Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (8 page)

With a snarl, Hudhafah turned towards Jamin and grunted in barely-understandable Kemet, 'you … lucky."

With a twitch of his thick tail, the burly general turned his back on Lucifer as though he was no one of consequence and ambled away, but the six lizard-soldiers flanking the man did no such thing. They backed away, their gold-green eyes narrowed into slits as they watched Hudhafah's back until he'd retreated into the closest sky canoe, leaving only Kasib standing there, still carrying his glowing magic
flatscreen
.

Lucifer tugged Jamin towards him as though he was being forced to relinquish a favorite toy, his white wings ruffled with irritation.

"It seems our good friend General Hudhafah is worried that, without
you
to act as an intermediary between his people and your own, there might be many unnecessary, how shall I put this tactfully,
misunderstandings?"
Lucifer spoke smoothly as though what he said was the most reasonable thing in the world. "You understand, don't you, young chieftain? If you want to
rule
these tribes, then their people must get to know you."

Jamin's jaw dropped, not certain he understood the insinuation.
"Rule
them?"

"Why, of course." Lucifer slipped his arm around his shoulders and turned to face the direction where gathered the meeting of regional chiefs … the ones they were about to ambush. "Your tribe, the Uruk to your south, and, oh? Who were those dreary desert-dwellers you told me about? The ones who sold you into slavery?"

An image of Aturdokht's hazel-green eyes, the rest of her face hidden beneath a veil, filtered into Jamin's mind. From the way Lucifer's nose twitched into a smirk, Jamin knew he saw the image as well.

"Halifians," Jamin said. "They call themselves the People of the Desert."

"Ah, yes, the Halifians," Lucifer waived his hand towards General Hudhafah. "They are of no use to the Sata'anic Empire. Hudhafah has agreed to give them to you as a gift if you deliver to him the goods the Amorite slavers promised the day they convinced him to part with his treasury to buy you."

A feeling of dread settled into Jamin's gut. So. He was to be treated like a slave?

"What would I do with the Halifians?"

"Anything you want," Lucifer shrugged. "If nothing else, it will give you a second wife. One more worthy than the one who carries your enemy's bastard."

A pang of regret settled into Jamin's gut.

"Aturdokht no longer needs me," Jamin said. "She is a wealthy woman now ... from selling
me
to the Sata'anic lizards."

Kasib had told him Hudhafah had nearly emptied the Sata'anic treasury to purchase him from the Amorite slavers. Jamin had the feeling such a price mattered little to Lucifer ...
-if-
he was in the mood to pay it.

Lucifer tilted his head. His scent grew muskier, stronger, more powerful, blended with the scent of fire. Jamin could almost
hear
his mother's voice whispering from the treasure box, a memory of a favorite story about a little boy who snuck into his father's granary to snitch olives out of the enormous urns of olive oil. Olives.
That
was precious. Not this gold the lizard people threw around like mustard seeds upon the fertile soil alongside the Hiddekel River.

"Olives?" Lucifer's mouth formed the unfamiliar word. His lips curved up into a smile as he reached into Jamin's brain and plucked a memory of eating the rare, decadent fruit. He closed his eyes as though he were truly savoring it. "Yes. The Emperor would like this fruit." He brushed his fingertips beneath Jamin's chin. "Fear not, young chieftain. I shall return to fetch you … and a jar of these …
olives
… to salve his disappointment when I tell him I had no choice but to put down his favorite watchman."

The image which burned into Jamin's mind did not match Lucifer's beneficent smile.
Him
holding down an unknown white-robed man while Lucifer rammed a jar of olives down his father's throat. The image changed into
him
doing the same thing to his
own
father, Chief Kiyan, the man who had chosen a stranger over his own son.

"Yes," Jamin said, even as that part of him that still wished to earn back his father's favor warred with the hatred Lucifer fostered like a man blowing notes into a wooden flute.

"Serve your masters well," Lucifer whispered in his ear, "and when my armies join me, we shall offer these lizard-people a choice. Turn you over? Or keep you … and face annihilation?"

Lucifer sent him an image of armies so vast they dwarfed his imagination. A competing image, whispered into Jamin's mind from the treasure box he'd trained his mind to lock away all the things that might make him act less of a
man
. Green eyes, peeking from beneath the veil of a desert shaykah. Aturdokht's actions had not been betrayal, but an act of mercy to spare his life.

"And what if I no longer wish to go with you," Jamin said.

"But you
will,
" Lucifer gave him a benevolent smile. He gestured towards the ship. "As soon as that which your heart most desires rids herself of the abomination she carries within her belly, I shall bring her back with me and use her to have my way with you."

The two cold-eyed goons who stood on either side of Lucifer chortled and passed a look between them, the first sign of any emotion Jamin had seen the entire time he'd known them. What was the joke? Did they somehow find this funny?

"Is that a promise?" Jamin asked.

The two goons sniggered louder.

Lucifer curled one wing forward to caress Jamin's cheek with a snow-white wing-tip. Without answering, Lucifer whirled on his heel, gracefully tucking in his wings against his back so he would not knock Jamin over with them, and strutted up the ramp of his sky canoe as though he were a much bigger man than the already-huge five-cubit-tall, thirty-foot-wingspan Angelic who towered over him by nearly a head. Lieutenant Kasib hurried to stand next to him as the ramp slid up and was swallowed into the belly of the sky canoe.

