by Brian Godawa
Zakita was instantly upon him.
Her claws slashed his chest and drew blood.
He kicked her like a mule with both feet. She flew back into the wall.
But then Kulla was on him before he could catch his breath.
She swung. He ducked.
Her razor talons got stuck in the splintered table. She tried to jerk them free.
It was the breath Abram needed.
He drove both blades up into her chin and through her skull.
She fell backward in death, carrying his daggers with her to the floor.
Now Abram stood without weapons before a very angry lioness Zakita. She hissed at him and bared her fangs.
He reached for anything near him.
He grabbed something and raised it.
It was a shred of drapery torn from the window. It dangled from his hand like a limp wet rag. Abram sighed.
Zakita lunged.
Abram dodged with a Karabu spin that made him dizzy again, but saved him from a terrible slashing.
But Zakita did not stop. She kept attacking.
So Abram engaged in a ballet of flowing moves to evade Zakita. He was a bit slow and unpracticed. She scraped his arm, and then his leg.
But her multiple misses on this old dancing geezer enraged her.
Which was her big mistake, because she lost her strategic sense and got sloppy.
In a flash, Abram flipped over her and used the drapery in his hand as a garrote around her neck. But he could not choke her. She would have her claws in him before that was going to happen.
So instead, he used his momentary advantage to drag her to the window and throw her out.
This was not a window with a porch.
She fell to the ground fifty feet below.
But she was a feline hybrid.
She turned in the air and prepared to land on all fours to cushion the blow.
But she would not make it to the ground, because there was a branch in the way about ten feet below with a broken appendage sticking up.
It skewered her like a pike through her midsection. She howled and woke up half the neighborhood, then died.
Back up in the bedroom, Abram was huffing out of breath and on his knees on the floor.
“I am too old for this anymore,” he said, and grabbed the daggers out of the bird woman’s skull.
But when he looked up, he saw Zula standing in the room with her claws at the throat of Sarai. Zula’s face was still flowing with blood from her broken nose. She had been forgotten during the fight and had come to, slipping out to find Sarai as hostage.
And now she had both hands in a death grip on Sarai.
She gurgled through her blood, “Life for life. If you submit to me, I will let her live. If not, she dies.”
Abram gripped his blades. His only chance was to throw one and hit the lioness in the eye.
But she was too close to Sarai’s head. She was moving around, pulling Sarai in front of her as a human shield. And he was too old for such precision anymore. He was more likely to hit Sarai and lose her by his own hand.
On the other hand, he had seen what these creatures had done to Eliezer’s wife, thinking she was Sarai. So he knew she was going to die anyway.
He hesitated. There was no way out of this. Either way, Sarai was going to die, and with her, all his happiness and purpose.
He decided to do the one thing he had any sliver of a chance with. He was going to throw the dagger.
He prayed, “El Shaddai, help me.”
He flipped the blade and raised it with trembling bruised hands.
But he did not have to throw it, because suddenly Zula’s eyes turned upward, she released her grip on Sarai and fell to the floor unconscious.
It was an answer to prayer. But it was not a miraculous violation of nature. It was a providential timing of nature.
She had fainted from loss of blood.
Abram leapt to Sarai, moved her out of the way, and used his daggers to nail Zula’s clawed hands to the floor.
The pain brought Zula back to consciousness.
“Who sent you?” said Abram with anger. “Was it Arba?”
Zula shook her head, and then whispered weakly, “Arba only gave us information.”
“Then who sent you?!” he yelled.
She refused to tell him.
He said, “It is your choice to die slowly or quickly.”
With labored breath, she whispered, “Nimrod.”
Abram’s eyes went wide with shock. So the mad king was never going to give up his obsession. He would hunt them down till his dying day.
He pulled one of the daggers from her hand and plunged it under Zula’s sternum, piercing her heart and sending her straight to Sheol.
The sack stirred. Eliezer was coming to.
Abram opened the sack and pulled a groggy Eliezer from it.
“They mistook Eliezer for me,” said Abram. “They wanted to bring me back alive to Nimrod.”
Sarai whispered ominously, “Now Arba knows who you are.”
It had to be true. There was no way that Arba would provide intelligence such as this without procuring something for himself. If he knew Nimrod was after Abram, why would he not betray Abram for his benefit? He had evidently wanted Sarai murdered because, according to his reprobate mind, if he could not have her, then no one could.
Abram noticed Sarai’s eyes drift to the door. He raised the dagger and turned to see another warrior at the door. This was a muscular paladin with strange armor showing underneath an open cloak.
He was not an Amorite of Mamre’s relative and he certainly was not one of Abram’s warriors.
So Abram threw the knife at him.
The stranger moved with lightning reflexes and caught it midair before it could hit him.
Abram had no strength left to fight. He knew this one would kill them. He moved in front of Sarai.
“Fear not,” said the stranger. “I am not here to harm you.”
“Who are you?” asked Abram.
“I am Uriel the archangel, and I am here for your protection.”
“Well, you are a little late,” said Abram. “It would have been nice if you had actually protected us.”
Uriel smiled. This was not the first time he had done this kind of thing. “You were doing fine, crabby jaw. Besides, you needed the practice for what is coming.”
