"Come with me," Lieutenant Kasib said. He led them through the oblong houses, curious circles with slender stick-legs that held them off the ground. One was different than the others, so shiny it reflected the sun. On either side of a ramp stood two Angelics with pale buff wings that were not quite white.
Jamin instinctively clutched for the knife and then remembered he wasn't supposed to have it. He wished his father was here to see this. Proof. At last.
"They're sky canoes?" Jamin asked. He gestured to the oblong houses that sat all around them. The sky canoe Kasib led them to was spear-shaped and three times larger than the one that had fallen from the skies outside of Assur, but it stood on the delicate stilts like the larger, darker-colored ones they had just passed. Unlike Mikhail's shattered vessel, it did not have that odd bend or cracks in the roof. On the side were painted similar dark tally marks, right down to the symbol of an eight-pointed star.
Lieutenant Kasib stopped before the ramp and tasted the air with that long, forked tongue. The skin on his neck stiffened. Would they discover the knife?
"Cuardaigh orthu," one of the two pale-winged Angelics said. Like Mikhail, the man towered over him, but his eyes carried a glint that, having just spent time amongst the Halifian mercenaries, seemed familiar. This man was a hired killer.
“Beidh mé ag seiceáil an gceann seo,” Kasib pushed his sizeable green body between the two goons and Jamin. “Tá tú fir frisk sin amháin. Tá sé ina cheannaire ar an amhais.”
Jamin held out his arms, understanding he was about to lose his knife. Kasib's eyes narrowed into slits as his claws closed around the hilt. The lizard’s tongue flit the air, so close to his neck he almost expected the creature to lick him.
"It is said you wish to kill the man responsible for the raping of your woman?" Kasib hissed so low Jamin wasn't so sure he heard him.
"R-rape?"
"The Sata'an Empire does not condone such behavior," Kasib said. His hand moved away from the knife, never breaking eye contact, and made a show of frisking the rest of his body.
“Tá sé seo ar cheann glan.” Lieutenant Kasib stepped back and admonished the two Angelic goons to search Kudursin further. “Gur mhaith leat níos fearr a dhéanamh cinnte go bhfuil ceann saor in aisce na n-arm. Má dhéantar aon iarracht a dhéanamh ar an saol Ba'al Zebub ar, beidh mé i gcuimhne duit go bhfuil tú timpeallaithe ag do naimhde.”
Jamin forced his breath to come out slow and even. Kasib met his eyes, then glanced at the two Angelic goons, then glanced at the knife hidden beneath his shawl. The lizard people didn’t like the Angelics any more than he did. He followed Kasib inside the sky canoe, thankful the two goons remained outside. Inside a group of lizard people clustered around an obese lizard wearing a bejeweled robe.
“Lord Zebub,” Lieutenant Kasib bowed and made the hand gesture similar to the one practiced by the Halifians. “The young chieftain has recovered enough for questioning.” Jamin only knew what Kasib said because he immediately translated it for him.
The fat lizard lumbered over, his steps wide as his robes glittered with an entire treasury full of jewels and precious metals. Unlike the other lizard people, this one's spiny dorsal crest and the loose dewlap of flesh at his double chin were a deep scarlet in color. Kasib translated the unfamiliar language as the lizard spoke
“It is said you come from the village which has sheltered one of our enemies,” Ba’al Zebub spoke through Kasib. “Tell me, young chieftain, do you know what the penalty is for harboring the enemies of the Sata’an Empire?”
“Not by choice,” Jamin forced himself not to grovel before this lizard king. If he was to die today, he would do so with his dignity intact. “The winged demon fell from the sky and bewitched my father with tales of serving an emperor who is also a god. He promises that the armies of heaven are behind us.”
Kasib translated.
“You’re a bold one, aren’t you,” Ba’al Zebub’s eyes narrowed into slits as Kasib translated. “The Alliance emperor is a god. As is the Sata’anic emperor. But that does not mean they are all-powerful.”
Jamin glanced at Lieutenant Kasib, who watched him intently. The lizard shook his head back and forth in a gesture he assumed meant ‘no.’ This was not the reason he’d been allowed to keep his knife.
