"You're not the only one who gets picked on, you know." Ipquidad's large, round face caught stray light from the campfire, reflecting that his eyes, too, glistened a little too bright.
"I know," Gita said. "In Assur, they respect the B-team because you held the gate to the north, while I threw the first spear to the south, but to these jackals? All they ever care about is hunting."
"I hate it here," Ipquidad grumbled.
She drew her tattered cape closer around her shoulders. This time of year the desert grew cold. The rainy season brought rain, but also cold, a force of nature her emaciated body was not well-equipped to handle. A flutter in her lap caught her attention.
"Watch out!" Ipquidad said. He swatted at the fluttering bat.
Gita caught his hand. "It's okay."
"You've got a … thing … attacking you," Ipquidad said.
"It's just the bat Qishtea tried to kill," Gita said. "It won't hurt me."
"You should finish it off," Ipquidad shuddered. "Bats are evil."
Gita picked up the tiny, terrified creature, careful to avoid its teeth which tried to bite her hand. She tucked its warm, leathery wings against its body and held it until it gave up fighting.
"It only came to eat the insects that would otherwise eat us," Gita said. "Bat's aren't evil. Only misunderstood."
Ipquidad's expression was doubtful in the darkening twilight. "You're going to get bitten."
"Then I'll get bitten," Gita shrugged. "And then I shall heal."
Ipquidad turned to face the ungrateful group of warriors. Ever since the attack on Assur, there had been seriousness about him, as if he'd resolved, as she had, that he no longer wished to be a victim. Only action earned people's respect. It was a lesson they'd both learned from Mikhail.
"I should get back to them," Ipquidad said.
Gita forced herself to give a fake smile. "They seem less hostile to you than me. Somebody needs to teach the idiots to stand together as an army."
She flattened her palms so the bat sat like an offering to the last ray of sun which had already retreated behind the horizon. The bat fluttered its wings, not sure if she would let it go, and then took off, flying away from the campfire where the ungrateful Ninevians stood swatting at mosquitoes. Ipquidad lumbered back to resume his seat at the outer fringe, a large, silent wall who would sit there so long that eventually the Ninevians wouldn't be able to imagine not having him there.
Gita stared up at the moonless sky. Not even the evening star glistened tonight to brighten her focus on something besides her own, persistent misery. The Ninevians and other warriors surrounding the chief's tents grew louder the more mead they consumed. She'd done her best, but here, as in Assur, there was no place for a motherless daughter.
A click-click-click and flutter of wings drew her attention skyward. The little bat circled above her, devouring the mosquitoes which had come to devour her. It was a small omen, the bat's protection, but she would take it. To do otherwise would cause her to drown in her own despair.
She began to hum the song her mother had taught her to chase away her woes. Once upon a time it had been a happy song, with joyous warbling high notes like the trills of a happy little song thrush, but whenever she sang it, it was always tainted with sadness. She closed her eyes and imagined she was back at the temple with her mother, still alive. It was a bright, happy memory, the only one Gita still possessed.
A commotion shook her out of her self-made bubble. Mikhail emerged from the tent, his wings flared as though he was a frightened sparrow about to dart into the air. Gita's heart leaped to see him before she reminded herself her foolish affection for her cousin's husband would only get her banished from her brand-new induction into the B-Team.
Mikhail rushed over to where Pareesa sat fletching arrows next to Ebad and some warriors from Eshnunna. Gita couldn't hear what was said, but Immanu rushed out of the tent and pointed directly at her. Gita glanced over her shoulder. No. Not at her. At something that lay behind her. Mikhail took to the air, disappearing into the darkness with pounding wings, leaving large, dark feathers falling from the sky like raindrops.
Chaos erupted as the B-team rallied around Pareesa. Chief Kiyan ran out and shouted orders. Pareesa grabbed her bow and took off into the darkness in the same direction Mikhail had gone.
Ebad rushed up to them, the B-Team's second in command.
"What happened?" Gita asked.
