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

by Anna Erishkigal

  "Ghazal … Dima … climb down and draw water from the well to put out those flames," Ninsianna ordered. "The rest of you, bows ready in case there are more of them. Make sure our people on the ground don't get killed."

  With a hiss-like sizzle, one bucket at a time the fire was doused until all that was left was the smell of wet, sodden wood. The Chief's front door was scorched, but otherwise the rest of his house appeared to be okay. The granary was, thank the Goddess, untouched. Assur would not go hungry this winter.

  Ninsianna settled in and waited to see if there would be another attempt on the granary. Boredom set in. She could 'see' the images her father sent from his birds-eye perch at the south gate. Things weren't going so well for the southern defenders. Ninsianna frowned. Where was Mikhail? Still bogged down to their north. Didn't he realize they were suffering breathtaking losses to their south?

  'Mikhail … please! The south needs you!'

  She got no echo of acknowledgement. Why, oh why, couldn't he communicate with her the way her Papa and Mama did so she could simply tell him where the goddess needed him to be?

  Annoyance rippled through her nerve endings. Was this her irritation? Or did it belong to She-who-is? These days, it was getting harder and harder to tell.

  Chapter 73

  November – 3,390 BC

  Earth: plain outside Assur

  Angelic Special Forces Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili

  Mikhail

  A flare of orange close to the outer ring of houses caught his attention. There. West side of the village. Halfway between here and where the battle raged to the south.

  A fire!

  Constructed of poles, interwoven with sticks, then layered with reeds from the Hiddekel River, the flat Assurian rooftops acted as both a patio in this part of the world where houses clustered one on top of the other so they could better be protected, and also a fire hazard.

  Mikhail's eyes met Varshab's. Varshab nodded. Swinging his sword upwards one last time to slice a Halifian beneath the chin to stun him, Mikhail continued downward into the squat this particular killing kata incorporated as an opportunity to duck and gather kinetic energy, then used the momentum of his upthrust to catapult himself skyward, finishing off the stunned man whose chin he'd nicked with a downward swing which took off the man's head.

  With three flaps, his powerful wings caught a wind current to carry him over a rooftop which was now engulfed in flames. Frantic homeowners spilled out of the skylight like ants, carrying blankets and a bucket of water to try to put out the conflagration before it spread and took out the rooftops of the outer ring. There was nobody for him to smite here. The enemy had set fire and left.

  Five more flaps and he cruised to a place where four enemy men threw torches onto a different roof while a fifth man fired arrows up into a line of defenders who shot back at them from the rooftops. These men must have broken away before engaging Varshab to provide another means of wreaking chaos. A sixth Halifian lay upon the ground, shot through with an Assurian arrow.

  A child's arrow…

  As he had done the last two skirmishes, he slipped down into the midst of the enemy attackers, decapitating one with his sword before the others had a chance to react. An odd through flit though his mind. Sata'anic soldiers were trained to look up. Had this been the lizard people, this battle would not be going so easy for him.

  He filed the information away for future contemplation…

  The man with the bow swung around and fired off a shot. Mikhail deflected the arrow just before it hit his shoulder with the blunt of his sword and continued the dance undeterred. A second Halifian, not the one with the bow, died as Mikhail continued the sidebeat of the killing kata.

  "Anata no seishin wa kanojo - dare ga eien no yasuragi o manabu koto ga," Mikhail whispered.

  That sense of just knowing a person's intent milliseconds before they acted upon it warned him about the spear headed straight for his back. His right foot crossed in front of his left as he dipped his right wing to avoid the lethal thrust, then used the momentum of his turn to swing his sword up and around in a perfect arc. The spear nicked his left wing as he came around and deflected it, but his feathers absorbed his attacker's momentum before the spearhead could lodge into his flesh. He took the man's head off before he even had a chance to look Mikhail in the eye or realize his back was no longer turned to him.

