At the mention of food, Mikhail followed her out of the sky canoe like an enormous winged dog. Yes, she thought. They were becoming very good friends.
Chapter 32
Late-February 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Jamin
Incomplete rows of mud-bricks whispered their taunts the same way the villagers whispered taunts behind his back. The emptiness was so palpable he could feel it throb with each beat of his heart. Each pulse caused the emptiness to grow until he thought it would consume him. Not only had he lost her love, but now he'd gone and lost his father’s respect as well.
The forms sat empty as they'd sat since the day she'd broken off their engagement. Sand. Straw. Buckets to carry water from the Hiddekel River and a pile of goat dung to act as a binding agent to make their house strong. The wall he sat upon had been meant to be the outer wall of their bedroom. Not just a sleeping loft like most houses in Assur had, but a genuine, full-fledged bedroom. He picked up a sapling he'd cut as a roof strut and jabbed it into the soil, imagining he stabbed him with his spear. All his life he'd enjoyed the hunt. The sport. The kill. But only Ninsianna had ever inspired him to build.
He choked back the emptiness which threatened to consume him, his mind leaping to all sorts of horrible conclusions, each one more terrible than the last. The winged demon touching his girl. The winged demon touching her face. The winged demon touching her … her … her …
NO! Ninsianna was no floozy. For two years he'd wooed her and never once had she allowed him any liberties, nor any of the other warriors who'd pursued her over the years. She was … pure!
The muscle in his cheek twitched. He could almost hear a light, feminine voice whispering to him in the warm late-winter wind.
'She is not meant to be with you…'
No! He refused to listen! She was his fiancé! This was a battle he was certain he could win! If only he could figure out a point of attack. But what? No matter what he tried, he kept digging himself in deeper.
'Let her go…'
His father was right. The only reason she stayed with the winged demon was because he'd overplayed his hand, trying to force her to marry him when something else had caused her to balk. But what? He choked back his tears. Real men didn't cry!
He realized he was being watched. Anger surged through his veins at the thought that someone had witnessed his humiliation.
“Go away,” he hissed.
Black eyes stared at him out of a face that was a faint echo of the face he really wanted to see. Gita might have been Ninsianna's cousin, but other than a faint family resemblance, his ex-fiancé had always shunned the peculiar girl. She was shorter than Ninsianna by two palm's breadth, with bones sticking out of a shawl dress so worn it barely covered her emaciated frame. How long had the scrawny waif stood there watching him weep like a sissy, pretending to be part of the lengthening shadows of the setting sun?
“You have seen him?" Gita's black eyes were filled with awe. “The legends are real?”
Jamin gave her a look of disgust. It was bad enough his own father was all a-twitter over the presence of the winged demon on the outskirts of their village, but now Shahla’s peculiar sidekick was all googly-eyed as well?
“What legend?” Jamin growled. “I've never heard of any legends. Immanu made it up!”
Her preternaturally black eyes stared right through him as though he was not even there. Immanu’s eyes … only blacker. As black as night when no moon graced the sky. As black as…
Jamin shuddered and looked away. He'd taken the odd girl under his protection when her father had suddenly reappeared in their village after being banished from whatever haughty house he had married into. For some reason, Shahla had taken an instant liking to the reclusive child, probably because she followed the flamboyant drama queen around like an adoring retainer. Gita had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since he'd cast Shahla aside to pursue Ninsianna. Why was she now lurking in his shadow? Because once upon a time they had been friends?
“I have seen them,” Gita said, her eyes haunted, “the cave paintings in Es Skhul. The priestesses built their oracle at Jebel Mar Elyas until the Amorites destroyed it.”
Jamin’s ears perked up. “What cave paintings?”
“Demi-gods,” Gita said. “Half-human, half-animal. They came across the waters in a great ship and waged war upon the people that came before. The Nephilim. The priestesses said we are all descended from them.”
“We are not descended from that … that … thing!” Jamin snapped, and then really listened to what she was telling him. “War? What war?”
