“No. That’s mostly done in the village, as far as I’ve read. This? This is where they use the torches for the final purification of her genitals and then touch her with their war clubs . . . and then they all stand back and start shooting arrows at her. The man who dreamed the Morning Star dream gets the honor of the first shot.”
Adam pointed upwards. “I think he’s a little busy right now.”
“They’re already moving on ahead of schedule. I don’t think they’re going to wait on him. Not if appeasing the gods is so very necessary.” Ptah grimaced.
“There are at least twenty men there. And some young boys, too.”
“This is how we teach the young what’s important, yes?” Ptah growled it out. “Do you see muskets?”
“Three. No. Four, just the guards. Everyone else has bows.”
“Thank the Aten for old-time religion.”
The clouds tore asunder again, as another huge burst of light exploded in the sky, like a star going nova. The sphere of light and energy radiated out in all directions, and Adam was simultaneously blinded and deafened as the air tore asunder. The shockwave drove him to the ground . . . and then the abused air, abhorring a vacuum, retreated back the way it had come. For an instant, he thought he’d be pulled off his feet and into the air, following it, and reached back, grabbing Ptah’s shoulder to help anchor them. A glance upwards showed him that the explosion had left smoke behind, like the dim and misty images of a nebula taken by a space-based telescope. And also showed him two figures tumbling now, limply, arms and legs wide and uncontrolled, towards the earth. Harah. Shit, shit, shit. “Tell me we have a plan, Ptah. Can you catch her?”
“Aten. No. Not until she drops within sixty feet of me, and by then, I think we’re going to be up to our necks. All we can do is hope she wakes up on her own.” Ptah gestured sharply at the field in front of them. “You take the ones on the left, I take the ones on the right, and we both pray to our respective gods very loudly.”
“I think I can manage that part.” Adam gritted his teeth. He couldn’t help his partner. Not at the moment.
But he could help the girl.
“Cover me. I’ll go in first,” he said, and Ptah made a gesture with his left hand. Adam could feel energy crackling around him, and shuddered a little, before turning and running, crouched low, in a zig-zag pattern for the group of men carrying the muskets and bows. The Praetorians had few rules of engagement, generally speaking. He didn’t have to give these people fair warning. But Adam’s general sense of ethics told him he’d sleep better tonight if he did. They weren’t soldiers. They were . . . misled civilians. “Stop!” he shouted, over the wind, as he found a hummock of dirt and rocks to crouch behind, twenty-five yards from where one of the men had just shoved a burning torch against the girl’s groin. Purifying her with flames. God damn it. He could see the girl’s mouth open, but the scream was stolen by the wind. He drew his gun, and thumbed the safety off. “Drop the weapons! Now! On the ground!”
The high priest, who, like most of the others, held a bow with an arrow already on the string, turned. Identifiable mainly by his age—his hair, in its scalp-lock, was pure white—and the elaborate markings on his leathers, the priest looked grim. Stared at him, directly, and at Ptah, coming up from the right. Then up into the sky, where Adam knew, distantly, two figures were still tumbling, a measure of how high up they’d been . . . and shouted at the other men around him. Adam didn’t speak the language, but he didn’t need to, in order to understand as the men put arrows to strings. Half of them aiming at the girl, still, and half of them spinning to aim at him and Ptah.
Adam ducked behind his hummock of ground and felt at least one arrow bounce off the shield of raw energy Ptah had put around him. The winds were, at least, sending half the arrows astray. One more thing to be grateful for, he thought, distantly. Found a target. Center of mass. Pulled the trigger, twice. A forty-five caliber bullet did a hell of a lot of damage to a body, and he’d opted for hollow-points today, which made for a much larger exit wound than an entry point. He ducked again, this time as musket balls slammed into the hummock of ground in front of him . . . crackling with energy, the balls were actually white-hot. Son of a bitch. He could see the puffs of steam rising in front of him as water trickled into the holes in which they were lodged. Guess I know how they were enchanted, he thought, and stayed down for a moment, finding his next target. Watched as two of the men tried to raise their guns and fire on Ptah, only to have the metal of their musket barrels collapse inwards. Seal. They didn’t realize it in time, and pulled the flintlock’s triggers anyway . . .
