"Here," Gita said. "I think we are supposed to smite the monster here."
She used the screwdriver to stab at the reed carrying the pink substance until it squirted a foul, oily liquid onto them. Dadbeh used his blade to stab the green one until it hissed with steam like an overflowing cook pot. When the fire in the oven began to sputter, Gita hooked her knife under the colorful spider webs and ripped them out, tearing every one she could.
"That should do it," Gita said, but Dadbeh could not hear her for the roar of the fire-breathing monster had grown so disruptive that it hurt her ears and made her almost want to faint. The beast was angry, and she feared it might retaliate.
She clutched her tiny scriúire and scurried back to the place where Dadbeh had hid only a few moments before. As she'd hoped, the fire-breathing monster coughed, and then all of a sudden the fires ceased.
"Come," Dadbeh tugged her arm. "We must leave this place immediately. They will know it is sabotauge."
Gita grabbed her robe and makeshift spear. They ducked back down into shallow stream bed and hurried back towards the south gate of the village. Their antics wouldn't hold the invaders for long, but it would buy the Assurians time, time for Mikhail to fly back here and tell them what to do.
She closed her eyes and pictured Mikhail, the way she'd been able to feel him ever since the day she had healed him. He was on his way back. He was wounded. He was frantic. And something had him very, very worried.
"Let's sneak inside the village," Dadbeh said. "Maybe we can be of help?"
Gita nodded. That part of her which was angry the village had turned against her was silenced by the tiny whisper that here, here she could be close to Mikhail. The latter voice won. She fortified that sentiment with the scant breadcrumbs of kindness she had received over the years. Siamek had created a distraction for her to escape. Pareesa had stood up for her. The widow-sisters had not immediately found her guilty, but made excuses to buy her time, and before this had happened they had allowed her to work for bread. She would not fight for Assur, but she would fight for Mikhail, for Pareeesa, for Yalda and Zhila, and for the mild-mannered warrior who had pulled her from the river.
They expected to be challenged as they walked across the flat ochre plain outside the outer walls, but nobody manned the south gate; not the lizard demons and certainly not any humans. The enormous outer gate lay in splinters, and the wall within was pockmarked with enormous holes. In the alley lay seven or eight creatures, all terribly burned, and one of them was still alive.
Gita stared down at the dead without mercy. She pulled out the knife she had taken from the Uruk, bent down to the surviving creature which groaned as it stared at her through it's one remaining eye, and hissed through it's boar-like tusks in Kemet.
"What did it say?" she asked Dadbeh, not certain she had heard it right.
"It begged for you to put it out of its misery," Dadbeh said.
Gita stared at the strange patterns the soot made down the mud-brick walls. What had happened here? And had this been a Sata'anic weapon? Or had her uncle drawn upon some source of magic more terrible, even, than that his warrior-shaman father had possessed? This was Immanu's doing, she suspected. The lizard demons were not so stupid as to sacrifice their own men.
"I shall grant you your death," Gita said using the few words of Kemet she knew. "But know that Mikhail will defeat you."
She shoved her knife into the creature's jugular, and as she did, that great, dark hunger which forever clamored to be fed grew stronger and pushed aside the newer, more reasoned voice of the God of War who protected Mikhail. She stripped off her robe and painted her body with with the blood of her enemy, and then she plastered it with dirt and soot until she blended in with Assur's walls.
Dadbeh pulled the firestick from a dead blue-man's hand while Gita grabbed a dropped knife which was far finer than the stone blade seized from the Uruk. To their right, they could hear the battle rage. The enemy had seized the outermost ring, but there were two more gates to get through before they seized the heart of the village. Dadbeh pointed the firestick in a way she had seen Mikhail do many times, but Dadbeh could not get the weapon's magic to work.
"Goatshit," Dadbeh cursed.
"Here's a better knife," Gita said. She peeped her head around the alleyway into the street beyond. "I count maybe threescore enemy? It is not so many as we held off at the great battle which cost us so many men."
