Sword of the Gods II: Prince of Tyre

Chapter 6-1

Chapter 6

September 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili

MIKHAIL

The warriors met each night to train after a long day at work and brief supper. Mikhail fingered the razor-sharp tip of Immanu's spear, not his usual weapon, but one he'd adapt to his sketchy recollections about ways the Cherubim had practiced. If Jamin would not respect anything but a real weapon, then by gods, he would beat him at his own game! He ordered his two lieutenants to line up the warriors and began to teach them tonight's lesson.

"Last month some of us hunted antelope by working together to herd them into a kill box," Mikhail said. "Today we shall try a variation of that tactic, only instead of herding antelope; we'll pretend an enemy is trying to herd us."

"Why would men hunt us?" one of the newer warriors asked, Ebad, the son of the village potter. The young man possessed average height; average looks, and wore the two-fringed kilt of an apprentice craftsman. The most striking thing about him was the way he followed Pareesa around like a hungry mongrel looking for table scraps.

"Why do you think?" his plump friend Ipquidad said. "Because they all want her as much as you do!" The plump young man pointed at Pareesa.

"Shhh!" Ebad elbowed his friend and glowered at him.

"Ipquidad is right, in a sense," Mikhail addressed the larger group. "The Chief has received intelligence that the Anatolians suffer from these raids, as well."

"From the Halifians, Sir?" Siamek asked.

"No," Mikhail said. "From some tribe we are unfamiliar with. But his trading partners report organized raids, tribes wielding bows that never had them before, and whispered accounts of lizard demons."

"Lizard demons?" several warriors scoffed at once. "Next you will tell us the lulu-khorkhore is real!"

Lulu-khorkhore. The demon that devoured children. Not for the first time he wondered if the legend people used to frighten naughty children had anything to do with the song which had prophesied his arrival?

"I can only say this one, great truth," Mikhail said. "The lizard people are real. If the Sata'an Empire decides to annex your planet, it will make your skirmishes with the Halifians appear tame.”

A low rumble of unease rippled through the troops. All had heard Ninsianna speak with the voice of She-who-is after the last raid, after they had buried the eleven villagers killed preventing the attack, plus dozens of enemies. They had all seen the sun go behind a cloud, the wind pick up, and the temperature cool as she'd spoken the terrible prophecy of what was to come.

"Picture the last time Halifians raided our village," Mikhail said. "Does anybody remember what happened when they breached our south gate?"

"We were overrun," several warriors spoke at once.

"Jamin chickened out!" Pareesa shouted.

"He did not," Siamek hissed, his dark eyes flashing with anger. "He simply avoided Mikhail!"

"Did too!" Pareesa taunted. "Stop defending him!"

"How do you know?" Siamek said. "You weren't even there!"

Instead of refereeing, Mikhail applied last night's lesson taught by his father-in-law. Raise. One. Eyebrow. Human non-verbal communication for 'you're kidding yourself.' Perhaps he might master this whole human non-verbal communication thing after all?

"Does anyone know why the defense at the south gate collapsed?" he diverted the conversation.

"Because the gate is goat-shit." Firouz elbowed his best friend, Dadbeh. The two had been tasked with gathering wood to help repair it.

"Partly," Mikhail said. "The Chief has sent word upriver he will pay a hefty price for the stronger wood which grows in the Taurus Mountains. But those logs can't be floated downriver until the Hiddekel reaches its flood stage. So how will we defend the gates if they send such a force against us again?"

"We've already increased the guard," Varshab said, the Chief's enforcer.

"And the number of scouts," Siamek added.

"And I now fly the perimeter of the village five times per day," Mikhail said. "Watching for anyone who approaches from a distance."

"More like watching for Ninsianna," someone whispered from the back of the line. "So he can fly off with her for some private time."

Several warriors laughed. There hadn't been much time to escape someplace where her parents wouldn't hear his wings beating against the walls. Heat flushed his cheeks as he realized everybody gave him a knowing grin. He ruffled his feathers and pretended he'd been thinking of something, anything, other than the delightful image of Ninsianna's lush figure.

"Patrols, scouts and stronger gates will only buy us time," he said. "So back to my original question. Assur's outer ring of houses are not so high that a man cannot vault over it, or cut down a tree and use its branches as a ladder. So if we get overrun again, what should we do?"

From the awkward silence, the warriors did not have an answer to that question. Much as everyone grumbled about being forced to train after working in the fields all day, that last raid had everyone scared.

"Any time you have large groups of men come at you," Mikhail said, "you risk being overrun. But if you find a way to stand firm, at some point those men have nowhere to go but forward. The men in the back push up against the ones at the front, making it hard for them to maneuver. You can use this weakness against them if you train for it."

"How large of an incursion does Ninsianna foresee?" one of the warriors asked.

Mikhail kept his expression neutral. Ninsianna did not understand much of what she saw because it involved technology she had never seen before. His memory was so spotty that all he knew was lizard soldiers had shot him down with a Sata'anic destroyer.

