Abaddon shrieked as the dragon's fire burned him alive. Pain. So much pain. And the worst of it was that he could sense Sarvenaz could feel his pain, too!
It was, ironically, Shay'tan who plucked him out of the brazier.
The world turned dark, and then it was light again as hands dragged him across the floor. Abaddon screamed as his charred flesh left chunks against the bedrock.
"Hang on Sir, just hang on! Everything's going to be alright…"
"Sarvenaz," Abaddon whispered as he stared up beyond the roof of the cavern into the world beyond. He could see her, three grey hairs and the crow's feet he adored. He stared not just at her, but past her to the Eternal Tree which spread its canopy over her like a protective umbrella. He could see her, not just as he knew her now, but as he had known her in her last lifetime, the one where she had died in his arms.
He reached for her and, despite his pain he smiled. She had found him again, and if she'd found him twice during this lifetime, then goddess willing, they would find each other a third time.
Rocks fell down from the ceiling. All around them the cavern began to collapse.
"Just hang on Sir," Lieutenant Valac shouted at him. "I think these only failed because they ran out of power."
He picked up Abaddon, ignoring his cries of pain as Valac tore him out of his pleasant death-moment, and dumped him into a cryo-chamber from which he had just yanked out a mummified Nephilim.
The cavern rumbled, but it wasn't from the two gods fighting, but the natural collapse of a ceiling subjected to far more heat than an ice-cavern had any business being subjected to.
"Everything's going to be alright, Sir…"
The lid slipped down. Mist flooded into the chamber and obscured the sight of the cavern collapsing onto Valac's head.
Abaddon's last thought as the ice took him was just how much he regretted not living long enough to see his daughter born.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 39
December, 3,390 BC
Earth: Mesopotamian Plain
Pareesa
"Where in Shay'tan's name is he!"
Pareesa mouthed the unfamiliar curse-word, the one her people had picked up from Mikhail after he'd come back from Gasur carrying lizard-gold stamped with an image of the creature he called 'dragon.' Sweat beaded on her forehead and caused the salty desert sand to stick to her skin even though, this close to the winter solstice, usually the weather was cold. Roast all day! Freeze all night! That was life once you traveled more than a few leagues away from Hiddekel River.
She stared up at the sun, not yet even to its apex, and wondered if the Cherubim god laughed at her impudence. She'd come into the desert unprepared to do anything but make a perfunctory search, just enough to tell her father she'd made a good-faith effort to find Dadbeh and apologize before going back home to practice with the sword. But then her overdeveloped sense of responsibility had kicked in. Mikhail would never leave a mission incomplete! All she could picture was how disappointed he would be when he woke up and realized she'd shamed one of their best warriors into leaving.
Who was she kidding? Mikhail was dying…
No he wasn't!
Yes, he was.
No! He wasn't!!! Mikhail would recover! He had to recover.
She reached for her goatskin and realized she was low on water. The desert stretched as far as she could see, ochre-yellow and filled with rubble. She had not brought rations to search the desert at length.
'I should go home.'
No. Not yet. This was her responsibility. She would searchjust over the next rise, to the small stream which was usually dry, but thanks to the rainy season might carry enough water to support a man like Dadbeh who wished to be left alone. It would be muddy and taste terrible, but at least she wouldn't die of thirst.
Her feet ached as she veered away from the well-trod path and set out across the open desert. Her own musings about whether Mikhail would live occupied her thoughts until the ground suddenly disappeared beneath her feet. With a startled cry, Pareesa rolled down the embankment and plopped face-first in a trickle of water which couldn't be more than three fingers deep. She had found the stream.
"Damantia!"
With a sob of frustration, Pareesa shoved herself up and rearranged her now muddy shawl across her chest, the wet, sticky clay, heavy and uncomfortable across her nipples. Ugh! Why couldn't she have fallen into a nice deep stream which would have washed off the salt which stung her eyes? Oh, well… At least the sloppy wet gloop had cooled her down.