A second lizard person lumbered over, his weight bunched around his neck and shoulders like a mountain, rock solid muscle, a professional fighting man. The flesh beneath his neck was a deep scarlet color like Ba'al Zebub's, not the pale yellow of the other lizards, but his dorsal crest was more brown than red.
“General Hudhafah,” Lieutenant Kasib introduced him.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble your winged demon has created for us?” Hudhafah's voice was deep and gravelly, his Kemet lousy, but understandable. As he spoke he caressed the firestick on his hip the way Jamin often found himself fondling the handle of his favorite knife. From Kasib’s reverent, watchful manner this was a lizard to be respected.
“I came searching for a way to rid our village of this menace,” Jamin said. “I was told your people may be able to help me.”
“Aiyah,” General Hudhafah snorted and glowered at the Amorite slaver. “Now that our allies no longer play this shell game to extract gold from us, we shall make short work of him. But your village lies in a grain-growing region we wish to preserve. If you cooperate, perhaps we can extract him in a manner that is more light-clawed than simply blowing up your entire village.”
“Blow … up?” Jamin’s expression was perplexed. “Why would you blow upwind to be rid of him? Wouldn’t it be more effective to simply send troops in to kill him?”
General Hudhafah tilted his head as it took him a moment to translate the words, then burst out in laughter, a deep, lusty laugh that communicated he found Jamin’s question to be amusing.
The remaining lizard-people parted. A white winged Angelic stepped forward, his wings flared like a raptor about to swoop in for the kill. He spoke to General Hudhafah in the strange language the two men at the entrance had been speaking in earlier. Hudhafah’s face appeared puzzled, if it was possible for a lizard person to show confusion, and then turned back to Jamin.
“Prime Minister Lucifer has asked that you approach him for examination and speak to him in your native language,” General Hudhafah gestured towards the white-winged Angelic. "He said he has a gift for learning languages. Humor him."
The white-winged Angelic was ethereally beautiful, if it was possible for a man to be beautiful instead of handsome, with features so perfect they did not appear to be real. White-blonde hair, creamy skin, and chiseled features made the scourge which had descended upon Jamin's village look ugly in comparison. As he moved, everything about the man screamed not only of his self-confidence and arrogance, but also seduction, as though he could give to you your heart's desire. The most amazing feature about him was not his wings, though Jamin had to admit the snowy appendages were magnificent to behold, but his eyes. They were not blue as Mikhail’s were, but as cold and pale as the glaciers that rested on the caps of the Taurus Mountains.
Jamin glanced at Lieutenant Kasib. There may be a species barrier standing between them, but the lizard’s eyes narrowed with hatred. This was the reason he had been allowed to keep his knife.
“Mama,” Jamin whispered in Ubaid as he stepped forward to his own self-execution. “At last I join you.”
“Mar sin, is é seo an príomhfheidhmeannach beag a bhfuil sráidbhaile cuanta an curadh?” Lucifer spoke in the same language Mikhail used when he spoke to Ninsianna.
Jamin clutched his knife and spoke in Ubaid, a language he knew none amongst this group could understand, as he gave the white-winged demon a false smile.
"Since I failed to bring Aturdokht a gift of Mikhail's heart," Jamin forced himself to say his death-cry calmly, "then I shall deliver to her yours, instead, and rid my world of your malignant influence." As rapidly as a striking cobra, he yanked the knife out of his belt and plunged it straight for the white win
ged Angelic's heart.
A black wall slammed between his mind and his hand. It froze a mere hairsbreadth from the demon's heart, the knife a dull brown against the man's white clothing. Jamin recognized this power, the same one Ninsianna had attempted to use on him before the tribunal until he cast her out of his mind. He fought the sensation of this new sorcerer, but he could not make his hand move the final distance.
"Little chieftain," Lucifer spoke in perfect Ubaid. "You wound me." With a flick of his fingers, Jamin felt his hand yank back. A force like jolts of lightning surged through his body. His fingers loosened so he dropped the knife.
Around him, the lizard people exploded into action and tackled him to the ground. Jamin shut his eyes, ready to accept his death. He'd been ready to die. What he'd not been ready to do was die a failure.
"Let him go," Lucifer spoke in Kemet this time so both he, and the lizard people, could understand him. "It was all a misunderstanding."
