No Other Gods (22 page)

             
Yelling at the farmers with me to get down or get away, I took three quick steps to the other side of the wagon, where soldiers had circled around to enclose us. Screaming, they spurred in close to attack.

             
Bad idea.

             
My first swing went straight through the nearest soldier’s raised blade, chopping off his arm high and sinking deep into his chest. Booting him off my sword I yanked the blade free just in time to parry an attack from the other. Miraculously his sword did not shatter on contact, so I was forced to disarm him with a quick but powerful flick and a twist, then viciously sheath my sword in his guts with one stabbing thrust. With a disemboweling twist on the exit for good measure.

             
I jumped onto the first soldier’s horse as the second uselessly clutched his belly with both hands, surprise dawning on his face before the pain hit, then spurred left around the wagon, sure the other four would be circling it to attack soon and preferring to fight half of them with one side protected rather than all of them with zero cover.

             
My supposition was correct but I felt no satisfaction as I met three of the four: the idiots had not split up evenly. Strong and fast as I was, a super-soldier engineered by the gods, one on three was not good odds. For them. Just before we met I wrenched cruelly on the reins, forcing my horse to rear, then jumped clear just before two of three soldiers charged headlong into its pawing hooves.

             
Landing, rolling, and keeping my sword, I sprang to my feet just in time to be missed by a spear that would have pinned me to the ground. The third soldier closed, jabbing with another spear. I caught it just behind the tip, jerked, and pulled him off-balance in the saddle. Just enough for my sword to slip into his side, under the ribs and deep into his center of mass. He looked at me with death in his eyes and I pulled away, rushing to the two soldiers whose horses had collided with my rearing mount, and fallen.

             
One was screaming with a broken leg still pinned under his mount, but the other was charging me. I stooped, picked up a dropped shield, and met the charge with my full body weight, ramming the metal-reinforced shield through his crazed thrust and straight into his temple with all my force, meeting bone with an audible crack. Concussion or worse.

             
I spun, wondering where the seventh and final soldier was. Just in time to see his sword tip barely miss my body as his skull was crushed in by a club. One of the farmers had just saved my life.

             
I breathed in and out, trying to relax my muscles as the adrenaline flooded my body in a delayed reaction.

             
The farmers gathered near, shocked, upset, and wary of me.

             
“You moved … like the wind. So fast!” the patriarch said slowly, wonderingly.

             
“I am good at what I do,” I replied, breathing.

             
With their help I gather up all the bodies, stripped them of their armor and weapons. The equipment we loaded onto the horses, and the bodies of their former riders I slung into a gully. After selecting the strongest-looking horse for myself, I tied them in a string to the wagon, along with the pack horses.

             
I took a moment to skim through the contents of their packs. Satisfied with what I found, I made a decision and turned my attention to the one soldier left alive, the one with the broken leg.

             
“You’re coming with us,” I told him. “You will tell the lugal what happened.”

             
I was taking a calculated risk and I knew it. The lugal would not react well to his men being killed. But neither would a good king allow his soldiery to rampage over the countryside, stealing, killing, probably raping. And guilty murderers don’t come complaining to the king, which would give me some credibility.

             
Plus I intended to be a better servant to the king than any twenty of his current men. For a while, anyways.

             
Setting his leg as best I could with a few spare spear butts, I propped him up on the load in the wagon. With the two broken parts of his humerus bone grinding together at every jolt, he was going to have an agonizing journey. Given that he had been about to kill me, I had limited sympathy.

             
“Let’s go,” I said to the old one, and we started off again. This time I rode on the horse, walking whenever I tired of sitting, and chatting to the old one. He would play his part when we reached the city.

Two days and several lungs full of dust later we reached the city wall. Approaching from the north side, we saw the roughly rectangular city from one of its short ends … but the walls stretched out on either side to astonishing distances. This is the London, the New Paris, the Shanghai of the ancient world, I reminded myself.

