Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (80 page)

He paused outside her
door to straighten his collar and a few errant feathers and then knocked.  The
moment he stepped in the door, he could see how frazzled she appeared. 
Although Uriel was not quite crawling yet, his son had recently mastered the
art of belly-wiggling.  The little imp was pulling on the wires which connected
his mother's electronics, gurgling and cooing contentedly as he risked pulling
the equipment down upon his head.   Curled up fast asleep at his side was the
gourock water-dragon, Uriel’s second-favorite form of entertainment.  His
first
most-favorite form of entertainment was distracting his mother.  Jophiel
was trying to process some status reports on Sata’an incursions and Uriel was
not helping her concentration.

 “Reporting for duty
as requested, Sir!”  He gave her a
crisp
salute.  She
was
still, after all, his commanding officer. 

Her genuinely relieved
smile as she looked up and made eye contact took his breath away.  Whoever had
accused the unflappable Supreme Commander-General of icy emotionlessness had
never seen her like
this.
  Warrior queen.  Mother of his only child. 
Breathtaking.

“I am hereby ordering
you to take YOUR son and get him out of my hair!!!” she laughed.  “He's getting
into everything!”

“MY son?" 
Raphael's brow wrinkled in mock indignation, but the dimple gave away his
mirth.

“Yes …”  She gave him
a smile that made his heart skip a beat.  “When he misbehaves, he is YOUR son.”

“Yes, Sir!!!”  He
saluted before grabbing the wiggly five-month-old and swooshed him around in a
circle.  “Hey, little guy, Daddy’s here.” 

Uriel cooed and
reached for Raphael’s wings, causing a malodorous air to waft up to his
sensitive nose. 

“Whew!!!  Little buddy
… you need a diaper change!”

“He’s all yours…”
Jophiel laughed.  “Dismissed!  Both of you!  That’s an order … and oh … take
that
with you as well.”  She pointed towards the dog-sized gourock, which had popped
up like a jack-in-the-box the moment Raphael had come into the room and gotten
entangled in the wires with its flat, paddle-like tail.

“Yes, Sir!”  Raphael
held up their son's tiny fist to make a mock salute before scooping up the
gourock with his other arm and heading out the door.  “Let’s go see about that
diaper…..”

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

August - 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Jamin

He'd waited for them
for more than an hour and not
one
of them had shown up for practice.  It
was bad enough their time to perfect their
real
combat skills had been
whittled down to nothing thanks to his father's order to march around carrying
buckets of water, but now they hadn't bothered to show up at all?  How could
they care so little about the village defenses!  He moved through the village
like a sandstorm, his blood boiling when he found Siamek and the others in the
date-palm orchard, surrounded by giggling girls and a bunch of kids shooting
sticks at trees. 

“You train with
children  now?”

“Give it a rest,”
Siamek said, the offending bow in his hand.  “We're here because your father
ordered
us to be here.”

Alalah had been placed
in charge of all new archer training.  She stepped between him and his warriors,
bold as no woman would have
dared
speak to him before the winged demon
had fallen from the sky and turned everything in this village onto its head. 

“
You
should try
training for a change!” Alalah waggled her finger in his face as though he were
a little boy.  " How can we defend this village if you undermine
everything your father tries to do?"

"Fools!" 
Jamin whirled to Siamek and hissed, "don't you understand he makes you do
this to
humiliate
you?  I wouldn't get caught
dead
practicing a
girly weapon with a bunch of little kids!” 

“You
will
get
caught dead one of these days, young man," Alalah said, "if you don't
start paying attention to what's going on around you!  By a Halifian arrow!”

Not.   Likely.  But
they
didn't know he'd crawled back to the Halifian leader and made some headway
figuring out where the kidnapped women were being taken.  The fairy tales the
Halifians told about lizard-demons were hard to believe, but
somebody
offered bags of gold to purchase slaves, an unheard of price for a commodity as
cheaply and easily obtained as snatching some hapless young woman.  He reached
into his pocket and touched the tiny nugget he'd traded for as tangible proof
to show his father.  The Halifians had told him the Amorites were paying them
to collect the best and brightest from each village. 

Rumor had it the
end-buyer was Mikhail’s own people, but instead of simply taking Ninsianna and
disappearing as had happened in the other villages, for some reason the winged
demon had stuck around.  Why?  He hadn't figured that part out yet.  But when
he did, he needed
warriors
ready to stand at his back
so they
could kill them!  Warriors who knew how to use a
real
weapon.  Not these
silly little sticks!

“
This
is a
man’s weapon!”  Jamin proudly hefted his spear above his head, the best his
father's money had been able to buy.  Perfectly weighted, the obsidian
spearhead was sharp enough to pierce the heart of a lion, unlike the more
mundane flint ones the other warriors used.

