by Brian Godawa
The Nephilim below pulled in their ranks to fight the spinning, twisting, flipping, near invisible enemy. The Nephilim above saw the slaughter, but kept climbing toward their launch point above.
• • • • •
In the Hidden Valley, Cain’s pack spread out into the entire basin in search of their prey. But their prey had been working all day at setting traps. They were ready for the pack. The odds were about three to one, against the escaped captives. Except that there were two minor details that Cain did not take into account. These three prey were giant killers and they were not afraid of mangy dogs.
Methuselah, Lamech, and Betenos had not been able to collect their homemade weapons before they slipped out of the village. They had one knife and would rely on their traps to alleviate their handicap.
The first pack of eight wolves that ran across a scent became overconfident with zeal as they saw their quarry. Betenos and Lamech struggled up the rocky side of the valley. Lamech stumbled and fell to the ground with a thud.
The pack ran like the wind, yipping with victory. Seconds before reaching the prey, the ground gave way beneath them. The branches and leaves covering the pit full of carved spikes gave way. The wolves had thrown caution to the wind. Because they ran as one, they all fell as one into the pit.
All eight of them were skewered and impaled through their legs, throats and bellies. The few that did not die immediately yelped and whimpered in pain. Long spears carved by the team’s lone knife finished them off.
A sound in the brush startled the team. Had they missed one? They drew their pathetic weapons, a few pointy sticks for Methuselah and Betenos, and a blunt useless knife for Lamech.
It was not a wolf that stepped out. It was Uriel.
“We thought you were gone,” said Betenos.
“No. I was just teasing you,” said Uriel.
They did not laugh.
“Oh, come on,” said Uriel. “I was not going to let you get killed that easily.”
Methuselah was angry. “Have you come to give us more ‘encouragement from the Lord’?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have,” said Uriel. “But this time in the form you prefer.”
He reached into the brush and pulled out a large bag. He threw it at their feet.
Uriel said, “I think even you are going to thank me for this one, Methuselah.”
Methuselah stared at him dubiously. It was hard to know what this crazy angel was going to say or do next.
Betenos bent down and opened the bag. She pulled out a bow and a quiver of arrows and a rack of javelins.
“Our angelic weapons!” she exclaimed She handed the javelins to a slightly less peeved Methuselah.
Methuselah growled, “It is about time.”
“You are welcome,” replied Uriel.
Uriel strode up to Lamech. He knew he had nothing in the bag. Uriel reached behind his own belt and drew out a familiar handle with rolled up blade. “You did not think I would forget about you, did you, Lamech?”
A big broad grin spread across Lamech’s face as he unfurled Rahab into the dust. He snapped a sapling in half.
“Please give our regards to Elohim,” said Lamech.
“Oh, I am not going anywhere,” said Uriel. “I am supposed to guard over you.”
“What, now you are my guardian angel?” said Lamech.
“Do not flatter yourself, Lamech,” said Uriel. “I would not miss this for the world.” He drew his shimmering sword from its sheath with the sound of metal crossing metal.
Chapter 54
The satan had been quite shaken up by the arrival of the Son of Man and of his influence on the progress of the suit, or rather, the regress. The satan decided to reframe the debate.
“If it please the court, I need to place into the public record another piece of evidence. You know, I am often slanderously called a liar. My character is defamed with the pernicious mudslinging title ‘Father of Lies.’ Well, let me tell you, it was not I who lied to Adam and Havah in the Garden, it was Elohim! ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and I quote, ‘in the day you eat of the tree you shall surely die.’ Pshaw! They did not die on that day! Adam and Havah lived over nine hundred years. I ask you, who is the real liar here? The covenant is invalidated because of the discredited character of the suzerain!”
Enoch only took a moment to respond. “Your honor and esteemed members of the council, the satan seeks to deny the authorial intent of the text by reducing it to the reader’s own responsive interpretation, as if he defines reality. “In the day” is a colloquialism that means a general time period, and the satan knows this very well. He is redefining words to control the text for his own despotic purposes. They did not die ‘on that day,’ they died ‘in that day’ which signifies a new era of existence because of the serious consequences of their actions. Exile from the Tree of Life in the Garden meant their bodies could not be regenerated. That is when they died.”
The satan and Semjaza wondered how close their army was to seizing that very prize of eternal life for their minions, the Tree of Life. If they were victorious, they would make a name for themselves and nothing that they proposed to do would be impossible for them. They would be the ones kicking certain other deities out of the Garden.
The satan scrambled for more cover. “Counsel has suggested that death is the inability to regenerate the human body. But I submit that this depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
Enoch wondered to himself, Was this solipsism even worth the dignity of a response?
• • • • •
Rahab could swim the waters above and below the firmament. It was all her territory. But her special domain was the Abyss. From there, she could access every body of water that ultimately connected to this underwater abode. Her birth waters were Lake Urimiya, where Elohim created her and held her at bay when he established the heavens and the earth. She was in the Lake again at that moment. She had returned to this sacred ground to give birth to her own spawn.
