Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (71 page)

"Who else is sick?"

"Everyone," Behnam said. "The Chief. Varshab. Even Needa."

"What about Immanu?" Pareesa asked.

"He hasn't returned from Nineveh," Behnam said. "He went to convene with the other shamans."

Pareesa frowned. Without Immanu, how were they supposed to neutralize the evil spirits in the poison?

"The Uruk were in front of me the entire way here," Pareesa said. "They are likely already inside the village. I had to go the long way around to avoid detection."

Behnam fingered his arrows. "The warriors were the first to succumb. They all came in from their training and drank deeply from the wells."

"Find whoever you can who is not affected," Pareesa said. "There are only two handfuls of Uruk, but they are led by Jamin, so they know exactly where to go."

"The fools make another attempt at Mikhail?" the old man scowled.

"And me," Pareesa said. She stared down at her own bow, now down to two arrows in her quiver. "Jamin most especially wants to kill
me.
"

"You must first go protect your family," Behnam said. "Firouz is on guard tonight at Immanu's house. If he hasn't succumbed to the poison, he is a capable warrior."

"As is Gita," Pareesa said. "She is a capable warrior, too."

"Gita is unarmed," Behnam said. "Immanu took away her knife and spear. He has accused her of being complicit with Shahla and has demanded the tribunal issue a death sentence."

"What?" Pareesa blurted out. "But the Chief agreed Gita is innocent!"

"Immanu claims he has evidence which says otherwise," Behnam said. "Now go! Go protect your family!"

A peculiar rush of headiness reminded her she wasted time. Unbeknownst to Immanu, she had placed Mikhail's sword back beneath his bed. Gita had no idea how to use it, but it was better than nothing.

"Start the notification tree," Pareesa said. "We are under attack. Warn people not to drink the water."

Behnam's mouth curved up into a wrinkled grin. "You've come a long way, little girl."

"And you're not too bad, either," Pareesa said, "for an old man."

Behnam loped off to warn whoever was still not smitten by the poison. Pareesa turned towards her own modest house, but that now-familiar tingle of power urged her to head in a different direction.

"You wish me to first save Mikhail?" Pareesa asked the old god.

It was frustrating, having a connection to a deity you could not communicate with clearly. Whatever the old god intended, along with his sense of urgency came a feeling her family would be alright. She moved into the third ring, but when she turned towards Immanu's house, the old god urged her to keep climbing up to the central square.

"Mikhail needs me," Pareesa protested.

That warning buzz grew insistent, more urgent. The God of War felt her skills were needed elsewhere. First her family, and then the man she adored. Why should she listen to him when both were her heart and soul?

Her frustration evaporated as the sensation led her to the Chief's house and stopped. Pareesa's blood turned chill as she recognized the Chief's door sat ajar. It wasn't Mikhail whom Jamin had come to smite, but Chief Kiyan. The bastard had come to kill his own father!

She pressed her back against the shadows, her heart pounding like a shaman's drum as she crept towards the sitting room. She pulled an arrow and strung it onto her bowstring. If Jamin killed the Chief, who would rule the village in his place? A mad shaman, irrational with grief over the abduction of his only child? Varshab, who did not want the power? Or would the lizard people force them to accept Jamin as the lawful heir? What would happen to
her
? And her family?

She burst into the room and choked with relief when she realized the room was empty. She moved the cushions to make sure Jamin hadn't hidden the Chief's body beneath the dismembered cushions. No. No body. Where was he? In the kitchen? Or had he made it back upstairs?

An explosion of stuffing erupted from the cushion.

"Goatshit!" Pareesa screamed.

The air smelled of burned goat hair and a scent that reminded her of lightning when it struck too close. She loosed her arrow and shot in the direction from whence the bolt of lightning had come.

A shadow cursed. A second bolt of lightning flew at her.

'Rōru!'
The old god forced her body to roll to avoid the firestick. She felt that familiar sense of power tingle through her body, not possession, but that eerie sense of
knowing
what would happen before it manifested into the material world. She could taste, could smell, could
see
the place where Jamin crouched at the top of the stair.

Jamin stood, his black cloak trailing behind him as he extended both arms, one supporting the other as he took aim with the deadly firestick. She had never seen Mikhail fire his weapon, but she had seen him practice without firing enough times to recognize Jamin took aim for a kill shot.

'Clear your mind, focus only on the shot…' Mikhail's voice whispered inside her head. 'Sometimes, a primitive weapon can be superior to an advanced one if the user is skilled and they understand the limitations of their weapon.'

She could picture him, wings flared like a raptor's, as he had taught her how to shoot an arrow while under fire. She could do this. Yes. She could take this shot, just as Mikhail had taught her.

She rose, eerily calm as she stepped into view of Jamin's firestick and took aim, determined to smite this traitor who had cut down the teacher she loved. She could
see
the blue shadow of intent which moved from Jamin's mind to his finger as took aim and hissed with hatred: 
'you.'

"
Anata
," she growled back as she let fly her arrow,
"hitsuyō ga aru ... shinu!"
The arrow whistled with unerring accuracy towards the bastard who had betrayed Mikhail.

Jamin fired his pulse rifle...

Pareesa leaped backwards, but lightning from the firestick touched her arm. It burned! It burned! Holy hell that burned! But by some grace of the goddess, the lightning only grazed her bicep.

It did not, however, miss the sitting-cushions she'd landed on. They ignited. Flames licked up the wall via a small, woven rug, it's coloring and weave out of place amongst the elaborate tapestries, up to the wooden struts which held up the second floor.

She struggled to her feet, but was forced to retreat when Jamin fired lightning every time she moved. Flames crawled up onto the ceiling, out into the entrance hall, and into the kitchen beyond. Pareesa coughed, her eyes burning as the heat threatened to burn out her eyeballs.