Gita’s eyes swirled blacker, as though she stared into his soul. Jamin shivered at the sensation of suddenly being laid naked. Gita turned to leave, not even gracing his anger with an argument.
“Gita … wait!” Jamin called, remorse suddenly blending with his anger. “Please … I'm sorry.”
Gita paused, her expression unreadable as she gave him an eerie, dark look. Just for a moment, it was as though he stared into Ninsianna’s eyes, so closely did she resemble her cousin when he bothered to look at her.
The illusion passed. The pale, gaunt girl with the black eyes only bore the slightest resemblance to the grandfather the two women shared. Immanu’s father, Lugalbanda, had been a shaman so powerful it was rumored he could reach straight through the dreamtime and stop the heart of his enemies. Jamin shivered. Ghost stories…
“Now you know how Shahla feels," Gita said. There was no accusation in her tone, but it cut through his grief like an obsidian blade. A sensation akin to having his heart squeezed made him choke up, bringing fresh tears to his eyes, and was gone. Jamin gasped for breath. Whenever Gita had done that as a child, it had always terrified him.
“Yes, I do,” Jamin said, not sure why he felt compelled to confess his sins. He'd mistreated Shahla. He knew it. But at least he'd never lied to Gita’s promiscuous friend, making promises about a future he had no intention of keeping the way Ninsianna had done to him. It wasn’t his fault Shahla had latched onto him because she wanted to be the wife of a chief. He'd always told her he could never give her more.
Gita stared until he squirmed. He could see she weighed whether nor not to give him some tidbit of information, morsels she only occasionally doled out to those she trusted.
“The priestesses were healers,” Gita said. “People would come from miles around to pray for healing. They called their temple ‘hospital.' The sick would stay there until they got better.”
“Needa does that now,” Jamin said.
Gita looked at the foundations of the house Jamin had begun to build in Ninsianna’s honor. His temple to her. The woman he loved.
“This is a house,” Gita said. “Your house should be separate from the diseased so their sicknesses don't become your sicknesses.”
As she spoke, Jamin could almost see the temple she spoke of in his mind's eye. A magnificent building on top of the highest mountain, built not from mud-bricks, but carved from stone. Yes. That was what Ninsianna wanted. To have people come and worship her for her abilities as a healer. But how? Assur didn't have the resources to build such things. But perhaps … there … yes! He could see it. A separate room of their dream house where people could worship his bride-to-be. Her very own hospital!
Jamin looked up to thank Ninsianna’s spooky cousin and was not surprised to see she'd disappeared. Unless Gita wished to be seen, she had a way of fading into the shadows to escape notice. A survival skill, no doubt, to escape the wrath of her drunken father.
His heart light, Jamin pulled out the goatskin parchment he'd used to sketch plans for Ninsianna’s dream house and added blueprints for a ‘hospital’ room. For the first time in weeks, he felt hope.
Chapter 33
Mid-March – 3,390 BC
Earth: Crash Site
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
Mikhail swung his sword in an arc, practicing his daily warm-up. The cool feel o
f the grip sliding into his hand gave him a chill of recognition that was both powerful, and ominous, as though he should remember where he'd learned to use it so well. If he focused on remembering the weapon, his body forgot how to use it. The most effective way to wield the sword was to simply empty out his mind and let muscle memory take over. In a land where men threw sticks and stones, his sword was a weapon of mass destruction.
His eye wandered to watch Ninsianna wade through the stream, engaged in her perpetual conversation with her invisible friend, trying to catch fish using nothing but her bare hands. She was quite adept at taking care of herself, but he kept a close watch on her. Until he found a way off of this planet, he would make sure nobody bothered her.
An odd sensation gripped at the place in his chest where Ninsianna had stitched his wound. He had a mission to complete, but with each day that passed, the thought of leaving her behind disturbed him more and more. Increasing the ferocity of his swing, he stabbed an imaginary opponent, smiting him a thousand times as he pondered the dilemma in his mind. Since no solution came, he swung, parried, and jabbed until his muscles screamed in protest.