             
At the gate a squad of soldiers eyed curiously. The farmers and their cart were not surprising, but I was, and the horses tied to the wagon. Not waiting to be stopped, I walked my horse over to them.

             
“Greetings. We bring news and gifts for the lugal, and his own property we return.”

             
The next several hours we went from squad leader to captain to commander to general, or the local equivalents, until we finally found ourselves in the presence of one of the king’s high servants. To him I told the full story that we had denied all others, and he ushered the old farmer and I into the presence of the lugal.

             
First we entered a wood and mud-brick palace, passing through the outer gate and into the entrance halls. The lugal’s man led us further in until we came to an inner courtyard, open to the air. Nobles, princes, and servants stood in groups, separated from a dais at one end that was protected from the sun by purple fabric flapping in the wind, suspended by tall poles.

             
Under the sun-screen we saw a large, ornate chair, and there sat the king.

             
I and the old one told our story to the king: farmers coming to bring the king firstfruits of their crops; soldier-without-a-city coming to offer service. Waylaid by marauding soldiers, the fight, the journey here.

             
Then silence filled the hall. Finally the king stood up, walked near, eyes hard on mine.

             
He was not young and yet not old, a man in the late prime of his life. Shorter than I, of course, but strong, solidly built. This man, I felt, knew how to handle himself in a fight. Had been in battle, and killed, and survived. Conquered. Strong physically and mentally.

             
“How am I to believe you, you who call yourself Geno and come from a city far in the north, who wants to serve in my army, and yet killed my men?”

             
I inclined my head respectfully.

             
“The one who murders the king’s men seldom comes to inform the king of their deaths,” I said, eyes on his. “And we have brought all the booty that they collected before attacking us.”

             
The king glanced at his servant.

             
“It is true,” the man replied. “I inspected the horses, armor, and packs. All was brought back safely and unspoiled. And I found many garments and jewels that soldiers ought not to have, including this.”

             
He pulled a fur-trimmed cloak, a luxury item that a wealthy landowner might wear, out of a pack on the floor. As it unrolled to the floor, he pointed to a blood stain, and a sword gash.

             
It was one item I had seen on the packhorses just after the fight, and I had saved it for just this occasion.

             
“Also, they have brought armor and weapons for seven men,” the king’s servant told him. “And this man, one of your soldiers.” He pointed to the rear, where the broken-legged soldier moaned on the floor.

             
The king walked over to the man, looked down at him. The soldier looked up in pain and confusion. It was obvious the soldier did not have long to live — infection had inevitably set in, and the man was almost delirious. His broken leg, an inconvenience at worst for fighters like me with our Hall of feasting and our restoring pods, was going to be the cause of his death.

             
“Is his story true?” the lugal asked, pointing at me. “Speak straight, so that you may go to Enlil with honor.”

             
The man nodded, once, then sagged back to the floor.

             
The king walked away, not even looking at me.

             
“Accept this man into my service and put him into the palace guard. I would have men near me who can defeat seven single-handed.”

Late the next morning I woke from a better sleep than I’d had in days. Whether the king’s palace guard had better quarters than common soldiers I did not know, and tonight I might sleep in a crowded reeking barracks, but for now I was comfortable in a small room with two beds — slightly raised platforms, really — with straw cushioning under soft blankets. I was in one, the other bed had remained unoccupied.

             
Last night, the king’s servant had led me to the palace baths, and slave girls had washed dust of the road and blood of the dead off my body. More than one offered to accompany me to my chamber, but I had refused, though the offer reignited feelings I had almost managed to forget.

             
Livia!

             
I had drifted to sleep, so much different than s.Leep, thinking of her, wishing for her, dreaming of her. The thought of Livia in a casket, not dreaming and possibly never to wake unless I returned, filled me with rage and worry and stopped my eyes from closing for over an hour. Then travel-weariness had overcome soul-sickness, and I had dropped into an uninterrupted and much-needed sleep.

             
But now it was late, perhaps halfway to noon. I hurried to dress and arm myself. The next step was to find and befriend Sargon.