"Thousands," Mikhail said. "And the lizard people are all the same height as me." He did not add and all wielding firesticks. "But even if our next battle is merely against another 50 Halifians wielding bows, the fact remains they breached our gate. We must ensure that never happens again."

A shadow fell across the ground between where he stood and the warriors, the dark visage made larger by their distance from the ground. One of the golden eagles which circled the fields surrounding Assur dove into the field next to them, plucking a serpent from the grass. With pounding wings it carried off a still-writhing snake. A single golden-brown feather floated down to the ground directly in front of Mikhail.

The ripple of fear which passed through the men was palpable. The Ubaid considered these raptors sacred, the eyes and ears of She-who-is, and also messengers. Mikhail was less superstitious, but given the overwhelming evidence such a deity toyed with them in the form of his wife, he was less prone these days to slough off the event as serendipity.

Serpent. Coming. Got it…

How would these warriors fare against the lizard men? He mentally calculated each warrior's speed, weight and throwing arm as he moved through their ranks and adjusted where they stood. He had no recollection of learning the maneuver he was about to teach, but he had woken up with the idea. As he had practiced with Immanu's spear during lunchtime, his muscles remembered what his head injury had wiped out of his conscious mind.

"Let's see … you four … in the back," Mikhail said. "And you two … in the middle. Varshab … I want you dead center in the back … and you too … Kiararsh. You're going to act as anchors."

The warriors chattered as he shuffled them from one spot to another until satisfied with the way it looked, but they were much better behaved than they'd been yesterday. He pried the memories out of his subconscious by physically putting his own body into each position to knock free how this maneuver worked, but by now his men understood his body knew what his head injury had stolen. Thank the gods Jamin was not watching!

"We call this tactic léigeadar sceimhiolta," Mikhail said once he was satisfied. "I'm not sure what the exact translation would be, but Ninsianna said it would be called skirmisher." His wife's gift of tongues enabled her to translate words she did not understand.

He realized Siamek had moved to stand beside him as any good lieutenant should during training. "Siamek? Move into the back line. At the end."

A shadow crossed Siamek's face. Anger? No. Hurt. Did he fear being demoted after Jamin's taunting yesterday? Mikhail decided it was better to risk a small confession now, in the hopes a strong warrior such as Siamek might help him work out the bugs, rather than bluster his way through it blindly.

"We do not have this exact weapon back where I come from," Mikhail hefted his spear. "You will recognize before I do how far an average warrior can throw it. I need your feedback."

Siamek nodded, the shadow disappearing. He moved to the rear as asked.

"We're going to throw one line of spears after another," Mikhail moved to stand in the first line, which by happenstance contained all 36 of his female warriors. "The first line will throw when I count out loud one. As soon as your spear leaves your hand, I want you to kneel."

The woman to his left gave him a bold grin.

"So now you want us to kneel before you, oh great leader?" Azin was a trickster like Dadbeh and Firouz. Although her throwing arm was not as powerful as a man's, a certain amount of weight being necessary to add distance into the throw, she was deadly accurate.

Mikhail tucked his wings against his back to discourage her from touching them and donned a neutral expression.

"I want you to kneel so the line behind you can throw without being hindered by your head," Mikhail stated flatly.

Azin kneeled and shot him a grin, undaunted by his no-nonsense demeanor. She was not beautiful, but like Pareesa she was outspoken and a talented warrior. All it took was someone willing to give them a chance to prove themselves for women such as Azin to step out from behind their weaving looms and take up a spear.

"I agree," Azin winked at the man behind her. "It would hurt if Tirdard hit me over the head. His wife would not be pleased if he had to carry me off."

"Yadidatum knows you are full of flatulence," the young man in question poked her with the blunt end of his spear. His smile indicated he took no insult from her jibing. "Ninsianna, on the other hand, would scratch out your eyes if she overheard you making such untoward propositions to her husband."

Mikhail watched the exchange with interest, mentally filing it under that expanding repertoire of inexplicable human behavior Ninsianna called 'flirting.'

He stepped backwards to stand in the second line of defense. Tirdard was a capable warrior, but this line also contained many of the less talented men. It set off a red flag. Another memory lurked in his muscles, but as he tried to pry it out, it remained frustratingly hidden. Like most things he 'remembered' about warfare, it wasn't a memory at all, but something his body just knew the moment you stuck a weapon in his hand.

"As soon as the first line throws and kneels," Mikhail said. "The second line will throw and kneel as well. The trick is to do it together."

He glanced at the men around him and added, "I will need to adjust who stands where as I see each man's strengths and weaknesses. Focus on mastering the movement of throwing and kneeling to the count as a single line, not who you're standing next to."

He moved back into the third line to stand next to Siamek. "As soon as the second line kneels, the third line will throw."

"But then we will be out of spears, Sir," an middle-aged warrior named Kiararsh said. "What then?"

Yes. What then? He'd been mulling over that same problem himself, but whatever he was trying to work out within his mind had not yet made its full appearance. He was only certain of one thing.

"This is not the weapon this maneuver was originally designed for," Mikhail confessed. "But it's part of a larger tactic I will teach you over the next few weeks. If we get it right, you can stand against a larger force of up to eight against one."