Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (56 page)

"Brigadier-General Rahotep sent a scout ship in to verify what they said was true," Captain Shzzzkt said. His insectoid voice rose so high with excitement that his voice enhancement box had difficulty picking up the syllables. "Sir! Rahotep hacked into a video feed with … I'm not sure
what
it is, Sir. It looks like some sort of cryo-chamber. But Sir? It's … it sure
looks
like a human locked inside."

Abaddon realized he was already on his feet. He grabbed his pulse rifle and his sword, already out the door before he even had a chance to secure them to his hip. He hurried down the hallway, tugging at his belt.

"What's our ETA for repairs on those engines?" Abaddon asked.

"Engineering says they need three days,"

"Tell them they have eight hours!" Abaddon barked. "And alert the fleet. As soon as the
Jehoshaphat
can move, we're kicking Shay'tan off of that planet!"

~ * ~ * ~

December, 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Pareesa

The cold pallor of winter blew down from the Zagros Mountains and clenched its skeletal fingers around the men huddled together on the flat plain just outside the south gate of Assur for warmth. They were an unlikely looking bunch, elite warriors mixed in with old men stooped from decades bent over their fields and women, many not much older than Pareesa. They wore the same dejected, defeated look that
she
hid; an invisible enemy, unseen, but every bit as palpable as the winter wind.

Siamek met her gaze and nodded.
He
felt the peculiar melancholy this morning, as well…

"Alright men," Siamek ordered. "Pareesa will lead us for the warm-up."

Even the warrior's groan of complaint was half-hearted. Pareesa glanced down the line, wishing fervently one of them would show a little rebellion. Her gaze met Firouz's, the trickster of the bunch,
half
a trickster ever since Dadbeh had left the village.

'Please, Firouz,'
Pareesa implored the elite warrior with her eyes.
'A little help, please?'

Firouz's lip twitched in a wistful gesture that might have been a smirk or sadness. All his life he'd been told to stop joking around. Now that he no longer
wished
to be funny, it was what people needed him to do.

"Would that include a trip back into my house to linger before the hearth?" Firouz asked half-heartedly. He held out his arms as though warming them before a fire.

A low rumble of laughter rippled through the warriors. This was a sentiment every man here shared, including
her.

Firouz looked to his left where Dadbeh had always stood, ready to pick up his one-liner and turn it into a series of dialogue. His laughter died on his lips. Without Dadbeh here to throw in a snarky comment, Firouz's humor fell flat. He looked up at Pareesa, his expression mournful.

Pareesa gave him an apologetic look. Two weeks ago, Dadbeh had quietly gone on a quest to find out where the lizard people had taken Shahla's body. The villagers feared Dadbeh had simply lain down in the wilderness and allowed the hyenas to take him, but Pareesa suspected he hadn't come back because of
her
. He had loved Shahla. She had killed her. And now … Firouz looked as lost without Dadbeh as
she
felt without Mikhail.

"Pareesa?"

Pareesa looked up into Siamek's concerned eyes. She'd missed her cue to begin the warm up exercises. She was slipping. They were
all
slipping without Mikhail's blend of strict discipline and quiet good example. Well, she'd be
damned
if she let that happen on
her
watch!

"Alright everyone!" Pareesa shouted. "If you're cold, it's because you're not
moving.
Let's start out with a quick run down to the fields."

"But the fields are submerged," a warrior from Nineveh called out.

"I said run down
to
the fields," Pareesa said. "Not go for a swim." She gave him a jackal's grin, an echo of the old Pareesa, the one which had once been carefree and full of mischief. "Unless, of course, you find yourself in dire need of a bath?"

"No, Sir!" the Ninevian shouted.

His teammates slapped the man on the back and made crude jokes about smelling like a billygoat in rut. There. That was better.

Pareesa pointed to the north.

"Let's go, then!" Pareesa ordered.

She led the pace in a brisk run around the outer wall of the village. They ran in silence, without the usual sing-song rhymes. When they reached the steep embankment which elevated Assur above the flood tide of the Hiddekel River, they picked their way down the jagged pathway carefully, none wishing to take a tumble down the hill. Pareesa measured the length of the line and frowned. Yesterday,  Eshnunna, Dur-Kurigalzu and Arrapha's had sent runners to inexplicably order their men to return home. Mikhail's alliance was disintegrating before her eyes!

She made her way down to the bottom of the trail. The river lapped within inches of the footpath, but within a few hundred paces there was a nice flat spot, the ground still soft from its annual tilling. It was a nice place to practice moves where warriors were likely to be thrown to the ground. She lined them up to conduct their daily routine.

"Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine," Pareesa counted out her weapon of choice against insubordination, pushups. "One hundred!"

The warriors helped each other up and settled into a lackluster slouch like beasts of burden who understood it was a choice between the plow-harness or the butcher's knife. How could she give these men heart when the Evil One had carved out the heart of her hero?

"I hope everybody brought their swords?" Pareesa asked.

Wooden sticks slipped out of belts or pack-bundles. Within minutes she had the warriors broken up into pairs and practicing sword-thrusts. She fingered the hilt of the lesser Sata'anic sword. She'd promised Mikhail she'd leave
his
sword under his bed just before he'd slipped into the sleep which usually preceded death. She refused to take his sword from him, just in case he awoke and wished to hold it.