  That dark hunger which moved beneath the surface registered a sense of brutal satisfaction. These deaths pleased his mate. She wished for him to give her more.

  "Take that!"

  The fourth Halifian he had been about to smite shuddered, his arm raised above his head to lunge at Mikhail with an unfinished knife thrust, then fell face-forward into the ground. The fifth enemy, the one with the bow, made the mistake of firing his shot upwards at the sniper on the roof and not at Mikhail. The man reached for his quiver but already Mikhail had run him through the heart.

  Mikhail looked up. Namhu, Pareesa's little brother, peered down from the rooftop with three of his little archer friends, not one of them more than ten years old. Guessing by the only bow which did not have an arrow in it at the moment, Mikhail knew which one of the boys had taken the lethal shot. Like sister, like brother.

  The four little boys cheered.

  "Bishamon' ten wa eien no hikarinonakani anata no seishin o michibiku koto ga," Mikhail whispered the ancient Cherubim death-prayer. That dark blood lust which had no place in the code of the Cherubim retreated back into the place it usually lurked, placated, but by no means satiated as it hungered for more death.

  It was little more than a hop to get from the ground onto the Assurian roofs, not even a complete beating of his wings. His adopted people viewed this outer ring of houses as an impenetrable fortress, and in many ways compared to other villages it was, but all he saw was how quickly he could leap up and land in front of Namhu and his three young friends … or how easily the Halifians had set fire to them.

  "Thanks, Mikhail!" Namhu bounded up to him.

  Some part of his subconscious registered curiosity. You mean he's not afraid of me?

  Some other part of his scolded him like a drill sergeant. Stay focused. Get back to work.

  That third part of his subconscious, the part he usually thought of as himself, recognized the boy looked for encouragement. The proper human response was to issue a word of praise.

  "Nice shot," Mikhail said, his expression stiff.

  The south gate needs you his subconscious whispered to him.

  Without another word, he flared his wings and leaped off of the not-so-impenetrable outer wall to catch a wind current to the place his adopted people needed him most.

  "Did everybody hear what he said?!!" Namhu shouted to his retreating back. "Mikhail said I made a nice shot!"

  Chapter 74

  November - 3,390 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Gita

  The two assailants had breached the thinning teeth of the wedge and singled Gita out. She was the only thing standing between the two enemies who circled her like hyenas moving in for the kill and the unprotected backs of the Assurians who pushed against the teeth of the failing wedge. Soon their warriors would need to retreat behind the wall. In doing so, the defenders at the gate might not be able to prevent the Halifians from pouring right in behind them.

  "Left flank … bow in!" Siamek shouted. "Start backing up towards the wall!" He ran to help two women valiantly fighting six enemies who'd outflanked the ends of the wedge to get behind them, leaving Gita to fend for herself.

  "Fire!" Immanu shouted from the rooftops.

  A volley of arrows flew over their heads, out into the enemy hoards beyond. Shrieks of pain split through the dark, but no matter how many they hit, the enemy just kept on coming.

  The right line of the wedge moved in tighter, the two ends bowing backwards towards the wall so the hordes could not simply run around to get behind them and do them in from the back. Gita stared up at the oute
r ring of houses which, her entire life, she'd always thought of as impenetrable. She saw them now as Mikhail did now. As their enemies saw them. A good running start, a few loose bricks, and she'd be over the wall and into the undefended village beyond. Worse … their archers were running out of arrows.

  It had been part of the plan to allow themselves to be pushed backwards until they bowed around the gate like a drawn bowstring, and then beat an orderly retreat through the gate to regroup into a second line of defense just inside the outer ring. Unfortunately, having learned the wedge so recently, the defenders had not yet learned to perform the retreat in real life. It was all theory … no practice.

  "Krak!"

  Enemy arrows flew overhead, but luckily … or not so luckily … the enemy was now close enough to fire directly at the archers on the rooftops. It was a good thing for her because they were otherwise occupied … her shield had shattered quite some time ago. But not so lucky for the village, who was losing archers and arrows faster than they could get another defender into place.