A lump rose in his throat. Had he really just turned Ninsianna over to Lucifer and allowed himself to be left behind?

"You're very lucky I was able to convince General Hudhafah to intervene," Kasib spoke to him in hissing, broken Kemet, the lingua franca of trade amongst most tribes in this region.

Jamin glanced over to the lizard-man he'd begun to think of as … not a friend … he hadn't known Kasib long enough to think much of
anything
about him other than the fact he now considered it normal to find himself speaking to a five-cubit-tall lizard. Moisture beaded in his eyes. Accursed dust! He turned away so Kasib would not mistake the reflex for crying.

"You should have let me go," Jamin stared at the vanished doorway.

If Jamin could read the all-too-human facial expressions of the lizard people, he would swear the lizard-man pitied him.

"Did you love her?" Kasib asked.

The lump in his chest grew heavier, more insistent, as though Ninsianna pounded at the inside of his heart, pleading with him to save her. It was her. He
knew
she pleaded for her husband to save her using the
same
sorcery she had once used to trick him and bind his affections to her. Now that he had seen Lucifer use that same power, he would never fall for Ninsianna's manipulations again.

Jamin's mouth twitched downwards.

"Yes," he said. He turned to face the ambush he had sold her out to buy. Any minute now, Mikhail would come flying in to save her and mistake the ecstatic girl dancing around the bonfire to be his wife in peril.

His wife…

"At least I
did
love her. Once." He stared at Shahla dancing around the raging inferno. "Not anymore. That man died the day she let them bury me in a pit and then banish me for her husband's philandering."

"Good," Kasib tasted the air with his long, forked tongue. He glanced down at the unintelligible black scribbles displayed on his magic window. "Because Lucifer has a history of breaking his toys."

Kasib gestured towards the east, the direction where lay their next target the moment Mikhail was killed, the men who gathered to discuss fighting back against the Sata'anic Empire.

"Come. It is time to cut off the heads of the snake."

"Are you positive this will prevent unnecessary bloodshed?" Jamin asked.

Kasib twitched his tail and shrugged.

"That all depends upon how convincing
you
are once they learn their leaders are dead and
you
have been appointed to shepherd them into Sata'anic rule."

Jamin followed Kasib mindlessly into the squat, grey sky canoe, every step he took causing his heart to scream he was not supposed to abandon Ninsianna. Jamin pushed it down and ignored it. The witch had made that choice
for
him the day she'd broken off their engagement and married Mikhail.

~ * ~ * ~

November 3,390 BC

Earth:  Mesopotamian Plain

Pareesa

It felt as though she could see her enemy’s intentions; the shadow-enemy which flowed into their muscles and betrayed their thoughts even before their limbs had a chance to carry out the command. It was not the magic she had always assumed the gift to be whenever she had witnessed Mikhail enter the killing dance, but oh! What a wondrous gift the old god wielded!

The Cherubim battle incantations heightened her reflexes, enhancing her speed and the ability to defend against a spear-thrust or find a place where the enemy was weak. She positioned her body between Mikhail and the human excrement which came at them like the winter flood, eager to finish him off. They were unable to get behind her thanks to their own raging bonfire.

A rumble of satisfaction emanated from deep within Pareesa's chest. The God of War was not without a sense of humor. He drew her eyes to the five dead lizard-demons she had smote, one enormous body piled atop the other like green-scaled levies. To get at her, the mercenaries needed to climb over the bodies of their own dead lizard-masters; bodies which, even now that they were dead, many of the mercenaries still feared. Fortune, it seemed, had created a defensible position.

Shouts rippled through the enemy. Their language was alien to her, but even though she could not understand the words, the enhanced state of the killing dance enabled her to hear their intentions. One rushed at her and tripped on a long, green lizard tail. He looked up, his eyes filled with disbelief as he stared up at the unearthly blue glow Pareesa knew must glitter in her eyes … and the light of the bonfire reflecting off of Mikhail's sword.

"Bir kız?" the man asked with befuddlement.

"On'nanoko yori mo."

Words spilled from Pareesa's lips, but they were not her words, but his. The God of War prompted her to run the man through. He forced a prayer past her lips as she kicked the still-twitchin
g body to plug the hole in the wall of bodies which now surrounded her. It was disconcerting, listening to two minds think within a single head, one a frightened thirteen-summer girl; the other detached, calculating, and cognizant of things which lay beyond her field-of-vision.
She
felt satisfaction, but the Cherubim god regretted not having the luxury of granting the downed man mercy.

Something soft squished beneath her goat-hide pampooties. Even without looking down, that part of her which was still Pareesa sobbed. Mikhail's wings! The God of War forced her to calculate the detriment to her footing, where she needed to step, and ways those same feathers could be used to cause an enemy to slip instead of
her
. In a life or death situation, nothing was sacred. Not even Mikhail's magnificent, dark wings.

"Patān o miru,"
the old god forced her lips to speak. Her eyes darted about, taking in the way the enemy moved, no hint of disdain as he whispered how much difficulty the sword would have cutting through the woolen cloaks, animal skin mantles, and padded shirts.