The Nephilim paddled on the surface of the water. They were unaware of the nemesis below, a protective mother sea dragon and her very hungry newborn offspring, Leviathan.
Leviathan was every bit the armored sea serpent as its parent., Even newly born, it was already about half the size of Rahab. But it had something its progenitor did not: seven heads. Seven dragon heads on seven snakelike necks with seven times the predator’s snapping jaws, and seven times the rows of razor teeth. Leviathan’s strike zone was wide and it was more agile and speedier than Rahab. And it had seven times the fury.
The Nephilim were oblivious to the shadowy forms approaching them from the darkness below. They filled the waters with their crafts The lead skiffs were only two thirds of the way across.
The first casualties came at the front of the line. A huge explosion of water erupted. Pontoons snapped in two, throwing Nephilim into the water.
Yahipan screamed, “RAHAB!!” The Nephilim stopped rowing and looked about the water. The huge serpentine armor broke the surface again, crushing a slew of the flatboats and dragging Nephilim into the depths. The spiny back cut through the water and disappeared.
The Rephaim yelled orders. The Nephilim rowed for their lives. But it was an easy feast for the monsters of the deep. Rahab simply opened her mouth and scooped up dozens of Nephilim like so many minnows.
Leviathan came next, with the seven dragon heads snapping up Nephilim faster than they could get out of the way. Leviathan might be a newborn and smaller than its mother, but already armor covered it. It was even able to launch small pillars of fire from its nostrils. Its youth and speed made up for its size as it darted and dodged around, all of its heads coordinated in a bloodbath of feeding.
Inanna wondered where all that food went.
Some Nephilim tried to fight back But it was futile and the smart ones made for the shoreline. They hoped they might get lucky and be overlooked by their serpentine predators.
That was only the beginning. The s
orry paddlers were no match for the worst of all Elohim’s creatures. Another creature came up from the depths. Its body could not be seen, only tentacles bursting from the water and crushing demigods in its grip. Yahipan and Thamaq were in the middle of the mayhem and counted eight of these snakelike appendages grabbing hapless soldiers.
On the shoreline, Inanna’s complexion went pale. It was the one thing she had not anticipated. And it was the one thing that might completely derail her strategy.
In the water, Yahipan noticed that the tentacles were not grabbing Nephilim, they were grabbing the Rephaim generals. It was as if the creature were searching only for Rephaim. Before he could move, one of the tentacles wrapped around his body and pulled him into the air. He chopped with a battle axe. But the constriction of the tentacle made him black out. His axe splashed in the water.
Bands of Nephilim closer to the launch site tried frantically to paddle back to shore.
Numbers, thought Inanna. Chaos cannot possibly keep up with the numbers. Some will get through.
She drew a bow and some arrows and started shooting the returning Nephilim. She bellowed, “DESERTION IS TREASON. FORWARD OR DIE!!” The fleeing Nephilim stopped in confusion. They turned back around, to try their luck for the other side.
The lake became one big cauldron of churning waters, snapping multiple dragon heads, crushing tentacles and Nephilim blood and body parts. The Nephilim forces were being decimated. But some crossed over and made it to the other side.
Inanna and Utu mounted their Anzu and flew overhead to try to assess their losses and help the few who appeared to be close to landing.
This sea bitch and her brood are not going to stop me, thought Inanna. If I have to attack it myself, I will.
• • • • •
The Karabu had trained for this war all of their lives. They had built strength, developed technique, and placed their faith in Elohim. Thus, their casualties at the walls of Mount Sahand were a mere dozen after slaughtering three thousand giants at war. They moved like ghosts The giants considered them demons. They fought with an acrobatic technique the giants did not recognize. The Nephilim were occultic creatures that were hard to kill for normal humans. But the Karabu were occultic assassins trained by God’s archangels specifically to fight Nephilim. It was not an even fight.
Unfortunately, Inanna was right. The numbers favored her. Even though the Karabu were able to take down astonishing numbers of giants and scatter a goodly number of them in fear, they could not win the battle in time to stop the other six thousand Nephilim already cresting the top of the Sahand ridge The climbers prepared for their sail-chute descent into the Garden.
• • • • •
Cain had heard the cries of the wolves caught in Methuselah’s trap across the Hidden Valley. Judging by the sound of it, he reasoned that Methuselah had taken the offensive. That meant he probably had a strategy of divide and conquer, since he did not stand a chance against the pack. Cain called the others together with a whistle. He sent them out on the scent as a pack of forty. The wolves would simply hunt them down one by one. As Inanna had told him at Lake Urimiya, they could not overcome sheer numbers.
But Cain had another idea of his own. He was willing to sacrifice his entire wolf clan to achieve it.
• • • • •
Methuselah teamed up with Betenos and Uriel with Lamech. That was one command from Elohim Uriel was grateful for, since Methuselah did not like him much.
How could a man be so miserable? thought Uriel. If Methuselah continues on like this, he is going to be one crotchety old geezer when I come back to guard his grandson. I guess some people just need a little more time than others to get it right. But hundreds of years?
