by Brian Godawa
Chapter 46
Devorah’s funeral was a solemn affair. Eliezer had loved her dearly, but so had Abram and Sarai. She would be sorely missed with her optimistic perspective on life and her dedication to Sarai. She had even been Sarai’s confidante in troubled times. They buried her just outside the forest and placed some dolmens, large marker stones, over her resting place. Eliezer made Abram promise he would bury him with her when he died. There was much wailing and weeping, but life went on without her.
After the attack incident, Abram moved his family back out into tents amidst the flocks and open air of a clearing near the forest. He built an altar of unhewn stone to El Shaddai where his family worshipped by an oak tree. By living in their tree homes, he felt too obligated to the Amorite Mamre and his brothers as well as their religion that was offensive to El Shaddai. He wanted them as allies, but he knew he needed to be separate. Assimilation would not be healthy if El Shaddai was yet to make a nation out of him. Though how that was going to happen became increasingly difficult to understand. He asked Uriel, but the angel was not privy to such details.
One day when Sarai and Abram were sitting down to eat dinner; they were interrupted by the arrival of Lot from Sodom. He was wearing his fanciest public service outfit as an elder of that city.
Abram and Sarai hesitated with mouths agape. They never thought they would ever see him again.
Then Abram yelled out with joy, “Nephew!”
“Uncle,” he replied and almost fell to the ground by Abram’s rushing hug.
“Where is your wife?” asked Sarai.
“She did not come with me. But that is a long story,” said Lot. “Better told with some beer in the belly.”
Lot hugged and kissed them both and they invited him to eat with them in hospitality.
Eliezer set out another place setting for Lot. They had plenty of boar with onions, radishes, and carrots to go around.
Abram smiled looking at Lot’s garish outfit. He wore an embroidered red robe over too many other cloaks. His hat was large and puffy as befits the royal class, and he wore jewelry and makeup that made him look a bit clownish.
Abram said, “I see your position in the city provides you with a wardrobe that matches your personality quite well.”
Lot smiled back. “For once, uncle, you are appreciating my affluence and highfalutin intentions.”
They had always tried to downplay their differences with subtle sarcasm.
Sarai could only shake her head, “You two.” Nothing Lot wore would sway her from her optimistic love for her nephew. “So tell us about your wife, Lot.”
Lot took a large gulp of beer before answering, “Her name is Ado. She would not come with me, or allow me to bring my daughters.”
“How old are they now?” asked Sarai.
“Two years. Twins.” He did not want to even get into Paltith and her ignominious death in the city.
He continued, “The first born is Ishtar and the second, Gaia.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Abram and Sarai knew those were the names of pagan deities, which showed just how compromised Lot had become.
Lot tried to dismiss his responsibility, “Ado cared more about the naming than I did.”
It only made him look and feel more emasculated.
“What do you mean your wife will not allow you to bring her?” asked Abram.
Lot hung his head in shame.
“She has lived all her life in the city. She is afraid to leave it. Sodom is her extended family.”
“How does that make her the head of your family?” said Sarai with contempt. “A wife obeys her husband, not the other way around.”
“Sarai,” interrupted Abram, “please be more respectful.”
“My apologies,” she said.
“You have to understand,” Lot said. “I found Ado as a young orphan in Sodom. She has never had any family before marrying me. She is afraid of losing whatever family she has.”
Sarai said, “Nephew, I think I do understand what it is like to be an orphan. And then to marry without the ability to have a family.”
“Forgive me, Sarai,” said Lot. “You have suffered much as well. But Ado is a good wife. She has a fierce devotion to her children because she is afraid of losing them as we did our first born.”
“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Sarai.
Abram added, “Our sympathies go out to you, nephew.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Can we go for a walk, Abram? You and I?”
Abram and Lot took a stroll out under the moonlight and stars.
Abram knew there was more going on than Lot let on.
“Why are you here, nephew?”
Lot took a big sigh. “A confederation of four kings led by Chedorlaomer is descending upon the pentapolis with eight hundred thousand men. He means to crush us.”
Word had gotten out. Abram knew that Chedorlaomer had been sweeping Canaan clean of giant clans along the King’s Highway and in the southern regions. But this was news.
Abram said, “Those numbers seem exaggerated.”
Lot replied, “They probably are, but they express the fearsomeness of Chedorlaomer’s power, and that is no exaggeration.”
“Why do you not get out before he attacks?”
“Ado will not leave. She says she would rather die at the hands of barbarians than leave her hometown. She will not listen to reason.”
“Sarai is right,” said Abram. “You have lost that leadership I have always known you to have. You seem dominated, brow beaten.”
“It is not just that,” said Lot. “I sold everything and released all my household to live in the city. I have put down roots and built all my wealth there. If I left Sodom, I would lose it all. I would have nothing. Where would I go?”
“You could come live with us,” said Abram.
But they both knew Lot would not be able to place himself back under Abram’s authority again.
“I was wrong, uncle. The city seduced me, and now I am a slave to it. I thought I might have an influence on the wickedness, but now I realize it was just a rationalization to justify my selfish ambition. Sodom is a cesspool of decadence and depravity. It has beaten me down with relentless oppression and has changed me more than I have changed it.”
