Joshua Valiant

by Brian Godawa

  She heard his cloven hoofs approaching her door. She knew the sound of his walk from the years of their intimate friendship. Panic seized her.

  But revenge calmed her down and she pulled herself back into her bed to feign sleep.

  What would she do now?

  Her mind raced searching for courage.

  With closed eyes, she heard the clip clap of his soft steps approach her and then stop.

  She felt the hotness of his breath on her skin as he leaned in to her face.

  She felt his sandy split tongue lick her face.

  She pretended to open her eyes as if out of a deep sleep.

  He was upon her, straddling her, groping her flesh.

  She could feel his arousal against her body. He groaned with desire.

  “My little Arisha,” he moaned. “I have such desire for you.”

  She whispered in his ear, “Not anymore.”

  His eyes went blank. What did that mean?

  She lifted the dagger that she had held concealed by her side, and with one swift move, cut off his male member.

  He went into a state of shock and fell backward, blood pouring from his gaping wound.

  And then the pain and reality hit him all at once, and he howled in agony, grabbing his bloody groin to stop the bleeding.

  His howl must have awakened everyone in the living quarters.

  He fell backward to the floor with a thud.

  And for one moment, even Arisha was shocked at what she just did. She did not know she had it in her.

  But then she realized she would not have much time before she was beaten to death by her emasculated abuser or one of the guards no doubt on their way right now to find out what was going on.

  She jumped out of bed, pulled her little packet of clothes from the corner and ran to the door.

  She left the bloody dagger on the bed.

  But as she hit the doorway, she was blocked by a figure.

  It was Sisa.

  Would she turn Arisha in?

  Sisa was herself clothed as if ready for a journey.

  “Follow me. Or you are dead.”

  Sisa led her down the hall and around a corner. She grabbed a torch and led Arisha into a small crevice that opened up to a secret passageway Arisha had not known about. As one of the older nymphs, Sisa knew many secrets of the cavern that were not common knowledge.

  Arisha whispered, “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because I want to go with you.”

  And then Arisha understood. She had had as much effect on Sisa as Sisa had on her. Arisha’s hunger for life had awakened Sisa’s own desires.

  “This passage leads us out to the desert. You better have a plan for where you want to go, or we are both dead.”

  “Oh, I do, sister,” said Arisha. “I have been planning that for some time.”

  “Then let us hurry. I am not the only one who knows about this secret passage.”

  They found their way through the small tunnel and out into the cold desert air lit by a full moon.

  Sisa started toward the valley.

  “No,” said Arisha. “This way.”

  She pulled her toward the dark cedar forest.

  “But the forest is full of wild animals and dark forces. We will not survive two days in there.”

  Arisha said, “We will not survive the night that way. They will track us down in hours.”

  Sisa knew she was right. The valley was the well-travelled pathway to other towns and villages in the area. It would be the obvious choice for fugitives of their slender frame and gender. And there was almost nowhere to hide.

  The dark forest, on the other hand was dense and hostile, even toward satyrs and hunters. But Arisha had one benefit of being the charge of Izbaxl. He had taught her all about nature over the years. Not only about what plants were poisonous and what you could eat, but also the ways of animals, predator and prey, and various tricks to avoid being eaten.

  They ran for the dark forest.

  • • • • •

  Though Izbaxl’s wound was serious, satyrs were creatures of robust constitution. He had bandaged himself and found the strength to limp out into the night. He was fueled by the hatred of revenge that rose within the depths of his soul. He was not going to just kill Arisha. He was going to torture and keep her alive for as long as possible, and then torture and kill her family in front of her.

  His wound was so humiliating that he refused to explain anything to anyone. He imagined the mockery he would face when the others discovered that he had been emasculated by the slight nymph who seemed the object of everyone’s lusts.

  He managed to get out on his own and limped directly toward the dark forest. He knew exactly how Arisha thought. He had taught her himself.

  He carried Arisha’s dagger in his hand and a bow across his back. Every step was painful. Very painful. But he had a reserve of revenge to draw from.

  Almost immediately, he heard the howl of a dire wolf deep in the forest, and he knew where Arisha was.

  • • • • •

  Arisha and Sisa heard the howl and froze in their tracks. It was very near. Arisha knew they had been seen and were now being tracked by a pack of dire wolves.

  They did not have much time. Maybe minutes.

  She barked, “Quickly, find a tree!”

  They looked around frantically for a climbable tree.

  There were not many. This was an old growth forest and the cedars towered over their heads like walls of timber.

  Arisha spotted one in the distance. It was an oak tree with gnarly bark rough enough to grab onto and climb to branches high above the ground.

  “There!” She bolted for it.

  Sisa followed.

  But the glowing yellow eyes in the forest had already found them.

  Six dire wolves burst out of the dense foliage a hundred yards from them, closing the gap quickly.

  Arisha was already high enough to find a branch from where she could reach down and help Sisa.

  Sisa reached out her hand and Arisha grasped it.

  But the dire wolves had reached the base of the tree and the large black leader jumped and clamped onto Sisa’s ankle.

  Arisha screamed, “SISA!”