"Come then," Dadbeh said. "Your gift is stealth, while mine is cunning. Perhaps we might smite a few of them from the rear?"
They crept out cautiously into the street, past more bodies of the dead, until they reached the place where the outermost ring provided an opportunity to ascend into the second ring. Pig-men, blue-men, and lizard demons all fired pulse rifles at the Assurians who shot arrows and hurled spears at them from above.
And every single one of those enemies had their backs turned to them...
Dadbeh's mismatched eyes turned almost murderous as he gazed upon the creatures that had taken Shahla's body. Although he was a slender man, lack of bravery had never been one of his faults. He crept up behind a blue man who had swaggered to the rear of the line, an Assurian arrow sticking out of his shoulder, and stabbed the creature straight through the heart. The sound of firesticks and the screams of men on both sides of the battle drowned out the blue man's death cry.
Gita crept up closer to her enemy, welcoming that dark gift, the one which hungered for the dead. At the back of the enemy line, one of the lizard-men kneeled and paused to shove one of the little square boxes they all wore strapped across their chests into his firestick. Gita crept closer, determined to learn the weapon's secrets.
'I'm invisible, I'm invisible, I'm invisible,' she chanted to herself.
She waited until she saw how the little cartridge fit into the firestick, and then reached from behind to muffle his scream as she shoved her knife deep into the lizard demon's jugular, grabbing both the pulse rifle, and the cartridge, as he fell.
"Help me drag these bodies out of sight," Gita said. "We must gather these small, square objects the dead carry on the belt across their chests and hips, and any other object we find that we might not understand, but Mikhail will."
Dadbeh stared up at the sky. "Where is he?"
"He'll be here," Gita said. She clenched her knife in her fist, and began creeping forward to slit the next enemy throat. She could sense Mikhail was about to drop out of the sky. The last thing she wanted, after all she’d done to save his life, was to watch him get shot in the back by enormous pigs.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 102
February: 3,389 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Pareesa
Pareesa took aim at the wooden implements which made up the second barricade. The carts, broken fence pegs torn out of the goat pens, tables and chairs and reed-woven sleeping pallets, had all caught fire, and it was the fire itself now, not the fragile barricade, which kept the lizard demons apart from the ordinary villagers who had lined up to fight them. Already the fire had begun to grow thin and die. Any moment now, the lizard demons would break through and overrun the villagers poised with spears and atlatls. Her Mama and her Papa looked so small and frail, mere human bodies, built of flesh and blood, so easily injured or killed.
She glanced up at the sky, wishing fervently that Mikhail was here.
"Is he still alive?" Pareesa spoke into the air. "Or has he journeyed into the Hall of Heroes?"
The whisper of the wind reminded her of the way her Mama tussled her hair when she told her not to bother her. There was reassurance in that answer, a resounding sensation of, 'yes, now please go away because I am busy.'
Pareesa prayed the lizard demons would expend the last of their magic so when they met the Assurians, they would be forced to fight hand to hand instead of spear to firestick. Several small, black balls came flying over the barricade and landed at the foot on their side. The balls exploded. Bits of flaming wood and s
plinters shot into the air.
“Archers, ready your arrows!” the Chief shouted. "The demons are about to break through!”
Pareesa pulled her bowstring back to her cheek, mindful with her aim as she'd begun to grow low on arrows. The first of the enemies stepped through. Pareesa loosened her fingers half a heartbeat before the Chief gave the order.
“Let them fly!” the Chief shouted.
Pareesa's arrow slammed into a boar-man's chest. All around her, other bowstrings twanged as arrows flew loose from their sinews. Explosions of blue lightning landed all around them as the enemy fired back at them with their firesticks.
*Whoomp*
A big, fat fire-arrow shot past the shattered barricade and slammed into the mud-brick wall of the house next to her. The roof beneath her trembled as though in fear.
Men screamed.