. . . and the muskets exploded in their faces. They screamed, dropping the weapons and clawed at their bloody eyes and cheeks, blinded. Adam took that moment to come back up, and fired again, two more bullets, at another man who’d turned to shoot an arrow at the girl. Pure muscle memory; he’d done this a thousand times both in practice and in real battles. His aim was a little high, however, and he caught the man in the back of the head, which resulted in an explosive shower of gore. Four, Adam counted. Four bullets down for him, four men total, out of the fight . . . and then he ducked back down again, swearing, as the men began to spread out, looking for cover of their own, firing arrows right at him. At least the other two with muskets weren’t able to reload the weapons. Ptah had melted these muzzles down, as well. Unfortunately, the men switched to knives, and started to move in on the sorcerer. Adam risked a quick glance at the scaffold, and swore, again, as he saw that the girl, dangling limply by her wrists, had been pierced by arrows in a half a dozen places.
His stomach twisted. The dossier had been brutally frank about the nature of the ritual. It was a fertility rite, in its most basic sense. It was a re-enactment of how the Morning Star had, supposedly, in the first days of the world, tracked down the Evening Star, and raped her, breaking the ‘stone teeth’ in her vagina, and from that rape, had begotten on her the first human, a woman. The men of the Chahiksichahiks were, thus, symbolically, the Morning Star. The girl became, ritually, the Evening Star. And they were thus, penetrating her body with arrows consecrated to the Morning Star, raping her metaphorically while sacrificing her. When she was dead, they’d lay her to rest in the ground, after making sure as much of her blood was spilled into the hungry earth as possible. It wasn’t all that dissimilar from ritual sacrifices performed in ancient times in Europa and the Fertile Crescent. But the problem was, not only wasn’t it allowed . . . it wasn’t needed. Human sacrifice had been forbidden everywhere that Rome held sway for two thousand years, and crops still grew.
Adam tamped down on the rage. Put it back behind his eyes, where it would add to his focus, not detract from it. And leaned out to fire again. She could still be alive. Just . . . have to get to her. He aimed and fired, smoothly. Another man died, and he couldn’t let the reality of that penetrate through his combat haze.
______________________
Sigrun, in the meantime, had had risen up through the mound entrance, following the god-born of Shakura, wind coiling around her . . . only to have an almost liquid mass of fire pour down on her from above. She gritted her teeth against the pain, trying not to scream. The fire around her burned so hot that it instantly consumed all the oxygen around her, and her lungs burned almost as much as her skin as she reflexively burst up and out of the cylinder of flame, tumbling through the air, supported by will and intention, and nothing more. Her feathered cloak was no more than a web of charred net now, and her chain mail and metal helmet were melting in places, scorching her padded undertunic. Sigrun swore and knocked the helmet off and shrugged out of the chain shirt, swooping and spinning in air to dodge any incoming attacks. She let them fall to the ground with her spear, the wooden haft of which was on fire. Her skin was blistered in places, blackened in others, and it hurt. Fire always did; there was no escaping that.
She acknowledged the pain, and then grimly put it aside, reaching out with will and god-born powers, tearing at the sky. C
louds pulled back into place across the horizon and she directed the lightning that was the heavenly twin of her usual spear at her opponent.
Natural philosophers still didn’t understand how lightning really formed. Oh, they knew it was electricity. They’d talk about positive and negative charges in the atmosphere, and the formation of linkages between them, and conductivity . . . but what caused it, they really didn’t know. Sigrun didn’t understand it any better than they did, but she could feel the invisible leader stroke comprised of negative energy descending, and guided it for her target, let it pass through him to the ground . . . and then watched as the return stroke of power, from the earth to the cloud, raced back up, with three times the force. Air displaced with physical force, slamming her to the side, and deafening her for a moment, but she’d been braced and ready for it.
The lightning stroke would have killed any normal human, and left a fractal pattern of jagged, angry burns across half his body, but her enemy was as god-born as she was. As such, she arced upwards, and, with him still stunned, slammed a shoulder into him with her full bodyweight and all the inertia of an inbound missile.