“What is coming?” repeated Abram.
“Heaven knows,” Uriel only hinted.
“A sarcastic archangel at that,” said Abram.
“And quite attractive,” kicked in Sarai.
Uriel was a handsome young muscular built warrior. He had long blonde hair and a winsome smile.
He replied to Sarai, “And you, my lovely ward, have quite the reputation yourself for being the desire of many men.”
Abram pulled Sarai back behind him.
“How do I know you are telling the truth?” said Abram.
“Well, for one thing, that whirlwind move you attempted with sorry results? I created it.”
Uriel pulled out his two swords and held them close to him so as not to hit anything. Then he twirled in his signature move like a mini-cyclone and stopped on a shekel.
A gush of wind flowed over Abram’s and Sarai’s faces.
“And for another thing,” Uriel smiled, “I could have waited to introduce myself to you in the same manner as El Shaddai has done, when you were making love together, but I figured that is his prerogative and none of my business.”
Abram and Sarai never told anyone about the day and manner of Abram’s calling.
“What do I need to know?” asked Abram.
“Only as much as you need at the moment you need it.”
“We are getting used to that,” quipped Sarai.
“You are telling me,” said Uriel. “I get all the hand me down tasks at the last minute. In fact, I am only filling in for Mikael with you until he is taken care of some other pressing tasks.”
Abram and Sarai looked at each other with concern.
“You will find him more serious than me. And less fun.”
Eliezer stirred again. He was coming to.
“But now is not the time for humor. You have a duty of grief, so I will leave you be.”
With that, Uriel was gone.
Eliezer managed to croak out a question, “Where is Devorah?”
Outside Abram’s home, a group of neighbors had gathered in concern for the family. They had weapons and some of them were already climbing the tree.
But then the sound of Eliezer’s soul wrenching scream echoed through the forest.
Chapter 45
The confederation of four kings from Mesopotamia had travelled the Euphrates then down through Syria to the King’s Highway. They were led by their suzerain, King Chedorlaomer of Elam, and included King Arioch of Ellasar, King Tidal of Goiim, and the newly installed King Amraphel of Shinar, whose previous identity as Nimrod had been replaced with his new identity as vassal king under Chedorlaomer. Both Amraphel and Arioch were giants, and they had a few units of giants with their traveling army of eight hundred thousand strong.
They first faced and defeated the Rephaim giants in Ashteroth-Karnaim. It was a district of Bashan, near Edrei. The Rephaim worshipped Ashtart and were among the fiercest of the giants. They had elongated heads reminiscent of their divine seed as well as the twenty four digits on their hands and feet, and two rows of teeth in their mouths.
The Rephaim fought in five organized defense units of fifty that killed a good thousand soldiers before Chedorlaomer’s forces overwhelmed them with sheer numbers and massacred them in a bloodbath of fury and revenge.
Chedorlaomer rightly observed that if they battled the strongest foes while their own forces were at their freshest and strongest, they would not only have a quicker more sure victory, but word may spread ahead of them and create a terror in others they planned to conquer.
That notoriety of terror is why Chedorlaomer impaled the fifty surviving Rephaim along with their fallen brothers on a small ridge just outside the town. It looked like a stripped forest of death. Vultures fed off the carrion for days.
The King of Elam had strategized correctly. By the time they travelled down to Ham and wiped out the Zamzummim giants in that township, their next target, the Emim in the Valley of Kiriathaim (Shaveh-Kiriathaim) had decided to surrender without battle.
They sued for peace and acceptance as vassal township, which Chedorlaomer immediately accepted. But he knew that if he allowed these giants to live, they would eventually be the ones he would have to fight later if they grew in number and rose up in rebellion.
So when they engaged in the ceremonial surrendering of arms by all the soldiers of Kiriathaim, instead of returning their weapons to the submissive giants with the suzerain blessing, Chedorlaomer had all two hundred of them slaughtered in a tidal wave of mayhem and gore.
On their way south near the cities of the plain, Amraphel was wondering if the female hybrid assassins he had sent long before had been successful in their quest to capture Abram. They did not cross their paths on the King’s Highway, but the professional killers would probably have avoided that main road for safety reasons.
Earlier in Ashteroth-Karnaim, he had inquired of the priestesses of the temple of Ashtart. They confirmed that the hierodules he hired as bounty hunters had passed through the town looking for information leading to their quarry. As hierodules of Ashtart, the assassins would find sanctuary in the temple chambers for rest until they continued on their journey. So it was in their interests to use the town as a way station on the way back.
But they had never returned. They were most likely still searching or dead.
Amraphel looked hardly better than when he was Nimrod the battered prisoner of Chedorlaomer at Borsippa. He was not eating well or sleeping. The malnutrition and insomnia was taking its toll on his body. He had shrunk a good six inches, and then another six from his hunched shoulders. He avoided fraternizing with the other kings and kept to himself. He was often overheard mumbling arguments to himself, and even abusing his body by lashings with a whip and cuttings with a knife.