  The weight of the wolf pulled Sisa right out of Arisha’s hands and down to the pack of killers below.

  Arisha lost her balance and her bag of clothes fell to the ground with Sisa.

  She caught herself from a near fatal slip and dodged the snapping jaws of the black leader that had left Sisa to the pack to catch the little prize up in the branches.

  But Arisha moved before thinking and scuttled up the branches to the top of the tree out of visual sight amidst the foliage.

  She could not stand to see the feeding frenzy she could hear below. She could barely breathe as she wept tears of great sorrow over the loss of her only true friend. A friend who had endangered her own life to rescue her, and was now dead forever.

  The wolves must have been ravenous, because they had torn her apart and picked the bones clean in mere minutes.

  Arisha could barely contain herself. But suddenly, she heard the sound of musical notes she knew very well.

  She froze in terror.

  It was Izbaxl’s pipes. He had found her.

  She stopped breathing.

  Izbaxl’s music would hold the wolves at bay. It was a satyr’s power over the nature of the wild.

  The wolves stopped and backed away cautiously from the bones at the foot of the tree.

  But they were not leaving.

  Izbaxl would normally have more sway over them, but he was noticeably weakened and had a bloody bandage around his groin that was causing the wolves to be more courageous than usual in the face of this master of nature.

  Izbaxl limped to the foot of the tree and saw the carnage of the slaughter.

  Arisha peeked through the leaves and could see him far below pick up one of the pieces of her clothing and sniff it.

  She r
emembered that Izbaxl did not know that Sisa had helped her. He thought Arisha was all alone. And since there was nothing left of Sisa’s body but her bones, and Arisha’s clothes about her, he must have concluded they were Arisha’s bones.

  She had evaded him.

  Izbaxl dropped the piece of cloth to the ground in anger, and reeled back to give a satyr howl.

  It was a screeching bellow that struck fear into the heart of Arisha—into the heart of any creature, including the dire wolves, that backed up further and whimpered in submission.

  But then the unexpected happened.

  Instead of hiding herself back in the foliage of the tree, she could not stop staring at her nemesis below.

  And when he leaned back to howl up into the night, his eyes noticed Arisha’s movement.

  She should have pulled herself out of sight.

  But it was too late.

  He had seen her.

  And like a deer in the torchlight, she froze.

  He had figured out what had probably happened.

  He stopped, smiled, and whispered a prayer, “Thank you, Azazel. I will offer my sacrifice to you slowly—over many days.”

  He pulled out the sacrificial dagger that Arisha had used to cut him.

  He held it up to her with a smile and she knew he meant to do to her what she had done to him—and more.

  He limped up to the tree, held the dagger in his teeth, grabbed hold of the bark, and started to climb.

  The wolves below drew near to watch what was going on above them in the tree.

  Arisha’s heart rate increased. Her breathing grew shallow.

  Izbaxl was closing the distance quickly. He was wounded, but he was a powerful creature.

  His hooves were not meant for such climbing, but the tree was very gangly with many ridges and crevices to grab hold.

  He was almost upon her.

  She looked above her. There was nowhere else for her to go. She was at the highest branch that could hold her. If she climbed out onto a branch it would only break and she would plunge to her death.

  Then she thought that if she was going to die anyway, maybe she should just try to take him with her.

  She started to climb out further onto the thinner end of the branch she was on. It started to bend.

  But when she looked back, she noticed that Izbaxl had paused. He was not pursuing her anymore.

  He was swaying with dizziness.

  She could see his bandage was dripping wet. He had lost too much blood.

  He was losing his consciousness.

  The dagger slipped out of his mouth.

  His desperate eyes made contact with hers.

  He slipped but regained his foothold on the bark.

  His gaze shifted from her to the skies and he muttered, “Curse you, Yahweh.” His eyes rolled back in his head and he blacked out.

  His grip released and he fell to the ground fifty feet below.

  The wolves parted.

  Izbaxl landed on his back.

  The impact brought him back to consciousness. He was not dead. But he was seriously incapacitated.

  The wolves snarled and began to advance upon the prostrate form of the satyr.

  His blood was driving them wild with hunger.

  They attacked.

  In seconds, the satyr became one with nature.

  But Arisha could not get the question out of her mind. Who was this Yahweh that Izbaxl had cursed?

  • • • • •

  It was weeks of wandering in the desert before Arisha found what she was looking for. She had never been very far from her home in Banias, and the Mother Earth goddess Gaia.

  She knew she had to avoid well-known cities or popular trading villages because her presence might be too suspicious and cause a curious do-gooder to look into her identity.

  Though all of Banias thought her dead and the secrets of Izbaxl hidden with him in the stomachs of dire wolves, she could not afford to be discovered and place her family in more jeopardy.

  Her goal was to one day return and free her family from spiritual bondage in Banias. But she would have to build a new life and a new identity.

  The best way to do so would be to start over in a place that was itself shrouded in mystery.

  Gilgal Rephaim was just such a place. She had learned something about it from Izbaxl growing up, but only knew of its general location. Its name meant “Circle of Giants,” and it was an astrological and funerary holy place tended by a monkish clan that was under the authority of King Og of Bashan, the chief Rephaim. They tended to avoid much interaction with other towns and cities, and were left alone because of their peculiar and unnerving ways. After what she had experienced, Arisha considered such a reputation her best hope to avoid detection.