  Gita dodged a spear-thrust and slammed down the butt-end of her spear to knock the enemy to the side. A second spear came at her from the opposite direction, before she had a chance to complete the move and spin the sharp end around to stab the first man. Oh! How she wished she had that double-ended spear Pareesa had been experimenting with right now! She danced out of the way, heart racing, desperate to survive.

  "Spanel aghjkan," a coarse-looking man with rotted teeth leered at her. The man didn’t seem to be Halifian because he wore strange clothing.

  "Menk’ petk’ e p’vokhel zvarchank’," his compatriot leered.

  "Don't … think … so …" Gita squeaked between spear thrusts even though there was no longer anything mouse-like about her fighting. She had no idea what they said, but was certain they were toying with her.

  The only thing stopping these men from stabbing into the backs of the warriors manning the back of the wedge was her. She was an obstacle, as were all the skirmishers who were similarly bogged down. If you didn't catch an enemy just as they broke through, while his attention was still focused on the men he pushed through and not the women running up and down the line, then you ended up with situations such as this. In her defense, the only reason they had gotten through was because she'd been occupied at that moment with two other enemies, now dead upon the ground.

  "Somebody … get the wounded out of here!" some Assurian shouted.

  The call was repeated up and down the line.

  "We're busy!" several of the women shouted back, fighting for their lives as she was.

  The entire wedge stumbled. What the Assurians had failed to plan for was how many men would break through the line, and then be smote by the women running the saw maneuver up and down the back. They were supposed to move backwards, but they were being tripped up by the dead, both their own, and those of their enemy. The two men she fought were joined by a third man. The three of them circled her like lions circling a gazelle, kept at bay by the single, slender 'horn' of her spear.

  "Fall back one pace!" Siamek shouted

  The wedge moved back another step. Some of their men tripped and went down on the bodies that littered the backside of the wedge. Another enemy slipped through the line. The man saw his three compatriots were occupied fighting Gita and decided to join them, to gang up on the bizarre specter of a scrawny woman who fought three, now four men.

  "Fire!" Immanu shouted.

  More arrows flew overhead.

  'Who do you hate the most, Gita?'

  "Nobody," she answered Jamin's taunting voice that had decided to take up residence in her mind for the duration of this battle. "Mama said I must never hate."

  She felt strangely calm, as though fighting four men at once was the most natural thing in the world. At some point she’d given up on worrying about her life or being afraid. The only emotion that mattered was determination.

  She wondered if some remnant of Lugalbanda's shamanic gift had been passed down from the grandfather she shared in common with Ninsianna? Her need desperate, at some point during the night, it had begun to feel as though she could see the places where her attacker's spirit-light was weak, as though the universe wished to tell her the most efficient place to hurt these men who came at her so she might survive. This was not the gift she had overheard Mikhail explain to Pareesa, for he described it as a source of strength. This wasn’t strength. It was more of an awareness of which weaknesses could be exploited.

  'He wants to kill you. Is that what your mother would really want?'

  "No!" she hissed at the friend who was no longer here to act as her protector.

  Gita might not have ever had reason to kill before today, but once she'd made up her mind not to be a victim anymore, she'd made darned sure she'd learned. After the other warriors had gone home, she'd lingered amongst the reeds to watch Mikhail spar against Pareesa, listening, learning, staying after even they went home to practice against whatever opponent she could imagine in her mind. That … and a few real enemies. Three crocodiles she had smote. A serpent. Two hyenas. And a jackal.

  'Now picture the person you hate most in the world and use every ounce of hatred you possess…'

  Feigning a stab at one of her attackers, she whirled to kick him in the belly while simultaneously thrusting her spear behind her to stab the second assailant in the gut … just as Mikhail had taught them. The first man screamed as she twisted her spear and yanked it out, narrowly dancing out of the way in time to avoid the third assailant.

