Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (41 page)

‘Please…’ she added silently. ‘You’re making me look bad.’

Did old gods laugh? Because she could swear from the tickle of energy which caressed her crown that the old god found her amusing. Pareesa’s shoulders sagged in defeat.

"Maybe we should cut some practice swords," Pareesa suggested.

"Out of what?" Siamek asked.

"Wood," Pareesa said. "So we can practice decapitating one another without actually
doing
it."

"Qishtea will expect you to train him using a
real
sword," Siamek warned. “Not a wooden one.”

"How do you know?" Pareesa asked.

"He and Jamin were … I don't know if you would call it friendly. Friendly enemies? There was always an intense competition between the two."

They rummaged through the bushes for thick, straight branches, something in short supply in this land of scant rainfall. The
real
swords made quick work of hacking off suitable sticks. Within moments they circled one another, fake swords raised above their heads.

Pareesa struck at him. Siamek defended in an upswing which looked vaguely familiar.

"Do that again," Pareesa said.

"What?"

"That upswing movement."

Siamek complied. Pareesa blocked it easily and swung the same move back at him. She felt a sense of inner peace, as though this path was the one to get the best results.

"That will work," Pareesa said. "That move feels familiar to me."

"How can you not remember?" Siamek said.

Pareesa went to bite his head off and bit her tongue when she saw his expression was serious. Yes. How could she have forgotten everything the god of war had taught her?

The god of war, thankfully, chose at that moment not to mock her.

"Because I didn't really know those moves in the first place," Pareesa said. "He had me do, I don't know, training katas? The ones we do with the long staff. He counted them out for me, but there were so many of them I can’t remember all the movements."

"So let's master just one," Siamek said, "and then adjust it from there?"

Siamek replicated the move and Pareesa performed the block which felt familiar to her. Yes.
That
routine she remembered. It was not that different from the staff-weapon kata Mikhail had taught them. They worked the bugs out of it to adapt it for the swords. Swing for the neck on one side, swing to the neck from the other. Underhand up, underhand up, stab. Clonk the enemy over the head. Finish him off. It was not the smooth, efficient movement the Cherubim god had used, but she remembered using it during the battle. It had stuck out at the time because it
had
felt familiar to her.

They switched back to using the
real
swords and hit at each other until the mid-morning sun chased away the morning chill. Sweat stung her eyes and began to seep into her clothing.

"Enough!" Pareesa bent over, holding her side as she panted to get her breath. "That
should
be enough to teach the men something useful today.”

“We’ll meet like this every morning,” Siamek said. “The same way Mikhail used to meet with me whenever he was debugging a strategy and he wasn’t sure how much he remembered.” His eyes turned serious. “If something gets messed up, I’ll take the blame.
You’re
the one they look to carry the mantle of leadership if Mikhail doesn’t make it. Not me.”

"Me?"

That same sense of fear she’d felt when she’d seen how very badly Mikhail was wounded gripped her in the gut. Mikhail? Not make it? The thought was too horrific to even contemplate. No…  The old God of War hung around for a reason, and it wasn’t to play nursemaid for
her.

“Mikhail will be fine,” Pareesa gathered up the swords. “Why else would the God of War intervene?”

Siamek tussled her hair as though she was still a little girl.

“We’ll practice every morning before the lesson, Little Fairy, so they don’t figure out that neither one of us has a clue?"

Pareesa swatted at his hand.

Siamek gave her a noogie.

Pareesa kicked him.

Siamek laughed at her, but it was a
good
laugh. The laugh of friends. She wished Mikhail hadn’t had such a rough start with Siamek because, truth be told, until Jamin had gone and stirred up trouble, Pareesa had always looked up to the man and nursed a little bit of a crush on him.

She skipped happily behind him, swords clanking as they moved over to the flat, dry plain where the visiting warriors had set up their encampment. Most of
her
men were here, but the visiting warriors still hadn’t stumbled out of their tents, a casualty of the drinking which had gone on until the wee hours of the morning. Pareesa made small talk with her B-team while they waited.

"How's Mikhail?" Ipquidad asked, the gentle giant who had carried him up the stairs.

Pareesa and Siamek exchanged a gaze. The Chief had impressed upon them the need to keep Mikhail's dire prognosis a secret, especially since it was
him
Qishtea expected to teach his men how to use a sword, not
her,
a thirteen summer girl. She had no problem lying to Qishtea, but she
hated
deceiving her own men. She trusted her B-team implicitly. They had all forged bonds of trust in battle.

"He's still in and out," Pareesa spoke low, "but please don't let that get around. As far as the Chief is concerned, Mikhail should be strong enough to oversee the training within a few weeks."

Ipquidad and Yaggitt nodded. She could trust them. They would quietly pass word to the other B-team members to discourage questions.

"Have you spoken to Ebad?" Yaggitt asked.

Pareesa blushed. Yes. She had. Quite a bit, in fact. A curious little flutter tickled the inside of her tummy. The old god had been right. Ebad wasn't half bad.

A raucous commotion erupted from the encampment which had sprung up outside Assur's walls. The Ninevians strolled onto the training field like conquerors, hair neatly secured behind them into ponytails and beards oiled into showy ringlets. Pareesa stared at Qishtea’s elaborate four-fringed kilt. The other warriors, at least, had come dressed practically in their work-kilts.

"Qishtea," Pareesa greeted the Ninevian chief coolly.