Lot paused after his self-revelation. Then he added, “But my family is everything to me. I will not leave without them.”
Abram placed an understanding hand on Lot’s back.
“What about the law?” asked Abram. “Are you not an elder in the gates?”
Lot said, “Law is a tool in the hands of power. And when the wicked rule, they make wicked laws. Every single judgment I make is overruled by a dozen judgments of others, or they just ignore it and refuse to enforce it. What is going on in the pentapolis is so dark and evil, I cannot even speak of it.”
Abram mused, “Sodom’s judgment draws near.”
“Uncle, the reason I came to you is because I wanted to ask you a favor.”
“Anything, nephew.”
“If something should happen to me, if I am killed, would you see to it that my wife and daughters are taken care of? Ado would not want to leave the city to live with you, but if you could check in on them every once in a while, make sure they are all right.”
Abram said, “I will do everything I can to make sure your wife and children are safe.”
Lot took a deep breath of the cool crisp night air and chuckled to himself. “It is funny. I remember when I could not wait to get away from the smell of goats and cattle. Now, I miss it. It seems so fresh out here, so — natural and pure.”
Abram thought of Arba and the assassins and the famine that razed the land. “I assure you, nephew, corruption and atrocity fills all this land; in city, village, mountain, and forest. But one day, El Shaddai will cleanse it, and set up his family among the nations.”
Lot said, “It seems impossible.”
Abram said, “With El Shaddai, all things are possible. Even to mak
e a nation out of a barren couple.”
“I have always been inspired by your confidence and faith, uncle. But I think sometimes it has gone to your head and made you a bit crazy.”
They shared a laugh.
“Maybe so,” said Abram. “Maybe so.”
Their parting was bittersweet. Sarai hugged Lot, cried and would not let him go. She would always think of him as the spunky little child back in Ur who would never stop getting into trouble with his curiosity and hunger for more.
She sniffled and pulled him back to gaze at him. “Look at you. I remember when you were only ten like it was yesterday. You tried to start your own teraphim business to compete with your father. Those little lumps of clay were so cute, and you had that beaming bright determination. Thank El Shaddai you could not sell them, or you might be a successful idol maker today.”
“I am not sure you are entirely right, auntie,” said Lot with a sad stare. “I am residing in a city of idolatry and I feel as if I am complicit.”
Abram and Sarai knew there was nothing more they could say.
“Please pray for me, for my family,” he said, and he was off back to Sodom.
Chapter 47
Ashtart paced back and forth in the king’s chamber of Sodom. King Bera sat on the throne extended to accommodate his blubbery fat. He was eating a leg of mutton with his vomit pail next to his throne. A nervous messenger kept his gaze down to the ground awaiting his instructions.
They had received word that Chedorlaomer had completed his campaign in the southern regions from the gulf of Aqaba all the way back up to the wilderness of Zin. He had defeated the Horites and their giant clans from the hill country of Seir as far as El-paran on the border of the wilderness. Then he turned back and subdued all the country of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites dwelling in Hazazon-tamar.
The messenger said with a fearful hush of voice, “Chedorlaomer’s forces have beheaded, impaled, and crucified all the giants he could find in the territories, Nephilim, Rephaim, Emim, Zamzummim.”
Ashtart interrupted him, “That is thousands of my children! That son of a whore and his muscle-bound moron Marduk have decimated my seedline!”
It would take generations to repopulate the land.
She swung in a furious rage and lopped off the messenger’s head with the force of her hand alone. His decapitated body fell to the floor. Ashtart snapped her fingers to one of the servants by the king.
“Clean up this mess!”
The servant scrambled to obey.
“How close are they to our cities?” asked Ashtart.
“I do not know mighty Queen of Heaven. The messenger had not told us yet.”
Ashtart cursed herself for her impulsive outburst.
“Well, send a new scout to find out, and contact the kings of the pentapolis to muster their full forces.”
Bera said, “Yes, mighty Ashtart. Where?”
“We will fight them on our turf, where we are the most experienced and they are not: The bitumen fields of the Valley of Siddim.”
King Bera smiled. It was brilliant. An unanticipated belch took him by surprise, and he felt a rise of vomit in his mouth, which he quickly swallowed so as not to distract the goddess.
She continued, “They will think us fools to face them on the plain, but they will be unprepared for the sludge and muck of the tar pits. We will drown half their forces in the trap, and fill their lungs with asphalt.”
She thought to herself, And that is where I will imprison Marduk, in the deepest darkness of black pitch.
The coalition forces of Chedorlaomer arrived in the Valley of Siddim within five days. The warriors of Ashtart were ready for them as they amassed in the northern valley, which would draw their enemies to them and into the bitumen pits.
The five monarchs of the pentapolis were Bera of Sodom, King Birsha of Gomorrah, who was a giant, King Shinab of Admah, Shemeber of Zeboiim, and Bela of Zoar. They each stood on mounted chariot behind their forces arranged across the field. Bera had a seat built onto his chariot and reinforced its four wheels and axels. It had to be pulled by a dozen horses because of his weight. Even now Bera was munching on a sack of figs, as he found the sweetness comforting in stressful moments.
