Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (122 page)

“Without you," Varshab said, "all of this falls apart." He pointed to the top of the hill, where Pareesa's silhouette could be seen against the starlit sky. "Why don't you fly ahead? I have traveled this pathway before. When we get close, I shall let out a call like a startled jackal. That will be the signal to creep back and tell us conditions in the enemy staging area."

With a nod, Mikhail took to the air and circled around once, just to make sure no enemy crept up on his men the way that they intended to sneak up on the lizards, before making the short flight back to where he'd originally hidden.

The Sata'anic soldiers loitered around baskets and urns full of pilfered items, joking and slapping one another on the back as they rummaged through the spoils of war. An uncustomary sensation of anger percolated in Mikhail's gut and touched that dark hunger he hadn't felt since the day he'd woken up from the dead. As he watched, two blue-skinned Marid came out of the shadows, hauling something large and dead upon their burly, over-developed shoulders. Mikhail sniffed the air. Blood. A deer. He noted the two Sata'an-Marid soldiers carried spears.

Spears? Since when did the lizard people arm their men with spears? And hunt while on a scavenging mission?

He scanned the camp, searching for similar weapons. Yes. A pig-like Catoplebas also had a spear, while a lizard-soldier carried a bow and arrows. It was common for Shay'tan to order his armies to live off the land, but to do so with primitive weapons? That didn't make any sense.

A whistle in the distance warned him the shuttle was returning to pick up its final load. He counted the number of soldiers versus the number of baskets stolen from Gasur. By his estimate, if they packed the shuttle tightly, all of the men and loot would fit onto a single shuttle.

Mikhail glanced in the direction where he had left Varshab and their troops. According to his estimate, they would not be here for another twenty-five minutes. He turned back towards the ship, cursing the fact these attacks were unpredictable enough that they never knew what village the lizards would hit next. If his men didn't get here soon, they would miss this opportunity just like they had the others.

He flattened his wings against his back and crept closer, his earlier fatigue forgotten as his heart sped up and began to pump oxygen to his tissues, preparing him for what would come next, sprinting towards the shuttle and fighting his way in, disabling the guards, finding the door control, and disabling the pilots, all while in a weakened condition and far slower than he'd ever been.
Damantia!
The last time he'd pulled something off such as this he'd been in peak condition and damned near gotten himself killed. There were four times as many soldiers milling about between him and that ship, and unlike the last time, he didn't have a Special Forces unit backing him up.

He cursed no one in particular as basket after basket of grain was loaded onto the shuttle. It was already halfway loaded, and by his estimate Varshab wouldn't be here for another fifteen minutes.

He drew his sword and crept closer to the shuttle like a stalking lion, his wings stretched out behind him. In peak condition, he was an even match for a lizard soldier, more than a match when you added flight and the element of surprise, but only yesterday none other than Ebad had thrown him to the ground.

That dark hunger gnawed at him to do something so badly it caused his muscles to tremble, eager to spring into action at the slightest provocation.

A tall, dark shape caught his attention at the ramp. He wore Angelic combat fatigues and a Sata'anic trench coat, his face scraped clean of its beard and his hair cropped short into an Alliance crew cut. A cold, dead hunger settled into Mikhail's tissues and whispered the name of the man he wished to kill.

"Jamin."

Thought escaped him, for so badly did he want to kill the man that nothing else mattered, not the mission, not his own life, not even his quest to rescue Ninsianna, for this man had hurt him, had hunted him and tormented him and stolen from him everything he loved, and he intended to kill him, to carve out his heart and watch his face as the light faded from his eyes and he opened up his veins and watched the blood drain out and violate the soil as he hacked him to pieces again and again and again.

That dark hunger which had been with him for as long as he remembered whispered to him: 
'Get him. Go and get him, and make him tell you where he has taken your Chosen One…'

With a growl like a rabid animal, Mikhail sprinted towards him, half in-flight, half running, as he streaked past the lizard soldiers, oblivious and uncaring, his eye on the prize, on the only prize that mattered, getting even with the man who had taken his wife.

Jamin's eyes widened as he saw the dark-winged shape streaking towards him, and then he gave him a sadistic grin.

"Jamin!" Mikhail screamed, but his words came out an inhuman howl.

A spear was thrown past him. Somebody fired a pulse rifle. But it was as if Mikhail was in a long, dark tunnel, for the only thing he saw was the man who had taken away the woman he loved. His feathers flew as his wing pounded down on the pile of stolen grain and almost tripped on it, and then regained his flight and streaked once more towards his quarry. He meant to get him. He meant to get him and kill him.

Jamin laughed, and then reached down to his hip, a practiced move, a move which had been rehearsed many, many times. Out of a holster the Chief's son slid out a Sata'anic pulse rifle, long and black and bristling with an infra-red targeting scope.

Mikhail's wings pounded and he took fully to the air, an eagle diving towards a prey animal it meant to devour for supper.

The deadly red laser-beam slid up, aiming right at him, aiming to kill.

Mikhail banked his wings and rolled.

Jamin fired and missed.

Mikhail screamed his name.

Jamin fired again.

Pain burned into his wing as the pulse rifle caught him mid-flap and took out some of his long, primary feathers along with a chunk of flesh.

Jamin laughed.

Mikhail shrieked with frustration as the sudden loss of aerodynamic balance caused him to crash into two lizard soldiers who scurried into the shuttle with loaded baskets.

Mikhail slammed into the ground.

The two lizard soldiers drew their swords and pointed them at his throat.

"Drop it," the lizard said in the hissing Sata'anic language. "Drop the sword, or I will cut you down where you lay."

Mikhail let go of the hilt. They kicked it away from his hand.

Jamin stepped down the ramp, his combat boots clanking against the steel as he stepped towards him, wearing a victorious grin. He aimed the red dot of the laser-pointer straight at Mikhail's head.