"Ninsianna's been kidnapped," Ebad said. "Chief Kiyan thinks it's a trap. Grab your spear and see if you can't convince the Ninevians to join us. We've got to help him before he gets himself killed." Before she could answer, Ebad had already run over to the next group of warriors, trusting her and Ipquidad to get the job done.
Only Gita knew, she and Pareesa, how uniquely vulnerable the big Angelic was when it came to all matters involving his wife.
"We've got to go," Gita tugged on Qishtea's arm. "Please! Come with us. Mikhail is being lured into an ambush."
Qishtea twirled his beard as though thinking the matter over.
"What do we care?" Qishtea said. "The only reason the lizard-demons hire men to come at us is because they can't figure out which Ubaid village harbors him."
This time Gita did kick him. Right … in … the … manhood.
Qishtea doubled over. He hissed out between his teeth, hatred in his eyes as he tried to straighten up and pain wouldn't allow him the dignity, "I will kill you for this, boy-girl."
"First you have to catch me!" Gita said. She thwacked him in the backside with the butt-end of her spear. "I will be fighting alongside Mikhail. If you want me, come and get me."
Yes. The dark vision was always right. She pushed his chest, just as he'd pushed hers, and shoved him backwards so that this time it was he who lay upon the ground, blinking in surprise.
"Here," Ipquidad handed Gita her spear. He turned to the Ninevians. "I'm following the girls into battle. If that scares you, stay here and cower behind your chief's kilt. Our women will protect you from the devil!"
Without waiting for an answer, Ipquidad turned and followed Gita into the darkness.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 8
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.11 AE
Sata'anic Empire: Hades-6
Emperor Shay'tan
Shay'tan
Some called him the devil, but dragons were an ancient species, blunt instruments created at He-who's-not's insistence to protect HER from Moloch's constant incursions. Moloch was a cancer; whatever he infected needed to be excised. But where the Dark Lord's power was so vast HE destroyed entire galaxies, dragons drew upon a specific force of nature, thereby diluting the Song of Destruction enough that only a single planet or continent would be destroyed. She-who-is still wept to see her playthings broken, but it was at a smaller scale, more manageable than the wholesale chaos of the Dark Lord, and as the dragons evolved, they had learned to dampen their power.
As the millennia passed, She-who-is shaped new creatures to inhabit her universe … tender beings with short lives and frail physical bodies that could incarnate into new physical forms faster than Moloch could corrupt them. One day the dragons lured Moloch into a trap. Deprived of physical form, the Evil One was limited to what he could convince mortals to do on his behalf. At first mortals were grateful to be rid of Moloch, but over time the weaker, naturally evolved races forgot how dangerous the Evil One would be if he ever found a vessel capable of carrying his non-corporeal form. The ungrateful mortals began to resent the enormous, destructive dragons and view them as their adversaries.
Heartbroken at the naturally evolved races betrayal, one by one the dragons disappeared, until finally only one dragon remained…
Y Ddraig Goch … the dragon known as Emperor Shay'tan…
And the element he controlled was fire…
* * * * *
"Where in Haven did Ba'al Zebub send my armada!"
Shay'tan smashed a clawed fist down upon the table. On that table an enormous spi
nning replica of the galaxy depicted the source of his irritation. The chessboard flickered, but continued to taunt him with a reassuring hum, reminding him that for all his powers, his chief henchman had played him for a fool!
"I d-d-don't know, y-y-your Eminence!" the elderly Sata'anic lizard stammered. He glanced at the small, concrete bunker which graced every room in the palace, his tail twitching as he no doubt calculated the running distance to dive inside. "The Sata'an Secret Service has poured through every record we have on Ba'al Zebub's activities. So far as we can tell, the only place he funneled money was here."
The scribe pointed to a pale silver circle where the map should have shown a planet orbiting a sun. The planet was now nothing but rubble, a casualty of Hashem's temper tantrum over Lucifer's mother dumping him to run back to her rebel husband. Bright blue triangles blinked closer to the aforementioned planet. Abaddon's Jehoshaphat … and a third of Hashem's armies!
Tiny red flames sparked down Shay'tan's scales and began to heat the room. The scribe sensed it too. Beads of sweat gathered on his eyebrow-ridges as the lizard-man edged closer to the bunker, centuries of service having taught him when his emperor and god was about to lose his temper.