The lizard people roughly dragged Jamin to his feet, heedless of the wound in his shoulder. His head swam from the pain, but he forced himself not to cry out, not to humiliate himself before this winged demon who was the leader of the man who had usurped him from his village. The lizards pinned his arms behind his back. Jamin glanced over at Kasib, who did not make eye contact. The lizard had given him a chance and he had failed.
"Speak to me, little chieftain," Lucifer leaned close so his breath tickled Jamin's ear and spoke in fluent Ubaid, a gift of tongues, perhaps, such as Ninsianna possessed? "Speak to me, for I wish to taste your hatred."
"You kidnap and rape our women!" Jamin shouted.
Lucifer placed the palm of his hand on Jamin's cheek, his expression tender as though he caressed a lover. The man's eyes, however, told a different story. Behind the glint of silver which reflected back his own visage as though it were a reflection, Jamin could see fire. Lucifer's nostrils flared as he inhaled and leaned closer to sniff the throbbing pulse at Jamin's neck.
"Each female has been taken as a bride," Lucifer gave him a gentle smile that did nothing to erase the malevolence in those silver eyes. "And begotten with child by one of our species who is to them as a god. But that is why you are here. Isn't it, little chieftain? The Emperor's personal watchdog took something away from you and you want it back."
Lucifer ran his fingers through Jamin's hair, then clenched his fingers and twisted it so it forced him down to his knees.
"Yes," Jamin glared at him, refusing to bow down before another winged demon. "But I'll settle for killing his master. So if you're going to kill me, let it be done."
Lucifer grinned, his teeth perfectly even and white, and yet somehow Jamin got the image that the man possessed fangs.
"So much anger," Lucifer purred, his features exquisite as though he beheld a pet or a favored son. "Now that is an emotion I can understand." He loosened his grip and patted Jamin's hair so that it fell smooth again. He glanced at Ba'al Zebub and spoke in the lizard language. The two lizards holding his arms let go.
Realizing he was free, Jamin lunged for the sword strapped to the hip of one of the fat lizard king's guards. Oh! If only he could get his hands on such a weapon, he would rid his world of whichever winged demon he could smite first before he was killed!
"So you seek a sword?" Lucifer laughed at him, once more inserting that black wall into Jamin's mind that prevented him from moving. He switched languages to the Kemet everyone except for Ba'al Zebub seemed to understand. "If you would humor me, General Hudhafah? Would you be so kind as to loan this young chieftain a sword?"
After several sentences shot back and forth in the lizard language, a guard presented Lucifer with his sword, still sheathed. Lucifer made a great show of slipping it out of its sheath. Around him the lizard people chuckled. Jamin trembled, but his hatred sustained him, keeping him defiant even as he waited to be executed using the very instrument he had coveted.
"Here," Lucifer switched back to the Ubaid language. "Let me show you how it feels." He gave Jamin that wolfish smile.
Jamin forced himself to keep his eyes open. If he was going to die, he would look his enemy in the eye.
Cold steel pressed into his palm. Even as he knew his death would come from his own hand, the feel of the weapon excited him. Yes. This was what he'd wanted all along. To feel the weight of this blade, to feel what it felt like to slide into his enemy's heart and watch that eerie blue light fade from Mikhail's eyes.
"So much anger," Lucifer leaned forward and whispered in his ear, the flat of the blade pressed against Lucifer's chest, daring him to press it into his heart.
Jamin tried to force the blade forward. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped into his eyes from the exertion, making them sting, but he could not force his hand to move. Memories of his lifetime danced before his eyes. Losing his mother, losing Ninsianna, losing his father's love, his warriors respect, his village. He fought the wall that stayed his hand until, at last, he was able to make his hand move, slowly, slowly, only a little, but he was so close! He only needed a couple of finger-widths! If only he had a firestick!
"Aha!" Lucifer's teeth flashed. "It is not a sword you seek, but something better." He switched languages into that one Jamin did not understand. "Eligor! Tabhair dom mo arm?"
A second pale-winged Angelic stepped forward, his expression neutral as he handed Lucifer a firestick. Instead of black like the one carried by Mikhail, this one glittered gold, its handle encrusted with jewels. Lucifer pressed it into Jamin's hands. A shiver of anticipation rippled down his spine and settled into his loins. The firestick felt warm.
