Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (75 page)

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July 31
^st
  – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

Mikhail

 “So, young man,"
Yalda elbowed him in the ribs, "do you even
know
what you’re
supposed to do on your wedding night?” 

The three of them sat
around the widow-sisters kitchen table sipping mead, a fermented alcoholic
beverage made from honey, water and yeast from a tall, slender ceramic urn with
a narrow neck designed to separate out the desireable portions of the beverages
they fermented from the parts that were better left in the jar.  Mikhail’s head
spun from the alcohol they'd already imbibed.  The widow-sisters, it turned
out, were descended from a long line of brewers and fermenters.  Yalda and
Zhila could drink any man under the table.  Including
him
. 

“Uhm … actually … I
can’t remember if I know what to do or not.”

“Ha ha!” Zhila
laughed.  “Memory loss is a beautiful thing!  This means whether or not you're
a virgin, it will be your first time."  She relished the pink that crept
into Mikhail's cheeks as she gave her sister a conspiratorial wink. 

Tomorrow was the first
harvest festival of the growing season when the earliest sheathes of grain had
ripened enough for picking, a point halfway between the summer solstice and the
fall equinox.  He and Ninsianna would be wed and finally granted permission to
mate.   Three days ago, Immanu had ceremonially banned him from the house, the
groom forbidden to gaze upon the bride while she retreated to prepare for her
nuptials.

"I appreciate
your letting me stay here," Mikhail said.  "It wouldn't have been
very convenient to fly back and forth to my ship while I was
'banished.'"   

"More like they
don't want the bride frightening off the groom with all her talk about the
preparations of food and status of her wedding dress," Yalda laughed. 

"Ninsianna is
less shallow than most," Zhila said, "but even the most gracious
bride gets snippy a few days before her wedding."

That
was the understatement of the year!  He suspected her
grouchiness had more to do with the fact they barely saw each other since the
Chief had put him in charge of training the others and
she'd
been forced
to take up the slack with the household chores.

He took another sip of
the vat of mead through the long river reeds they used as straws.  After three
days with the widow-sisters, he could see why they were reluctant to be parted
from one another.  They shared a rapport he could only envy.  He only hoped he
and Ninsianna would grow to share a similar closeness, something he'd sorely
missed ever since they'd left the intimacy of his ship.

"I remember my
first time," Yalda leaned towards him and poked him with a bony finger. 

"Listen,"
Zhila waggled her eyebrows at him.  "There are a few things you need to
know about pleasing a woman…” 

They cackled like two
old hens, telling him
w-a-y
more information than he wanted to know
about how to please Ninsianna on their wedding night.  He sat there, his ears
turning first pink, and then a deep shade of scarlet as they told him w-a-y
more information than he ever wanted to know about how to please a woman on
their wedding night.

His head spinning,
Mikhail excused himself and asked to lie down.  Judging from the two nights
spent with the sisters prior to tonight, they were just getting warmed up.  He
didn't want to spend his wedding day hung over like he had after the
first
night
spent here, the next day's warrior training lesson taking on a surreal penumbra
from the splitting hangover he'd been nursing.  He was good at many things, but
imbibing ungodly amounts of alcohol was not one of them. 

Or milking goats…

Mikhail didn't even
want to
think
about his long-running war with Immanu’s dairy goat right
now.  Trying not to think about demonic goats besting him in battle with their
evil little horns, Mikhail drifted off to the sleep to the sound of the
widow-sisters cackling about the sexual prowess of husbands long dead and in
the grave.

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August 1
^st
  – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Ninsianna

Ninsianna and her
closest friends stood jammed into her tiny bedroom like dried dates jammed into
a jar for winter storage.

 “It's crooked,” Mama
said.

“It is not!” Homa
said.  “She's just
standing
crooked.”

“Is too,” Gisou agreed
with Mama.  “You sewed the flower into the seam.  See …”

“We need to rip out
that fringe and redo it,” Mama said.

“Mama!  There's no
time!”

Ninsianna had been so
busy training new archers that she’d had no time to finish embroidering her
bridal shawl.  She'd finally resorted to inviting her archer-sisters over for a
sewing party while she was in seclusion.  Flax cloth was horrifically
time-consuming to weave, much less to embellish it in such an ornate manner. 
This was and would probably remain the finest shawl she owned for the rest of
her life.

“Why not rip out just
that one flower?” Yadidatum suggested.  “Mikhail won't even notice.

“But then it won’t be
symmetrical!” Homa cried.  “I spent an entire day counting the number of
flowers and making sure they were even.”

“It doesn't matter,”
Yadidatum said.  “It’s not like men notice something like that, even if it
stands up and hits them on the nose.”

“Yadidatum is right,”
Mama said.  “Either you can get married in an uneven shawl that everybody can
see from far away.  Or you get married in a straight shawl with one less
flower.  It's your choice.”

“Okay,” Ninsianna
sighed.  “Let’s rip out the flower.  We can sew it back on correctly after the
wedding.”