Pareesa watched in horror as the adjacent wall collapsed. The men screamed as they fell into a hole filled with rubble and fire. There was nothing she could do to help them. She tried not to weep as she heard a human death-scream lead to silence.
"Here they come!" somebody shouted.
The enemy flooded through the fiery barricade like a swarm of angry bees.
*Whoomp*
Pareesa slammed face-down on the roof as another big, fat arrow slammed into the wall of the house she crouched upon. The wall crumbled. The roof began to collapse inwards. Pareesa clung to it, shrieking, as a blue bolt of lightning landed precariously close to her back.
A strong, brown hand reached down and pulled her up to safety…
"Thanks," Pareesa gasped at Siamek.
Siamek pointed at the villagers who'd rushed forward to chuck their spears.
"Your Mama wouldn't let them shoot you," Siamek said. "It was she who first threw her atlatl."
Siamek crept away, leaving her in numb silence to contemplate the magnitude of his words, off to give the next person orders.
Pareesa glanced down, not certain what to do. Her arrows had been lost when she had dangled from the roof. The archers who hadn't been killed scrambled to the nearest adjacent rooftop, but like her, many of them had lost their arrows in the fall. Beneath them, the brave villagers let fly their spears, the people who were supposed to wait until the lizard demon's firesticks ran out of magic.
And she, stupid girl, had lost her arrows to protect them!
The lizard demons moved forward in well-ordered lines, blasting the Assurians with so much lightning that few amongst them could take an accurate shot. Screams of agony assaulted her ears as the villagers beneath them were killed. Unlike the archers, the spearmen had no walls to hide behind except for their own flesh and blood.
Someone shoved an arrow into Pareesa's hand.
"Here. You're a better shot than me."
Pareesa strung her bow. She took aim through tear-blinded eyes, unable to see where she was supposed to shoot. Where was Mama? Papa wouldn't leave her to die, would he? She spied Mama's blue shawl amongst the fallen.
"Lay still, Mama," Pareesa whispered. "Lay still, please, because Mikhail said the lizard demons will not kill a prisoner who surrenders."
Mama did not move. Was it because she was smart, or dead? She had no time to contemplate the question because the enemy resumed their barrage of lightning at the walls where the archers had taken up a new defensive position.
A lizard demon lumbered forward with the fat tube which shot the flaming fire-arrow that exploded. He kneeled, ironically, right next to her mother. Pareesa took aim. With a whispered prayer for true aim, she shot the man, determined to give her Mama a chance to live.
The demon fell, but not before he fired off another big fat arrow. With a whoomp sound, the fat fire-arrow went awry and struck a building harmlessly out of their way.
"Pareesa … here!" somebody shouted.
A quiver of arrows landed next to her leg.
She glanced over just in time to see Ebad toss a second quiver of arrows to the young woman who had given -her- last remaining arrow, and then he disappeared back down the ladder.
"Thanks," Pareesa shouted.
The arrows were blood-stained, recently used. Ebad must have led crept up behind the enemy and picked up the arrows that had already been used once today.
With grim determination, Pareesa straightened the crumpled fletching and restrung her bow, determined to keep the lizard demons back. All around her, the other archers did the same.
"Shoot them!" Pareesa shouted.
Their shots were much more erratic as the damaged arrows flew with less than pristine precision. The only consolation was that the lizard demons appeared to be much more judicious in their shots. Was it because they now understood where to hit them where it hurt? Or were their firesticks running low on magic as they hoped?
“Retreat!" the Chief shouted from somewhere behind them. A final volley provided cover while one by one the archers climbed down off the roofs, back into the third ring which sat just beneath the central square where stood the temple of She-who-is. As with the last gateway, a barricade had been erected to slow the lizard demon's ascent, but this wall was less formidable for them to shove out of the way. It did, however, provide another chance to funnel the enemy into another narrow alley.