Physics was physics, even for the god-born. Two objects could not occupy the same space, and when they met, the object with more mass and inertia tended to win. The man hadn’t been able to brace, stunned as he was; as such, she hit him, and they both went flying in the direction of her charge. Sigrun scrambled to solidify her advantage in spite of the way her bones creaked at the impact, wrestling with him in the air, reaching for a knife that was in her boot to put it to his throat, only to find his fingers wrapped around her own. She slammed a knee into his groin, the steel poleyns over her knee, hot enough to burn unshielded skin, adding to the damage she could do. His fingers slackened as he doubled over, his eyes going vague. Her fingers snapped free, closed on her knife, and stabbed upwards, under a rib and into lung.
Her opponent threw himself backwards, and in clear desperation, still mid-air, spread his arms wide and arched backwards, looking up to the sky. Sigrun’s eyes widened as he screamed “Shakura! Grandfather! Aid me! My life for my people!” Oh, gods. He’s sacrificing himself. His blood’s already spilled . . . .
His body exploded into flame, and he curled in on himself, fetal-style, the flames going white, too intense to look at. A piece of the sun, right here, blazing heat scorching out in every direction. Sigrun flung herself away, all too aware of the Hellene legend of Icarus. Look what happened to him, when he flew too close to the sun, part of her mind remarked distantly, as she dove away, purely ballistic . . . and then the man’s body exploded in a fireball. Like a star going nova, the flame went in every direction, and was preceded by a shockwave that hit her like a wall of pure force, sending her tumbling in air. And then the fire hit, scorching her skin, and for an instant, for Sigrun, the world went away.
Dim awareness of wind. Cool rain, splashing on skin that was screaming with pain, somewhere at the far reaches of consciousness. Wind, blowing in her face, pressure against her body. Sigrun opened her eyes, and vaguely realized that she was spread-eagle in the air, falling towards the ground below, in the odd, slow-fast, dream-like state of pure freefall. She could see the patchwork of the fields of Novo Gaul to the east, darker greens of small wood stands, lighter greens of new-planted soy, browns where some fields had just been plowed for wheat, the large, wild expanses of open prairie, a herd of buffalo, like a brown wave, in the distance . . . high enough up to see how the horizon curved away in both directions, and still falling . . . . Falling. Wait. Why am I falling? Why do I hurt—oh, the duel, the girl—shit. Memory returned, with a vengeance. Where are the other lictors? Where’s Livorus?
She got control back, not daring to touch her own face or skin yet, when even the pressure of air against her flesh made every nerve in her body scream. She pulled herself upright in the air, and looking around frantically, spotted the body of her opponent, still limp and falling, several hundred yards from her. She circled to keep an eye on him, while darting glances at the situation on the ground. She caught a glimpse of Livorus, crouching seemingly alone near the top of a hill. She couldn’t see Ehecatl, but she knew the Nahautl man had probably made himself invisible, and was ranging out around Livorus . . . there. Someone had moved in, flanking around Adam and Ptah, and Ehecatl’s invisibility field dropped as the man moved in behind the assailant, and the obsidian knife plunged home.
She could see the rest of the situation clearly. Adam and Ptah, exchanging spells and bullets with the locals. A three-timbered scaffold, at the edge of the long field . . . Sigrun’s gray eyes focused in on that, with the clarity of a hawk’s. She could see the girl’s limp form. Could see the long-shafted arrows protruding from her body. A cold and cleansing rage went through her, clearing her mind, and she landed in the middle of the field, ignoring the winds that attended her as they laid into her burned flesh like an icy whip. Just then, the body of the other god-born hit the ground a hundred yards from her, shattering into chunks of charcoal on impact, the blackened bones protruding through the ruined flesh. An eyeblink’s moment to think, He sacrificed himself for this ritual. For his people. That’s a degree of fanaticism we’ve rarely seen in modern times. What is going on here?
The thoughts were dim and distant, however, and she didn’t have time to ponder them. Her spear, haft blackened from god-born fire, snapped to her hand from where it had fallen to the ground, and a half-dozen arrows winged towards her. She slashed at them with a gust of wind, though one managed to graze her left shoulder, and she could feel hot blood pouring from that line of fire, mingling with the raw, dull ache of the burns all along her arms and torso. Now would be a good time for the others to take advantage of the distraction I’m providing, she thought, and raised her voice above the howl of the wind. “Stormum ábéatne,” she called out her challenge, “Beoth gethancol, or losian.” Storm-beaten ones, be suppliant, or perish.
