Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga)

by Anna Erishkigal

  'Call upon me. Call upon the power that is yours to command.'

  He pushed it back behind the emotional wall he used to control all unhelpful emotions; including the ones which seethed closer to the surface the longer he remained estranged from his wife. Difficulties he blamed in no small part on HER.

  "You know I will defend Ninsianna with my life!"

  She-who-is compelled Ninsianna to reach up and stroke his cheek. The dark power within him trembled beneath HER touch, warring with that part of him that knew this was not Ninsianna who touched him, but She-who-is. HER lips turned up in a seductive smile as she ran her fingers down his chest and twirled it around his naval.

  "Of course you would," She-who-is-Ninsianna gave him a coy smile. She slid her hand down to cup his testicles and gave them a squeeze. "You like this, Champion? Don't you? Consider it your reward."

  Mikhail shoved her back. As he did, that golden light left Ninsianna's eyes, leaving her stumbling at the momentary disorientation of suddenly being back in her body. He rushed forward, catching her before she hit the floor.

  "Mikhail?"

  "I hate it when she does that!!!" Mikhail exclaimed.

  He held her until she caught her balance.

  “I must go help the other archers,” Ninsianna picked right up where She-who-is had hijacked her body, at her last stubborn insistence of disobeying him. Fire flared in her golden eyes, but it was Ninsianna’s fire which burned there now, the beautiful, bossy woman he had fallen in love with.

  “I fear they will hit the granary,” Mikhail pulled her tighter. “It would be a terrible loss if they took away our stores to survive the winter.” He splayed his hand across the tiny swell in her abdomen and added the one verbal weapon he could think of that might convince her to act with caution. “Or harm our baby.”

  Stubbornness warred with that part of her that feared a fate for their own child similar to what had happened to Shahla's. It was the goddess, accursed, blessed deity, who finally swayed her. Ninsianna tilted her head as though listening to someone whisper in her ear, frowned, and then met his gaze.

  “She-who-is does not wish to have her temple desecrated,” Ninsianna said. “SHE wishes me to guard the rooftop to HER shrine.”

  The sense of panic which crushed his chest lessened. She-who-is had just granted him a boon. The temple was in the central square near the Chief’s house and the central granary, tempting targets, but easily defended and buried deep within the village.

  “Yes,” Mikhail agreed with the goddess' farce. “You must protect HER temple.”

  Ninsianna stood on tip-toes to kiss him goodbye, a momentary cessation of the thing which yawned between them like an open wound, and hurried out to fulfill her role in the notification tree.

  Rushing up the stairs to grab his boots, shirt and sword, he hesitated, and then grabbed the pulse rifle he had been jealousy conserving. The grip felt reassuring in his hand, but the sense of security it granted was illusory. He only had one or two good shots left before the power supply became completely depleted. If Ninsianna's premonitions about the Sata'an Empire invading were true, he must save it for the day when traditional weapons would not do the job. He strapped it to his hip and went outside to fly reconnaissance.

  There was a full moon tonight. He would be visible if he flew too high. Skimming the tree tops, he stilled his wings to barely make a rustle. The only thing which marked his passage was the shadow cast by the moon. He saw movement near a copse of trees and landed nearby, taking count of the number of men and types of weapons.

  It was far worse than he'd expected…

  Fading back into the shadows, he leaped into the air and flew back to the village to notify the troops what crept towards them.

  * * * * *

  “Shhhhh…..” Chief Kiyan shushed the warriors who had jammed into the central square, all except the ones sent to bolster the outer wall. “Mikhail is about to speak."

  "I counted 700 enemies to our south," Mikhail said. "Mercenaries, I suspect, as I overheard them speaking in different languages. A smaller group of 150 Halifians circles to the north to come at our rear. That gives us an idea of their plan.”

  A ripple of fear moved through the warriors. Murmured whispers. Doubts. Worries.

