Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (6 page)

Throwing the shaft
aside, she used her obsidian knife to cut apart his peculiar garments.  Bad. 
This was really, really bad.  She needed to know where to stitch.  Wincing, she
pressed two fingers into the gaping hole, past his ribs to hit a hollow cavity. 
Pierced lungs.  The hole would steal his breath and drown him in his own
blood. 

His hear fluttered
through the delicate lung tissue to caress her fingertips as though the man was
pleading with her to save his life.  Ninsianna paused, awestruck, as she realized
she held the power of life and death over this man.  To her knowledge, no one,
not even her mother, had ever touched something so sacred as a still-beating
heart. 

“Thank you, Mother,”
she whispered in awe.  Was this what it felt like to be a goddess? 

Focus!  Better that
his heart
keep
beating!  The spear had travelled all the way through his
ribcage and punctured the other side.  As soon as she finished stitching up the
front, she would need to roll him over and also stitch up his back.  Her hands
slid on a bloodied, feathered cloak which lay crushed beneath his body, but she
pushed her curiosity aside.  Lung … first.  Grabbing the bone needle, she began
to stitch.  The work was crude, but effective. 

The stranger opened
his eyes. 

“A
n bhfuil tú ag seoladh isteach spiorad chun
treoir a thabhairt dom an t-am aisling?
”

His expression was
strangely calm given the precariousness with which he clung to life and fact
Ninsianna had her fingers buried in his chest.  Any other man would have
panicked.  

“I'm here to help.”

Since both hands were
busy, Ninsianna kissed his cheek and hoped he understood the gesture of
comfort.  His expression was one of trust.  He spoke in a language which caused
chills to go down her spine, although she couldn't say why.

“
Ní raibh mé riamh eagla an bháis, ach amháin a
chaitheamh ar an saol mar a n-aonar i ndiaidh huile gan maité mar atá mé ag
éigean a chaitheamh i mo shaol
. 
Bháis mé sásta go bhfuil spiorad álainn teacht
chun gabháil mé isteach sa saol atá romhainn.
 Beidh
mé ar turas lúcháireach le leat.
” 

She assumed he
expressed gratitude by the way he sighed and gave her a look that could only be
described as … relief?  He lost consciousness once more.  Ninsianna resumed her
stitching. 

“Mother, I must roll
him over, but the objects which have fallen on him are too heavy.  Please tell
me how to move them?”

An image of using the
spear she'd just removed from his chest as a lever popped into her mind. 
Ninsianna jammed chunks of debris into a pile and centered the shaft on it,
jamming one end beneath the large object which pinned his legs.  She was
surprised at the way the spear lifted the heavy object without bending the way
a wooden spear would.  Praying she didn't drop it, she kicked yet more debris
beneath the place she had just lifted it to keep it from falling back and
crushing the man's legs.  At last propped high enough to extricate his legs,
she crawled above his head and immediately lost her leverage as she slipped on
the bizarre garment he wore crushed beneath his back.

“Darn cloak!”  she
exclaimed.  “How will I get a grip on you if I keep slipping on these bloody
feathers?” 

She yanked out several
handfuls trying to move the accursed garment, noting the way they were tightly
sewn into place.  It lay right where she needed to get traction!  The man
regained consciousness a third time, wincing as she ripped out the next
double-handful of feathers.  With a shock, she realized that not only was the
cloak warm, but it was also attached to his back.

“You have wings?” 

The stranger studied
her face for her intentions as her hands slid over his living wings.  Her heart
skipped a beat as one of the small lightning-sparks illuminated his eyes and
showed her they were the color of the mid-winter sky. The moment stretched between
them as she realized she'd been sent to save a living god.  It would explain
how he could be so close to death, and yet the man not die.  She glanced at the
guilty handful of dark feathers she'd just ripped out of his living tissue. 

“Oh!  I'm so sorry!”

His expression was not
the anger you might expect when somebody ripped out a handful of your feathers,
a gesture of disrespect she assumed would be similar to if somebody had ripped
out a handful of
her
own hair, but confusion.  With a whispered prayer
for forgiveness, she touched his cheek to communicate she hadn't meant to cause
him pain.  The spirit-light she could sometimes see surrounding all living
creatures revealed the man drifted between the world of the living and the
dead.  Only his will to survive was keeping him alive.  She must work quickly!

“I will pull,” she
used her hands to accentuate her words and touched the spot where his legs
disappeared beneath wreckage, “but you must pull out your own legs.” 

“Is ea.”
  He nodded his assent. 

She positioned herself
behind his head and threaded her forearms through his armpits.   The man
groaned in agony as she pulled with all of her might.  Moving his legs of his
own accord, he shifted just far enough to free himself from the wreckage before
losing consciousness again.  She rolled him onto his side to gain access to the
exit wound. 

“He has the wings of
an eagle!” 

Protruding from his
back were enormous, muscular wings, blackish-brown to match his hair.  One was
bent at an ominous angle and soaked with blood, the other appeared to be
intact.

