Sword of the Gods II: Prince of Tyre

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

September 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili

MIKHAIL

Colonel Mikhail Mannuk’ili crouched behind the fence, surveying the landscape as he stalked his prey. The demon moved through the crops like pestilence, laying waste to all that fell beneath its cloven hooves.

"Spawn of Shay'tan," he cursed beneath his breath. "I will crush thy horned head beneath my boot!"

Wings tucked tightly against his back, he crept closer, his belly pressed against the earth. He embraced the soil, unashamed to dirty his feathers as he moved forward to the cover of the next stone wall. He had a mission to complete and, damantia! He would complete it!

The Ubaid gave these demons innocuous-sounding names, such as kechi or anz. Fools! His wife's primitive culture practically worshipped them! They … and their false promises of milk and honey! He, a superior being from an advanced civilization, saw that wherever this creature tread, it devoured all that lay in its path. It stood there now, consuming barley the widow-sisters had helped him plant in tribute to Ninkasi, the goddess of bread and beer. Of all the fields which dotted the fertile alluvial plane of the Hiddekel River, why had the evil creature targeted this field? The one he had spent half the summer digging levies and planting the experimental grain?

He was an even-tempered man, but even an Angelic could be pushed too far. Never, ever come between a man and his vat of future beer…

"I will catch thee, Nemesis!" he hissed in Galactic Standard. "And roast thy flesh upon a spit!"

Right now he didn't care what his father-in-law said about a good leader coaxing adversaries around to his way of thinking. That black pit of anger he kept suppressed simmered beneath the surface, threatening to erupt through his carefully constructed self-control. He had humbled himself and come bearing treats, not expecting the creature to spurn his overture of peace.

Normally he would approach from the air, but the creature had learned to slip his grip just as he shifted his wings from the bosom of the wind to land. There was nothing discrete about a dark-winged Angelic swooping down from the sky. If there was one thing he had learned from his time amongst the Cherubim, it was to creep up on his enemies. This time, he would use stealth to succeed where valor failed. The demon had just laid waste to months of back-breaking labor!

"I swear upon All-That-Is, Little Nemesis, that this time I will rid this village of your presence once and for all!"

His hand trailed down to where his sword should be strapped to his thigh, but Ninsianna insisted he subdue this creature using nothing but his wits. Bah! He should not need a sword to prevail! Angelics had been genetically engineered to fight. He whispered the Cherubim prayers to focus on the mission.

Smite … the … demon…

He crept closer, invisible against the dirt even though the sun still shone bright, no small feat of stealth for a man more than seven feet tall. Oh! How he wished he had a knife clenched between his teeth to slit the creature's throat. He had stalked far fouler beasts than this, Sata'anic lizards and the armies of Shay'tan.

So why was he having so much trouble with this one?

Nemesis's head came up, her broad nostrils flared as she sniffed the wind. He suppressed the involuntary rustle of feathers that preceded any race into flight, determined to not alert her to his presence until it was too late for her to react. He had flown downwind, skimming the tree tops and creeping up from the riverbed so that she would not scent his approach.

Her brown eyes rolled in a gesture of contempt. This demon had made him the laughing stock of the entire village. How could he ask these people to follow the principles set forth by his Emperor and God when each day this accursed creature outwitted, out-maneuvered, and out-thought him? He searched for a weakness, something different he could try that perhaps he had failed to notice countless times before?

Damantia! He would win this war! He was a man of his word, and until now his word had never been broken. Not that he could remember. Much. Well, from what little he could remember of his past, he knew he almost never broke his word. Ninsianna did not count. He had asked her father if he could break his promise before he had asked her to marry him. If the permission changed, than it wasn’t really violating his word now, was it?

Little Nemesis’s bleating dragged his mind away from that tender thought. He had a mission to complete! Train his wife’s people to fight back against the raids occurring all over Ubaid territory. With dozens of allied villagers dead and young women kidnapped by slavers, he had more important things to do than stalk a petty demon. She-who-is had sent him here to raise armies from the dust, not have his lack of natural leadership ability rubbed in his face!