She untied the mouthpiece to her goatskin. The water was tepid and muddy, but at least it was wet and in the desert, water was the source of life. How much further did she dare travel before giving up and walking home? She stared up at the golden yellow sun which shone down on her with relentless fury.
"Are you going to help me find him?" Pareesa spoke into the air, "or will you make me wander the desert forever?"
The Cherubim god gave her that amused 'tickle' she associated with him half-listening to her. It reminded her of the way her father let her chatter whenever he was busy carving wood. For some reason, she'd expected the gods would be more … attentive? No. Not attentive. It was she, really, who'd become better at paying attention to him.
With a sigh, she took one last sip out of her goatskin then wrapped the rawhide tightly around the neck. Since she was already down in the stream bed and her pampooties were coated in mud, she might as well stay down here. It was a good measure cooler in the ditch. She continued her journey upstream. She stopped when she heard the sound of a man's voice.
Dadbeh! She hurried towards the sound.
Pareesa's natural inclination had always been to approach people with friendliness, but her near-kidnapping had taught her caution. As the sound grew closer, she realized it was not one voice, but many, along with the jingle of harness-bells and deep-chested groaning of many camels. A trading caravan? Perhaps Dadbeh had crossed paths with them and they could tell her in which direction he had travelled?
A warning buzz struck at her crown so powerful that, for a moment, it made her ears ring. There was something about this trading caravan which the God of War did not like.
'Thanks…' she sent up a little silent prayer.
She pressed herself into a crevasse, thankful she had encountered the group of traders here, in one of the few places she could take cover. A man's voice called out from the party of traders in Uruk. With shouts and curses, the camels groaned as the caravan came to a halt.
Pareesa peeked above the embankment. The camel's colorful woven bridles and blankets were Kemet, but there were far too many men and no sign of the usual women and children. Despite their voluminous packs, the camels stepped jauntily and not the weary trudge of beasts laden down with trade goods. While the men wore colorful Kemet striped robes, there was an awkwardness about the way they bounced on top of the camel's humps.
The man leading the caravan looked her way. Oh! Drat! He had seen her! She waited to be dragged out of the ditch, painfully aware of just how loud her breathing sounded. Ten heartbeats. Twenty. One hundred heartbeats. She clenched her obsidian blade and prepared to do battle.
The anticipated attack never materialized. With more talk and laughter, the Uruk dismounted the camels and began to make a temporary camp. She stared down at her mud-caked shawl-dress, suddenly thankful she had fallen into the mud. She rubbed her hands onto her mud-caked shawl and smeared it through her hair so she would blend better into the desert.
What were Uruk doing this far into Ubaid territory? Her heart racing, she painstakingly moved up the small embankment on her hands and knees, careful not to announce her presence by dislodging the loose gravel. Coming towards them walked a small party dressed in Ubaid attire. Should she warn them these men were imposters?
The Uruk leader moved forward, his arms flung open in a greeting. Pareesa scrutinized their body language. Whoever these people were, it was who the Uruk had traveled here to meet. At last the
Ubaid's facial features grew close enough to recognize as Laum, Shahla's wealthy linen-trader of a father; traders in his employ, and a woman with a newborn infant which gossip claimed was Laum's mistress. The men carried small, heavy packs, likely grain and gold.
Laum embraced the Uruk group leader. The Uruk took the heavy satchels from the men and packed them into the empty saddlebags of one of the camels. Pareesa cursed her inability to catch anything but the most fragmentary word as the parties devolved into a strange pidgin of Ubaid, Kemet, and Uruk. She only understood Kemet if she had sufficient time to translate it, while the Uruk she understood not at all.
The Uruk broke into two groups. Three Uruk and two camels moved back in the direction they had come, escorting Laum's mistress, his offspring, and his employees south towards Uruk territory, while Laum remained with the larger group.
The Uruk leader and Laum turned and moved towards the stream, away from the ears of the other men. Goatshit! Her heart pounding, Pareesa skittered back into her crevasse and did her best to melt into the mud. Their voices grew louder as they stood mere inches away.
"I did not expect you to honor us with camels," Laum said in Kemet. "It should go a long way towards alleviating my mistress' apprehensions."