Splash! Ninsianna threw a fish onto the shore, laughing with delight. She came up behind him, the still-wriggling fish in her hands.
“Mikhail … see … fish!!!” she said triumphantly.
“Yes … fish good." He forced himself to maintain eye contact and not stare unabashedly at her breasts. Ninsianna had haltingly explained that making clothing was time consuming, whereas skin washed easily. Whenever clothing might become wet, dirty, or damaged, it was simply taken off. The only inhibition she seemed to possess was seeing her naked without the crude loincloth which was little more than a strip of linen held in place around her hips by a string.
“I gitmek clean now." She fetched her obsidian blade and took the fish back to the stream to clean it. When she returned, she placed the fish, tubers and greens she'd scrounged up earlier onto leaves for cooking. As it began to roast, she unabashedly watched him practice with the sword, a smile lighting up her features.
“You heal good. You get guclu." She held up one arm and scrunched her bicep.
“What that word?" He pointed to his bicep.
Ninsianna shook her head ‘no’ and repeated the word, pointed to his bicep, and then picked up a rock and pretended to heave it over her head.
“Ahhh! Níos láidre … stronger. I get stronger. Yes?”
“Yes, stronger … níos láidre." Ninsianna repeated the word until she'd committed it to memory. “Almost heal.”
“Yes, almost,” he said. “But no fly. Wing still hurt bad.”
“Bana izen ver … look?"
Slipping his sword into its sheath, he sat and dutifully stretched out his wing. Relaxed against his back, or even slightly extended, although it hurt, the pain was not insurmountable. The moment he extended them fully upwards to get airborne; however, the pain grew so great it made him dizzy and threatened to make him vomit. He worried his wing had been broken beyond repair. She placed her hands over the joint where it had dislocated and felt along the bone. She paused when she reached an area that made him wince.
“Hurt?”
“Yes. Hurt bad.”
Ninsianna felt for anomalies and then sat at his side, her expression serious. Mikhail scrutinized her tawny beige eyes, for when language failed, her expressive nature usually gave her away.
“Bone good,” Ninsianna said. “Heal good.”
“Wing good?”
“No. Wing not good." She had that universal look people wore when they were about to tell you bad news.
Mikhail schooled his features into his customary unreadable expression so she wouldn't see the fear that clenched his gut.
“Kiris no good," Ninsianna said. "Hurt bad.”
“What no good?” he asked, not understanding the word. Ninsianna pinched the bridge of her nose, concentrating on a way to tell him what she thought was wrong. She pulled off one of the primitive hide coverings she used as a shoe.
“Kiris not good. Hurt bad." She pointed to her Achilles tendon. “Need long time heal. Kiris in wing hurt. Need long time heal.”
“What that word?" He pointed to the spot of his wing that felt like somebody ripped it apart whenever he tried to fly and then to her Achilles tendon.
“Kiris,” she said.
Tendon.
Tendon?
Oh, damantia. She thought he'd damaged his flight tendon.
“How long fly?" He masked his fear. For a winged creature, being told you might never fly again was like being told you might never walk again. Paired with the realization his ship might never work again and he was trapped, that was a lot of bad news. Especially when he couldn't remember if anyone cared enough about him to even bother looking!
“I don't know." She put her hand on his cheek. “Mama know better. Mama better than Ninsianna.”
He must not have masked his emotions as well as he thought because Ninsianna pulled him in for a hug. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of soap root. An unpleasant memory triggered in his mind and was gone. Buried in a darkened room. The smell of death. Being small and helpless. Whatever the hell that was all about, he was glad the memory didn't stick.
“It okay." Ninsianna ran her fingers through his under-feathers. “Ninsianna ask Mama. Mama know better. Mama fix wing.”
