Being in hot water herself right now, she decided to keep those thoughts to herself. She had grown to love the Emperor she served because of his very mortal capacity to feel compassion. Why should she desert him because those laudable traits were paired with equally mortal tendencies to be stubborn, lose his temper, or occasionally cut off his nose to spite his face?
"I should get back to work," Jophiel said.
"Alas," the Emperor gave her a sheepish expression, "no sooner had you cleared the Parliamentary building then the Speaker of the Commons introduced a secret bill voting no confidence in your abilities as a military commander. You are, how should I put this? Out of a job? General Abaddon is now supreme commander of the Alliance fleet and you are busted down to the rank of private third-class."
"You mean I'm an E-fuzzy?" Jophiel exclaimed. "He … how … they? Lucifer wasn't even in the building when we left!"
"Lucifer saw a powder keg," the Emperor shrugged. "He lit it. It went boom. Now it's burning entirely on its own. Locking Lucifer up will no longer fix this problem. Until we address the underlying issue, the fact your species pending extinction has put so much strain upon the Alliance as a whole, all we can do is watch my empire burn."
An Electrophori assistant came in and bowed to the Emperor. "They are all here now, Your Majesty."
"Thank you," the Emperor said. "Jophiel … until I figure out how to straighten out this mess, I would like for you to stay in the palace. Follow Kamelia back to one of the guest apartments. When I need you, I will call for you."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Jophiel saluted.
"Oh, and here," the Emperor said. "Read this. Aloud. When you get back to your room. Think of it as homework."
He handed her a slender black book, little more than a children's book with verses on one side of each page and a black-and-white ink-rendering of the same characters she had noticed on the ceiling.
'Song of Ki' she read the title aloud. The Emperor had already turned and shuffled off to his office door, no doubt with better things to do than hand-hold his newest not-even-an-Angelic-private.
Jophiel followed the eel-woman back through a side hall to a wing of the palace she had never been in before. The Electrophori pointed out Dephar's office and library, and then led her further into the wing until at last she came to a separate apartment.
"It took a bit of finagling," the Electrophori said, sparks crackling off her snout as she spoke, "but he managed to get them all here. Even the grown ones."
Turning the handle of the door, the Electrophori opened it to a room full of children.
Her children…
The Emperor had gotten back her children!
With a cry of relief, Jophiel rushed in and opened her arms to welcome her twelve offspring, ranging from tiny Uriel, his pet gorock running circles around her legs and barking, to her eldest three, now grown and serving in the military themselves, though she insisted her children all start out as cadets the same as any other Angelic.
"How?" Jophiel asked her eldest boy, Sidriel, who had been serving at the opposite end of the galaxy.
"The Emperor sent a needle ship and said I was to make haste to the Eternal Palace, Sir," the boy spoke to her formally as his supreme commander and not his mother. How else would he address her? She had sent him away the moment he'd been born.
"From now on you must call me Mama," Jophiel told her son. "You must all call me Mama. Parliament has declared I am no longer your commanding officer, so you no need not salute me whenever I walk into the room. Instead, the Emperor ordered me to go to this room and read this book aloud."
Her heart filled with trepidation and joy, Jophiel sat down upon the couch, opened the slender black picture book titled Song of Ki, and began to read to her offspring.
In Ki's most sorrowful desperate hour,
When all was lost to blight,
She sang her Song of Creation,
And enticed Darkness to protect the Light…
Chapter 79
November – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Gita
A cheer went through the warriors who made up the southern wedge. Gita’s heart leaped with joy as she saw Mikhail drop back out of the sky a second time, a dark winged silhouette against the moonlight. His presence heartened the exhausted defenders, shoring up their resolve. They cheered, but that cheer was short-lived. Even before he hit the ground, he roared like a wounded lion.
Gita felt an overwhelming sense of … horror?
Battle cries turned into screams of terror as the enemy soldiers realized Mikhail had not landed to draw them away from the embattled wedge this time, but now hunted them like gazelles herded into a trap for slaughter. Chaos erupted in front of the wedge. The line in front of her cleared, allowing her to see over the wall of enemy bodies. Mikhail cut the invaders down in a form of raw butchery unlike anything she had ever seen before. He was … enraged.
The enemy realized whatever they were dealing with was no longer remotely human. They tried to retreat. Most never made it. It didn’t matter if they were running towards him to do battle or running away from him in terror. Mikhail killed now for killings sake, not to defend their village.
A severed hand flew through the air and almost hit her. A head came rolling in her direction a moment later, the mouth still moving. The stench of excrement mixed with the copper scent of blood, ruptured bowels and intestines sliced out of body cavities. The mercenaries screamed as they tried to get away, some of them throwing themselves to the ground with their hands over their heads with pleas that they surrendered.
Mikhail mercilessly cut them down, giving them no quarter. All of a sudden, the Assurians no longer had an enemy willing to fight.
"Fall back!" Chief Kiyan shouted. "Defenders! Fall back behind the gate!"
Gita ran over to the place Azin had fallen and kneeled at the body of her battle buddy. She checked her pulse, but her fingertips only confirmed what she already knew. Her friend was dead.