"Where is she?" Mikhail hissed. He slid his hand down towards his pulse rifle, ready to use its single, lonely shot, but he was surrounded by the lizards, and they all had swords and pulse rifles aimed at him.

The Chief's son stared at him with a mixture of bemusement, naked hatred, and some other emotion that if Mikhail didn't know better, he might think was regret.

"I don’t have her anymore," Jamin said. His expression changed. He gave Mikhail an evil grin. "I made a gift of her. To your own Príomh-Aire."

It took a moment for it to register that Jamin had just spoken to him in Galactic Standard.

"My ... Príomh-Aire?" Mikhail recited like a dumb parrot.

"Yes," Jamin said in heavily accented Galactic Standard. "Your own god moves against you, for Lucifer himself came to collect your wife to be his own."

An odd sense of vertigo caused the lizards that surrounded him to suddenly dance and become blurry. The third ship Pareesa had described as belonging to the Evil One, slender and white, with a shape like a raptor and a great, bulbous eye on the underside which she had blinded with a spear. The white-winged Angelic, more beautiful on the outside than even him. No! It could not be! Why would the man he had spent his entire life defending turn on him and take away his wife?

And how in Hades had he gotten here … when no one, not even Hashem, had any idea where he had crashed?

The Sata'anic soldiers twittered, great guttural guffaws, cracking jokes that it was about time he had fallen into their trap. One of the boar-like Catoblepas kicked him and asked Jamin how they would split the reward money?

"And now," Jamin smirked at his lizard friends. "It is time to find out if you really are immortal, or if a few shots of this pulse rifle will put you out of my misery once and for all."

Jamin aimed the pulse rifle straight for his heart.

"This is payback for ripping out my heart," Jamin said softly in Ubaid, his eyes burning black with hatred as he met his gaze.

Mikhail rolled, yanking up his wing so it took the brunt of the shot. It knocked Jamin off balance.

Jamin pulled the trigger.

The shot went awry. Mikhail shrieked as Jamin burned a hole into his wing.

The whistle of an arrow split the air.

"Hashem's bushy eyebrows!" one of the Sata'anic lizards shouted.

Mikhail rolled towards his sword.

"We're under attack!"

More arrows.

Shouting, human and lizard, as all hell broke loose. Humans rushed into the light of the bonfire, eager to take on the lizards, not only win back Gasur's life-giving grain, but also to get a coveted Sata'anic sword.

Mikhail rose to his feet and looked frantically for the location of Jamin.

"Fall back! Fall back!" one of the Sata'anic soldiers shouted.

The lizards backed up in a perfect square, firing occasionally at the humans, but for some odd reason the pilot of the shuttle did not aim the on-board pulse rifles at the center of the group the way that they normally would.

"To Mikhail!" Pareesa shouted.

Mikhail swung at a burly pig-man who struck back at him with a newer version of the very sword he carried. Their swords rang as they hacked at one another, two experienced swordsmen, though Mikhail was better because he had trained under the Cherubim.

He hit the boar-man in the shoulder. Had he been at peak strength, he would have cut the man's arm off, but in his weakened condition, all he managed to do was to incapacitate him.

The pig-man stumbled backwards. Another soldier stepped in to take his place. Mikhail hacked at him, too, this time getting lucky when the lizard left open his midsection for a split second, just long enough for Mikhail to stab him. The lizard cried out and fell to his knees. Mikhail kicked him out of the way, only caring about one thing. Where was Jamin? He had to get him! He had to find out what he knew!

He heard a death-cry as a human found their death at the end of a Sata'anic sword, and then another as the humans took on species bred to be far larger and stronger than they were.

"Shoot them!" Pareesa screamed.

Mikhail spotted the Chief's son standing back at the exact same spot where he had seen him in the first place, at the top of the ramp of the shuttle, pulse rifle drawn and aimed right at him. With his other hand, he had his palm poised over the power switch which would shut the door, denying Mikhail his means to escape this world and summon the armies of Hashem.

"Fall back!" one of the lizards shouted in their language.

Mikhail crouched, ready to attempt another sprint at the shuttle, the only way he would find Ninsianna.

The Sata'anic soldiers backed up the ramp in a well-organized square. One of the pig-men fell. One of the other lizards grabbed the man and dragged him up the ramp.

Jamin slammed his hand down upon the close button, and then made a Sata'anic prayer gesture of his hand to his forehead, his lips, and his heart as the door closed.

The shuttle fired up her engines, spewing forth a great cloud of burning hot air and dust as it lifted off and headed into the sky.

Mikhail streaked after them, his heart pounding as he frantically flapped his wings, trying to keep up as the shuttle sped up and gradually pulled away.

"No!" he screamed as the shuttle outpaced him.

That adrenaline which had kept him focused, kept him fighting long after his body should have given out, finally reached its limit and abandoned his system. The darkness closed around him until all he could see was the shuttle as a pinpoint, a point of light in a long, dark tunnel as glorious unconsciousness crept up and claimed him as its own.

He fell. He fell from the sky, the earth reaching towards him as it sought to claim him for herself. That voice he had heard in the darkness, the voice that sang the song, cut into his fog from that other place.

'Mikhail! You are fallen! You must fly!'

Strength flowed into him as the song which had kept him alive poured into his veins and whispered to him to flap his wings.

The ground sped towards him.

He beat his wings, disorganized, messy, missing feathers and reeking of cooked flesh, unable to pull up as he slammed into the ground. Darkness reached up to claim him, but as it did, a single memory flitted through his mind as he drifted in the song. A hand. A voice. A black-eyed girl wearing a crown of stars.

'You are not alone,' she had whispered as he'd stood at the threshold of death.