Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (150 page)

He dragged his sorry ass out into the alley, out into the street and down the hill towards the north gate of the village. It was a desperate bid, a futile chance to escape a village being crushed beneath the forces that
he
had brought to bear, but he had to get out of here, get back to the one man who could understand him. He used the spear that had killed him as a crutch as he made his way back down to the place where Lucifer had dropped him off. He laughed when he reached it at the irony that Lucifer had dropped him off on top of Merariy's roof.

He didn't realize he'd fallen until it occurred to him he somehow stared up at the rising sun. He wasn't going to make it. After all of this, he, the Chief's son, would die alone.

He stared up at the bright blue sky, but beyond it, he thought he could see the stars.

'Can you see me?' Lucifer had asked him. 'Can you look into my eyes and see my soul?'

"Yes," Jamin whispered. "I can see you, Morning Star."

Cold, blue lips whispered in his ear, the goddesses' voice frantic as she pleaded with him to save her son.

'Tell him. Tell him. Please tell him what you feel…'

His wrist beeped. He remembered that the timepiece could also be used to communicate. He pressed the button and lifted it to his mouth.

“Lucifer,” he groaned.

Nobody answered him, for Lucifer was not in residence in his body right now. Only the Devourer of Children.

He pushed the button again and panted into the receiver.

"Lucifer. I've been hit, bad. I don't think I'm going to make it."

There was no sound but static, for he didn't expect the other creature, the one which used Lucifer as a vessel, to come and heal him a second time. He knew the price to be paid for such a favor, and while he couldn't remember the thirteen women he had savaged, he knew that he had raped them, and he had no stomach to do so a second time.

The stars grew brighter, and beyond it he could see a tree. Beneath that tree, he could see Shahla, reunited with her baby. His mother joined her, holding his baby sister, and then a dark-winged female Angelic stepped forward to whisper something into his ear.

"Yes," he said to her. "I will tell him."

He lifted the communication device to his mouth, panting to remain conscious just long enough to utter the words.

“Lucifer … my love,” Jamin whispered, picturing with all his heart the silver-eyed prince he had made love to in the dark. “I will wait for you, just but on the other side….”

His arm slipped downwards as he lay staring up into the stars.

For tens of thousands of years, his people had painted symbols of winged men carrying his kind into the dreamtime upon the bodies of the dead. Jamin smiled as he dreamt of being picked up and carried, murmuring Lucifer’s name and telling him that he loved him. As his spirit stretched towards the dreamtime, he heard a song. A beautiful song. So beautiful and joyous it felt as though his heart would burst with joy.

~ * ~ * ~

February: 3,389 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Mikhail

Something was wrong.

Puking up water, Mikhail sputtered sand out of his mouth and gasped for breath as the dream about hunting faded from his mind. Adrenaline raced through his body, forcing him awake. He clawed his body to his hands and knees.

Ninsianna? He thought of her as she'd tried to teach him, but he sensed nothing. He had
never
sensed anything, even though he loved her dearly.

The sensation hit him a second time, only this time it felt as though something burned into his chest. He fell backwards, his wings flailing as he recognized the echo of someone else's death-wound.

Pareesa? He thought of his little fairy, but although he sensed she fought in a battle, the source of his distress did not seem to come from her. If it wasn’t Pareesa…

This time, the sensation squeezed his heart and made it hard to breathe.

He clamored to his feet and shook the water from his wings. His friends were in trouble, and it was up to
him
to save them.

Leaping clumsily into the air, he pounded his wings until the soggy appendages got him airborne.

~ * ~ * ~

February: 3,389 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Gita

That strange certainty which had urged Gita to hurry now whispered she should take a little diversion. For a few moments that message conflicted with the dark gift which simply wanted her to bathe in the blood of their enemies, but then the dark urge released its hold. She veered off their path to leap into a gully which headed towards the river.

"Where are you going?" Dadbeh hissed at her.

"There," Gita pointed. "Can't you see it? That is where the lizard demons set down their sky canoe after Mikhail shot it down."

Dadbeh stared first at the multiple columns of thick, black smoke which poured from the village built upon a hill, and then to the small, unimpressive column of white which appeared to be little more than a mirage upon a hot summer day.

"How can you know this?" Dadbeh asked.

Gita looked right through him, this man who had pulled her from the river when she would have rather died. She crept forward without him, the knife the Uruk had stolen from the Kemet traders held before her, thankful the thick Kemet robe protected her tender knees from the jagged rocks. A small group of lizard demons lumbered around a squat, grey sky canoe which sat upon the ground like a great, hulking tortoise. She had seen the accursed sky canoe fly overhead the day they had cut down Mikhail, but it had been nighttime then, while now the sun had crept above the horizon. The infernal war chariot seemed even
more
terrifying in the light.