Three days without him
had made her grumpy.  She missed his quiet warmth, not to mention the
eye-pleasing view every time he flexed a muscle.  She also missed the way he
deflected her attempts to break his formidable self-control by taking her
airborne, an exhilarating experience.  Ninsianna’s mind headed down into a very
naughty and dirty place with thoughts about what they were going to do after
the ceremony.

“Why are you smiling?”
Pareesa asked.

“Oh … no reason…”
Ninsianna said noncommittally to the still-very-young maiden.

“I know why!” Homa
laughed.  “She is thinking of all the naughty things she is going to do to that
handsome winged stud of hers later!”

“Homa!” Mama shushed,
looking at Pareesa.  “We have young ears present!” 

Normally a
twelve-year-old such as Pareesa would have been hanging around with less
gutter-minded young women, but her natural talent as a warrior had exposed her
to other ideas besides how to shoot an arrow.

“It’s not like I don't
know what … what … well … at least I have an
idea
what you're all
talking about!” Pareesa blushed.

“Pareesa’s mother
would have you girl’s heads if she overheard you right now!”  Mama gave the
girls a pointed look.  “Young lady … you have a few more years to go before you
speak of such things!”

“Of course, Needa!” 
The mischievous twinkle in her eye clued the others the fairy-like Pareesa had
no intention of doing what she was told.  Her near capture had changed the
young woman, making her more serious.  This glimpse of the 'old' Pareesa was a
welcome sight.

“Ninsianna … daughter
… it's time!” Papa shouted up the stairs.

“Let’s go, daughter,”
Mama said with a serious expression.  All of a sudden, she gave Ninsianna a hug
and burst into tears.

“Mama … what is
wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” Mama
wiped her tears with her sleeve as she tried to compose herself.  “It’s just …
I'm so happy.”

The girls giggled as
they tromped down the stairs.  Papa held out one arm, kissed her on the cheek,
and escorted her to the main square.  As shaman, Papa's job was to ensure no
evil spirits intruded upon their nuptials while they took their vows.

They had originally
intended to have a small ceremony, just her family, Mikhail’s friends Yalda and
Zhila, and the original eight archers who had become a close-knit group. 
Unfortunately, since the night of the raid, Mikhail had become a security
blanket for the rattled villagers.  The wedding was the Chief’s opportunity to
reassure his people that their champion was not about to take wing and leave
them to fend for themselves in the wake of the strange, coordinated raids. 

The old tightwad had
even offered to pay for everything….

It was a party-like
atmosphere as they wound their way through the tightly packed houses of the
village, well-wishers who were not already in the main square for the opening
festivities thronging behind her as though it were a parade.  Older residents
came out and wished her well, while some of the younger, more gutter-minded
young women made off-color jokes about how much she must be looking forward to
being turned from a maiden into a woman.  Some of the comments were quite …
explicit.  Ninsianna blushed, her cheeks rosy and pink with excitement by the
time they traversed the village and entered the main village square. 

Her breath caught in
her chest as she caught sight of him waiting for her in front of the Chief. 
She'd always thought he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen, but today
he wore his dress uniform, his wings pressed tightly against his back.  The
formality was broken when he flashed her a rare smile, although these days, in
the privacy of their home, he'd started to smile quite a lot.  She noticed how
snug his uniform had become across his chest and arms.  Living amongst the
Ubaid doing hard physical labor had filled him out, including the axillary
muscles running down his back which powered his flight.  He reached out to take
her hand.

“You look beautiful.”

“You look good, too.” 
She glanced around at all the people who had come.  "The whole village? 
That's quite a turnout.”

“The Chief promised
free food afterward.”  His eyes twinkled as he cracked a rare joke.   Three
days of hanging around the Trickster Sisters had taught him the meaning of the
word
humor.

Papa circled the
perimeter, waving a smoldering bundle of the sacred qat plant and invoking the
deities who would protect their marriage from evil spirits.  Marriages were
performed both by the Chief, who had the power to accept or deny unions, and
the village shaman, who had the power to invoke the blessings of She-who-is. 
Symbolically, it represented the synergy of the material realm with the dream
time.

“Are we ready to
begin?” Chief Kiyan asked.

“Yes,” they both
answered.

The Chief was as
long-winded as he usually was.  The surroundings began to fade as she marveled
at the beautiful winged man She-who-is had sent to be her husband.   She was
barely conscious of Papa wrapping a braided wheat-sheath cord around the both
of their arms, symbolizing the binding together of two spirits into one.  So
beautiful, the gift that had been given to her by She-who-is.  Both him … and
the ability to see.  Ninsianna watched the inner light swirl around him as he
gave her a smile that would have lit up the night sky.  Beautiful golden-white
light spiraled out of his heart and wrapped her in his essence like rays from a
sun, the real-life energy backing up the wedding vows he repeated after the
Chief words about remaining faithful to her until death did them part.