             
The morning passed in a blur. I met the captain of the king’s guard, who did not like the idea of men being accepted into his command without his approval, and the king’s tailor, who was too busy making wispy gowns with strategic cutouts for the lugal’s harem to be overjoyed at the prospect of outfitting me with a uniform, and more than a few of the king’s regular soldiers, who seemed distinctly displeased by the fact that I had killed seven of their comrades just the previous day.

             
In short, I was less than popular. I steeled myself for the inevitable confrontations, and walked into the inner courtyard for a afternoon’s worth of guard duty.

             
The king’s throne room, when he was not in the open-air courtyard, was a long stone-walled hall with wooden beams supporting an intricately painted ceiling. His throne, carved from a single massive log that could not have grown anywhere within hundreds of kilometers from Kish, was overlaid with gold and inlaid with precious stones. A cushion softened the oak lest the lugal’s posterior suffer any untoward discomfort, and slaves hovered behind with chilled drinks and assorted sweetmeats.

             
I was to stand by the king’s door for one watch, about six hours, with another, a tall, well-muscled soldier with eyes like stone. He fixed me with his gaze for a long minute, then ignored me, turning his attention to those entering the throne room. Ensuring that they had no weapons to harm the lugal, he allowed them to pass, but did not relax his guard.

             
Over the next hours I learned to follow his lead, alert for threats to the lugal … searching lower-class entrants to the throne room, closely watching arrogant nobles and court hangers-on. Halfway through the watch, I noticed my partner’s eyes open fractionally and stiffen — the equivalent of a shocked yelp from this stoic soldier. Following his gaze, I saw a group of three uniformed soldiers appear, walking towards us and looking belligerently in my direction.

             
I guessed I was about to become even more popular.

             
They stepped close, staying just outside the threshold of the throne room, and stared. The shortest opened his mouth. He kept his voice low and controlled to avoid attracting attention from the lugal and others.

             
“Those were our friends you killed yesterday. Today we mourned their passing.”

             
He paused. I saw that all of them had been drinking.

             
“Tomorrow, maybe the day after, maybe ten days from now, but certainly not twenty, no-one will mourn yours.”

             
They turned as one and disappeared down the hall.

             
I smiled faintly, gazing at the man on guard duty with me. I had expected nothing less. And nothing got noticed as much as success, even in the generally discouraged realm of soldiers fighting their own. Now I would find Sargon sooner.

             
My smile faded as an uncomfortable thought intruded. What if Sargon was one of the friends of the men I had killed? I lost my grin, thinking hard. That would make it much harder to befriend and help him. I looked up again, wondering.

             
The guard opposite me looked back, stoic, emotionless.

             
After the king retired for his evening meal, our duty was done. We left for the refectory. Picking up a meal, I sat at an empty table, making certain my back was against a wall as the room quieted, men looking in my direction. I started ladling in unidentifiable stew, plain but hot and filling, as my comrade-in-arms from the day’s guard duty sat at the only other empty table.

             
Perhaps mealtimes were safe zones, as no-one approached me or uttered threats while I filled myself on two, then three helpings of the meaty soup. After I finished, uninterrupted, I got up and went in search of the training grounds.

             
The tailor had told me about the armory and training grounds. I hadn’t needed any weapons, so the armory had not been a necessary visit, but after a day spent standing and watching, some sort of physical release was indicated. Especially since I now wondered if my mission was in jeopardy. Finding a small barracks and training grounds attached to the lugal’s palace, I selected a long bow from the attendant man-at-arms, and took it out to the butts for some target shooting.

             
After an hour or so, tired and sweaty from pulling a hundred-plus-pound draw well over a hundred times, I turned to find my quarters. Immediately behind me were a knot of five or six soldiers, three of which I had seen that day. They moved forward as one.

             
I didn’t see any weapons, although it was never a safe assumption that what you didn’t see didn’t exist. I picked the talker from earlier in the day.

             
“Do you think you can take me with six? Seven are dead because they thought they could win.”