  Her first sign of the location was when she stumbled upon a huge serpentine ravine about thirty miles from Hermon. It seemed as large as some of the ravines near her home, but had the distinct appearance of being deliberately cut through the rock with designed intent. It was about a mile long and she wondered how on earth mere humans could accomplish such mighty engraving. It must have been accomplished with the aid of giants. She knew of giants who had occasionally visited Banias, but was otherwise sheltered from the rest of the world. She had no idea the numbers or the feats they could achieve.

  She continued on and just a few miles from that ravine, she found a second indication that she was getting closer. This time it was a huge serpentine mound as opposed to a ravine. It appeared to rise from the earth hundreds of feet high. Another artifact that assured her she was very close now to her goal.

  Her hopes rose within her. But she was weary from the travel, sick from lack of food, and it was getting dark again, so she had to find a place for the night as she always did. A safe place where she could avoid the predators of the desert.

  It was getting dark when Arisha finally discovered a large circular monument of megalithic stones. It was over five hundred feet wide with stone megaliths twenty feet high. It must have been a monument built by giants. It consisted of five concentric circles of stone, creating a labyrinth that was attuned to astrological alignments in the heavens.

  She found her way into the maze, fell exhausted against one of the stone walls, and began to drift off to sleep. She had found her destination. She had found Gilgal Rephaim. Now, she only hoped she would be taken in and accepted by its people, the Clan of the Serpent.

  Chapter 7

  King Sihon of Heshbon was not a giant, but he was a gibbor, a mighty warrior of strong build and glorious ambition, who ruled in the Transjordan just south of King Og and across from the northern regions of the Dead Sea. He was an Amorite king who had recently conquered and taken his region from the Moabites.

  His people were not numerous. He only held a dozen cities compared to Og’s sixty or more. But the territory he did hold was crucial. The plains of Moab were strategically optimum for access to the central region of Canaan across the Jordan valley. His home city was Heshbon on the King’s Highway, but his recent war of expansion had secured all the land between the rivers of Jabbok in the north and Arnon in the south. The Moabites became his vassals, but they were a restless lot.

  Sihon was a less sophisticated leader than Og. They had few giants but they made up for their lack of size with a fierce style of presence. They dressed like savages with animal skins and headdresses made of talons, horns and antlers of their game. They donned war paint and screamed in battle like unearthly shades of Sheol.

  Sihon and his people were simpleminded in Og’s view, even primitive. But they were useful.

  Sihon stood with Og in his war chamber in Og’s city of Ashtaroth. They were working through a treaty covenant to establish an alliance through which they might control the entire Transjordan region.

  But the first order of business was for Og to suffer through Sihon’s ballad singers as they sang a newly composed ode commemorating Sihon’s recent victory over Moab. It was a kind of offering to Og, but he had no
interest in such wasteful indulgence of entertainment. Especially since it was self-serving of Sihon’s pride. Og only tolerated it as an obligation of royal etiquette.

  The minstrels played on flute and lyre. But they were mediocre musicians, and their playing caused even Sihon’s ears to hurt. Sihon’s people were good at war, but not at music.

  They sang:

  For fire came out from Heshbon,

  flame from the city of Sihon.

  It devoured Ar of Moab,

  and swallowed the heights of the Arnon.

  Woe to you, O Moab!

  You are undone, O people of Chemosh!

  He has made his sons fugitives,

  and his daughters captives,

  to an Amorite king, Sihon.

  The musicians were escorted out of the war chamber, and the chiefs got down to real business.

  Sihon was desperate, but tried not to let it show to his superior, the Rephaim that towered over him by at least five feet. Og sat down in order to lessen his imposing presence and draw out Sihon’s secrets. Both of their war councils surrounded the table with them, a total of about ten men. But they deferred to the kings in their deliberations and only advised when asked.

  “Are you prepared for occupation of the southern Transjordan?” said Og.

  “I took high losses securing my land from the Moabites. We are trying to encourage the population to breed so we can replenish our numbers. But these things take time.”

  Og said, “Something your minstrels neglected to point out in their praise. I thought you wild ones were obsessed with unrestrained sexuality. Institute more inbreeding and tax those who fail to obey.”

  Everything was so simple for Og. He knew how to control the masses because he knew how they responded to authority and power. To him, they were means to be manipulated for his ends.

  Og added, “What of your Moabite vassals?”

  “They are a stubborn people. I do not think they would be reliable armed support so soon after their humiliation.”

  Sihon was completely at the mercy of this Rapha. He knew Og could defeat his forces with one bold stroke. But they were both a part of an Amorite treaty of nations and it would not be advantageous for Og to betray his own alliance of peoples. So Sihon sought to position himself as strategically beneficial to Og. An ally was more valuable than a vassal. Vassals may serve out of forced obligation, but an ally fought valiantly for their own share of the rewards. And a well-informed ally provided intelligence that doubled the reach of the dominant king.