"You promised me a sword."

Qishtea stepped closer to tower over her, body language intended to intimidate her, although his expression was more curious than hostile. The scent of sandalwood drifted in the slight breeze along with him, the expensive oil he used to adorn his hair and beard.

"I promised to teach you
how
to use a sword," Pareesa stood her ground and did not budge. "So that you could ambush the lizard demons and steal one of
theirs.
Whether or not you obtain one is up to
your
skill and the favor of She-who-is."

Had there not been other tribes represented here, no doubt Qishtea would have pressed the issue, but there were only five new swords and eleven villages. They'd all agreed only
she
would wield Mikhail's sword since it felt sacrilegious to allow anybody else to touch it. Until then, it was up to her to impress how
unfair
it would be to grant Qishtea custody of the sword he coveted. Varshab had lectured her about how to leverage one tribe's hostility against another to discourage any single tribe from dominating the training.

Why had Mikhail always made it look so easy?

“Well,” Qishtea bared his teeth through his black, lightly braided beard, “I hope your old god friend considers me fit to wield one of these, because I look forward to learning how to use one!”

“Ooo-rah!” his Ninevian warriors rallied behind him.

Siamek handed Qishtea one of the swords. Nineveh was the only village which had someone as high-ranking as their brand-new chief in attendance, but for Qishtea, she knew this was personal. The lizard demons had killed his father.
He
would kill them in return.

“Let’s begin,” Pareesa said.

She and Siamek demonstrated the training routine they’d spent the morning perfecting, pretending it was something they’d both known all along, and then broke the warriors into groups to practice with their sticks. After a while the grunts of pain as sticks made contact with flesh was replaced by the reassuring thud of stick against stick.

Qishtea swaggered up to her, a
real
sword flung carelessly over his shoulder.

“So when you going to teach us to use the
real
weapon, little girl?”

The thudding of sticks tapered out and then stopped.

“After you’ve mastered the training swords,” Pareesa said.

A bead of sweat dripped down her lip and exploded salt into her mouth. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to take on a warrior as proficient as Qishtea who would
not
hold his punches the way that Mikhail did. Not when Qishtea didn’t realize she really wasn't as proficient as she pretended.

“
-I-
say I’ve already mastered the stick lesson!” Qishtea extended his sword to point at her. “I want to see what
you
can do.”

The other warriors circled around them, eager to see the spectacle. Pareesa held her sword two-handed in front of her, not single-handed the way that Mikhail always did. She noted that Qishtea mirrored
her
movement, not Mikhail’s. Qishtea had never personally seen Mikhail fight. Somehow, she must use that to her advantage.

“Give it your best shot,” Pareesa said.

Qishtea lunged at her in a classic jab, as if the sword was a spear-point. Pareesa swung down to deflect it and stepped to one side. The air filled with the ring of steel against steel as Qishtea stumbled forward.

Pareesa squelched her urge to taunt him the way she often teased Mikhail or the other warriors. With a hothead like Qishtea, it was smarter to keep things impersonal. She imagined the way Mikhail always taught his training. Expression … unreadable. Voice devoid of criticism as he corrected the warriors in their lessons.

“That’s good,” Pareesa said, “but the cutting edge runs the entire length of the blade, not just the point. Try it again.”

Qishtea’s nostrils flared with irritation. He swung at her again, this time using the maneuver she had taught him instead of one he had made up on the spot. He swung at her ferociously, expecting her to block it. Instead, she used her small stature to dance out of the way.

Qishtea’s momentum made him stumble. Yes. Qishtea didn’t even have the benefit of Mikhail’s basic staff-weapon training. This was an entirely different weapon for him, and not simply because it was made of an unearthly metal.

Pareesa squelched her urge to smirk. They fought back and forth until she saw an opening to execute a perfect basic overhead-diagonal cut and come down on the back of Qishtea’s neck with the dull edge of her blade. With a grunt, Qishtea went down.

“Ooh!” the other warriors exclaimed.

Had she not turned the blade, it would have been a killing blow. The fact that
she
was as awestruck about the movement as Qishtea was she kept to herself.

She reached down to help Qishtea up.

“Teach me how to do that,” Qishtea said. His expression was curious, not the bellicose one she usually associated with him.

For the next several hours, they circled one another, practicing three basic moves; a basic overhead cut, a diagonal cut, and a side cut; until they all felt they'd achieved some level of proficiency. They wouldn’t win any battles, but it was a start. The Ubaid now had a crude sword-training program.

"You're not half bad," Qishtea grinned at her. "For a little girl." He hit at her with the sword. "I guess you'll do until the
real
teacher gets here."

"You're not half bad, either," Pareesa said. She thwacked Qishtea in the backside with the blunt edge of her blade. "For a pompous
old man
who's full of himself."

Qishtea hit at her harder, but it was accompanied by a chuckle. Pareesa beat him back, some of that sword agility she'd discovered during battle suddenly visiting itself down upon her now that she wasn't fretting about hitting the man
perfectly
and just plain
hitting
him.

Pareesa laughed.

"What's so funny?" Qishtea asked.

“I think my arms are going to fall off,” Pareesa admitted, her sides heaving with exertion. "I'm not used to practicing this much with a sword."

“Mine too,” Qishtea said. "I feel like my wrist is about to snap off from the weight of the blade."

Slapping each other on the back, they dismissed the warriors and told them to go get some supper.

~ * ~ * ~