Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (49 page)

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June – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Just outside Assur Village

Jamin

“Are you going to sulk
all day?” Siamek asked.  “Or will you come practice with us?”

Jamin sat in a bushy
area where the riverbank rose high above the water.  Not far below, Ninsianna
stood thigh-deep in the Hiddekel River, sans shawl, cheerfully doing her
family's laundry.  Siamek knew him well enough to know that wherever Ninsianna
was to be found, Jamin would be lurking just out of sight.

“Yesterday was
supposed to be our wedding day!”  Jamin shoved down the sob, not wishing to let
on his heart was breaking.

“I know.”  Siamek's
face was sympathetic.  He sat cross-legged on the ground next to him.  “You
handled it fairly well, except….”

Jamin’s head snapped
up.  He regarded his oldest friend with suspicion.  Whispers.  Ever since the
winged demon had moved into his village, his friends were abandoning him like a
canoe with a hole in the bottom of it.

“Except?”

 “Nothing,” Siamek
avoided eye contact and stared at the ground.  “Those of us who know you
understand how hard this has been for you.”

Jamin sucked in a deep
breath, steadying the maelstrom of anger and grief which threatened to erupt
like a volcano.  They didn't understand! 
None
of them understood! 
Whenever he tried to speak of it, they slapped him on the back, made jokes
about women being ball-busters, and told him to get over it.  He didn't
want
to get over it.  He wanted to
win
!

“Did she have to make
a spectacle of herself?”  Jamin turned back to stare at Ninsianna.  “I mean,
okay.  It's a festival.  And my father wants to incorporate him into the
tribe.  So there has to be a speech.  And it wasn't surprising he won because
he can fly over obstacles like they aren't even there.  But did she have to
jump on him and kiss him right in front of the entire village?”

“He's not a bad guy,”
Siamek said.  “He’s pretty reserved.  I don't think he would have flown off with
her like that if she hadn't covered him in mud.  Ninsianna is a wicked tease.”

“You'd think she would
have been a bit more sensitive!”  Jamin was unable to prevent his voice from
warbling like a pubescent boys.  “Of all the days for them to make it known
they are a couple, why did they have to choose our wedding day?”

Jamin looked down, the
sight of Ninsianna’s happiness too painful to bear.  A happy song wafted up
with the breeze.  A
love
song.  A love song that
he'd
once sung
for
her
back when she'd stopped rebuking his advances and started to
encourage him.  He coughed and pretended to swat a gnat, wiping the tear that
escaped so Siamek wouldn't see it.

“You have to let it
go,” Siamek said.  “It's not right, how she treated you.  But you've got to let
it go.  All you do is follow her around.  It's not … healthy.”

“I don't follow her
around!”

“It's all you do,”
Siamek said.  “You rarely practice with your friends anymore.  You don't eat. 
You don't smile.  You've lost weight.  You look like goat shit.  And you've
been snapping and snarling at friends who've done nothing to deserve it.  It's
time to let her go and move on.”

The wind picked up and
blew cool air across his cheek like a caress.

'Jamin … let her
go...' 

“I can’t go anywhere
without bumping into …
him
!” Jamin swatted at the sensation.  “And if I
don't bump into him in person, then I have to listen to everyone twitter about
how wonderful he is!  Even my own
father
prefers his company to mine!”

“You’re not very good
company lately,” Siamek said carefully and immediately held up his hand so
Jamin wouldn't interrupt until he'd had his say.  “Ah ah ah!  Don't get in a
huff!  It's not an accusation.  It's an observation.  Ever since Ninsianna
dumped you, you've been a miserable bastard to be around.” 

“You would be
too
if it had happened to you like that!”

“Yes,” Siamek said. 
“I would be too.  But you're not the only guy who's ever had his balls cut off
and handed to him by a female he thought he was in love with.”

“Yah, who?” Jamin
retorted.  “Shahla?  Every warrior in the village has slept with Shahla. 
Except for maybe Ebad, who is so incompetent with a spear even Shahla won't
sleep with him.”

“No,” Siamek said. 
“It's none of your business.  But I've had it happen.  And it stinks.  It makes
you feel … unworthy.” 

They sat silently for
a time, watching Ninsianna slap the laundry against the rocks and dunk them
into the river to rinse the soap made from rendered animal fat and wood ash. 
It was obvious the bulk of her laundry belonged to her new ‘brother.’