The tide of emotion he'd been fighting to keep at bay since he'd awoken impaled through the chest with what he thought was a spirit come to guide him into the dreamtime finally broke. Complete the mission? Who the heck was he kidding? Six weeks and he remembered little more about his past now than the day he'd placed his fate into her hands. He couldn't even remember what the darned mission had been. Much less how to complete it!
“Cad é ag déanamh liom a dhéanamh faoi tú, mo ghrá?" He whispered in his own language so she wouldn't understand his words. What am I going to do about you, my love?
The smell of cooked fish reminded them it was time to eat. He'd made her father a promise. He pulled himself back together before she read the naked vulnerability in his face. With his ship, his technology, his people, his memory, and his ability to fly gone, the only thing he had left to offer was his word of honor.
Composing his features back into an impassive mask, he pulled away and suggested they go get a bite to eat.
Chapter 34
Mid-March – 3,390 BC
Earth: Outside Crash Site
Jamin
Jamin watched, and saw, everything…
He gasped for breath, burying his face into his knees to suppress the scream which threatened to erupt from his heart in a wail of grief. Deceiver!
He'd known. He'd known in his gut the day she'd run into the winged demon's arms that he'd been replaced, but he'd deluded himself into thinking she would grow tired of caretaking a monster in the wilderness and return. He'd been busting his hump, cutting timbers for her dream house and preparing his warriors for the day he just knew demons would swoop down from the sky and attack their village.
First people. Gita had told him the priestesses at Jebel Mar Elyas had legends about winged demons that had come across the waters and killed off all of the people who had been on this world before. Nephilim. Slant-browed, barrel-chested giants. And now they were back to kill them…
He watched Ninsianna lead the winged demon into the sky canoe. He wanted to kill him! He lurched forward, spear clutched in his fist, and fell back. The tribunal. His father had threatened him with the tribunal if he thwarted his authority one more time. Several of the village elders bore grudges against him. The penalty for disobeying a direct order from the chief was public humiliation, banishment, or stoning. He would bear humiliation gladly if it would win back her heart, but the thought of being sent away from her?
He looked at the goatskin parchment clutched in his fist. Equal. His father had told him Ninsianna could never love a man who didn't treat her as his equal, so Jamin had thought up hundreds of ways
to prove he did view her as his equal. It was only a little room sketched onto the side of their dream house, but the ‘hospital’ room was meant to be his temple to her. The goddess he'd failed to worship ... and lost.
He unrolled the goatskin, tears streaking the charcoal he'd used to mark it. He'd even sketched plans for a garden to grow medicinal herbs. For six weeks he'd plotted ways to win back her heart. He was, after all, the son of a chief. How could she not want him? Her rejection had made him the laughing-stock of the entire village!
Real men didn't cry! Fading into the woods from the spot he'd taken to watching the goings on at the ship, he waited until he was out of ear shot before he began to rage. If this is what they did outside the ship, he could only imagine what went on in private. Hatred of the winged demon hardened in his veins.
'Jamin … let her go…'
The wind taunted him, whispering his loss through the cedars. A green grasshopper flew onto his hand, tilting its head to look at him and whirring its gossamer under-wings. The muscle in his cheek spasmed, stress causing the errant facial tic to develop a mind all its own. Let her go? He gave the wind his answer.
"Never!"
He squashed the grasshopper and threw the blueprints into the scrub. Skulking back to the village, he plotted how he would get even.
Chapter 35
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.03 AE
Zulu Sector: Command Carrier ‘Light Emerging’
Colonel Raphael Israfa
Raphael
Raphael examined the holographic map of the Orion-Cygnus spur of the Milky Way galaxy, all solar systems they'd sent scout ships thus far marked in various colors to denote what they'd found. Six weeks into the manhunt and already he'd discovered dozens of previously uncharted solar systems and hundreds of planets, one of them marginally habitable. None of them, unfortunately, had any sign of a homing beacon … or Sata'anic activity which might indicate it was the planet where Mikhail had been shot down.
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 18