“Thank you for giving
me strength to free him,” Ninsianna said as she staunched his blood.  “When you
sent me a vision of a man with wings, I thought you wished to convey this man
is blessed by the gods.  I had no idea you were being literal!”

Grabbing her needle
and thread, she stitched the exit wound, and then moved onto the next most
critical injury.  His wing had snapped just below the knee joint and part of
his bone stuck though the skin.  She slid the bone back into the skin and
manipulated it until it slid into place, speaking as she worked even though she
doubted that he could hear her.  She grabbed the spear she'd ripped earlier
from his chest and used it to splint his broken wing.  His left wrist was bent
at an unnatural angle, signaling another break.  Thankfully the bone didn't
protrude. 

“It's a good thing
you're unconscious or I don't think you would let me do this to you!” Ninsianna
said.  His wrist made a cracking noise as she yanked the bone and snapped it
back into place.  “Not that you have a choice!” 

She fashioned another
splint and then moved on to the next less serious wound.  His legs were intact,
but he had a nasty gash in his skull.  The man's hair was cropped short in a
manner she had never seen before, but it would still be in the way.  She used
her obsidian knife to shave that portion of his scalp before stitching up the
gash, speaking the entire time to anchor his spirit in the material realms so
he would not pass into the dreamtime.

“I would go to my
people to get help,” Ninsianna pressed yarrow leaf into the sunken hole in his
chest to stem the bleeding.  “But Chief Kiyan is away on a trading mission and
left Jamin in charge.  If Jamin had kept his promise, I would have gone with them. 
It's lucky for
you
that I woke up and realized what a big mistake it
would be to marry Jamin because otherwise I wouldn't
be
here to help
you.”

Clearing debris, she
made the man as comfortable as she could.  One of Mama's recommended treatments
for a man who had lost so much blood was to drink.  She dribbled water into his
mouth and stroked his throat to coax him to swallow as he drifted between here
and the dreamtime.  He didn't appear to understand her language, but Ninsianna
knew it was the sound of a shaman's voice and intent of the speaker which
mattered, not the actual words, while Mama had taught her to use her
touch
to
anchor the badly injured.  She spoke to the stranger with no expectation of an
answer, the same way she always spoke to She-who-is

“It's a seven hour
walk back to my village and it will be getting dark soon," Ninsianna
stroked his cheek.  "I don't think it's wise to leave you alone with your
spirit so close to crossing into the next realm.  I' will stay with you until
you are strong.”

The man's skin felt
cold and clammy.  She pressed her fingers to his neck and noticed that his
heart beat unevenly and too light, a bad sign.  Blood loss and shock could
cause a man with moderate injuries to die where a more critically injured man
might survive.  She used a piece of debris to prop his legs up higher than his
head so the blood would flow where it was needed the way that Mama had taught
her.  Warm.  She needed to keep the man warm.  She grabbed the blanket she'd
brought with her in her satchel, covered him, and curled against his side to
share her warmth. 

Exhausted, Ninsianna
fell asleep.

~ * ~ * ~ *
~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.02 AE
^[1]

Earth Orbit:  SRN ‘Jamaran’

Lieutenant Kasib

Lt.
Kasib

The
SRN Jamaran
orbited
the blue resource planet which Shay'tan (a thousand blessings upon his name)
had sent this battle cruiser to secure.  Lieutenant Kasib stared at ship's
communications console, scanning through the reports coming in from the
planet's surface.

Sata'anic Royal Navy
General Hudhafah's dorsal ridge rose in irritation as he dug his claws into the
captain's chair
.

“Any sign of that
scout ship, Kasib?”

Kasib eyed the reports
with his gold-green serpentine eyes.

“There are no energy
signatures discernible on the planet except for ours, Sir,” Kasib said.  “The
enemy appears to have been completely destroyed.” 

Kasib flit out his
long forked tongue to taste the air for the level of his commanding officer’s
anger.  Like any wise lower-ranking male who served within the Sata'anic
military, he was hyper-alert to the slightest reddening of his commanding
officer's dewlap so he could anticipate his needs before the general even
thought of them himself.

“Good!”  General Hudhafah
hissed, his fangs bared at the mere
thought
of an Angelic scout ship
snooping around the planet.  “The last thing we want is the Alliance knowing
what we've found.”

With a genuflection to
his forehead, his snout and his heart, Kasib relayed the general's earlier
order, to resume rolling out annexation of the blue resource planet which had
their Emperor so excited.

Shay'tan be praised!

February - 3,390 BC

Earth:  Crash site

Pain … but duller than
before.  Hadn’t he dreamed of a spirit come to guide him into the dreamtime? 
He found her snuggled into his side, fast asleep.  His lungs hurt, but he could
now breathe.  A crude splint was rigged to immobilize one wrist.  Who was this
woman?  Was she his mate?  He recalled her kissing his cheek.  Whoever she was,
she'd saved his life.