Or carry its essence with him into the next world…

Pareesa shoved the unwelcome thought out of her mind and rubbed her nose against her shawl. She would
not
give up hope. Mikhail never gave up, and neither would
she
. She wiped her eyes, pretending to pick out an insect even though, this time of year, the pests had gone into hibernation.

She demonstrated the sword routine she'd practiced all morning with Siamek, a blend of a staff- kata and a vaguely-remembered move used by the God of War. Was he still here, that ancient god? She closed her eyes and focused on the tickle. Yes. He half-listened to her the way a parent might listen to a child chatter, not really paying attention to the words, but if the child shrieked, the parent would be there to fend off the hyena.

She realized somebody had been standing behind her for quite some time. She turned and stared up into the quiet, watchful gaze of the man who had loved her enough to take a spear for her. Despite her melancholy, her lips curved up into a smile.

"Ebad?" Pareesa said. "You're supposed to be in bed."

His arm was bound around his torso. Most of the wound had healed, but the deepest slice kept opening up if he moved his arm too vigorously. Ebad's expression was wistful.

"Needa said I could make short trips outside."

"This is not a short trip," Pareesa said. She pointed to the pathway down the steep hill. "Even if you made it
down
here okay, you're still too weak to make it back up the hill."

"Ipquidad will help." Ebad pointed to the gentle giant.

Ipquidad met their gaze, and then resumed thwacking at one of the men from Nineveh with a methodical thunk-thunk-thunk. Yes. If Ipquidad could carry Mikhail, Ebad would be no problem.

"You'll tire yourself and slow down your healing," Pareesa objected half-heartedly. Truth was, she was grateful he was here.

Ebad's expression was solemn. "I thought it might help morale if at least
one
of us got up out of our deathbed."

Tears rushed to Pareesa's eyes. She turned away from his earnest gaze, staring out across the Hiddekel River which had grown so broad it was difficult to see the other side. She gasped for breath, willing herself not to cry. As she stared, she recognized what she'd assumed to be debris was in fact a river canoe which grew larger the closer it approached.

She reached back and took Ebad's hand as they waited to see who traveled downriver. The thwacking of swords around her grew silent as the other warriors recognized Nineveh's canoe materialize out of the mist. As they neared the shore, Qishtea stood up, clad from head to toe in the formal regalia of a chief.

"Namhu," Pareesa called to her little brother who
pretended
not to shadow them. "Run up and tell Chief Kiyan that Chief Qishtea is here to see him on an official matter of state."

The Ninevian visiting warriors rushed to the shore's edge and waded in to help pull their brand-new chief's enormous river canoe up onto dry ground. They sensed, as she did, that whatever Qishtea had to say, this occasion was a formal one not fitting for an act so practical as taking off one's shoes. There was no hostility in his expression, but it was guarded, not the jovial one which had begun to emerge when he'd spent three days here to learn the fundamentals of swordplay.

Pareesa's eyes fell to Qishtea's hip. Strapped to it was a twin to the sword
she
wore. A Sata'anic sword. One identical to the five she had refused to give away. Pareesa stepped back and refused to meet Qishtea's outstretched hand.

"What is the meaning of this?" Pareesa challenged.

Qishtea's face remained an impassive mask, but a shadow of guilt clouded his brown eyes.

"What I have to say will be said first to your chief," Qishtea said. He glanced up the jagged path to the crest of the hill where, just beyond lay the north gate to the village.

As if on cue, Namhu reappeared at the edge of the embankment, followed by the solid form of Varshab, the Chief's personal guard. The pair made their way down the jagged path, Namhu bounding down like an eager goat, Varshab with the careful movement of a man who knew better. Qishtea turned towards the visiting warriors.

"Go back into the village and gather up your things," Qishtea said. "Leave any stores of grain or supplies you were given behind as a thank you gift for your host-families."

The Ninevian warriors exploded with chatter, but did not question Qishtea even though he was new to acting as their chief. Unlike Jamin, who had only ever cared for the hunt, Qishtea's father had forced him to act as both diplomat
and
leader of their warriors.

"You're
leaving?
" Pareesa stared at him incredulously. "But Qishtea! You gave us your word!"

Qishtea's expression was filled with remorse.

"My
father
gave
Mikhail
his word," Qishtea said softly. "That we would come to Assur's aid if ever you were attacked. And I shall
keep
that word until Mikhail breathes his last breath."

Relief warred with the incongruency in Qishtea's face until it dawned on her the verbal slight-of-hand.

"Mikhail is still alive!" Pareesa jabbed a finger at the young chieftain's face, heedless that he was just as heavily armed as she was. "How dare you break your vow!"

She glanced at the river canoe. Her eyes met the gaze of the next man to step out of the canoe, and then the man behind him, and the three men after that. Qishtea was the only chief who had come in person, but in the canoe he carried emissaries from each of the northern Ubaid villages. Unlike the southern villages, who had skulked away like thieves, the northern tribes had come united to abandon Assur as a group.