Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (44 page)

He moved to flip his shawl over his shoulders and was once again reminded he no longer carried that accoutrement of rank. As Kasib liked to say, he was nothing but a tiny little cog in the gears of Shay'tan's armies. Whatever a
gear
was. But Kasib
had
given him a long, loose-flowing robe they called a
trenchcoat,
luxurious in its practicality and warmth, complete with pockets and a hood. Still pale and shaken, Jamin strapped on the empty pulse rifle and moved outside.

"You remember what you're here to do?" Kasib asked.

Jamin squinted at the sun. For just an instant it appeared as though a woman stood on the horizon, a bedraggled creature carrying a grey bundle of rags. The apparition disappeared. Jamin blinked, and then focused on Lieutenant Kasib.

"Gather information," Jamin said. "See if I can convince them to join your efforts as allies."

"
Our
efforts," Kasib's maw tightened into a disappointed line. "It would help your case if you started referring to
us
as
we.
"

Jamin nodded. It had been Marwan, the desert shaykh, who had suggested he earn his freedom by making himself indispensable to the lizard people. Now he would meet with Marwan, and his beautiful daughter Aturdokht, the young widow who'd said she would marry the first man who brought her the winged demon's heart. Well, he had gotten it for her. Sort of... Okay, he'd orchestrated somebody
else
getting it on his behalf, but when one was a chief, wasn't that the same thing?

Guilt clenched at his already unsettled gut. He glanced back to where the apparition had stood on the horizon. Shahla getting killed hadn't been part of the plan.
He
was supposed to get Ninsianna.
She
was supposed to get the winged husband she'd always dreamed of and forget about
him
. And Aturdokht … the widowed shaykah was supposed to get revenge. He didn't
really
expect her to marry him.

Or maybe he did?

"Wait here," Jamin said. "Marwan is a cagey old devil. Thus far he's avoided Amorite intrigues like a plague of locusts."

Kasib tucked his dorsal ridge down along his back to make him look less threatening and gestured to the others to do the same. The lizard soldiers lined up in a neat formation similar to one Mikhail had taught his people.

Jamin's mouth tightened into a grim line. The Angelic was dead, but the damage he had caused might be his people's undoing. Somehow he needed to find out what was going on, get in there, convince his people to stop fighting Sata'anic rule, and then get the lizard-people to honor their promise to make Ubaid fields the most productive in all the lands.

And Marwan was just the crafty old devil to help him come up with a plan…

A sharp whistle signaled their arrival had not gone unnoticed. Cloaked women scurried out and herded their offspring into the tents. Jamin held up one hand, signaling the lizard people to not move until Marwan's men began to move up the hill towards them. If there was one thing Jamin had learned about dancing with the desert adder, it was that the Halifians were sticklers for the people of the desert's unspoken social rituals.

The Halifian men lined up. He spied Nusrat, Aturdokht's half-brother and, he hoped, soon an ally. How would he explain to them his allegiance with Lucifer? A peculiar unease settled into his gut. Yes. Why
had
the lizard people followed the lead of their so-called enemy? It didn't make sense, especially given the dutiful Kasib's quiet rebellion to let him into the meeting with a knife. Lucifer had the ability to manipulate people's minds. Why, then, had Lucifer killed his own man?

"Jamin!" Nusrat greeted, breaking his line of thought. "It is good to see you are not dead."

"I live," Jamin said, glad they recognized him despite his
modern
appearance.

Like his sister, Nusrat was a handsome man, tall, well-formed, with the high cheekbones and hazel eyes of a northerner instead of the hawk-nosed beaks of the Halifians. Only his dark complexion and raven hair marked him as one of Marwan's sons. While not the highest-ranking son of the desert shaykh, the man's natural intellect and fearlessness had earned him respect in the eyes of his other siblings.

Nusrat signaled his brothers to cease their displays of weaponry, designed to intimidate and discourage. Jamin had played this game often enough to recognize their stone blades remained tucked within easy reach just beneath their robes. One false move, and he'd be filled with not only arrows, but also a knife to his chest.

A knife to the chest? Now wouldn't that be ironic? Jamin laughed.

"What's so funny?" Nusrat asked. He held out his arm as though Jamin was a long-lost brother.

"I see you have done well with the gold you earned from selling
me,
" Jamin said.

Nusrat shrugged. "You told my sister to take your life and buy her freedom." He gestured towards the encampment. "As you can see, she did exactly that. She distributed her share evenly amongst her sisters. It is the
women
who now wield the money, not the men."

"She does so under your protection," Jamin said. "You got your share?"

"Yes," Nusrat said. He pointed up to the lizard people lined up at the top of the hill, holsters to their pulse rifles unclipped, but not drawn. "I see you have done well for yourself, as well, slave?"

"I am not a slave," Jamin said. "I am an enlisted soldier."

"What's the difference," Nusrat said.

"I work for them for twenty years," Jamin said. "They will teach me their ways. When my twenty years are done, I will be free to pursue my own interests, but I shall have the blessing of Shay'tan."

"So my father was right," Nusrat said. "If you make yourself indispensable to the lizard people, they will reward you?"

"Actually," Jamin said, "that is why I am here. It seems they do not wish for us to wait for twenty years to begin to see our bounty, but to start giving it to us today."

"That," said Nusrat, "you will need to discuss with my father. I am not authorized to speak on behalf of the tribe."

Jamin noted the way Nusrat's mouth tightened with tension. Both of them glanced over at the eldest brother, Zahid. Marwan's first-born son had been against Jamin from the beginning, especially when his little sister had shamed them by refusing to go back to her deceased husband's tribe. It did not bode well for him that Marwan had not come out to greet him.

"How is your father?" Jamin guessed.