His heart rate sped up, pumping oxygen to his muscles in anticipation of the battle to come. He would show this creature that he was in charge! Maybe then the people of this village would stop wandering off in fifty different directions, as well?

Little Nemesis stomped her hoof and tossed her head as though to taunt him, ‘bring it on.’

Yes. He would bring it on and this time he would win! With a mighty pounding of black-brown wings, he took to the air, racing towards her before she could run away.

Just for a moment, he thought he had her, but at the last second she turned, causing him to overshoot the mark. He veered, feathers flying as his wings struck the ground and shot airborne once more. Nemesis zig-zagged through the low stone walls which had been built as levies, leaping over fields of emmer and einkorn, and bolted up the embankment towards the village of Assur. This was open ground, for godssakes! How was she able to evade his grasp when he could catch a sparrow mid-air?

"Watch out!" the black-eyed girl shouted as Nemesis squeaked past the guards who watched the narrow entrance through the impenetrable outer ring of houses, Mikhail hot on her tail. He was too intent on his quarry to utter an apology. Nemesis had the advantage here, the alleys too narrow to fit his beating wings, but he had flight. He soared above the mud-brick houses, descending just often enough to keep her running back where she belonged.

At last Nemesis turned and ran towards the milking shed. Her hooves pounded upon the rocky soil, weaving back and forth as he cut off her escape again and again. Almost there. Almost. Almost… He caught a cross-wind to land, just before a shed barely large enough to ram his body into. Curiosity seekers had gathered at the edge of the pen, waiting for him to fight this daily battle. They cheered, although he suspected it was the goat they rooted for, not him. He curled his wings forward, banking left to prevent a half-hearted attempt to escape.

“There’s no escaping now, Little Nemesis,” he shouted with glee. The goat stuck its nose through the rough stick gate and ran inside. He had her!

“Yea!” the villagers cheered.

Mikhail glanced their way, a rare smile lighting up his face as he banked his wings to land. At the last second Nemesis turned and ran between his legs, knocking him off-balance before he hit the ground. He flapped his wings, trying to get airborne as he grabbed for her, but it was a mistake! Without his feet securely beneath him, the momentum of his earlier flight catapulted him forward. He tried to break his fall, but he was going too fast. He toppled heel-over-head and slammed into the side of the milking shed, crumpling face-down into a pile of goat dung.

Dark feathers flew everywhere. The setting sun appeared as though it were three stars as bells rang in his brain, accompanied by the laughter of villagers who had turned out to watch him lose in battle once more. One voice in particular assaulted his ears, as light and musical as a heavenly choir.

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” Ninsianna laughed. “I told you I would milk her.”

“You are with child.” Mikhail forced himself to his hands and knees, trying to get his wings to obey what his mind told them to do. He glanced up at his laughing wife, her golden eyes flashing with mirth as he pushed himself to his feet, tucking his wings behind his back in an indignant rustle of feathers.

“I am pregnant,” Ninsianna, whose name meant she-who-serves-the-goddess, laughed, rubbing the slight thickening of her waist which made her figure even more luscious and curvaceous than it had been the day she climbed in through the hull of his crashed ship and saved his life. “Not a cripple. And besides … she likes me.”

Mikhail stifled an irritable reply as Little Nemesis greeted Ninsianna with a friendly bleat, rubbing its nose in her hand, looking for treats. How come when he brought the goat treats, it ran away? Or worse … took them as though it were a friend and then left hoof marks all over his clothing for the entire village to see he had been defeated by a foolish … goat!