             
His eyes widened and I saw a glimpse, no more than a millisecond, behind me. Mentally thanked him for the inadvertent tell, knowing that more would be arriving shortly from the direction of the targets. And understanding why they had waited so long, until I was finished shooting.

             
With nothing further to be said, I immediately spun off to the side of the training grounds to put a wall at my back.

             
It was not a second too soon as I saw another five men coming at a quick jog. Eleven on one: impossible odds? I turned over the options in my mind. No matter what the outcome, I was getting hurt tonight, perhaps badly. Unless …

             
Unless I pulled a Thermopylae.

             
No sooner thought than acted on. I immediately darted forward, too quickly for the men to react. Selecting the talker simply because he was right in front of me, I faked a straight blow at his nose, then threw a pulverizing uppercut that landed perfectly on the bottom of his chin.

             
Not pausing to see him land — or even, indeed, finish lifting off — I spun and backhanded the man to his right, my left. Hard, with the leather-backed metal vambraces on my lower arms that the lugal’s men all wore. Crushingly hard, enough to make a serious mess of his nose and perhaps a few of his upper teeth. Completing the turn I spun lightly through the hole I had just made, then took off at full speed for the entrance to the training grounds, ignoring trailing calls of anger.

             
Hermes had made me study military history as part of my training — the part that separated me from the rest of the soldiers in my cohort. One battle was standing out in my mind: the stand Hellenic soldiers from the single Greek city of Sparta made against the massed military might of the Persian empire. Hundreds against hundreds of thousands, but King Leonidas of Sparta had three advantages: his men were better fighters, his Greeks were better armed, and most importantly of all, his tiny army forced the huge Persian force to attack along one narrow mountain pass: Thermopylae.

             
I thought I was a better fighter too, and all I needed was a handy mountain pass. Or a doorway through which the aggrieved warriors of the lugal of Kish would have to attack one or perhaps two at a time.

             
Stopping just inside the door I stopped, reversed, and ran full speed back through, meeting the first two pursuers at full speed, running between them, and extending my elbows at just the right moment to crush both their tracheas. Then I stopped, leaving them on the ground retching and clutching their throats and moved back just through the portal.

             
“Four down, eight to go,” I smiled at the next man to arrive, just a little ahead of the rest. “Who’s next?”

             
A bit over the top, perhaps, but I was feeling energized. And excited. My plan was working. Until I half-heard, half-saw another man arrive from behind.

             
Leaping instantly at the soldier to the front, I kicked his left foot out from under him and shoved him simultaneously, tangling up the three or four immediately behind him. Spun to face the fully-armored man now at my rear, recognized that it was the soldier I had stood guard duty with that day, and paused for half a moment.

             
He nodded briefly, then moved to my right, passing as I spun, and smashed his shield into two of the men who were trying to attack me. I didn’t understand it but I accepted it: he was on my side.

             
Charging with him at the four or five left on their feet we made short work of them. Within a minute there was a small pile of men on the floor, most unconscious, all bloody, and none in any condition to protest. I turned toward him to thank him when the sound of two hands clapping, slowly, echoed across the training grounds, emanating from the raised row of seats on the far side.

             
It was the lugal.

             
I faced him, bowed my head, and waited. Certain of his anger, and uncertain of any plan to proceed, to rescue my mission from the disaster of dead and injured men of my master. Only to wait, and wait, and finally look up to see the king departing, an amused smile twisting his mouth, and his man, the official who had taken me to the lugal first, coming down.

             
“The men you just fought asked the king’s permission for revenge. He agreed, wanting to see if you would survive, and unsure if the story you told — seven men killed by one — could in fact be true.”

             
“So he wished to see,” the man continued. “Now he has, and now you will join his personal guard.”

             
Then he turned as well to go, and left, following the king. Others came in to tend to the fallen, most with bruises, some with broken bones, a few perhaps with concussions, and I turned to the guard who had joined me.

             
He looked in my eyes and opened his mouth.

             
“Hello,” he said. “I am Sargon.”