"Not well," Nusrat spoke low. "He stepped on a viper and the venom has infected him with evil spirits."

"You should let the lizard people take a look at it," Jamin said. "They have great magic." He rubbed his shoulder which still had limited mobility. "They healed
me.
For a while I didn't think I would survive."

Nusrat glanced up at the fantastic creatures on the hill, deliberately backlit by the sun so the Halifians could only see them as dark silhouettes. The people of the desert had
heard
of the lizard people from the Amorite slavers, but it was one thing to
hear
of such things, another altogether to actually
see
it.

"Perhaps we should meet first inside," Jamin spoke lowly, "and then your father can send the others out on an errand so their healer can come and take a look at his foot?"

Nusrat nodded. From his sidelong glance at Zahid, this was something the next-in-line would oppose.

Jamin gave Lieutenant the pre-arranged hand signal. He was about to go into the tents, alone. They were to stay there, visible to discourage antics, but to otherwise turn themselves into rocks on a hill.

The line of men split in half, one-half remaining to stare up the hill at the lizard people, the other to guard
him
as he moved into their tents to treat with their shaykh. A disheveled looking dog barked at him, its tail wagging as though it couldn't decide whether or not to bite him. Marwan's tent was still the same … it had always been the finest one in the camp … but it was freshly adorned with colorful swags.

"Step inside," Nusrat held aside the woven linen door.

Halifian social custom dictated the eldest son should enter first and sit at the right hand of his father, followed by the guest. Zahid moved to stand next to his father. Nusrat moved to the place he always occupied across the room, son of a lesser-ranked, but much beloved wife. The other brothers, uncles, and cousins piled in, not a woman amongst the bunch. If Aturdokht wielded feminine influence here, it didn't extend much further than the woman's section of the tent.

One of Marwan's six wives hovered around her husband, clad from head to foot in a loose flowing robe which, unlike Ubaid shawl-dresses, had been stitched so that it covered every bit of her body. She bustled about her husband, hastily attending to his appearance.

'Insalam,"
Jamin greeted her. He vaguely remembered the woman had helped Aturdokht tend to him when he'd lain halfway between life and death, weakened from blood loss and infection.

Dark eyes glittered fearfully from beneath her colorful veil. So? They were afraid of him now? Did they fear retribution because they had sold him into slavery? Or was she afraid because, as a lesser wife, she and her offspring would be at Zahid's mercy once Marwan died?

Jamin rubbed his shoulder and then replicated the Sata'anic gesture of a hand to his forehead, his lips and his heart to show respect the way one might a man. The gesture was similar to one the Halifians already emulated, and he wondered if it was a remnant of some long-forgotten contact with their world?

“Had you not stitched me back together,” Jamin said, “I would not have stayed alive long enough for the lizard people to save me. Perhaps I might prevail upon them to examine your husband and see if something might be done to help him?"

She blinked, only her eyes able to convey what she did not dare speak aloud. Yes. It was not
him
she feared, but her own delicate situation. Women occupied a precarious position in a culture which viewed them as little more than chattel. She hurried out of the room. For the life of him, Jamin could not remember her name.

"Jamin," Marwan called, his voice weak and breathy. "The prodigal son has returned."

"I have come bringing good tidings," Jamin said. He moved towards Marwan, arms spread wide, to demonstrate he was unarmed.

He glanced towards the curtain which divided the women's section of the tent from the place the men gathered. Was she there now? Aturdokht? Did she listen to every word?

The desert shaykh lay reposed upon an assortment of embroidered cushions, his leg propped up with a pointed slipper only loosely stuck onto the end of his swollen foot to hide it. He had a greyish pallor, although that might have merely been the way the sunlight filtered through the linen of the tent, accentuating the puckered purple scar which ran from his mouth to his ear like a second, silent mouth. Water was a precious resource out here in the desert, too precious to waste on bathing, but even by Halifian standards, the tent reeked of infection.

"Sit next to me, Jamin," Marwan said. “The rest of you can leave me. Everyone but Nusrat.”

"But father…" Zahid protested.

"As you can see, son," Marwan gave his son a weak smile, "I am likely already dead. If our good friend repays our betrayal by sticking a knife into my ribs, it would be a mercy."

Jamin tugged at the crotch of the tight, alien pants which dug into his private parts and kneeled on the luxurious felted carpet next to Marwan, considered a seat of honor. Zahid's eyes were twin points of hateful bitumen, ready to ignite as he led his brothers out of the tent.

“Nusrat,” Marwan said. “Send in Aturdokht. I wish for
her
to tell him the results of his machinations.”

Nusrat gave him a hooded gaze. He disappeared into the other side of the divider, and then returned, his sister magnificently dressed in colorful robes decorated with embroidered thread. Her face was covered as it always was, but instead of a veil she had twisted a magnificent green scarf around her head so that it resembled the turbans worn by the men, broadcasting her status as a shaykah. She glided across the carpet like a leaf carried in the desert wind and stopped before him, head unbowed, as her magnificent hazel-green eyes met his with curiosity and a little bit of fear. It was not
him
she feared, he suspected, but the brigade of lizard people who waited at the top of the hill.

“
Insalam,
” Jamin greeted her. He bowed to her the way a courtier would, one arm across his waist, his other behind his back. He pulled out of his coat pocket the gift he had brought for her, a trinket, really, but one Kasib had promised would be favorably received by a woman.

“What is this?” Aturdokht stared at the fist-sized oblong fruit. It was green with just a blush of red, fortuitously just like Aturdokht’s robes.

“It is a fruit from the land on the other side of the great eastern desert,” Jamin said. “Very rare. I wish I could have procured more than one, but once you taste it, you will agree that never have you tasted its equal.”