Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One

June – 3,390 BC

  Earth: Just outside Assur Village

  Jamin

  “Are you going to sulk all day?” Siamek asked. “Or will you come practice with us?”

  Jamin sat in a bushy area where the riverbank rose high above the water. Not far below, Ninsianna stood thigh-deep in the Hiddekel River, sans her shawl dress, cheerfully doing her family's laundry. Siamek knew him well enough to know that wherever Ninsianna was to be found, Jamin would be lurking just out of sight.

  “Yesterday was supposed to be our wedding day!" Jamin shoved down the sob, not wishing to let on his heart was breaking.

  “I know." Siamek's face was sympathetic. He sat cross-legged on the ground next to him. “You handled it fairly well, except….”

  Jamin’s head snapped up. He regarded his oldest friend with suspicion. Whispers. Ever since the winged demon had moved into his village, his friends were abandoning him like a canoe with a hole in the bottom of it.

  “Except?”

  “Nothing,” Siamek avoided eye contact and stared at the ground. “Those of us who know you understand how hard this has been for you.”

  Jamin sucked in a deep breath, steadying the maelstrom of anger and grief which threatened to erupt like a volcano. They didn't understand! None of them understood! Whenever he tried to speak of it, they slapped him on the back, made jokes about women being ball-busters, and told him to get over it. He didn't want to get over it. He wanted to win!

  “Did she have to make a spectacle of herself?" Jamin turned back to stare at Ninsianna. “I mean, okay. It's a festival. And my father wants to incorporate him into the tribe. So there has to be a speech. And it wasn't surprising he won because he can fly over obstacles like they aren't even there. But did she have to jump on him and kiss him right in front of the entire village?”

  “He's not a bad person,” Siamek said. “He’s pretty reserved. I don't think he would have flown off with her like that if she hadn't covered him in mud. Ninsianna is a wicked tease.”

  “You'd think she would have been a bit more sensitive!" Jamin was unable to prevent his voice from warbling like a pubescent boy. “Of all the days for them to make it known they are a couple, why did they have to choose our wedding day?”

  Jamin looked down, the sight of Ninsianna’s happiness too painful to bear. A happy song wafted up with the breeze. A love song. A love song that he'd once sung for her back when she'd stopped rebuking his advances and started to encourage him. He coughed and pretended to swat a gnat, wiping the tear that escaped so Siamek wouldn't see it.

  “You have to let it go,” Siamek said. “It's not right, how she treated you. But you've got to let it go. All you do is follow her around. It's not … healthy.”

  “I don't follow her around!”

  “It's all you do,” Siamek said. “You rarely practice with your friends anymore. You don't eat. You don't smile. You've lost weight. You look like goat shit. And you've been snapping and snarling at friends who've done nothing to deserve it. It's time to let her go and move on.”

  The wind picked up and blew cool air across his cheek like a caress.

  'Jamin … let her go...'

  “I can’t go anywhere without bumping into … him!” Jamin swatted at the sensation. “And if I don't bump into him in person, then I have to listen to everyone twitter about how wonderful he is! Even my own father prefers his company to mine!”

  “You’re not very good company lately,” Siamek said carefully and immediately held up his hand so Jamin wouldn't interrupt until he'd had his say. “Ah ah ah! Don't get in a huff! It's not an accusation. It's an observation. Ever since Ninsianna dumped you, you've been a miserable bastard to be around."

  “You would be too if it had happened to you like that!”

  “Yes,” Siamek said. “I would be too. But you're not the only man who's ever had his balls cut off and handed to him by a female he thought he was in love with.”

  “Yah, who?” Jamin retorted. “Shahla? Every warrior in the village has slept with Shahla. Except for maybe Ebad, who is so incompetent with a spear even Shahla won't sleep with him.”

  “No,” Siamek said. “It's none of your business. But I've had it happen. And it stinks. It makes you feel … unworthy."

  They sat silently for a time, watching Ninsianna slap the laundry against the rocks and dunk them into the river to rinse the soap made from rendered animal fat and wood ash. It was obvious the bulk of her laundry belonged to her new ‘brother.’

  Siamek rose to his feet and held out his hand to help him up.

  “C’mon,” Siamek said. “I came to drag your sorry ass back into the land of the living. It's time to move on. The others … you're beginning to scare them. They need a leader. Not an angry lion who snarls at them all the time.”

  'Your people need you…' the wind whispered through the reeds.

  “I'll be along later." Jamin's attention wandered back to the happy, singing woman who was clueless she was being watched. “What I brood about is nobody’s business.”

  Chapter 57