"We liberated them from a caravan which tried to circumvent our tribute," the Uruk leader laughed. His expression grew serious. "Tell me, friend. Did you drop the poison down into the well?"
"Both wells have been contaminated," Laum said. "By late this afternoon, the entire village will have consumed it with their supper. May she-who-is kill them all!"
Pareesa stifled the overwhelming urge to leap up and cut out Laum's traitorous heart. Like daughter, like father!
"It is not our wish to kill your people," the Uruk leader said. "Merely to incapacitate them. Only the sick and very weak will die."
"You promised me you would kill that bastard, Chief Kiyan!" Laum snarled. "And that little bitch who put an arrow in my daughter's heart!"
Laum looked her way. Goat dung! The Uruk would rape her and sell her as a slave, but Laum would certainly kill her! The Uruk leader clapped Laum in the back in a friendly, familiar gesture, distracting him from scrutinizing the muddy 'rock' which peeked out of the stream.
"We wish for you to lead a long, prosperous life, my friend, bringing wealth to our village through your extensive network of trade," the Uruk leader laughed. "The hellebore extract will make them too weak to fight while we rid your village of those who support the winged demon. Without a leader, your village will be easy to annex."
"They killed my daughter," Laum hissed. "And the entire village has taken to decorating the front of my house with the contents of their chamber pots. For all I care, every one of them can die!"
"Ahh, my friend," the Uruk leader said. "Yes, I understand your anger at the murder of your daughter. But if we kill the women and children, the entire Ubaid tribe will unite against our tribe to hunt you down."
The Uruk leader gestured towards the tiny caravan now headed towards the Uruk villages. "Your mistress has just birthed you a new daughter to replace the one which you lost. Don't ask us to take action which might necessitate our turning you out into the desert. We can protect you against one village, but not the entire Ubaid tribe."
Laum let out a long, warbling sigh which sounded like a man in pain.
"I should have protected her more from my sharp-tongued wife," Laum said. "Spent more time at home, overseeing my daughter's chastity, and less time listening to my wife's schemes to marry her off to a Chief's son."
"You have a second chance, my friend," the Uruk leader said. "If you wish, I can ensure your mistress will not have to settle for being a concubine. Would that please you?"
Laum took a long time to answer.
"Yes," he said. "But kill her quickly. No torture. At one time…" His voice grew softer. "At one time, I used to find her pleasing."
"Consider it done," the Uruk leader said. "I will send my most skilled assassin to kill her with a single blow."
The two moved away from where Pareesa hid in the stream, her body pressed into a crevasse. Laum awkwardly mounted a third camel and, with a waved greeting to the Uruk, thwacked it in the haunches with a strap. With a g-g-g of protest, the camel curled back its lips, and then ambled at a trot after the retreating forms of Laum's family.
The Uruk leader called out to his men to gather around. One of their number sketched symbols into the soil, a map, no doubt, of which houses they wished to hit. Pareesa stared at the figure who'd remained at the back of the pack, his head covered with a colorful Kemet traveling-robe. The other Uruk took off the unwieldy cloaks to expose their Uruk kilts and shawls, but the map-man and another man who was with him remained shielded from her view.
The sun began to descend towards the horizon. Pareesa wished fervently there was some way to warn her village, but with the desert flat for leagues, the moment she broke cover these men would spot her. She must wait until nightfall to escape. At last Laum and his party grew small enough in the distance that the map-man and his accomplice felt safe to take off their disguise.
Pareesa stared at the handsome, dark-haired man who could have passed for an Angelic if not for the fact he lacked a pair of wings. He wore the same khaki-beige shirt and pants with pockets that Mikhail wore, and the same sturdy foot-coverings which were, themselves a weapon. Even with a short-cropped hair and clean-scraped face, Pareesa would recognize the traitor anywhere.