Siamek rose to his
feet and held out his hand to help him up.

“C’mon,” Siamek said. 
“I came to drag your sorry ass back into the land of the living.  It's time to
move on.  The others … you're beginning to scare them.  They need a leader. 
Not an angry lion who snarls at them all the time.”

'Your people need
you…'
the wind whispered through the
reeds.

“I'll be along
later.”  Jamin's attention wandered back to the happy, singing woman who was
clueless she was being watched.  “What I brood about is nobody’s business.”

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June – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Just outside Assur Village

Shahla

She swirled her best
shawl in the water, frowning at the sight of dirt smeared into its back.  It
was the prettiest shawl in the entire village.  Her parents had spent half a
year's harvest on the piece of linen used to make it after word had come through
the village that Ninsianna had broken off her engagement with the Chief's son. 
She'd convinced them it would help her finally lure Jamin into a betrothal. 
Little had
any
of them known the bull-headed Jamin would continue to
pursue his former harlot with single-minded determination, spurning
her. 

Her parents would be
livid if they learned she was sneaking behind their backs to see Dadbeh, a
low-ranking warrior whose parents were nothing but farmers, instead of
increasing her family's social rank by marrying the son of the village Chief. 
Jamin had dumped her once already.  Unless he had something more convincing to
say besides he wanted a quick rendezvous behind the nearest goat shed, she
wasn't going to fall for his charms anymore! 

She glanced over to where
Ninsianna stood upriver, talking to herself as she often did whenever she
thought nobody was watching, as she scrubbed her family's laundry.  How had a
crazy woman who had the gall to claim the goddess spoke directly to her ended
up with
her
boyfriend?  Even Immanu, a shaman, had enough common sense
not to make
those
kinds of claims!  And why was she so happy?

“What’s with her?”
Shahla asked
. 

 “Didn’t you see?” 
Gita's pale, gaunt face lit up with a rare smile.  “He swooped in and flew off
with her after the competition.  It was so romantic!  I'm amazed you didn't see
it!”

“Harrumph!!!  Shahla
pouted.  “I was busy behind the goat shed with … oh … never mind!”  She
scrubbed the back of her shawl with a vengeance, trying to remove evidence of
what
exactly she'd been doing behind the goat shed the day before, and it had
not been crawling through the mud chucking spears!

“You shouldn't make
yourself so available to the warriors,” Gita scolded, her black eyes swirling
with recrimination.  “Why trade for the goat that already gives you milk for
free?”

“I think Ninsianna
already
gives the winged one lots of milk!” Shahla said.  “We need to take her down a
peg.”

“Ninsianna is my
cousin.”  Gita withdrew into the emotional shell she usually reserved for
others. 

“
Everybody
here
is a cousin!” Shahla said.  “I'm sick of everybody always sucking up to
Ninsianna.  Ninsianna this.  Ninsianna that.  You should try to be more like
Ninsianna!” 

“Shahla … it’s not
Ninsianna’s fault Jamin chose her over you.  He chased her for two years before
she finally gave him the time of day.”

“Why do you defend
her?" Shahla said.  "She's terribly mean to you.  She talks badly about
you behind your back.  And besides … she always steals away
my
boyfriends!”  Shahla smacked her shawl against a rock to loosen the dirt.

“Maybe if you tried
being more aloof?”  Gita gave her that spooky look that always gave Shahla the
creeps.  “Guys are into the hunt.  They only value a woman they have to
pursue.”

“How’s that working
out for you?” Shahla sneered.

Gita withdrew into her
habitual shell.  The one where she turned herself into a fly on the wall and
you forgot all about her being there.  Aloof her rear end!  Like she was going
to sit there like some pathetic spider waiting for whatever unwary insect flew
into her web?  She could almost
picture
Gita sitting there, alone in her
web, waiting for a fly that never came.  Shahla turned back to her shawl, the
stain of her extracurricular activities screaming out at her from its back. 
How the heck would she explain
that
to her parents?

She looked up and
realized Gita had gone… 

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June – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

Mikhail

“Mikhail,” Immanu
called, his expression rushed.  “The Chief wants you to meet him at his house.”

“What's this about?”
Mikhail asked.