"Azin … I'm so sorry."
Gita's thin body shuddered at the loss of yet another friend. She was so numb from the battle that no tears could escape even though some part of her knew she wanted to cry. Shahla, insane. Jamin, banished. And now she had let down the new friend she had tentatively begun to make because she had failed to protect her.
"May Ki grant you passage beyond the wheel of rebirth into that land which exists beyond the wheel of time," Gita whispered the ancient prayer for the dead she could only vaguely recall from her childhood.
She crossed Azin’s arms over her chest the way she had seen Mikhail do with the dead he’d helped bury after the last raid. It was not their way, but she thought Azin would have liked the honor of a Cherubim burial. She wished she had one of Mikhail’s feathers to place in Azin’s hands.
She glanced over to where he smote their enemies. Those beautiful, dark wings splattered blood everywhere as he darted into the air like a hawk giving chase to a rodent. What a magnificent parting gift she would give her friend, to carry a feather, dipped in the blood of so many enemies, into the next world with her!
Mikhail moved into the night, only the screams of the mercenaries he smote betraying his position. Gita slipped into the darkness after him, determined to get Azin that bloody feather.
'Do not fear the darkness, child…'
She could feel the air hum with power, calling all matter to itself so it could undo the bonds that held creation together. It was an old song, but one she knew. It was the song her heart had made the day her father had killed her mother. It was the power of undoing, unmaking, uncreating, reducing matter down to the smallest possible elements of primordial soup. Whatever their enemies had done to Ninsianna, it had caused some internal control Mikhail kept in place to keep his dark gift at bay to snap.
Velvet blackness poured forth from his body as he cut down the retreating invaders, as though he was power, and in his anger he could no longer contain it. This was Death, chosen to be
come incarnate through the vessel of the beautiful winged man she loved.
A feeling of awe moved through Gita's chest. If Mikhail had been beautiful to her before, he was even more beautiful to her now, this beautiful black demon who hacked apart the bodies of their attackers to protect them, covered from head to foot in blood and guts and bile. Death, her mother had always said, was merely part of the balance, the same way that a rotting log gave life to mushrooms and, eventually, the crops they grew in their fields. With her enhanced vision, Gita saw not just the feather she had come to retrieve, but the beautiful leathery wings of a bat.
'Do not fear the darkness, child. His heartfelt yearning is to be loved…'
She realized some deity must be speaking to her, letting her know the true nature of the creature she had followed. This was not Mikhail. Mikhail was not hers to love. This creature, on the other hand…
Was the lover of She-who-is…
Chapter 80
November – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Pareesa
With a cheer of victory, Pareesa and her B-team helped Varshab chase the Halifians away from the north gate. Rather than wind their way through the village, they jogged around the outside, taking on a few ragged bands which had deserted from the battle at the south. They arrived just in time to shore up the flagging west wing of the wedge. Like a wolf pack on a hunt, Pareesa signaled her B-team to teach the enemy a lesson in the meaning of teamwork.
"You ready?" Pareesa shouted at Ebad as she picked up her pace.
She did not wait to hear his answer, strangely exhilarated even though she was also exhausted as she let loose a war cry. Her legs pumping, she moved to the front of the running men, both B-team and Varshab's teams, who surged forth like a stampeding herd of aurochs to flatten the enemy offensive.
"Shore up that line!" Varshab shouted. "You! You! And you! Shove into the backs of that wedge and put your shoulders into it!"
Pareesa spotted one of the skirmishers fighting off two men at once, fighting for her life.
"To Qismah!" Pareesa shouted to her B-team.
Qismah saw her coming before the enemy did, feinting a jab with her spear to distract him just as Pareesa flung herself airborne, a trick she had learned to keep up with Mikhail. She jabbed her knife into the attackers back. Oh! How she wished she had a sword like Mikhail did! The man fell, never having seen who had come at him from the back.
"Thanks!" Qismah bent in half, catching her breath.
"Any time!" Pareesa gave her a jackal's grin.
Qismah spied another straggler. "Time to get back to work!"
Pareesa ran after the next enemy who had broken through the wedge. Wow! So this was it? The wedge? And the 'saw' Mikhail had worked with her to debug? It was awesome!
They'd lost many warriors here today, but Pareesa had seen how many bodies were piled on the other side of the wedge. The enemy had fared far worse than the defenders! That part of her that wanted to mourn their dead warred with the part of her that saw this battle in terms of body counts and percentages. Mikhail had taught her to look at the big picture. She could see the enemy could not win.
"Look!" Ebad pointed with his spear. "Over there! They're stabbing our men in the back!"
"Let's get them!" Yaggit shouted.
Her B-team let out a bloodthirsty war cry as they ran to help the men who had made fun of them their entire lives for being incompetent. The beleaguered warriors relieved cried out with relief and cheered to see reinforcements, even reinforcements they considered so incompetent as the B-team. Heroes. They were heroes. It was just the jolt of confidence her B-team needed.
They encircled two enemies who stabbed into the undefended backs of one of the failing wedge before realizing a wolf-pack of warriors had just surrounded him. The two died well, though she could not say whose spear finished them off as they all fell upon the enemy at once.