He was going mad, but he maintained a singular kernel of rationality deep down within that was rooted in his obsessive hatred of Abram and his god El Shaddai. He would not allow himself to slide into utter oblivion because he had his final act of revenge to accomplish. In fact, that kernel was the true controller of his madness. It dominated his every waking moment and provided him with cunning strategy for his every move.
That was because he was not going insane. He was simply becoming totally and thoroughly evil. The difference between his current being and what he was as world potentate was merely the exercise of power. With power, he could satisfy his lusts and anger momentarily, and therefore maintain a semblance of sanity amidst his growing depravity. But without power, the frustrated and obstructed schemes of evil twist and contort the soul into a bitter rage that turns inward and ravishes the self like a consuming disease. As emperor, he was an abomination of desolation. As demoted powerless vassal king, he was more like a shade of Sheol. A lost identity in a sea of insatiable unsatisfied hunger.
Amraphel stopped gnawing on his finger when he saw that he had chewed the flesh to the bone. He was in a required meeting with the other three kings. The pentapolis was aware of the Mesopotamian army’s approach and had sent a messenger to Chedorlaomer to proclaim their defiance.
When the king demanded to bring the messenger to his presence, they were surprised to see it was Ashtart herself, patron deity of the five cities, and allotted authority over Canaan.
The goddess of sex and war was not to be trifled with.
When she entered, she approached the four kings, but stopped half way and sniffed the air.
Her eyes rose in anger and she seethed. “I should have known you’d be slithering in the shadows of this conspiracy. Come out and face me, you cowardly god of piss and farts.”
It was her irritating insulting again. She demeaned Marduk’s storm domain of rain and wind into lowly human excretions.
All heads turned to Marduk, who stepped out from behind the shadows of the throne into the firelight. It was true that he stayed out of the limelight and chose to work more surreptitiously through human rulers since his humbling at Babel. But he was no coward. His form was bulging with obscene muscularity and his presence struck shock and awe into any created thing.
A confrontation had been brewing and Ashtart was calling Marduk out for contest. He was not afraid of her. He was the only god in the pantheon who could defeat her if it were possible. But over the years, Ashtart’s power had grown over Canaan. The inevitable face off was becoming more probable.
The kings became quiet in the presence of these Watcher gods.
Ashtart hissed at Marduk, “I know what you are doing here, Marduk. You seek to annihilate my Nephilim children and stop my rise to power. But it is too late. The Seed of the Serpent has filled the land like a weed. You may cut off one root, but another will grow to replace it. I have been waiting for this moment for too long, and I think its time we finish our quarrel.”
Marduk remained silent. He was not one for wasted words. And talking too much was a weakness.
Her attention was drawn to Amraphel, who had been trying not to be noticed.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” she sang.
She stepped up for a closer look at Amraphel. His degraded figure and countenance made him look completely different from when she last saw him, but you cannot fool a Watcher. She knew who was sitting in that throne.
“Look who resurrected from the dead. Although, I have to say, you are looking less spritely and bubbly than I remember.”
Amraphel would say nothing. She could see he was a cowed vassal now. His past as the potentate Nimrod was distant legend.
“Apparently, our bad blood has been resolved decidedly in my favor. Thank El Shaddai.” She made a mock gesture and bow to heav
en. She shook her head with disgust. He had spurned her advances when he was the mighty hunter-king of Uruk, one-third man, two-thirds god. He had maneuvered her away from his worldwide empire in Babylon. And now, he was an unshaven unkempt demented slave of Chedorlaomer, sitting in his own unwashed stench.
She crinkled her nose and dismissed him, looking back at Chedorlaomer with boiling anger, “This is my land. The five cities of the plain will not bow to the petty dictates of your puny armies. If you want war, I will give you war, unlike any you have ever seen. You will plead for mercy, but you will receive none. And what I will do to you will be so heinous, it will not be spoken of for a millennium.
Chedorlaomer swallowed with a dry throat. All four kings looked simultaneously at Marduk. And when he spoke, it was frighteningly malevolent and sure.
“I am going to bind you into the heart of the earth, bitch goddess. You will think on your failure for ten thousand years. And there will be no sea dragon to free you from your prison as before.”
Ashtart grinned and turned to leave, calling out behind her with a chortle, “Bring it to the battlefield, Lord Lettuce Head.” That was her personal favorite when she could not think of a fresh insult. “And do not leave your balls behind, because I am going to eat them.”
She was gone.
Chedorlaomer looked over at Marduk. “Can you defeat her?”
“I will break her in half,” said Marduk.
“Good,” said the king. “Because I have more giant clans to vanquish in the south at Seir, El-Paran, and Kadesh, before I finish up with these Salt Sea ingrates and their princess of pouting.”
Marduk smirked. It was a witty affirmation of the king to return Ashtart’s wordplay on Marduk’s behalf.
He offered his compliment, “A wise strategy, O king. Her pride will delude her into thinking we have run away. And arrogance is a most foolish blunder.”
The King’s Highway was on the Transjordanian plateau a good fifteen miles east of the Salt Sea and the five cities of the plain with their preparing kings and gods. Chedorlaomer’s forces simply passed by and resumed their trek down to the southern mountain range of Seir where the Horites awaited their destruction.