Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (73 page)

Worry creased
his brow.  Ninsianna reached up and smoothed it to reassure him she was fine.  
Mikhail kissed her hand, concern marring his beautiful, strong features.

“You must be
more careful when you ride the currents of the dreamtime,” Papa scolded her. 
“If you get lost, your body won't be able to take care of itself and you'll be
trapped in there forever.”

“But it was so
pleasant there,” Ninsianna said. 

She reached up
and touched Mikhail’s cheekbone, her fingers sliding down to caress the firm
line of his jaw.  The dreamtime had been so pleasant.  If not for the goddess'
sense of urgency about communicating the information about the white bishop, in
all honesty, she probably would have stayed there.

“I know,” Papa
said.  “You looked very content while your mind was gone.  Normally the teacher
would come in and drag their student back, but you went much further than I
have ever been able to go.  Usually a new student can't travel that far without
first drinking the sacred beverage.  I was not expecting it.”

“I would have
come back on my own, Papa,” Ninsianna said.  “Just not right away.  After I saw
the chess game, I found the information Mama wanted.  Mahtab should drink tea
twice per day with three leaves of the yellow foxglove in it.  It won't prolong
her life, but it will make her more comfortable while she is here.”

“That's one of
the correct treatments for a weak heart,” Needa nodded approval.  “Although I
would have preferred you didn't scare us to get that information.  I already
knew it.”

“Did you learn
it in the dreamtime, too?”

“No, child,”
Needa said.  “I learned it the hard way.  By apprenticing with the Gasur
village healer and memorizing it.  My gift is to diagnose, not to enter the
dreamtime.  Only your father can enter the dreamtime.”

“You can do
both,” Immanu said.  “But like me, sometimes you need a little help to find
your way back.  Next time, I'll teach you how to leave markers so you can find
your way out on your own without a caller.” 

Papa reached
out and grabbed Mama’s hand.  He smiled, and Mama smiled back.  She'd always
thought of her parents as, well,
parents.
  Not lovers the way she
thought of Mikhail.  Thinking back, though, their affection had always been
palpable.  Her father adored her mother, and she him.  She'd always taken her
parents relationship for granted the way children often do.  Now she'd a new
appreciation of their bond. 

Mikhail wore
that too-serious expression that he habitually donned, especially when he was
worried about her.  Watching.  Observing every detail.  Calculating it in his
mind and running a thousand different scenarios about how he could be prepared
to defend her against any threat.  His race had long ago abandoned the
dreamtime in favor of technology.  He would need time to acclimate to her
newfound abilities.

“I'll always
come back,” she reassured him, his flesh betraying the fear he would never
allow to show in his face.  “No matter how far I travel, Mikhail, I will always
come back for
you
.”

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

End-July  – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

Mikhail

It was a sorry
looking, hang-dog dead group of men who gathered for today's lesson.  Even
though it was after supper, the lengthening shadows did little to alleviate the
mid-summer heat.  Mikhail stood, wings flared, each feather fluffed out in the
vain hope of catching the non-existent breeze.  How was he supposed to motivate
men to give more than they'd already given to their fields, their trades, and
their families, when all that he, himself wanted to do was crawl under the
nearest canopy and take a nap?

"I'm glad to see
you all came back for more," he said.

The warriors grumbled
a half-hearted response.  By the way most leaned on their practice-staffs for
support, they wanted to dump a quick bucket of water on their fields and go
home for some rest.  Had they not gotten fresh reports of villages being
raided, he might have indulged that urge, but they couldn't afford to be
complacent.  Assur must learn to protect
itself.
  Not just depend upon
him
for a security blanket.

He tried to get the
men psyched up to put a little effort into their training.  ““I can’t hear
you!!!  What was that again?”

“Yes … Sir!"  The
response was only slightly more energetic than the first one.

“Good!”  He gave them
a crisp Alliance salute.  Most gave a halfway decent salute in return.  Not
perfect.  They still had a tendency to poke themselves in the eye with their
thumb, but they were getting better. 

"When will we get
to actually hit one another?"  Firouz grabbed his buddy Dadbeh and
pretended to punch him in the face. 

"I think we've
got the marching part down," Dadbeh shook off his friend and did his best
impersonation of a mock march.  "One-two-three-four, what I need is a
drunken whore!"

The other warriors
began to laugh, which happened a lot when those two got warmed up with their
antics.  He'd tried separating them, but somehow they always ended up back at
one another's side.  With the heat sapping their vitality, he'd finally decided
to just let the two play off of one another and provide a little comic relief. 
Although his memories of Raphael were few and far between, he could recall the
good-natured Angelic playing pranks on him to get him to lighten up.

"It has been two
weeks of march, march, march!" Firouz complained.  "We want to get to
the good part."

"Yeah, the good
part!"  Numerous other warriors chimed in.

"And which part
would that be?"  Mikhail rustled his feathers.

"You know,"
Dadbeh said.  "The part where your eyes glow blue and you take on
seventeen men at once with your pinkie finger."

"I'm teaching
you
to fight the exact same way the Eternal Emperor taught
me." 
Mikhail
suppressed his irritability, which he knew was made worse by the heat.

