group of enemy graves.  Power surged through
her veins as she felt the words bubble to her lips once more.