"There's nothing there!" Shay'tan shouted. Fire incinerated the blackout curtains which had already been replaced three times. The scribe dove into the bunker and slammed shut the door.
The Hades sun shone through the smoke, diluting the holographic map of the galaxy and, therefore, Shay'tan's anger. It wasn't enough to dim the frantically blinking red triangles which were lined up on his side of the now-defunct planet Tyre, the place where Shay'tan had accidentally killed Hashem's adopted son…
He thought…
Actually, he wasn't really sure. He hadn't meant to kill the pompous little peacock. Just to capture Ba'al Zebub and torture the real location of Earth out of him! The destruction of Lucifer's diplomatic flagship so close to the seat of his biological father's Third Empire had been purely an accident.
If only Hashem would believe that…
"Damn you, Lucifer!" Shay'tan craned his serpentine neck at the smaller blue triangles which combed the territory searching for Lucifer's body. "Damn you for sticking your nose into business that had nothing to do with you!"
Two strings of triangles blinked closer together. Red … Shay'tan's war fleet. Blue … Abaddon's renegades. Red … blue … red … blue. Moving closer to a confrontation neither empire would survive. In the center of that map, five tiny blue triangles sifted through the debris of Ba'al Zebub's destroyed ship, searching for the bodies of their own Alliance Prime Minister and the wreckage of the Alliance flagship, Prince of Tyre. Shay'tan had ordered his warships to hang back and not antagonize the search vessels even though they crossed back and forth into Sata'anic airspace, but he could not allow an all-out incursion by The Destroyer to go unanswered.
The door to the bunker opened a crack. The scribe peeked out, his dorsal fin rustling with fear.
"Your Eminence?" The scribe's voice was a high-pitched, hissing plea.
Shay'tan realized he acted like a mindless demon. Devil … that's what the Alliance called his species. What would she say if she saw him now? Sadness dulled his anger, causing the flames which licked down his scales to cool. He tucked his enormous, leathery wings against his back and sat down on his haunches, doing his best to appear to Budayl as a mortal.
"Any word from our spies?"
"The Alliance Parliament thinks the planet is here," the scribe pointed a planet outside the neutral zone surrounding Tyre, "in our side of the territory. According to the whistleblower report, that was where Apausha delivered the human females.
That uneasy feeling that had sat in Shay'tan's gut ever since he'd received word about Ba'al Zebub's betrayal rumbled a warning. Something else was going on here, but he had yet to figure out what.
"What about Hashem?" Shay'tan asked. "What does he know?"
"Our spies have never been able to infiltrate his inner circle," the scribe said softly. "All we know is that the former Supreme Commander-General has taken refuge at the Eternal Palace."
"Jophiel knows something," Shay'tan pinched his eyebrow ridges. "But you say no one has shown up at the Eternal Gate to carry out Parliament's command?"
"No, your Eminence." The scribe opened the blast-door far enough for Shay'tan to see his entire snout. "Perhaps Abaddon fears angering his god?"
"Abaddon fears no man," Shay'tan said. "Neither man nor god. Many a good Sata'anic soldier has lost his life at the end of his sword, and more still at the bequest of his war fleet." Shay'tan paced over to the now-exposed window and stared out over his capital city, Dis. Citizens moved about the city below in an orderly manner; loyal, obedient, and pleasing.
"No … if Abaddon hasn't bashed down Hashem's door, either he truly believes the false intelligence Ba'al Zebub fed to them, or in that poor, misguided mind of his, Abaddon still bears some affection for his Emperor and god."
Shay'tan looked over to the singed report the scribe had just abandoned to burn on the floor. Ba'al Zebub worked for some enemy he hadn't yet figured out. Unlike Abaddon, who rebelled against Hashem not for glory, but to recapture his wife's homeworld, Earth, Ba'al Zebub had sold out Shay'tan for an even older god.
