Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One Read Online Free PDF Page B

familiar. 
    Root race flitted through his mind along with a sensation he'd
just won the lottery.  Damantia!   He grabbed the elusive thought, but it
went as quickly as it had appeared.  He knew things, but he couldn't
remember them!
    He tried to sit up,
but the woman pushed him back down, communicating with her hands that she
wanted him to remain still.  She couldn't possibly be his mate.  No part of the
language she spoke sounded familiar to him.  A mission clawed at his belly,
screaming for him to communicate something to somebody in authority, but
he couldn't remember what he felt so compelled to finish or who he was supposed
to communicate that information to.  The spin of the room convinced him to obey
her.
    Every nuance of her
behavior gnawed at his subconscious like drunken glee.  Why was she so
fascinating?  Was it because he found her attractive?  She wore a shapeless
beige dress that appeared to be little more than a length of cloth belted
around her waist and thrown over one shoulder to cover her breasts.  The fabric
was crude, as were the implements she used to tend his wounds.  They were the
tools of a stone-aged culture. 
    By gods!  How had she
saved his life?  His lungs hurt, but the dizziness finally subsided enough that
he dared attempt communication.
    “Who are you?” 
    The woman smiled.  She
said something unintelligible in reply.
    “Who?”  He crossed his
hands palms-up in the sign of asking a question.  “Are you?”  He pointed to her
chest.
    “Nin-si-anna.  Who …
are … you?”  She repeated, word for word and gesture for gesture what he'd just
asked in a heavily accented voice.
    He wracked his brain. 
Nothing came to mind.  Ninsianna asked the same question again.  How could he
explain to someone who didn't speak his language that he couldn't remember who he was?
    “I don't know.”  He
covered his eyes and made a gesture as though something flew out of his head.
    “Ninsianna,” the woman
smiled and pointed to her own chest.  “Idonno,” she pointed at him.
    “No.”  He shook his
head in frustration.  “I don't remember.”
    “Ninsianna,” the woman
pointed to her own chest and frowned.  “Idonrememba,” she pointed at him.
    “No, I don't know who
I am!" he said.  "I can't remember!”  He hit his own forehead to
emphasize it wasn't working properly and groaned as the stitches holding
together the reason he couldn't remember shot pain into his skull.  The
room began to spin.  He closed his eyes.
    The woman frowned
until it dawned on her what he was trying to say.  She touched his head near
the stitches and nodded to indicate she understood his head injury was muddling
his thoughts.  Silently resuming her ministrations, she dabbed dried blood from
his scalp.
    He avoided wincing,
not wishing to see her expression of dismay every time he flinched.  When she
got to his chest wound, she noticed the silver tags strung around his neck. 
She pointed and asked a question.  Pulling the slender chain from beneath his
shirt, he read the information etched into the dog tags in boxy cuneiform.
    “Colonel Mikhail
Mannuki’ili, 352d SOG, Angelic Air Force.”  Although the information failed to
jog any recollection, he understood what it meant. 
    “You, Ninsianna,"
he pointed to her chest.  "Me … Mikhail." 
    “Mikhail,” Ninsianna
repeated and smiled, speaking a line of gibberish before saying again,
“Mikhail.”
    Although the name
didn't ring any bells, it pleased him to hear her say it aloud.  He assumed it was his name because the only reason he would wear dog tags was so his
fellow soldiers could retrieve his body for burial.  He was a soldier.  A
soldier who had achieved the respectable rank of Colonel.  It wasn't much, but
it was something.
    She held out her water
skin.  He sucked the water down, nearly emptying it before he realized he
should leave some for her.  He had no idea what resources existed on this
planet, but he needed to