  "K'ats!!!" the second man shrieked and ran for her, head down like a charging auroch.

  Gita danced out of the way and jabbed backwards with the butt-end of her spear. The man fell. One of the other skirmishers ran by on her saw and stabbed the man in the back.

  "Azin!"

  Momentarily distracted by the sight of a second woman fighter, it gave Gita the opening she needed to stab her spear upwards into the first man's throat. Blood splattered from his jugular.

  'Who do you hate, Gita?'

  Gita stabbed the third man in the gut just as Azin dispatched the fourth. The smell of excrement from a ruptured bowel wafted up to her nostrils, or perhaps the man had simply soiled himself as he twitched and died?

  “Nice…” Azin gave her a thumbs up.

  Gita gasped for breath, no satisfaction in her expression as she lived partly in this battle, and partly in that battle she'd been too young to fight all those years in the past. They both paused, back to back, to catch their breath, then regrouped to execute the next ‘saw’ run up their assigned portion of the ‘wedge’ to dispatch new enemies who were breaking through the line.

  "Get those bodies out of the way!" Siamek shouted to the younger warriors who were supposed to be running the supply lines.

  Untested in battle, the youngest warriors, the ones fourteen summers or less, huddled around the entrance to the gate, not sure what to do. Several ran out and began dragging bodies out from behind the wedge, dumping them to one side unless they were Assurian, in which case they were carried inside the walls. One of the enemy 'wounded' thrust up with a knife to stab one of the young men who tried to move him out of the way. Six of his compatriots set upon the man like a pack of jackals, tearing at him until there could be no question this enemy was really dead.

  "Skirmishers … run that saw!" Siamek shouted. "Cover that supply line!"

  The wedge moved back another pace.

  "Krak!" the enemy shouted. Arrows flew overhead, some of them bouncing off the walls and into the skirmishers, though as soon as they hit the wall they lost their velocity and inflicted little harm.

  Gita noticed the archers had grown choosy about which targets they fired at. As they'd feared, they didn't have enough ammunition to engage an army this large, the reason they had not simply retreated behind Assur's walls and fired from there. Only by tricking the enemy into concentrating on storming the gate instead of filtering around them to climb the walls could they have
any hope of decimating their numbers enough to stave them off. The ‘wedge’ had done that, but now it was as thin as a measure of linen cloth.

  Two female warriors lay on the ground, run though by Halifian spears. They weren’t moving, but their bodies tripped their fellow skirmishers. Even if the women were still alive, they wouldn't be after they wedge stepped back again and they got trampled by their own men.

  "C'mon!" Gita shouted to Azin.

  Eager to please, Azin dispatched an enemy who broke through the line before Gita even had a chance to raise her spear. They each grabbed one of their fellow skirmishers and dragged their bodies back to the gate. Azin's victim coughed … still alive? Gita's, however, did not move.

  The wedge had been pushed almost back to the wall where they would need to execute their unpracticed retreat maneuver. Gita couldn’t see what was happening on the other side of the wedge, but from the shouts of the enemies, there were still plenty of them left alive.

  “A group just broke through the wedge to the left!” Azin shouted above the din.

  "Let's do it!" Gita said.

  They rushed to deal with six attackers that had just broken through and busied themselves stabbing at the backs of the Assurians holding the line at the back of the wedge. The enemy ganged up on Gita and Azin the minute they engaged them, six against two. She and Azin pressed their backs together as they had been trained to do.

  “Mi aghjik?” one male laughed.

  This man wore Amorite clothing. The Amorites had laughed as they'd stoned her mother.

  'Who do you hate the most, Gita?'

  Gita gut-stabbed the Amorite clothing as hard as she could. With a surprised grunt the man fell. She kicked him in the face before he had a chance to get back on his feet and thrust her spear a second time to stab him right in the heart.

  She heard a scream. She glanced back just in time to see Azin fall, a spear sticking out of her chest.