Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (42 page)

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.11 AE

Victor Sector: Beylan

Leonid Major Orias

Orias

Once upon a time, the Alliance's half-lion, half-human multi-purpose fighters had numbered in the millions, but with less than 2,500 Leonids left in existence, Major Orias was painfully aware that each life this war against Shay'tan took from her pride meant one less life to introduce genetic diversity into her dying species. Situated where they were on the volatile border with the Tokoloshe Kingdom, Parliament had not yet pulled her flight group from defending the resource planets which the cannibals coveted for their precious metals … yet.

But she knew it was only a matter of time…

She stared into the
Beylan's
rec room at the new hope Lucifer had gifted to her species. A male. A single, human male. Small and frail, his dark skin unprotected by fur, Babajidas was an unlikely hero to a species which had been bred for its strength and courage. Thirty-six pairs of cubs the man had sired upon infertile lionesses to lift their species out of extinction. The other lionesses had mates they would return to in this strange little exercise of '
Let She-who-is Decide,'
but her own daughter? When Habibah bedded down at night, she did so with Babajidas lying between her paws.

"What message would you like me to relay, Sir?"

Major Orias glanced at two competing reports. Flatscreen A contained a list of all the lionesses in her sector that soon would be coming into heat. Without Babajidas, nearly all of those heat cycles would pass without the lionesses being able to conceive. Flatscreen B contained the orders which had come down from none other than Abaddon himself
ordering that all non-Angelic human wives were to immediately report to the Eternal Emperor's palace so their pregnancies did not cost the Alliance any further precious human lives.

What about the lives of all the cubs who would not be born if Babajidas was taken from them and subjected to the whims of the Emperor, and Parliament, and Lucifer, and now two Supreme Commander-Generals, not one of which she trusted? Sure, the offer of amnesty would extend to Habibah, Babajidas first and preferred mate, but what about all the other lionesses, the ones who were happy to share? What about their husbands, poor bastards, who were so desperate for cubs that they would gladly look the other way when their lionesses lay down with the human male as for some reason artificial insemination had never worked for their species?

"How many Centauri came forward?" Major Orias asked.

"Thirty-seven," the Spiderid said. "Each carrying a half-Centauri foal."

"Did any males come forward?" Orias asked.

"No," the Spiderid said. "So far, it appears
we
possess the only male."

"And what about the Angelics?" Orias asked. "Have any of
them
turned over their mates to the Eternal Emperor?"

"Not that I have heard of," the Spiderid said. "What are your orders, Sir?"

Orias' paw slid down to caress her own, long-empty womb. Her whiskers drooped. She'd birthed four cubs and given three of them, along with her husband, to the Alliance as cannon-fodder for Hashem's endless wars against Shay'tan. And now? Now there was a
new
war? And so few Leonids to help the Alliance win…

She watched the way Babajidas leaned back into Habibah's fur, Orias' last surviving child. A child that, for the first time, was carrying cubs of her own…

"We shall tell General Abaddon the truth," Orias said. "That there are absolutely
no
human females on any ships within this sector."

"And what of the human male?"

Orias stuck the flatscreen in front of the Spiderid's eight eyes. "Do you see anything in this order asking us to turn over a human male?"

The Spiderid scrutinized the order. His chelicera perked up with understanding as he realized what she proposed.

"No Sir, Ma'am," the Spiderid said. "I shall relay the message that there are absolutely
no
human females on any of our ships."

Orias handed the Spiderid the second flatscreen.

"Contact the ship's doctors on each of these vessels and line up appointments for these lionesses to visit my daughter's husband as each of them comes into heat," Orias said.

The Spiderid's palps rose in surprise. "So many, Sir! Do you think the human is, uhm,
vigorous
enough to service so many females?

"We shall take every cub he is able to give us," Orias sighed. "And Habibah? If she wants to keep him, she will share him so that no lioness gets jealous and reports us to the Emperor."

The Spiderid's hard exoskeleton clack-clack-clacked away as his eight armored legs clicked against the flight deck, on his way to relay her falsehood to
both
factions in this foolish civil war.

~ * ~ * ~

November: 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Mikhail

He drifted, neither here nor there as his fever rose and fell, hot, then cold, hot, then cold. One minute he burned so badly it felt as though a colony of fire ants ate their way out of his lungs, each breath painful, each breath a struggle. The next minute he'd be curled up in a ball, wings wrapped around himself, his body wracked with shivers. Time was meaningless as people drifted in and out of the room. The only constant was the small, cool hand pressed into his.

"Ninsianna?" he whispered. His tongue felt clumsy, as though it was filled with clay.