Money…
Fresh flames licked down Shay'tan's dorsal ridge. The scribe ducked back behind the door. Oh, goddess-be! He could see now why the other dragons had abandoned this realm, unable to deal with the constant frustration. He closed his eyes and recited the calming exercises she had taught him, focusing on cooling the fires at the tip of his tail, his haunches, wings, all the way to his nostrils which still had smoke steaming out of them. Unlike his brethren who had abandoned the ungrateful mortals, Shay'tan had a whole empire full of subjects who needed and adored him. He had initially stayed for her, but he continued to stay for them.
"Would you like for me to summons your wives?" the scribe asked from behind the safety of the blast door. At 360 years old, the scribe had outlived most other Sata'anic lizards and, therefore, had witnessed many other occasions when Shay'tan had lost his battle to contain his temper.
Shay'tan pictured the feel of his wives snuggling up to his enormous girth, caressing his scales and massaging his tissues to remind his body how to keep a mortal shape. Forty-six wives he kept at present, their numbers increasing or decreasing as one passed into the Dreamtime and another was selected to replace her, but every one of them was a beautiful flower in the garden he had created to honor her.
"In my current state I would end up cooking them alive," Shay'tan rumbled regretfully. "Especially with The Destroyer about to cross into Sata'anic territory."
He hung his head. Everybody wanted to snap their fingers and manifest a godlike power, but few realized what a heavy responsibility it was, worrying that a sneeze might cause you to undo a few hundred thousand years of evolution.
"Perhaps, if your Eminence won't be angered by the thoughts of so unworthy and simple a creature as myself, Sir," the scribe peeked his lizard-like snout out the door again, "might I make a suggestion?"
Shay'tan softened the shape of his claws. "You may speak freely."
"M-m-maybe you should just tell Hashem the truth?"
"What?" Shay'tan exploded. "What truth?" He pointed a clawed hand at the spot where five little triangles searched for their missing leader. "Oops? I'm sorry I killed your adopted son? Rumor has it the ungrateful little bastard staged a rebellion, so I thought I'd help you out by incinerating him just like you incinerated his biological father?"
He whirled to the spot on the edge of the Tokoloshe Kingdom where dozens of Sata'anic warships should have patrolled the volatile border against the cannibals, but only a few red triangles remained, the rest reassigned to fight off Abaddon's impending incursion.
"Or maybe I should tell Hashem that half my war fleet has been stolen and the Sata'anic Empire is defenseless if he chooses to retaliate and invade?"
The scribe slammed sh
ut the door. This time, Shay'tan managed to only incinerate half the room before regaining control of his power. Just for the Haven of it, he snorted a puff of smoke right into the map which showed the advancing warships. For a reassuring moment the smokescreen obscured the truth, but then it cleared, Hashem's blue ships lining up in formation against Shay'tan's red ones.
Oh, goddess! He needed to get control of his temper before he incinerated somebody he didn't mean to hurt. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm.
"Budayl," Shay'tan finally addressed the scribe by his given name. "Please … ask Edasich to bring her harp and enough supplies to spend the night comfortably in the bunker. And ask her to wear her flame-resistant burqa. I don't dare let her near me, but maybe…"
He didn't finish the thought, but he didn't need to. Budayl had been with him long enough to understand that Edasich, the most comely of his wives, pleased him more than all the others. While a simple-minded creature, she reminded him of her. For Edasich he'd do his best to control his anger and maybe, just maybe, her sweet, hissing voice while she sang from the safety of the bunker stories about his own heroic exploits might be just the thing he needed to put Ba'al Zebub's betrayal in perspective…
Yes … Ba'al Zebub had deceived him, but Shay'tan was immortal. Sooner or later he would figure out the truth. Yes, sooner or later he always figured out what was really going on…
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 9
November 3,390 BC
Earth: Mesopotamian Plain
Gita
Gita gasped for breath, her ribs heaving from running far faster than even Mikhail had ever pushed her to run. She had to help him. She had to help Pareesa. Her feet hurt as rocks pounded up through the holes in her worn pampooties. Twice she'd fallen, tripped on the rocks which littered the ground, but some instinct whispered to hurry along. Even before they crested the last rise, they could see the glow of a campfire hidden beneath a valley of rocks.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 10