Jamin…
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 40
December, 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Gita
Tears streamed down Gita's cheeks as she watched Needa use the flat edge of her obsidian blade to scrape the maggots out of Mikhail's chest wound. She had been both fascinated, and disgusted, when her aunt had carefully bathed the tiny larvae in a bath of cold beer and then placed them into Mikhail's wound, explaining the maggots would eat the dead, blackened tissue which made his chest smell like a rotting corpse and leave behind only the pink, uninfected flesh; but each time Needa's little 'friends' began to eat, they all instantly died!
Needa placed the tiny, white carcasses into a bowl.
"I have no choice but to scrape this tissue out by hand," Needa said. "If we leave it, the dead shall infect the living."
Gita nodded, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.
Needa sawed at Mikhail's chest as though she sliced tiny pieces of meat off of a roasted goat. Gita suppressed the urge to retch, unlike Firouz who'd run from the room the moment Needa had uncovered the maggots. Although unconscious, Mikhail gripped Gita's hand even tighter, his wings trembling with each painful dig of the knife.
"You're hurting him," Gita wept.
"I know," Needa's voice was hoarse from crying. "But we must cut out the death spirits so they don't infect him further."
Gita held her shawl-dress up to her nose to filter out the stench. The only assurance they had Mikhail was still alive was the rise and fall of his chest and his plaintive whisper each time she tried to let go of his hand.
Needa scraped out the last hideous, black chunk of flesh. With a soft, sad sigh, Mikhail relaxed and drifted deeper into his never-ending sleep, never once releasing his grip on Gita's hand. Needa wiped at her eyes.
"I will let you bandage this back up," Needa said. With a sob, she rushed downstairs, suppressing her ululating wail until she got into the storeroom. The maggots had been Needa's last, great hope. Mikhail was dying, and nothing she tried would keep her daughter's husband alive.
Gita dipped a clean linen bandage into the water Needa had boiled and finished dabbing out the puss, mindful that her tears did not add evil spirits to his wound. It had grown to a dinner-plate sized crater, and where the original knife wound had been, it cut so deeply she could see part of his rib. She took the fresh myrrh-soaked bandages and began to wrap them around his chest.
Mikhail shivered.
"I have no more blankets to give you, mo
ghrá," Gita said gently. "I have given you everything I have."
She pressed her lips to each of his eyelids, his eyes twitching beneath his lashes as he dreamed of things he whispered in his sleep. Three days ago she'd added Ninsianna's magnificent red cape to the stack, and this morning she'd even added her own patched brown cape, leaving her shivering in the winter chill. The pile obscured all but his face, pale and skeletal in the light of the dying sun. She touched his cheekbones and straight nose which were the only hint that once upon a time he'd been a beautiful creature of the heavens. She wiped a tear from her own cheek, equally thin and pale. It didn't matter if Mikhail was beautiful. All she wanted was for him to wake up and live.
She resumed the grief-stricken song which seemed to bring him comfort. She had long ago stopped singing prayers for the goddess to intervene. The goddess, she sensed, had stopped caring the moment she had realized Mikhail could not bring back HER Chosen One. It was her own life energy she wove into the song now, not the blessing of the goddess, for how could she give something which she had never first possessed?
"Breathe, mo ghrá," Gita sang. "All you have to do is breathe."
Firouz shoved aside the curtain and broke into a fit of coughing as his olfactory senses adjusted to the stench. Gita sang, ignoring Firouz's resentful glare. He set two cups of water and a small platter of food on the table next to Mikhail's bed. Gita pressed her fingers into the water bowl and pressed the droplets against his lips.
"Drink, mo ghrá," Gita coaxed him. "A man can live a long time without food, but without water, your injuries will surely take you."
Mikhail became agitated the more she tried to trickle the water into his mouth. Gita put down his cup and took a sip of her own. She would get the water into him later, after Firouz had gone, by taking the water into her own mouth and pressing it to his. It was how she'd kept him alive thus far.
Firouz unstrung his goatskin and tipped the bladder up to his lips. With an exxagerated sigh he drained it, and then gestured towards Gita's plate of un-eaten food. Gita took a sip from her own cup of water, frowning at the slightly bitter taste; and then inhaled a crust of stale bread and slightly burned lentils. She paused her song long enough to meet Firouz's hostile gaze.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 42