"Yes,
mo ghrá?
"

Her voice was rich and mellifluous as she spoke the endearment he'd always yearned to hear.
Mo ghrá.
Why had he never noticed how beautiful it felt to hear his beloved's voice?

"Why won't you lay down beside me?" he pleaded with her. "Ninsianna. I need to
feel
you."

Ninsianna's hand grew stiff, as though she was afraid.

"Our bed is too small," she said at last, "and each time you thrash, you re-open your stitches. The last time I tried, you threw me out of the bed."

"I did?" Mikhail gave her a remorse-filled sigh. "I'm sorry. I have no memory of it."

His head hurt and everything had an odd haze, as though he stared at the world from beneath the water. How long had he been delirious? Was he delirious right now? It was hard to tell what was real.

"You did," she said. "Can't you remember?" She touched his cheek. "
Mo ghrá,
you said you could not feel me."

He remembered no such thing. All he knew was how he ached to feel her small frame snuggled into his, to reassure himself that she was alive and well, and also because, well, he didn't
know
why. All he knew was that some instinct screamed at him he needed to feel his wife.

She pressed a goatskin of water to his lips. He took a sip, but his stomach clenched the moment he swallowed, unable to keep it down. He pushed away her next attempt to get him to drink, determined to spare himself the indignity of puking in front of her.

"What day is it?" he asked.

Silence ensued.

"Ninsianna?" he asked. "What day is it today?"

Her small, cool hand brushed his forehead as she murmured something which had nothing to do with the question he had asked.

"Ninsianna?"

He opened his eyes, fighting to
see
her in the dim confines of the room. It was daytime, but they had thrown a blanket over the window to keep out the late-autumn chill which was just as well because the faintest light hurt his eyes. He considered asking her to open it, but Ninsianna gathered her red cape closer around shoulders as though she was cold, the hood pulled up to cover her head. Dark tangles of her once-luxurious hair jutted out helter-skelter against the red, as though she hadn't had time to brush it, her one great vanity.

He reached towards her, eager to touch her silky tresses, for he had always found her irresistible whenever she wore her hair unbound. He loved the way it felt whenever those long, chestnut tresses brushed against his skin, especially when she made love to him. Despite his headache and his pain, he could not help but smile.

"Don't," she whispered. She took his hand and pressed her lips against the back of his hand, and then pressed it against her cheek, bowing her head so he could not see her face. What she sought to hide was obvious from the sensation of dampness which kissed his skin. Her cheeks were wet from tears.

"Don't cry," he said. "You said you wanted to spend more time with me?" He forced himself to smile even though the gesture still felt unnatural to him. “Now we have it.”

She did not answer him, but murmured something nonspecific.

"Ninsianna?" he asked. "Why do I feel as though you are hiding something important from me?"

She hesitated, and then squeezed his hand.

"Mikhail, I have a confession to make."

Fear tore into his gut.

"The baby?"

"No. Not that," she said. "It's … just…"

"What?"

Ninsianna began to cry.

"She-who-is is angry at me," she choked out. "She has decided to punish me for allowing you to be hurt."

"Punish you?" Mikhail whispered. "How?"

There was a moment of silence.

"How?"

Ninsianna touched the bandages which bound his chest. His own rancid stench rose up to offend his nostrils. The scent of infection. The scent of puss.

"I am no longer
Chosen,
" she said. Her small body shuddered with tears. "Mikhail! She-who-is has taken away my gift of tongues!"

He knew he was supposed to share her sorrow that his wife had been cast from her lofty pedestal and made
ordinary,
but all he could feel was an overwhelming sense of relief. The goddess. Gone from their lives. Oh, how he’d grown tired of being a play toy for the gods!

He reached up and pushed back her hood. The light hurt his eyes, giving him the momentary impression her hair was darker than he remembered before he was forced to close them and rely solely on his sense of touch.

"It doesn't matter," Mikhail reassured her. "I loved you long before you were
Chosen
." He ran her silky hair through his fingers, softer and thinner than he remembered. How could he have gotten so busy he'd forgotten what it felt like to caress his wife's hair?

"Tell me about it," her voice warbled. "Tell me your impressions of the first time
we met?"

And so he told her. He told her how he'd thought she was a spirit come to guide him into the dreamtime the day she’d crawled through the hull of his shattered space shuttle to save his life. He told her how much he craved her touch, and how shocked he'd been the first time she had stripped off her clothing because he did not think his people did that, and the sweet ecstasy of the time she'd washed his wings for him in the stream. He told her about the moment he'd realized he'd fallen in love with her, and how hard it had been to keep his promise to never lay a hand upon her. He told her how miserable he'd been as he'd become too busy training her people to fight to spend time with her anymore, and that as she'd pulled away, it had hurt him more deeply than the knife hurt now.