At the back of the crowd, a hundred feet away. she could see the wind-lashed high priest, still holding his bow in his hand. Could see his teeth bare, as he set arrow to string as he aimed, not at her, but inexplicably, high into the air. Could feel power suddenly, singing in the air, and she half-closed her eyes and shouted to the others, “Another god-born! Their high priest is god-born!” This was not in the dossier. Assuming I live, I’m going to have a few words with the people in Intelligence who prepared the briefing materials for this mission . . . .
The shaman let his arrow fly, and Sigrun watched as it turned into a red streak in the air, arcing up, straight overhead . . . and at the zenith of its arc, as it tipped and dropped down, it split apart. Each new dot of light split apart again. And again. Dividing into a rain of fire, each a red-hot falling star that tore at the very air as they screamed towards the earth. Towards all of them.
For a dumbstruck moment, Sigrun had no idea what to do. Part of her screamed that she needed to dive for her new partner, Adam ben Maor, and shield him. Part of her shouted to charge the god-born shaman. Another voice said she needed to fall back and cover Livorus. And she had only seconds to decide. Ehecatl is with Livorus. The propraetor is protected. Ben Maor is capable, but he’s . . . human. “Ptah!” Sigrun shouted. “Shield yourself!”
She flew across the intervening space, her feet barely skimming the ground, and landed atop Adam, driving the man to the ground, getting her body between him and the incoming meteor storm. Shards of sky-born rock slammed into the ground around them like hail, sending up clods of dirt from tiny impact craters. Splatters of liquid hot dirt, turned into microscopic beads of glass, fanned up, one just beside her face, splattering across her cheek in a feathery fan of pain. And she cried out in agony as one of the white-hot chunks of rock slammed into her back. No larger than a musket ball, she was fairly sure it broke her shoulder blade. No matter. It’s not a mortal wound. I’ll heal. She rolled off of ben Maor and staggered back to her feet, dazed, trying to get her bearings once more. She couldn’t move her left arm at all, and her skin f
elt as if it were cracking off her face and torso.
Ptah was down, the sorcerer crumpled on the ground, hammered by a half-dozen of those meteorite impacts. “Are you all right?” Sigrun asked Adam, trying to focus.
“Fine,” he said, rolling up to a crouch. “What about you? You took one of those in things in the back—”
Doesn’t matter. “Don’t worry about me. We have to kill the priest. He dies, the rest of them will stand down, I think—”
They both said the last part simultaneously, paused, and then, immediately, they both started talking again. “Can bullets kill him?” Adam asked.
“Yes. Bullets can kill almost anything. He’s not a monster. It won’t take special metals.” She took an unsteady step forward, feeling searing pain in her shoulder ignite at the jolting shock of the step. “Technically, I . . . should be challenging him to a duel.” Except I just fought one, and am in no condition for a second. Not for a day or three.
“You’re in no shape for that right now.” Adam’s voice was sharp. “The last one beat you half to death. Another one will finish the job.”
Not arguing, she pulled, in exhaustion, at the roiling clouds overhead. Felt the negative charge of the precursor strike, and tried, desperately, to aim it properly. She wasn’t holding her spear. Not being in contact with a weapon made of metal made this much harder, and her concentration was shot.
Lightning lanced down in between them and the high priest, sending all the other men running for cover. The thunderclap had pure physical force behind it, and Adam, who’d turned his face away from the brilliant white light, turned his head back, took careful aim . . . and fired directly on the high priest, who was already setting another arrow to his string. He’d had time to reload his pistol. Five of the six bullets were discharged, aimed at center mass of the target.
The bullets reached their target before the string could be pulled all the way back, and the shaman fell to the ground, dying. The dull report of the bullets seemed . . . anticlimactic, somehow. Sigrun groaned, and let the storm die. “Get the girl,” she told Adam, dully. “I’ll be right behind you.” She turned and looked back at the hill. Ehecatl and Livorus were picking their way down; Ehecatl had one arm raised across his chest, and she thought she could see blood staining his upper sleeve. His tattoos offered a certain measure of protection, but he was far from invulnerable.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 9