Pareesa wrinkled her
nose and pantomimed speaking the words he'd just said, rolling her eyes and
crossing them as she mocked him.  That ever-present anger which had been
seething just beneath the surface since the day Ninsianna had run up to the
stranger and embraced them bubbled to the surface.  It was time for him to take
back control of his own village!  He aimed the spear inches from the little
snit's foot and hurled it into the ground.  The spear stood there, quivering
with unspent energy, his message clear.

“Foot!” Pareesa
called.  In one seamless move, she reached into her quiver, strung her bow, and
let an arrow fly.  It landed in the ground against the edge of his footwear. 
Tit.  For tat.

“Goddamn you, girl!”
Jamin bellowed.  “I’ll teach you your place!” He’d had enough.  He wouldn't put
up with this goat dung anymore, no matter
what
his father said.  He
lurched towards her, intending to wipe the smirk off her face. 

“Hand!”  Pareesa reached
into her quiver in a move so fast it was barely visible and let fly a second
arrow. 

Some portion of his
mind noted the twang of the bowstring
after
pain registered in the hand
he’d been about to use to strike her.  He shrieked, holding it as he stared
with disbelief at the arrow shot through his palm.  Sniggering rippled through
the children standing at her back, egging her on.  Pareesa had just shot him?

“Bitch!!!” He yanked
his spear out of the ground and swung it up to thwack her off the side of her
head, ignoring the stab of pain which streaked up his other arm.  He'd survived
worse
wounds than the insignificant toy sticks!

“Heart!”  Pareesa
grabbed a third arrow and drew her bow, aiming straight for his heart.  Her
eyes took on an icy stare that was familiar. 

“Jamin … stop!” 
Siamek jumped between them, knocking the spear out of his hand before he had a
chance to strike her, pushing him back.  “Please … just … stop!”  Siamek's eyes
were wild and fearful, although who he feared was not clear.

Pareesa stood as cold
and emotionless as the mentor she now mimicked, bow drawn, so closely
resembling the winged demon it was all Jamin could don't to imagine she'd
wings.

“
Ichi-ho chikazuku, anata ga shinde, jakkasute
iru
!
”
Pareesa clicked in the Cherubim
language. 

Jamin froze.  Her eyes
didn't flash blue, but he knew she was one of them now.  An enemy.  Hiding in
their midst.  Possessed by demons.  She even spoke their language.

“Pareesa is our best
archer,” Alalah said coldly.  “Second only to Mikhail himself.  I will not
tolerate this kind of behavior, and neither will the Chief!  Now go home and
take care of that hand!”

Jamin slunk home
holding his hand, the arrow sticking through it for the whole village to see. 
No one dared say a word to him about it.  Not even that pesky little voice that
had taken up residence in his brain. 

He didn't care
how
long it took.  He was going to kill her…

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

August – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Assur Village

Shahla

The people of the
river bathed at least once per day, twice when the heat became oppressive. 
Today was one of those days' people got their chores done by mid-morning so
they could wallow in the current during the apex of the sun.   Shahla usually
bathed where the warriors could admire her curvaceous figure as she emerged
from the sacred waters like a nymph and stretched out her shawl to lay supine
in the hot Mesopotamian sun, the water glistening off her pert nipples for all
to admire, but today she'd sought refuge upriver so the others wouldn't see her
bruises.

She put her head down
in Gita’s lap, weeping.  The others made fun of her for dragging her peculiar
sidekick everywhere she went, but they didn't understand.  Shahla closed her
eyes and listened to her best friend sing.  A dull-feathered nightingale whose
beautiful song was both a lament … and a beacon which could illuminate the
darkest night.

“You shouldn't allow
him to treat you like this,” Gita said as soon as she finished her song,
pulling the comb through Shahla’s long hair.  She touched the red mark on
Shahla’s cheek where Jamin had slapped her.

“You’re one to talk,”
Shahla said through her tears.  “Your father beats the crap out of you.”

“At least I have
enough sense to avoid him,” Gita said.

“It's not his fault,”
Shahla sobbed.  “He asked me to help him bandage up his hand and I told him he
shouldn't have tried to hit Pareesa.”

“Ever since Ninsianna
dumped him,” Gita said, “Jamin has been spiraling out of control.  His temper
has always been volatile, but not like this.  You should stay away from him
until he gets his emotions back under control.”

“You'd think you
wanted to see him back with Ninsianna!” Shahla snapped, sitting up and yanking
the brush out of her friend's hand.  “Instead of
me!
  Your best friend!”

Gita remained silent,
her dark eyes looking through her with a bottomless black stare.  A spider. 
Waiting for the tremor of a fly caught in the periphery of her web.  Shahla
shivered.

“Dadbeh loves you,”
Gita said softly.  “Even if he is too ashamed to admit it to his friends. 
Jamin has nothing in him but hatred right now.”