  “This is why we have trained so hard," Chief Kiyan's expression was grim. "It has been a long time since our enemies chose to break their numbers upon our walls, but now it is time to teach them that the people of the river stand together!"

  "We're outnumbered three to one," many called out from the rear.

  "We have the advantage," Mikhail flared his wings to appear more imposing. "This village was built upon a hill. The outer ring of houses is built wall-to-wall with no windows facing outwards."

  He looked to the Chief. Chief Kiyan may have his faults, but his parsimony did not extend to a defensive measure as effective as keeping up a wall.

  "We learned the lessons of our fathers," the Chief said. "There are two gateways into this village, to the north and to the south. So long as we prevent them from breaching those gates or setting fire to the roofs, they will break their lives upon our walls."

  What the Chief did not say was that more than a decade of relative peace prior to Mikhail's arrival had caused the Assurians to become complacent. Mud-brick construction required constant maintenance to keep the mortar from drying out, leaving hand-holds or places the walls had grown weak. Assur's walls were a deterrent, but they were by no means impenetrable, which is why the Chief supported Mikhail's plan to set up an outer line of defense outside the village.

  "I have taught you to work together as a team for just this purpose," Mikhail said. "If you stick together, if you follow your chain of command, we can prevail.”

  The moon passed behind a cloud. The wind picked up, carrying a sound that reminded him of whispers or the rustle of leaves. Ninsianna stepped forward, her eyes glowing golden with fire. The Chief stepped back and invited the Architect of All-that-is to speak.

  The clouds parted, allowing a single slender strand through the clouds to bathe Ninsianna in a ray of silver moonlight. The frightened villagers quieted down, understanding their Chosen One carried the goddess into their midst.

  "In attacking one Ubaid village," She-who-is-Ninsianna spoke, "they attack them all." She held out her hand and let the moonlight illuminate her open palm. "The enemy thinks you are separate fingers, but they do not understand the Ubaid can pull those fingers together to make a fist.”

  SHE pointed to the three units of warriors from neighboring villages who still trained within Assur. HER voice reverberated with power.

  "When this battle is done, return to your villages and tell your chiefs this is MY will," She-who-is-Ninsianna spoke to the visiting warriors. "Any kingdom which stands alone against the Evil One will be crushed."

  The wind picked up, a great moaning sound as though the gateway to the land between had opened and the ghosts who dwelled there had been released to fight. She-who-is-Ninsianna flung open her fingers as though casting off something she had just crushed. The moon disappeared behind the cloud. The wind died down.

  Immanu caught his disoriented daughter. Her first act upon righting her balance was to give her father a victorious smile, always eager to act as She-who-is's mortal vessel. Unlike when SHE had castigated him at the house, this time She-who-is had let Ninsianna remain aware of what SHE compelled her body to do.

  "Showmanship!" Mikhail muttered at the moon. "If SHE wants to win this battle, why doesn't she come down here and do it herself?"

  At least HER temporary appearance had given the Assurians heart. The warriors moved into groups and began organizing which person would handle what task, feeling their way through the dark square illuminated only by the moon. Many tasks had been pre-assigned or were part of a much older series of defensive activities originating from long before he'd ever come to this village, but there was one group he needed to organize personally.

  “Siamek," Mikhail gest
ured for the group he had designated as infantry to huddle around him. "This is where you get to practice that new defensive formation I taught you."

  "We only learned to use these several days ago," Siamek held out his shield. His voice had the edge of fear. Unlike the newer trainees who had never seen combat, Siamek had been a principle defender during the last raid. He was not placated by She-who-is's speech any more than Mikhail was.

  "With so many coming at us at once," Mikhail said, "they could easily fan out and scale our walls. We must trick them into concentrating their attack or they will overrun us."

  At an average height of eight or nine cubits, the outer ring of houses was a deterrent, but not an absolute defense. They had too few warriors to defend the rooftop of every house in the perimeter. One man could easily give another a hands-up to breach them.

  Siamek broke the warriors into the groups they had practiced in.