Pareesa lined up on the ground with the other archers behind the third and final barricade. Old Behnam ran forward with a firepot, his arm in a sling, but he wore a grin upon his face like a ghoul who'd just spied a soul to steal.
"We held them off long enough for Immanu to prepare the second potion ready!" Behnam said. "She-who-is has declared an auspicious outcome if you take the shot, or so Immanu says."
"Where am I supposed to aim?" Pareesa asked.
Behnam pointed at the barricade.
"See that cloth rag which is tied to the table-leg just off-center at the base?" Behnam said. "Look closely. Do you see that basket?"
Pareesa squinted, and then she saw it.
"I see it."
"Hit that," Behnam said. "Mikhail promised Immanu this potion would surpass even the napalm."
Behnam handed her a fresh bracer of arrows, these ones perfect and straight, their shafts already wrapped with strips of pitch-soaked linen. Behnam placed the firepot on the ground in front of her, and then scurried off, no doubt to bring into the play whatever other magic Immanu had learned from Mikhail.
The chants of the lizard demons grew louder, more offensive, the sound of an invading army certain in its own victory. They had beaten them. They had beaten them badly in the second ring. But even without Mikhail here, what he had taught them had enabled them to fend off the attack far longer than they otherwise could.
Pareesa dipped the arrow in the firepot and strung it onto her bow.
The arrow flamed precariously close to the handle of the curious curved bow that Mikhail had had built just for her. Her arm began to tremble from the tension of holding the shot ready, and her own tears blurred her vision of the place she needed to hit.
'Akuma o seifuku suru tame ni, watashi wa anata no tsuyo kasu,' Pareesa whispered the Cherubim prayer, praying that her aim would not fail her.
The lizard demons began to tear down the slender barricade. She waited until they had almost broken through.
"Now!" Pareesa shouted.
She let fly her arrow and held her breath for the ridiculously long moment as she waited to see if her aim would be true.
With a 'bang' unlike anything she had ever seen before, the barricade blew up, taking with it anyone standing upon it or close to it, not so very differently from the way the sky canoes had taken out Immanu's house. The walls of the houses on either side of the alleyway collapsed, creating a barrier of mud-bricks and cutting off the only means of egress from this ring of the village.
"Whoo!" the elated Assurians shouted at their first use of the magical potion which Mikhail called gunpowder.
Nobody but Immanu knew the exact ingredients, but Pareesa suspected from the odd 'errands' he'd sent her little brother on, t
hat spell included an extract of dried, filtered bat poo, brimstone from a volcano, and twice-burned wood ash.
She picked up her spear and prepared to fight hand to hand. This was the last ring of the village where they could make their stand, far more defensible than the other rings due to its single point of ingress and egress, but if they didn't cut down their numbers here, there was nowhere left to go but the temple of She-who-is. If the lizard demons stole their grain, this time of year when every villagers personal pantry had grown empty of grain and all depended upon the vermin-free sanctuary of the temple to keep their food, the Assurians would starve to death, just as had been done to Nineveh.
The conflagration from the gunpowder began to die down. She could see that some of the enemy lay dead upon the ground, but the demons were bigger and tougher than they were, and it appeared their clothing afforded them some measure of protection. Little by little, the invaders tore down what was left of the third barricade.
Somebody touched her shoulder and she jumped.
"Ebad?"
"Siamek said we should fight together," Ebad said. "Everybody knows we fight better as a team."
The potter's son reached out and brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her mouth. On either side of him stood Ipquidad, Yaggitt, and the other members of her B-team.
"What about the final preparations?" Pareesa asked.
"It is done," Ebad said. "Either we shall kill them before they get there, or they shall kill us, in which case it will no longer matter."
Pareesa glanced at the barricade as the first of the lizard demons broke through. She clutched her spear, readying to throw it, and checked her hip to make sure her sword was ready to be drawn. One spear throw, and then it would be hand-to-hand. She glanced at Ebad's hip, and was heartened to see that he had been granted one of their swords.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 99