Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (143 page)

The Chief kept shouting for them all to be quiet, but without Varshab here to enforce order, nobody stopped to hear what the plan was.

"Where's Siamek?" Pareesa asked.

"Needa came and got him," Ebad said, "and then he disappeared. That's all I know."

"Mikhail has a plan," Pareesa said. "I don't know every part of it, but the first part is to defend the outer wall just long enough for Siamek to set a trap."

"But how will we fight if Mikhail is not here?" Yaggitt said.

"Are you certain there were
three
sky canoes?" Pareesa asked.

"The first one shot at Immanu's house," Yaggitt said. "I didn't see the sky canoe actually fire the lightning, but I ran out of my house just in time to see Mikhail lift up that firestick the elite warriors always said could summon bolts of lightning, and then he did it. He called down the lightning, only it was smaller. And blue. It was definitely blue."

"You're not being very helpful," Ipquidad said. "Which way did he go?"

"Well then he saw the sky canoe that was floating just above
your
house, Pareesa," Yaggitt said. "So he did it again. He summoned the lightning to smite it. And then he flew into the air and I have not seen him since."

"Where did the third sky canoe go?" Pareesa asked. "I don't see any flying over the village now?"

"I don't know," Yaggitt said. "But I think maybe he landed on top of it."

One of the elite warriors came up behind them and grabbed Pareesa by the arm. It was Firouz, one of Siamek's seconds, and a rather lonely second ever since his best friend Dadbeh had left the village.

"He needs you," Firouz said.

"Who?"

"The Chief," Firouz said. "He told me to come and fetch you."

Pareesa gestured for her B-team to stick together as they forced their way through people who'd all taken up their arms, ranging from now-11 swords to the simple digging sticks they used to hoe the fields. Such weapons were paltry defense against the kind of attack that could come from the sky.

Siamek appeared. He barked an order and the warriors spread out amongst the crowd, jabbing people and telling them to shut up so they could hear what the Chief had to say. Pareesa smiled. She'd become good friends with Siamek ever since Mikhail had fallen, and it was good to see him take command.

Pareesa stood awkwardly next to Chief Kiyan, doing her best to appear fierce and adult-like even though, right now, she felt like a little girl. The Chief adjusted his shawl to sit regally on his shoulders, and then climbed up to stand on top of the rocks which lined the central well so he would stand head and shoulders above the crowd.

"From the day the winged one came to our village," Chief Kiyan said. "Ninsianna prophesized that one day the Evil One would come with sky canoes from whence would pour all manner of demons to raze our village to the ground."

"No!" some of the villagers cried.

"Where is Mikhail?"

"How can we fight without him?"

"He flew into the air to take down the sky canoes," the Chief said. He pointed towards the brightening horizon. "Three of them came to destroy our village, but now there are none, he has evened the odds as much as he can. The rest now is up to us."

Chief Kiyan gestured for Pareesa to climb upon to the wall and stand next to him.

"Me?"

Pareesa looked behind her to see if he was pointing to somebody else. Seeing Yadiditum, who she was
certain
was not the person he gestured to, she stepped up onto the stones and balanced precariously on the edge, hoping she wouldn't fall into the well.

"Mikhail taught us how to fight as a single people," Immanu said. "He has done everything he could to prepare for this day."

The Chief turned to her, his expression worried.

"Siamek has set in motion the magical defenses Mikhail taught to Immanu and our flint knapper," Chief Kiyan said. "I need
you
to take the female archers and take up positions along the outer wall."

"But my B-team has not trained to act as an archer squad!" Pareesa said. "They are marginal shots, at best. You'd have better luck asking Yadiditum!"

"Your B-team has been reassigned to Siamek," Chief Kiyan said. "It was Mikhail's wish that you not be put at risk again."

"But I am the best swordsman you have!" Pareesa said.

"You are," Chief Kiyan said, "but you are also a thirteen summer girl going up against lizard demons. Now that I have seen them up close, I must agree with him. I will not order children to fight against hardened warriors."

Pareesa was so angry she wanted to spit, but all her life she'd been trained to defer to the chief. She noted how very tired he looked, how worried he appeared about their prospects for survival. He leaned closer to speak more softly so the ordinary villagers would not hear.

"The lizard demons will try to breach the south gate while the rising sun is behind their backs to blind our aim," Chief Kiyan said. "You are the best shot we have. I need you to hold them off as long as you can to buy our men time to set up the inner ring of defenses. When you can hold them off no longer, fall back so Immanu can perform his magic."

Pareesa swallowed. So? She
wasn't
just being shunted aside because she was a woman?

"What about my sword?" Pareesa asked.

"I pity the poor fool who tries to part you with the weapon," Chief Kiyan said. He grimaced. "Our swords and spears are useless until the lizard demons run out of magic. Mikhail believes they haven't come after us directly before because they are as low on magic as
he
was. Harass them from the rooftops to trick them into firing their weapons at the shadows. If Mikhail is right, by the time they reach our second line of defense, we will be on equal footing, hand to hand the way men were meant to kill one another."

Pareesa's lip trembled. She'd come to rely upon her B-team as much as they relied upon her. She glanced back at Ebad, who had already been commandeered to stand in line between Firouz and Tirdard, two elite warriors he looked up to, something which had always been his dream. Who was
she
to tell him that he and the other B-team members were not worthy to fight along with the best? She gave her B-team a salute and forced herself to give them a false smile.

The sky had grown greyer. She beckoned to Yadiditum, the worst archer of Mikhail's original eight, and together they found Kiana, Homa, Gisou, Orkedeh, and Alalah and silently carried their arrows to the southern wall. One by one they scurried up the cedar-trunk which had been leaned against the house which doubled as Assur's outermost wall and crept up to the roof, mindful that if the sky canoes returned, they would be clearly visible from the air.