She must have fainted, because a moment later she lay on the floor, face pressed into a the carpet as thick black smoke filled the room. She shrieked as she realized her hair was on fire and pounded it out using her hand. The old God of War flooded her with strength, filling her head with urgent images to get out of here before she burned alive. She could see no sign of Jamin even though she was certain she had shot him through. Somehow the bastard had escaped.

She remembered why Bishamonten had sent her here in the first place. The Chief! She had to save the Chief if he was still alive!

Flames fell down from the ceiling like raindrops as she raced through the house, up the steps to the bedrooms. Enough light flickered through the doorway to see somebody lay upon a bed. She grabbed his arm and was relieved when the Chief moved. Ohthankthegods! He was still alive!

"Chief!" Pareesa shouted. "We've got to get you out of here. Now!"

"He's come home. My son has come home…"

She forced him upright and wedged herself beneath his armpit. He retched twice, but she was finally able to impress upon him the urgency to get outside. She guided his feet down the stairs, crying out when he tumbled the last three steps even though
she
wasn't the one who was hurt.

"Chief! Please! Get up! We have to get out of here!"

The Chief stumbled towards the front sitting room where the fire had started, now fully engulfed in flames. A moment later he stumbled out again, coughing, and collapsed in front of her, clutching a small, burning woven carpet, oblivious that it burned him.

"You stupid, stupid man!" Pareesa screamed at him as no villager had ever dared disrespect their Chief.

She stomped on the carpet so it no longer burned him and helped him up, the scent of burnt hair even more sickening than the smoke. It was so thick she had a hard time figuring out where the door was, but Chief Kiyan was conscious enough that his feet found their
own
way out of his familiar house, towards a front door he had used thousands of times.

She dumped him outside, next to his elderly cooking-woman who apparently had made her own way outside before collapsing in front of the well. She only paused long enough to make sure both were still breathing before taking off in a frantic run towards Mikhail's house, the first victim on Jamin's kill-list.

'Please please please please,' she pleaded with the old god of war. 'Please don’t let me be too late!'

She burst into Immanu's house and froze when an inhuman howl pierced the air like a wolf baying at the moon in hunger. Every inch of her body screamed at her to
run away
as she stepped over three hacked Uruk, their mutilated bodies thrown down the stairs like meat.

'Do not be afraid,'
images danced into her mind, reassuring, familiar, as the old god spoke the only way he could.
'The Dark Lord protects his own…'

Pareesa almost retched at the scent of sickness and rotted flesh blended with the scent of fresh gore, spilt blood and ruptured bowels. For a moment she thought that
he
had risen from his deathbed, but it was no Angelic who had wrought such damage, but a ghastly pale waif, her frame so thin and skeletal it was a wonder she could pick up Mikhail's sword.

"Gita," Pareesa said cautiously. "It's alright. It's just me."

Gita's head jerked towards her; menacing, birdlike, and hostile. She stood, sword raised, feet planted on either side of Firouz as she guarded Mikhail from all who came at him and snarled at Pareesa as though she did not recognize her. More mutilated bodies lay upon the floor, nary a head nor limb still attached as the floor glistened sickening red.

Below she heard Behnam burst into the house with several voices behind him, villagers lucky enough to have drawn their water before Laum had poisoned it. The old man climbed up the stairs, his way lit by a tallow lantern.

"It's me, Gita," Pareesa crooned at the gore-stained guardian who stood before her. "It's Pareesa. Your friend. It's all right now. Mikhail is safe. He doesn't need you to protect him anymore."

Gita's preternaturally large eyes glittered at her from the dark, devoid of any color but emptiness. They were pure black, with no sign of white or an iris, the color of bitumen, the most frightening nightmare, of death and monsters and creatures which had never seen the light of day. Once before Pareesa had stared into those pitiless black eyes and been spared. Would the Dark Lord recognize her now?

"It is I, Sir," Pareesa said. "The one who saved him. Please, Sir? Let me go to him and make sure your vessel is alright?"

He-who's-not-Gita stared at her, through her, as Pareesa felt a coldness pass right through her soul.

'Don't be afraid,'
the old God of War whispered into her mind, but she could tell that even
he
feared the Dark Lord. The old God of War gripped her and urged her
not
to run.

It was just like staring down a lion…

Gita trembled, and then dropped Mikhail's sword. The blackness in her eyes lingered, and then faded away as the Dark Lord relinquished control of his mortal vessel. With a cry of anguish, Gita dropped to her knees, sobbing in front of Mikhail's bed.

"Tell me, Behnam," Pareesa said to the village elder who stood, speechless, behind her. "Do you still think the girl is guilty of setting up his murder?"

"Mikhail, Mikhail, Mikhail," Gita cried as she ran her hands over his body, searching to see if the raiders had inflicted any harm.

"No," Behnam said. He placed his hand upon Pareesa's shoulder. "It seems your initial assessment was right. Had she
wanted
to kill him, all she had to do was leave."

Pareesa stared, dumbfounded, as a large brown wing curved upwards and, with a groan of pain, Mikhail rolled towards her and pulled the sobbing waif into the bed. Gita resisted, and then collapsed, exhausted as he found the reserve of strength to envelop the sobbing girl into the enormous folds of his wings.

"
Chol beag
," Mikhail whispered, the first words Pareesa had heard him utter in days.

Gita hiccoughed, her voice muffled beneath his feathers, and then fell silent, the only sound the pained breathing of the man who lay dying.

Pareesa glanced back at Behnam. "What do we do?"

"Whatever
he
wants to do," Behnam said. "If he wants to comfort her, let him comfort her. She did, after all, just save his life."