  "Form three lines," Mikhail said. "The female warriors will act as skirmishers. Ladies … do you remember what to do?"

  "Launch one spear each at the attackers just as they get within ten paces to antagonize them," a meek voice said. "And then dive behind our lines.”

  Mikhail looked down into the eyes of the black-eyed girl. Meek? Shy would be a more accurate descriptor. Sending such a girl into the front of the line would be exactly the red flag he wished to wave in front of their attackers. Strike … here … you … fools.

  "You heard the man," Siamek herded his charges towards the southern gate. "Skirmishers … keep the enemy off our backs so our retreat into the village is not cut off.”

  Mikhail moved to brief his next group of defenders.

  Chapter 61

  November – 3,390 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Pareesa

  "C'mon!" Pareesa snapped. "Why do you guys always have to move so slow?"

  She pulled her slender frame through the dirt, thankful she had possessed the foresight to don the tunic her mother had made her to mimic Mikhail's shirt and not just her shawl, which would have come off by now from the friction of pressing her belly against the rubble. Pesky protrusions! Why on earth had she had to go and sprout a pair of those? For some reason the men kept staring at them, especially during hand-to-hand combat when her shawl would slip and leave them exposed. You'd have thought the men had never seen breasts before!

  "We're going as fast as we can," Ebad grumbled from her heel.

  They crawled, elbow-over-elbow, as they made their way down the hill, pushing their spears ahead of them. Behind her the soft, out-of-shape sons of potters and weavers followed single-file, keeping their heads down so the enemy would not see them if they had sent ahead any scouts.

  "Keep to the gully!" Pareesa hissed. "And stay off the path! There's enough moonlight to see us if we're the highest thing around!"

  One by one the B-team relayed her orders down the snake which wound its way down the gully towards the walls and levies of the alluvial plain.

  Her quiver bumped against her back, as did her bow. As the only archer in this sorry group of men, she wasn't even sure she'd get off a single shot, but she felt naked without it. The rocks cut into her hands and scratched her flesh as she crawled, earning a silent curse as a sharp rock hit her funny bone.

  "Ow!" one of the B-team yelped, she couldn't see which one.

  "Be quiet!" she hissed. "Do you want them to make our position?"

  "Fat chance anyone will come this way!"

  "Mikhail sent us here to keep us out of the real warriors' way!"

  "Who farted?"

  "We're all going to die!"

  The ditch had been dug to funnel water so the path would not erode. It was a fool's errand to keep her and her unlikely charges out from under the real warriors' feet, but she had trained these goatheads to follow orders. Even if they only captured a single enemy, they would be vindicated. She was determined to make sure they didn't mess up.

  She glanced up to where Varshab's larger group of 50 men had faded into the shadows to their west, up on the narrow ridge which was the enemy's most likely path of egress to the north gate. From their foe's point of view, it would not entail fighting uphill.

  "Why are we here, anyway?"

  "Because if I was the enemy and wanted to sneak into our village undetected," Pareesa whispered. "I would do something nobody expected. Like take a pathway nobody thought to defend."

  "This gully is too small to hide an army."

  "It's too rocky."

  "Who in their right mind would come this way?"

  "I'm hungry," Ipquidad grumbled, the heavyset son of the oil merchant. "Did anybody bring any food?"

  Pareesa remembered something she'd overheard Mikhail tell the Chief once as she'd trailed behind him, eavesdropping, as they'd analyzed the village defenses.

  "Most traders come in the south gate because it sits high up on the plain," Pareesa said. "But if someone took the time to study our village, they would creep up this gully because it's only a ten-pace run from the top to get to the south gate."

  "Unless the enemy is as short as a two-year-old," Ebad grumbled. "The sentries would see them for sure."

  "And the gates were shut behind us," another B-team member, Yaggit, whispered. "Even if they get up there, they can't get in."