Beneath them, men scurried into the houses and dragged out tables, benches, sleeping pallets, and anything else which could be used to barricade the front gate. On either side of the alley which allowed access into the village, Immanu oversaw the installation of clay pots on the edge of the roof, magic which was the secret knowledge of the gods.

"What hope do we have against lizard demons in sky canoes?" Yadiditum asked, her features wide and fearful.

Pareesa's eyes slid down to the bulge around the voluptuous beauty's midsection. Married only a few weeks after Ninsianna, the young woman showed she carried Tirdard's child.

"You shouldn't be here," Pareesa said softly. "Go back to your house and make sure you keep your baby safe."

"If we lose this battle," Yadiditum said, "there will
be
no safe place for me to raise my baby. We shall all end up wandering the desert like the Halifians." The young woman seized her hand. "Tirdard must fight those monsters hand-to-hand. The least I can do is provide cover fire so my husband comes home to see the birth of his son!"

Orkedeh touched her shoulder, one of the older archers in their midst.

"Let's sort these arrows by size." Orkedeh pointed to the piles which had been pre-positioned here for general defensive emergencies. "Set the best-fletched ones aside for direct shots and the worst ones for cover fire. And then pick the ones you think will work best for
you."

They set aside the arrows with bent sticks, which were poorly weighted, had chipped arrowheads which had been used one too many times, were poorly fletched, or been pieced together by an apprentice who had little idea what they were doing.

"These are all warped," Homa complained.

"Mine are fine," Gisou said.

"That's because you're such a lousy shot," Homa ribbed her friend.

"Focus!" Alalah snapped. Pareesa might be the best shot, but Alalah was the brutal taskmaster who kept them all in line.

They finished sorting the arrows, and then each began to test their length by placing the fletching between their breasts and extending their arms to see which arrows were long enough to reach their fingertips. Lengthy arrows were passed along to archers with longer arms. Short arrows were set aside for the smallest member of the group …
her
.

"There!" Yadiditum pointed towards the low rise which rose a few leagues south-east. "I see movement over there."

The late winter sun rose south-east, where the river bowed outwards and left the enemy with plenty of cover. Pareesa pulled out the brand-new bow Mikhail had commissioned especially for her, one made not of a single, sturdy branch, but thin slivers of wood stuck together with a glue made of boiled swim bladders from fish and reinforced at the ends with horn. There had been no time to build a second one.

Was
this
the real reason why Chief Kiyan wanted her assigned to defend the south gate? She prayed she didn't betray his confidence in her abilities.

"Stay low," Pareesa said. "The mud-bricks at the edge of the roof are an inadequate shield against a firestick. Remain invisible, and we shall have a brief window of opportunity in which
we
shall have the advantage."

"They said Jamin shot down the walls of Nineveh from nearly half a league away," Alalah said.

"And that the wall just crumbled," Kiana said.

"And their best archer was maimed when she fell," Yadiditum said.

"Their weapons can make a direct shot from a breathtaking distance," Pareesa said, "but unlike an arrow or spear, they can only shoot at us in a straight line. We shall have a small window of opportunity to inflict damage while
we
shall have the advantage, and then we must retreat and fall back to the second ring of rooftops."

Immanu shouted up that they were ready. Alalah and Orkedeh took Homa and Kiana as they gathered their arrows and scurried down the cedar pole to go up the other side. Gisou and Yadiditum stayed with Pareesa. They dragged up the cedar pole so it could not be used to creep up behind them. On the other side of the alley, Alalah and her small team did the same. When they escaped, they would need to do so laterally.

"Why didn't they send more archers here?" Gisou asked.

Pareesa glanced behind her to the second ring of houses. She couldn't see him, but somewhere back there the
second
best shot in the village, old Behnam, sat with a firepot and a pile of arrows streaked with bitumen tar.

"We're just a distraction," Pareesa said. "The Chief knows we can't hold this position for long. The more of us that are up here, the more likely it is we'll be killed when we fall back."

"Look!" Yadiditum said. "The sunrise!"

Foul golden rays reached above the horizon like spears, casting forward a brilliant light which would blind even the sharpest eyes and force them to squint. Pareesa covered her eyebrows with the flat of her hand and wondered if that, perhaps, was the original meaning behind Mikhail's perfect Alliance salute? Pink shadows reflected off the sky. Never had a sunrise looked so vulgar.

"Listen," Gisou said. "Do you hear that? It sounds like they're chanting battle songs."

"Mikhail calls this
shock and awe,
" Pareesa said. "First they send the sky canoes to soften up the enemy, and then they send in their
skullcrackers
to frighten us and make us fearful enough to surrender."

"Why
don't
we surrender?" Gisou asked.

Pareesa gave her a disgusted look.

"Hey, I was just asking," Gisou said.

"When they get close enough to see," Pareesa said, "I will creep to the edge and take a direct shot at their commanding officer."

"How will you know which demon is the commander?" Yadiditum asked.

"Mikhail made me memorize the insignia," Pareesa said.

The earth moved on the horizon as though it was a dark shadow. Pareesa squinted, unable to differentiate one dark shadow from the other. They moved in that peculiar motion of one group running forward, and then a second group came up from behind them. Pareesa couldn't help but be impressed at how smoothly the dark, formless shadows leapfrogged one another to move closer, their firesticks aimed at the rooftops. Why couldn't
their
men move that smoothly? It was a pity she and the other women were the only people to see the lizard demons move.