The forces of the pentapolis were arrayed in five units, one for each of the cities. They numbered about two hundred thousand to the Eastern Coalition’s three hundred thousand. Chedorlaomer had let a number of the soldiers go home as they made their victorious way through the Wilderness of Zin. He was not concerned about the humans he was facing; it was the gods.
Though Chedorlaomer had Marduk, king of the gods on his side, he knew Ashtart was long experienced and cunning in the art of war, and she was fighting for her very life. Though these gods could not die, they could be imprisoned in the earth until judgment day, which was a fate worse than death for an immortal being. To be alive and confined without movement under millions of tons of earth for thousands of years would be supernatural torture for supernatural beings. There was a titanic showdown on the horizon that would no doubt dwarf any human battle he had ever been in or heard of.
He had sent scouts ahead to get a lay of the land, and they returned with intelligence about the field of bitumen pits they were about to find themselves facing on the battlefield. It was a great disadvantage, but he was confident in his soldiers and he had a few tricks up his armor.
The Valley of Siddim that stretched out before Sodom and Gomorrah was the source of lifeblood for the wealth of the five cities. How ironic that it was now to become a bleeding artery of death in a battle of five kings against four.
The bitumen pits covered the entire valley like a swamp of black pools that gave off a foul and sour stench of sulfur, like that of rotting eggs and vegetation. Some pools were deep, others shallow. Some were not yet excavated, being invisible just below the surface sediment, ready to trap unsuspecting travelers. Some seeped up through cracks in the rock. There were also mining pits where a solid rock form of the bitumen was mined with pick axes, chisels, and sledgehammers.
The Canaanites had grown accustomed to the malodorous smell over the years, but the invaders were not prepared for it. When they lined up for attack, many of them got sick and vomited. Some of them passed out. So Chedorlaomer had his soldiers rip off lengths of their tunics and wrap them around their noses and mouths to filter the air.
The pentapolis heralds blew their war horns and the first wave of warriors took to the field. Because they knew the valley well, they were able to maneuver around the bitumen pits with ease.
The Eastern coalition soldiers marched out to meet them, but because they were not as familiar with the terrain, they lost their formation and many were stuck in pools of pitch.
Chedorlaomer saw what was happening and ordered his archers to launch a volley of fire tipped arrows before his infantry. This tactic was not to inflict damage on the Canaanites, but rather to hit as many pools of pitch as possible. The fire lit the bitumen and created a maze of bonfires that struck fear into the hearts of the Canaanites and created a clear pathway for the Mesopotamian forces to navigate. They had the fire to avoid, but they would not unknowingly fall into the pits.
The two forces met in the midst of the flaming pools and clashed with mace, sword, axe, and spear. The armies of Ashtart were well trained with swords that split their tips like a serpent’s tongue. The armies of Marduk were masters of mace and pike.
Swords ripped bowels of few invaders, but pikes skewered more defenders at a distance before those swords could get close enough to cut.
Suddenly, from behind the Canaanite lines, an unearthly howl screeched over the valley like a hideous portent of doom. It was Ashtart’s war cry.
A monstrous roar bellowed out in return from behind the Mesopotamian lines as a furious reply from Marduk.
The gods were at war.
Ashtart and Marduk both rushed into the mayhem of metal, flesh, and blood like dire wolves to a slaughter. They were racing for each other, b
oth of them about eight feet tall, but unleashing a violent supernatural force as they bowled over their own soldiers in their pathway.
They had both stripped down to minimal garments and necessary weapons. Marduk carried his favorite weapons: A monstrous iron mace in one hand and a battle net in the other. He strapped a large sledgehammer to his naked back. He was barefoot and wore a simple loincloth beneath his leather belt. As a Watcher god, armor was more cumbersome than it was protective. There was something more primal and animalistic about fighting almost bare naked.
Ashtart felt the same way about simplicity in war. But she liked the idea of looking good even as she was slaughtering her enemies and wading through their blood. So she wore a skimpy erotic two piece belly dancing bikini and did her hair up in a tight but stylish fashion. She considered herself quite brilliant at effectively combining her sexuality with her violence. And it worked to her tactical advantage to distract her enemies with her lustfully delicious figure she worked so hard to maintain. Her only weapon: A scythe. Under the strength of a human, a scythe was cumbersome and slow, but under the grip of a Watcher god with the strength of a dozen mighty men, it was a whirling blade of death.
They met at the center of the battlefield. Ashtart spit out, “O mighty King Cumquat! I have been waiting for this for centuries!”
Marduk remained silent as they circled one another, waiting for who would be the first to attack.
Ashtart struck first. She swung her scythe like a ballet, which gave meaning to the phrase, “Ashtart’s dance of death.” If it connected with Marduk, it would cut him in half.
It sliced up nearby soldiers and soaked her frame in gore.
The baptism of blood inspired her. She licked her lips and advanced on Marduk.
But he was ready.
He used his iron mace to block her blade at every swipe, resulting in a shower of sparks that engulfed the both of them and set nearby pools of pitch on fire.