Dadbeh crept up beside her on his belly, his curses mere whispers as the rocks dug into his flesh. They marveled in silence at its strange sheen and the sharp angled objects which protruded from the war chariot like the arms, the legs, the mandibles and the antennae of a dung-beetle.

"Are you thinking of stealing it?" Dadbeh asked.

"What would I do with it?" Gita said. "I don't know how to make it fly."

Dadbeh searched for some weakness they could turn to their advantage, but there wasn't any. Their numbers were too few, and even if they somehow got inside, they didn't know how to shut the door, much less make the sky canoe ascend back into the heavens.

"So why did you bring us here?" Dadbeh asked.

Gita studied the way the men huddled around a part of the sky canoe which spewed some type of gassy substance which stank like something, but she could not place the odor for comparison. The war chariot was wounded, but by the way the men focused on its repair like a hive of ants repairing an anthill which had been kicked over by a naughty boy, it would not remain out of commission for long.

"We have to make sure that sky canoe
stays
broken," Gita said.

"How?"

"I don't know," Gita said. She studied the enormous, fat barrel which protruded out the other side, an identical twin to the one they tended to. She pointed to it.

"Maybe if we injured the other one?"

"How? I count at least seven men."

She watched the lizard men pick up a large, flat grey plate off the ground and press it onto the side of the sky canoe. She had seen the dead lizards which had fallen around Mikhail, but this was the first time she had seen one alive, standing, walking around and barking orders like they were humans. Gita swallowed. They seemed a lot bigger now than they had when they'd lain dead around the bonfire. Two of the creatures stepped forward and, with a small, slender poking stick, pressed against the flat grey platter until at last it remained on the side of the sky canoe. The sky canoe, it seemed, was healed.

Gita scrutinized what they had just done. When she had crawled into Mikhail's sky canoe, one of the great auroch-sized beasts had its belly all ripped apart, its entrails laid out upon the floor. If this was just such a beast, could it not be disemboweled like a living creature, have its throat slit or be led for slaughter?

One of the lizard men turned and wiped off a slender poking stick with a rag. Gita crawled closer, studying the implement in his hand. It had a handle made of some kind of polished antler, fitted perfectly with a long, slender little stabbing knife.

Little trills of
knowing
rippled up and down Gita's spine.

"There!" she whispered excitedly at Dadbeh.

She reached into her satchel and pulled out the implement the old God of War had instructed her to take from Mikhail's sky canoe, the one she just instinctively
knew
was called
scriúire.

Dadbeh glanced at the
screwdriver,
and then at implement in the lizard demon's hand. His mismatched eyes lit up with the
same
devious plan that, no doubt, that she had just concocted.

"What can be repaired," Dadbeh said.

"Can be broken again," Gita said.

Dadbeh grinned. It was the first
real
smile she'd seen him give since the day Shahla had been killed.

The lizard men raced around the sky canoe, picking up bits and pieces of items they had hauled out to make their repairs.

"How do we get close enough to use it?" Dadbeh asked. "You and I, we are probably the two slightest warriors in Assur. Both of us are skilled, but at some point you need strength, and strength is something neither one of us has ever possessed in great abundance."

That dark gift, the one which whispered to watch for weaknesses until she could strike a death-blow, whispered it was not the recently healed beast they needed to strike at, but it's unwounded twin.

"Follow me," Gita said. She grabbed Dadbeh by the arm and they crawled along the scrub brush and rocks until they reached the opposite side of the sky canoe. While the lizard men did not all stand here, neither had they left it completely unattended.

"Wait here," Gita said. "I shall wield this weapon to smite their sky canoe, but if they walk upon me, I shall rely on
you
to place an arrow in their hearts."

Dadbeh's face was solemn as he pulled several arrows from his quiver and lay them out in front of him so he could shoot them rapid fire. Neither of them questioned that
she
should be the one to go. Dadbeh was stealthy, but only Gita had a gift for fading, unnoticed, into the shadows.

Gita stripped off her brightly colored Kemet robe and rubbed the ochre-colored dirt into her face, arms, legs and torso. Dadbeh averted his eyes. While nakedness was not frowned upon amongst the Ubaid, being hideously scrawny, with flat breasts and now an enormous scar above her heart had to be displeasing for him to gaze upon. She whispered the words of one of the prayers she had made up as a little girl to hide.

'Stick to the shadows, avoid the day, three more steps and then hide where it's grey."