Sword of the Gods II: Prince of Tyre

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

September 3,390 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili

MIKHAIL

It was an undisciplined bunch which met in the field along the banks of the Hiddekel River, every size, shape and social rank the Mesopotamian village of Assur could muster. Elite warriors mingled with the soft sons of potters. Hides belted around the waists of field laborers clashed with the elaborate fringed kilts of the upper ranks. Only one thing united these people after an exhausting day spent laboring in the fields … resistance to learning his half-remembered snippets of Alliance Basic Training! Smiting enemies was easy compared to convincing them his endless drills had anything to do with becoming an army.

“Today we will practice combat against two opponents at once.” He marched down the line, if the drunken zigzag could be called a line. "Just as we would come to the aid of one of our own men, so will your enemies. You must anticipate this or you will end up dead."

His littlest protégé fell into step behind him, stretching her legs to mimic his longer stride. Tall, spindly, with the dark hair and pointed features, at thirteen summers his 'shadow' had the uncanny ability to master any weapon that was put into her hands. He'd appointed his young mascot 'second lieutenant' to keep her out of mischief.

He stopped short to address one of the men. Pareesa crashed into the back of his wings with a surprised 'oh!'

“Should we wrap our fists?” She held out her leather bindings, her brown eyes sparkling with eager anticipation. She wore her shawl belted high around her waist, so short it more closely resembled a man's kilt than a woman's dress, and had plaited her hair into two braids wrapped around her head so that no man could use it to get a grip upon her.

“We won't be punching one another just yet, little fairy,” Mikhail said. He suppressed a smile, determined to project the gravitas of a proper military commander. “Just grappling and throws. Hold off on the hand wrappings until we begin to spar."

Disappointment danced across Pareesa's face. It had been easier dealing with his prodigy when he had simply thought of her as a little girl, an illusion his wife had shattered when she had laughed at his cluelessness and announced the reason Pareesa practiced so hard was because she bore for him an affection. Of course, Ninsianna thought that about all women, having a propensity for jealousy. Mikhail did not feel qualified to adjudicate what might constitute an affection, having no memory of ever having borne such an affliction for anyone except his wife. One thing was certain. He hadn't acted like that.

To him, Pareesa merely seemed an over-eager student. Young, she may be, but last month Pareesa had taken her first kill … a knife headed for his back! He turned back to address the warriors, singling out two in particular.

“Say two enemies jump you at once?" Mikhail pointed to Dadbeh and Firouz. "How will you defend yourself?”

“He who fights then runs away,” Dadbeh joked with a near-perfect impersonation of Mikhail's unreadable expression, “will live to fight another day.” Dadbeh's build was slight, with mismatched eyes and a broken nose, but like Pareesa, he was fast and good with a spear. He would have been an ideal warrior had he not possessed an annoying tendency to turn everything into a joke.

“Bok gawk!” Firouz flapped a pair of imaginary wings and scratched the ground with his feet. “Bok gawk, bok bok bok!” Firouz was average height, with swarthy skin and a beak of a nose that made him look like the fowl he impersonated, eliciting a roar of laughter from the other warriors.

Mikhail retreated behind the just-mocked expression which, for those who knew him, was his equivalent of screaming 'I just don't understand you humans!' Were they making fun of him? Or was there some other meaning for their behavior he had yet to ascertain?

He pushed down his annoyance and filed the odd behavior away under things to ask Ninsianna later. Only the fact the pranksters were talented warriors prevented him from sending them to the Chief to be reassigned less demanding duties, such as emptying every chamberpot in Assur.

The laughter continued as the pair mocked a self-defense move he'd taught them months ago and pretended to peck out each other's eyes. Mikhail drew himself up to his full height and crossed his arms to signal his displeasure. Had a Cherubim master given him such a look, he would have snapped to attention, but the humans were oblivious. He finally had to order them to fall back into line.

“Pareesa, Siamek,” Mikhail turned to the two lieutenants who were supposed to help him manage this unruly bunch. “Let’s demonstrate the move I taught you yesterday.”

“Sir!” Siamek moved with practiced, if stiff grace into position. Tall and handsome, with a lithe yet muscular build, the three rows of fringe sewn onto Siamek's kilt marked him as belonging to a high-ranking family, but he was otherwise unprepossessing, competent to serve, but no more eager to be in charge than Mikhail was.

“I’m too short to reach your shoulders!" Pareesa bounced on her toes like one of those little yippy dogs that perpetually begged for attention. "I barely come up to your chest." As she wriggled, her hair came out of her braids, causing them to bounce up and down along with her as though she had a dog's floppy ears.

Even he had difficulty maintaining an inscrutable expression in light of such vigorous enthusiasm. He knew her too well to believe her complaint about her height. From past experience, the little imp would compensate and make him earn his victory.

“Just do your best,” Mikhail said. He suppressed that alien facial expression that kept ambushing him the longer he lived amongst humans … a smile. Instead of allowing himself to succumb to the irrational urge, he moved into a ready stance, legs spread to move in any direction, and pressed his wings against his back so as not to gain an unfair advantage. The troops quieted down in curious anticipation.

His eyes met Siamek's acorn-brown ones, his nostrils flaring as he scented the air around them.

“Now!”