  Rubble rattled loose as they crawled, making tiny noises. Pareesa's heart pounded in her ears. Had they heard? So long as the Halifians were not too close, hopefully they would not make them. Why, oh why was it so hard to teach these men the meaning of stealth?

  "Not if they keep their heads down and keep quiet!" Pareesa hissed. "The gates are weak points in our village defenses. If they overrun the sentries, they might get in before the archers can pick them off."

  As they moved further downhill towards the levies where they would set up their defenses, the B-team grew quiet, as though it had finally dawned on them that, at last, they might be going into battle…

  …or not…

  "We've never done this before," Yaggit's eyes reflected the scant moonlight. "At least you have combat experience." At nineteen summers, Yaggit was one of the steadier B-team members, but not a natural warrior.

  Should she tell the B-team how scared crapless she had felt that night? Or how embarassed afterwards because she'd been so busy tracking a deer she hadn't bothered to pay attention to her surroundings and watch for enemies? Or should she play it cool? Pretend it had been nothing to kill the man who had tried to kill Mikhail. These guys looked up to her for inspiration.

  What inspiration? Her only claim to fame was one time she'd pulled a surprise dance move during sparring and nearly knocked Mikhail off-balance. She was thirteen summers old! Maybe she wasn't up to this task any more than the B-team was? Who was she, silly girl, to fight men?

  "I shot the guy who tried to shoot Mikhail," Pareesa said. "With his own arrow. From a distance. This is different. We'll be fighting the enemy hand to hand."

  "I've never killed anybody before," Ipquidad whispered.

  "And you're probably not going to, either," Yaggit said. "Who in their right mind would come at the village from this steep hill?"

  Assur rose above the flood plain which the river had carved into a wide, flat valley where the Ubaid planted their crops. The fields closest to the village were surrounded by little more than small stones and rubble, picked up and moved to the side to mark whose field was tended by whom. The closer you got to the river; however, the higher the walls became until the outermost walls were shored up with thick mud to keep out the rising flood so they could eke out a few more weeks of harvest.

  The scent of water, a precious substance in this dry climate, blew upwind, causing them to shiver with the late-autumn chill. Pareesa could see her breath, the nighttime temperature far cooler than the daytime inferno this time of year. Crawling through the levies at night would be the ideal way to approach the village unseen … or to set up an ambush for somebody who had that same idea.

  "Ebad … four men �
� there," Pareesa signaled using the hand gestures Mikhail had taught. "Yaggit … four men … behind that wall. Lunanna … four men … behind that goat shed. Ipquidad …"

  She glanced at the pudgy, terrified face of their least talented warrior, so slow he would make an easy target for any enemy.

  "…just stay put."

  They assumed a position three levies from the hill. It would give them two fallback positions before they were driven back onto the pathway, if that way did not get cut off from invaders who slipped past Varshab's men.

  She glanced up the hill towards the walls. She could not see Behnam and his archers on the rooftops, but she knew they were there and it was reassuring even though they were out of arrow range. The Halifians were battle-hardened mercenaries and they were outnumbered. If they came this way instead of Varshab's route, they needed surprise to even the odds.

  The village behind her was as silent as a grave, the only sound her heart beating in her chest. Ebad sat with his three charges to her left, trying to control his breathing to calm himself and making hand signals to reassure his men. To her other side Lunanna and his men huddled together, fingers moving in silent conversation. She could not see the third group, Yaggit, but the man was steady so she was not worried.

  A soft chirp, like a cricket, pierced through the dark. A second cricket answered it. There were no crickets in November! The enemy was coming. Ipquidad sat so close to her it was a wonder he didn't sit right on top of her. Why, oh why, had Mikhail saddled her with training such incompetent men?

  "There! Movement in the shadows!" Lunanna signaled.

  "How many?" Pareesa signaled back.

  She could hear the Halifians panting as they waited, confident they had approached unnoticed. The acrid stench of unwashed bodies carried upon the wind and assailed her nostrils. They must have marched for days without bathing. They were so close, she could hear their occasional muffled cough.