Picking up the empty bucket he had placed inside the milking shed before hunting for the escaped goat, Ninsianna patted Little Nemesis as though it was the most obedient creature in this world which was now his home. He stared at his wife’s curvaceous rump as she coaxed the goat to stand on the raised platform and put the bucket of vegetable peelings, husks of grain, and other treats beneath its nose to give it something to do while she milked it. Mikhail watched his wife’s supple hands caress the teats again and again, coaxing the animal to share its milk.

A most tempting thought popped into his brain, images of Ninsianna doing something along those lines to him later tonight, after they’d had supper and her parents had gone to bed. Pleasant warmth spread down to his loins, soothing his annoyance, an irritation which would have been forgotten but not for the fact he now reeked of goat dung from his recent crash-landing into the pen.

“I swear, Mikhail!” Ninsianna laughed. “You have to stop thinking of this as a battle of honor. It’s only a bucket of milk.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Mikhail grumbled, hiding his injured dignity behind an unreadable expression. He glanced up at the villagers, now moving along to finish their own end-of-day routines. Assur did not have the resources to maintain a standing army, so as soon as everyone finished eating supper, every man and, in some cases, woman, capable of wielding a spear or bow would gather for their nightly 'boot camp' so he could train them to defend themselves.

“How am I supposed to win them over if I can’t even subdue a goat?”

“You must win her over to your cause, Sword of the Gods.” Ninsianna's eyes took on that fiery golden glow they always got whenever she spoke with the voice of She-who-is. “How can you unite the Ubaid when you can’t even subdue a simple goat?”

Mikhail shivered. He hated it when old gods popped in for a visit using his wife as a megaphone. Just because she was the Chosen One didn’t mean he had to like it.

Ninsianna blinked, the glow fading, herself once more. She finished milking the goat as though it were the most natural thing in the world to speak with the voice of the architect of All-That-Is. Mikhail hid his frustration, reminding himself that it was not his wife who spoke to him with such disdain, but the goddess who had sent him here to complete a mission.

“Hey?” Ninsianna gave him a quizzical smile. Dark hair, olive complexion, and full lips, even if he hadn't been madly in love with her, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She patted the goat and stepped back, waiting for him to carry the bucket into the house. This was not laziness on her part. Ninsianna had never been one to shy away from hard work, but he refused to allow his pregnant wife to carry the heavy bucket which, so long as she milked the goat and not him, always brimmed with milk.

Personally … he would gladly forsake milk and kischk for a certain roasted goat…

Holding the bucket in one hand, he closed the gate behind him so Little Nemesis would not escape. It was a futile gesture. The moment she finished eating the treats he had brought for her, the evil little creature would jimmy open the gate and escape into one of the neighbor's fields, devouring their late-autumn crops. An act he would be obligated to compensate them for.

“You should let me smite that evil creature and find you a better one,” Mikhail grumbled as she led him into the house. “One that will obey!”

“If the females in this family were obedient,” Ninsianna teased him. “I would be married to Jamin right now instead of you!”

Mikhail snorted with disgust. Jamin, whose first act had been to hire mercenaries to kill him, all because the pompous son of the village chief had been too stubborn to accept 'no' for an answer when Ninsianna broke off their engagement.

“And my bones would be moldering in the wreckage of my ship,” Mikhail said. “Because you would not have been close enough when my ship was cast down from the heavens to save my life.”

“She-who-is is wise in her ways.” Ninsianna shot him a beautiful smile, the kind that made him daydream about kissing her luscious lips all day long instead of attending to more important things like training warriors or fortifying the village defenses.

“That SHE is,” Mikhail grudgingly acknowledged. Now if only SHE would gift him with some all-knowing knowledge about how to wrangle goats so he could lead these people to fight the coming storm.

They were his people now. It was up to him to teach them how to defend themselves. The crash had left him with few memories of where he had come from, but there was one thing he was certain of. In the great Galactic Alliance he could only vaguely remember, he had been but an insignificant cog in the Eternal Emperor's vast army.

In the seven months he'd been stranded here, nobody had even cared enough about him to even come looking for him.