They grabbed his shoulders from both sides. Because Siamek had the longer reach, Mikhail used a roundhouse block to deflect his hands and grabbed his wrist, using Siamek's momentum against him as he yanked him forward onto a raised knee, giving him a hammer fist on the way down. A half-heartbeat later, Pareesa was right behind him yelping a blood-curdling squeal. An appreciative murmur went through the troops.

“You can let me up now,” Pareesa groaned. Mikhail held his punches when he gave a demonstration, but it still left bruises.

“Sorry.” Mikhail glanced at the black-and-blue hand print which encircled his own wrist, a trophy she had given him two nights ago. The little fairy would repay the favor the first chance she got. The moment he let her go she was back on her feet, dusting herself off. He gave Siamek a hand up.

“Thank you, both, for demonstrating," he turned to the larger group of warriors. "Now let's break up into groups of three and practice this maneuver.”

Just short of 200 warriors, about one-fifth of them women, milled about in noisy disorder as they sorted themselves into cliques. Elite warriors refused to pair with field laborers. Potters and weavers eyed woodworkers and flint-knappers with distrust. Older warriors from the Chief's generation looked down upon the younger troops with disdain. Men refused to pair up with women. Mikhail waited for them to sort it out amongst themselves. When that failed, he cleared his throat and flared his wings. He was relieved when Siamek herded his reluctant 'soldiers' into the requested threesomes.

"Line up like men!" Siamek shouted. "Or we shall make you all march in formation carrying buckets of water until dawn!"

A raucous laugh caused the men to pause and look over to where a young man had just emerged from the reeds, a wild boar thrown over one shoulder dripping blood down his chest from the spear which had been thrust into the animal's heart. Taller than most Ubaid, muscular, fast, and with the arrogant bearing of one who had been groomed from birth to assume the position of chief, Jamin's black eyes glowed with hatred.

"He should be the one enforcing order," Jamin's head jerked in Mikhail's direction. "Not you, Siamek. Why do you bother training with this demon?"

Siamek's eyes darted between his best friend and Mikhail, his earlier poise shattered by torn loyalties. Siamek trained because the Chief had ordered it, not because he wanted to be here. Mikhail had put him in charge because he was the best man for the job, but that didn't mean he trusted him.

"It should be you training these warriors," Mikhail forced his voice to remain calm as he addressed the chief's son. "Not me. Your father put me in charge because you refuse to learn the new training methods."

Jamin leaned on his spear, a weapon he could throw with deadly accuracy. His eyes drifted from the still-bloody spearhead, knapped from the finest volcanic obsidian, to Mikhail's empty hands.

"Let me know when you start teaching them how to use a real weapon and perhaps I'll consider it," Jamin laughed, his grin that of a jackal baring its fangs.

Pareesa's slender hands clenched into fists. "You weren't laughing when I shot one of those 'not a real weapon' arrows through your hand! Would you like another demonstration of their ineffectiveness?"

Mikhail stepped between Pareesa and the man who had vowed revenge after Ninsianna had broken off their engagement. There was bad blood between him and the son of the village chief. From the first day his ship had crash-landed on this world, their rivalry had poisoned everything.

"The foundation of any system of warfare is the ability to defend yourself using nothing but your empty hands," Mikhail cut Pareesa off before she could do something foolish, "and to work as one unit with your fellow men. Only then should you rely upon weapons to defend yourself."

"That's easy for a man who possesses a firestick that shoots lightning," Jamin pointed at the pulse rifle strapped to Mikhail's hip, "and that sword you use so well. When will you teach us to use those?"

The questioned rippled through the larger group of warriors. No matter how many times Mikhail explained his pulse rifle was a weapon of last resort because its energy source was almost depleted, or that they lacked the technology to smelt minerals from the rocks, his assertions always elicited disbelief. If he had fallen from the sky, possessed wings, and could fly, why not simply summons this Emperor he could only vaguely recall and ask him to give them more?

Varshab, an older warrior from the Chief's generation, placed a restraining hand upon Mikhail's forearm. Middle-aged, of average height but with the knotted, muscular build of a man who had worked hard his entire life both as a warrior and in the fields, Varshab was the one man Jamin respected, or feared, enough as his father's enforcer not to taunt.

"Much as we would like to join you in the hunt after a hard day in the fields," Varshab gave Jamin a stony stare, "we are not all as gifted as you at evading our responsibility to defend this village. Perhaps you might watch and learn something?"

A murmur of agreement rippled through the warriors. They didn't want to be here, either, but unlike Jamin, who preferred to hunt than pull his weight, none dared disobey the Chief.

Jamin glowered at his father's enforcer, but held his tongue. It was, Mikhail knew, the exact same chastisement the Chief himself had laid into his son when he had stripped him of command.

"Fine," Jamin said. With a thud, he allowed the dead boar to drop to the ground.

Apprehension warred with Mikhail's relief at the thought that, at last, Jamin would resume his role as leader and free him from pretending he was something he was not. His relief was short-lived as Jamin plopped down on top of the dead boar as though it were a throne and laid his spear across his lap, a deadly scepter.

"I will watch for anything worth learning," Jamin said. From his hateful glare, Mikhail knew learning was the last thing on his mind. He was here to scrutinize all the ways Mikhail fell short and do what he could to undermine him.