"Ah, yes," Lucifer savored his scent. "That is what you most desire. Tell me, young chieftain. If I were to give you such a weapon, what would you do with it?"
"I would kill you," Jamin ground out through grit teeth, fighting the wall which prevented his mind from making his hand point the firestick at the man.
"You don't know how to use this weapon," Lucifer taunted. "But perhaps we could rectify that?" He switched back to Kemet. "General Hudhafah? Please order your men to escort us outside."
The fat lizard-king rumbled orders at the General called Hudhafah and Lieutenant Kasib. The two lizards appeared perplexed and unhappy, or at least that's what Jamin interpreted their curiously human-like distress at seeing their enemy treated like an ally, and cleared a path. Two lizards grabbed Jamin by either arm and dragged him outside the sky canoe to a strip of beach bordering the Akdeniz Sea.
Lucifer stepped behind him; the length of his torso pressed into Jamin's back, and pressed the firestick into his hands. "What would you do if I were to gift you such a weapon?" Lucifer whispered into his ear, the gesture strangely intimate.
"I would kill you," Jamin choked out.
Lucifer placed his arm along his and made him point the firestick at a downed tree trunk, the gesture reminiscent of the way Mikhail had taught Pareesa to aim her bow. The man sized him up like a cat toying with a mouse before eating it.
"But you would kill him first if given the chance?" Lucifer whispered. "Wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Jamin said.
"Can't you see him standing now before you?" Lucifer pointed at the tree which had been abandoned by the high tide, roots still attached and trunk snapped off so that it stood upright, like a man. "Here. This is how you use this weapon to smite your enemies."
Placing his other arm around Jamin as though he were a child being taught to use a sling, Lucifer placed his finger over Jamin's and jerked back a lever beneath his index finger.
The tree trunk exploded in a fireball of smoke and sparks.
"Oh!" Excitement poured through Jamin's body.
"You like that, little chieftain, don't you?" Lucifer whispered into his ear. "But you keep picturing a tree trunk. Not your enemy. Close your eyes and fill your mind with an image of your enemy, and then open them again. Can't you see him standing there before you?"
Pleasant jolts like the air before a thunderstorm tickled through Jamin's body,
making each tiny hair stand on end. It was still a tree trunk, but there! The roots jutting out the back looked like wings, the broken trunk like a torso.
"Picture what it would be like to smite your enemy," Lucifer inhaled his scent. "Picture it, and then pull this lever."
Jamin did as he was told, firing again and again. Each time he did, the image grew stronger in his own mind. The fear on Mikhail's face as he stared down the firestick and could not prevent his own death. The pleasure each time he pulled the trigger and carnage exploded outwards from the winged demon's body. The ecstasy as he watched those enormous black-brown wings droop as Mikhail slid to the ground and grew still, his cold blue eyes growing empty as they stilled in death.
"Who do you hate the most, Jamin?" Lucifer crooned into his ear, his hands sliding from where he had at first held Jamin's hand over the firestick until he fired the weapon on his own. "Smite this wrongdoer who has taken everything away from you."
Hatred, anger, rage. Jamin set those emotions free as he fired the firestick again and again. Each time it felt like it did whenever he reached ecstasy. No. It was better than sex!
Lucifer's hand slid down his arms. Jamin's skin felt electrified wherever Lucifer touched him. Lucifer's erection pressed into his buttocks each time the man shifted to correct his aim, but Jamin was too drunk on power wielding the beautiful weapon, fantasizing about killing Mikhail, to think about how depraved it was for Lucifer to get off on his imagination.
"See," Lucifer whispered in his ear. "It was all a misunderstanding. If you kill me, you will never get your heart's desire."
Jamin turned and stared up into the silver eyes of the benefactor who had given him the sensation of killing Mikhail.
"Thank you," Jamin said. "I shall die happy."
"Such a beautiful, angry man," Lucifer caressed his chin. "You shall make…"
Lucifer never finished his sentence. For a moment, it appeared as though one side of the man's face was at war with the other side of him. The self-confident gloat disappeared.
"Zepar?" Lucifer grabbed his temples, his voice the whimper of a little boy. "Cad atá ag tarlú dom. Ní féidir liom a fheiceáil."
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 85