"You … and you! Fill in the back of that line!" Varshab moved in behind them, ordering more of his warriors to put their backs into the wedge and push.
"Where's Siamek?" Pareesa called to one of the skirmishers who defended the next thin tooth of the wedge.
"At the far end," she pointed. "The enemy did a number on that tooth. He's trying to keep them from getting around us."
Pareesa signaled her B-team to run ahead and dispatch the next bunch of stragglers that had broken through. With Varshab's warriors now pushing into the backs of the first few spokes of teeth, no fresh enemies broke through the line, but up ahead she chould see the line was not yet reinforced.
"Come!" Pareesa grabbed Ebad by the arm.
The rustle of wings caused her to look up just in time to see Mikhail fly overhead. She grinned. She'd wondered where he'd moved to fight after he'd left them. The men cheered.
"Move forward!" Varshab shouted. "Fifteen of you! Go shore up the east end of the line and make sure those bastards can't get around us! Go!"
Varshab's orders were interrupted by a howl that reminded Pareesa of a pack of wolves mixed with hyenas, with a sprinkling of lions and jackals and a screech owl all mixed in, howling from amongst their enemies. Fear ran up her spine as a disembodied sensation of horror screamed through her body and shouted for her to run.
"What the hell was that?" Ebad asked.
The sound came again, followed by screams.
"Goddess save us," Yaggit said. "Have the enemies brought a demon to torment us?"
The men in the wedge moved back as though pushed by an unseen force, but the human enemy which had smashed into them only moments before had vanished as the enemy broke ranks and ran.
Death cries. The howl sounded again, an unearthly sound like the deep rumble of a ram's horn mixed with a thunderstorm, so horrific it made her skin crawl.
"Pareesa," Ebad backed into her, back to back as they had done in the battle of the north field. "Please tell me that wasn't Mikhail?"
The howl sounded again, a wounded lion, enraged, mixed with the screams of terror of their enemies. The worst thing was that it was not that part of the sound which was audible which instilled terror, but the rumble which vibrated beneath that sound as though the earth, itself, was afraid. The hairs on her arms joined the tiny hairs on the back of her neck and her head in all standing erect, all leaning away from that sound which shuddered through her body with a single thought.
Run…
The wedge rippled forward, no longer anything pushing against it. Whatever howled in the dark, it drove the enemy before it like some hellish hunter, herding them to where it could butcher them with ease.
Bile rose in her throat. Where was Mikhail? Was he alright? Had something happened to him? And what the hell was that thing?
"Fall back!" the command came. "Gather the wounded and fall back behind the gate!"
The howl moved further into the night, the screams of the dead further and further away as whatever creature pursued them chased them away from their village.
"This battle is over," a shout broke through their disbelief. Pareesa looked up to see Chief Kiyan, his kilt smeared with blood, come to enforce some order. If the Chief had come down from his perch upon the walls with the archers, then the battle must really be over.
"Chief!" Varshab grabbed the chief, forearm to forearm, two old friends who had done battle together many times. "We dispatched the threat that came at us from the north."
"A runner told me the group had split?" Chief Kiyan asked.
"Young Pareesa here took care of it," Varshab pointed to where she, Ebad and Yaggit leaned against one another for support, their exhaustion so palpable they could barely stand. "She and her B-team."
"Good job," Chief Kiyan nodded at them.
It was the only acknowledgement they got. With so much to do, the Chief was already on to the next commander to get casualty statistics on the wounded and dead.
"What was that thing?" Yaggit pointed out beyond the battlefield.
Pareesa stared out into the night where Mi
khail had disappeared. First they must attend to their wounded. She wandered through the dead, their dead, all of them women and men she had trained with. That feeling of exhilaration, of childish victory at seeing Mikhail's clever defensive move fend of such an overwhelming force, evaporated in the reality that each life lost had been a friend. Her only consolation was the pile of enemy bodies which sat as tangible as the outer wall of houses. It was three bodies high in most places where hundreds of mercenaries had fallen beneath the weight of their own people and died.
They had won. But at a terrible price…
That second rush of adrenaline evaporated. Oh, gods! She was so tired! The men who had manned the wedge leaned upon one another for support, exhausted, many of them wounded, and limped towards the gate. Women flooded out and sorted through the bodies, searching for husbands, brothers and fathers, praying they were only wounded, and giving ululating wails of grief whenever one found a loved one who was dead.
The archers slid down the walls and began to sift through downed enemies, retrieving arrows and shooting them into the hearts of those still alive. Part of it was because they wished to give these bastards no quarter, but part of it was also mercy. With the healers overwhelmed, any man too wounded to get up and retreat would die a long, painful death from his injuries.
Pareesa spotted Immanu wandering through the Assurian dead, his warrior mask discarded for the more familiar role of a shaman. He moved from body to body with an entourage of junior archers, instructing them which ones to move into the village because they were still alive, versus which ones needed help of a different kind.
"May the goddess guide your spirit into the dreamtime," Immanu sprinkled water on Azin's head.
“What happened?” Pareesa asked.
“The Halifians ambushed Ninsianna,” Immanu's eyes were filled with worry.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 76