Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) by Anna Erishkigal Read Free Book Online Page A

stoked the flames the same way the lizard people now piled wood upon the bonfire. Rage shuddered into his nerve endings and reddened his flesh like a desert fire. Lucifer had promised to give back to him what was his.
    Lucifer's tongue darted out to lick his own lips as though he savored a drop of honey.
    "Come, my son." Lucifer's voice sounded as warm and luscious as the sensation of floating on the Hiddekel River in summer. "Your hatred pleases me. Let us give form to this fantasy you have named as your price for selling to me your service, and then you will be mine. Forever."
    "Yes." Jamin's mouth formed the words even though a small voice in his heart shouted no!
    Lucifer curled one snowy white wing around Jamin's back as though he wished to shield him from the wind and led him towards his sky canoe. At Lucifer's heel, the fat lizard-king named Ba'al Zebub waddled like an over-eager mutt, his fangs protruding from his corpulent maw in a pleased grin. Jamin still hadn't figured out the dynamics of who was in charge. Lucifer? The fat lizard king? Or this dragon-god Kasib kept genuflecting to, the one on the coin called Emperor Shay'tan?
    A large, green shadow moved to stand in front of them, blocking their egress into Lucifer's shiny, dart-like sky canoe. General Hudhafah hissed something in the Sata’anic language. He was a large lizard, almost as tall as Lucifer, but far broader with a muscular body filled with many scars that could have only been earned in battle and a deep burgundy dewlap. His razor-sharp dorsal ridge reared up, giving him the illusion of being even taller.
    “What?” Jamin looked from one to the other.
    Lucifer’s grip tightened on his shoulder. Pain shot deep into his bones as Lucifer hissed something back at the Sata’anic general.
    Jamin glanced at Lieutenant Kasib, a slender lizard, far lower in rank than the general he trailed behind. In his hand he held the flat, magical talisman he called a flatscreen. His long, forked tongue flitted frantically into the air as he pointed something on that screen out to General Hudhafah.
    Lucifer flared his wings and pulled Jamin closer, the way one lion might do to another that was sniffing around its supper.
    General Hudhafah growled and bared his fangs. That same musky scent Jamin had noted earlier filled the air. Lucifer wasn't the only one who exuded an air of authority.
    A throb of anticipation pulsed through Jamin's body. Lucifer’s features hardened into a mask of hatred. Jamin stared, fascinated as Lucifer transformed from suave trader into a visage which reminded him of the auroch which had once gored and almost killed him. Allies? The two factions didn’t act like allies.
    Hudhafah uttered something that sounded like a dog’s bark. Six lesser lizard demons stepped up behind him, fingering the holsters where the lizards kept their firesticks. The two cold-eyed Angelics which Kasib disparagingly referred to as goons stepped up to flank Lucifer and fingered their firesticks as well.
    Jamin glanced at the two squat, grey lizard-ships which sat on either side of Lucifer's slender sky canoe as though they were hounds guarding a jackal. The implication was clear. Lucifer carried enough authority that the lizard people were forced to deal with him, but he was not in charge of this lizard general whose job it was to subdue Jamin's people.
    Lucifer bared his teeth into a false smile and rumbled something to the fat lizard king who fawned all over him despite Kasib's assurances the two were social equals. Jamin leaned forward, straining to translate the few words of Sata'anic language he had learned thus far and realized Kasib and Hudhafah were doing the same. Whatever the language they spoke, Jamin's nerve endings shuddered with every word. Ba'al Zebub trembled and waddled forward to argue with his upstart general.
    Jamin had seen enough coup d'états to comprehend that Ba'al Zebub only ruled with the support of this lizard general. Ba'al Zebub first