"These don't
look
like firesticks."  Dadbeh held out his spear.  "Just stick one of
those
in our hands, and we won't
need
to march back and forth to
the river carrying buckets of water!"

"We must work
with the tools She-who-is had given us."  Mikhail turned to face the
larger group.  "Before I start pulling men out for elite training, you
must first learn to fight
together,
as one unit.  That way, no matter
who
you end up fighting beside, you know you can rely on them to watch  your
back."

"But we
already
work well together!"  Firouz slapped his arms around Dadbeh's
shoulders, still trying to garner attention for himself.  "We share
everything.  Even the same women."

"And what will
happen when you don't
have your best friend watching your back?"
Mikhail pressed his wings tightly against his back.  "Then what?  I notice
you two don't fight so well when you're paired with somebody else.  Who will
you rely on then?"

The young men didn't
have an answer to that question.  Of course they didn't!  Until now, groups of friends
had practiced whatever skills sparked their interest, not the more boring, but
necessary, parts which made the coordination of massive armies possible. 
Mikhail refocused the group's attention back on today's lesson.

“Yesterday we
discussed how to incorporate additional strength-training exercises into your
daily routine,” he said, “so that you build up the muscles to do the training
I'm about to teach you.  Does anybody have any questions?”

“Yes, Sir,” one
villager asked. 

“Ebad, correct?”
Mikhail asked.  “What is your question?”  Ebad was an enthusiastic, if awkward
student.

“My family is potters,
Sir, not farmers,” Ebad said.  “We only have a small garden to haul water to. 
What should I be doing instead?”

“See me after class,”
Mikhail said.  “We’ll work something out.  Buckets of clay, perhaps?”

While he'd been
addressing the men, Homa had jogged up and waited patiently for him to finish. 
Although their training had never been as formal as the military skills he was
attempting to instill into the larger group, his archers instinctively
understood that they were the example to which the newer warriors should aspire
to … and acted accordingly.  With much formality, he turned to address her.

"Yes?"

"Behnam said
fourteen more archers showed up for training today," Homa said.  "All
women with small children.  They can only stay until the sitter summons them to
go home.  Should he allow them to join the group?"

"What is their
reason for the half-lesson?" Mikhail asked.  Yalda and Zhila had put out a
call to the elderly citizens of the village to offer to watch young children so
their mothers could train.  As far as he knew, the elders had been willing to
take up the slack.

"All of them are
nursing mothers," Homa said.  "When the baby cries, they need to go
feed them.  Behnam wants to know how
your
people usually solve this
problem?"

There were
some
memories that lurked just beneath the surface, like when he tried to remember
things he did in basic training with Raphael.  Usually if he started doing the
training exercise he could only vaguely recall, it would shake loose fragments
like dates from a shaken date palm.  The memories were ethereal things.  Quick
glimpses of faces or bits of conversation, but try as he might, nothing could
shake free memories of how his own people reared their young.  You would have
thought he'd never seen a baby before!

"I can't
remember," he said.  "Tell him to accommodate them as best he can. 
That's the age group the kidnappers seem to be targeting the most."

"Yes, sir!"
Homa said.  With a crisp salute, her eyes darted to the men with a proud
'see
… this is how it's done'
look.  Her military protocol would have been
perfect had she not stopped to give Pareesa a high-five.  

 “Yesterday we learned
how to do basic blocks and hits,” Mikhail said.  “Today we'll practice these
skills on one another.  Did everybody bring rags to wrap around your hands?”

“Yes, Sir!"

“I forgot,” a few
said.

“In battle, as in
life,” he said, “if you come unprepared, you will be at a disadvantage.  It's
important to learn this lesson now, sparring with your neighbors, instead of
later, at the end of a Halifian spear.  Therefore, those of you who forgot your
hand rags will fight one another.  When you get hit, it's going to hurt.”

Mikhail ignored the
grumbles and showed those who didn't already know how to wrap a strip of rag
around each hand so that they wouldn't be punching with bare knuckles.  Earlier
in the week he'd taught them to do basic kicks, punches and blocks against an
imaginary opponent.  Today would be the first time they fought one another. 

“Find a sparring
partner and pair off,” Mikhail ordered.  “Do we have anybody who doesn't have a
partner?”

“I don't have a
partner!” Pareesa shouted.

“And why is it, little
fairy, that you never seem to be able to find a partner?”  Mikhail donned a
mock-serious expression.  Pareesa had always been an enthusiastic learner, but
ever since she'd been captured, she pursued combat skills with a vengeance.    

“They're all afraid,”
she bragged, putting her hands on her hips and tossing her head like a
prizefighter.

“Afraid?” he asked. 
“Of who?”

“Actually … you…” she
leaned in and whispered.  “Taking
you
on scares them worse than anything
–
I-
could ever do to them.”

“You're not afraid
because you know I hold my punches,” he said.  He then said louder, “all right
everyone, I'll demonstrate with Pareesa, and then you'll all spar with one
another for the next two hours while I go around looking for bad habits.  Pareesa
… ready stance!”