They bolted into the woods after the pit incident. They knew the other wolves would be there in no time at all.
They ran to their next location and waited for the wolves to follow. Their scent was an easy draw. This would be more difficult. Their pursuers would be wise to them and more cautious in their approach. On the other hand, they were sure Cain did not know they had an archangel with them. They would use that to their advantage.
• • • • •
As Cain stalked his prey, he did know that they were not alone. Only one thing could have pulled off the kind of blinding that occurred to his clan earlier in the day: they must have an angel with them. He would be ready.
The wolves tread softly through the jungle. They smelled their prey and knew they were near. Like silent ghosts, they glided through the forest, eyes ablaze like glowing coals, figures dark as the night. They came upon the four hiding in the bush, waiting for an attack. Their backs were to the wolves that had crept up behind them. Fifteen of the monsters leapt on their quarry, fangs blazing. But the quarry was not their quarry. They were rocks dressed with the clothes of the quarry. The humans had dressed themselves in leaves and hid in the trees They rained down arrows and javelins, taking out a dozen wolves in mere moments.
They swung down on vines to the ground and slashed, stabbed, and sliced their way through the wolverine forces on their way to the rock wall. The rest of the pack raced after them with snarls and howls.
Chapter 55
Yahweh Elohim and his divine council surrounding the heavenly throne were about to be blasted by the satan’s final complaint. He took a confident breath and embarked on his concluding accusation: blame shifting.
The satan said, “If I am to stomach this dodgy ad hoc definition of ‘death’ as eventual mortality, and the excessive punishment of this death and exile for the primal pair in the Garden, that is one thing. But to then shift that blame onto the rest of the human race, that is the most unfair, unjust, unwarranted, unreasonable, unjustifiable attribution of guilt anyone has ever seen in the history of the heavens and earth.”
Enoch thought the satan’s rhetoric reached its shrill climax of excess in this catalogue of allegations and complaints.
The satan continued, “What kind of a just god blames innocent people for the guilt of others? What kind of a loving god punishes the entire rest of the human race for what two moronic idiots did in the Garden?”
He stood there with dramatic pause.
There it was again, thought Enoch. The endless refrain against a ‘loving god.’ But now the satan was adding a new slogan for a bit of variety with ‘what kind of a just god’ etcetera, etcetera.
The satan concluded, “The prosecution rests its case.” He sat down by the other Watchers.
The Son of Man leaned close, giving more counsel to Enoch It amounted to revealing the mystery of good news that would be hidden for ages until the end of days. This secret held the answer to the satan’s charge.
Enoch then realized that the satan’s final trick was more than rhetoric, he was trying to force Yahweh Elohim’s hand to reveal the mystery.
So that is what this was all about, he thought. The Watchers and all their principalities and powers in the heavenly places were trying to use a legal maneuver to draw out Yahweh Elohim’s secret in order to defend himself. If this secret were unveiled, they hoped to have the means by which they could defeat the Seed of the Woman. This Accuser is cunning indeed.
Enoch stood at the bar. He knew this would require the utmost of his highest apkallu skills. How to answer the satan’s accusation without revealing the mystery of ages before its time.
He spoke with a measured tempo, “Sin came into the world through one man. Death came through sin. So death spread to all men because all sinned. Death reigns from Adam unto this very day, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, because Adam is the federal representative head of the human race. Just as all the inhabitants of the city of Erech would suffer for the illegal actions of its representative head of state,” Enoch stared accusingly at Semjaza, “or benefit from the righteousness of that federal head. So the blessings and curses of the progenitor of the human race would be attributed to those whom he represents. It is the nature of authority and re
presentation used even by those who seek to discredit it in this courtroom. If the satan does not like that, then he will have to file another injunction against all the blessings received by the human race as well. The defense rests its case.”
Enoch sat back down to await the summary judgment before the throne of the Almighty Judge of the universe.
• • • • •
The lake glistened blood red in the full moon. Inanna flew angrily over the chaos and turmoil of the mass slaughter, She had to do something. She saw Rahab come up and chomp a mouthful of soldiers. She unsheathed her sword and dove from the bird down to the beast.
She landed on the back of the huge dragon with a thud. Before Rahab knew what had happened, Inanna raised her blade high, finding her mark between a couple of scales that had been torn in the battle. She plunged it deep into soft flesh, down to the hilt.
Rahab roared and the mountainside trembled. Fire belched out of her mouth, scorching the rest of the Nephilim on the water to a charred crisp. In a few seconds, a thousand of them were flaming flesh.
Rahab dove. Inanna held on. The dragon went deep. The Watcher on her back could not be drowned so easily. Although Watchers became weakened in water, all Inanna had to do was hold onto the sword. That did not require fighting strength. She rode an unbreakable sea bronco. This was the most dangerous risk Inanna had taken in her existence as a Watcher. If she held on too long, it would not end well for her. Rahab would inevitably bury her in the depths under rock, where Inanna would be imprisoned until the judgment. She just had to wait for her opportunity to let go.
Rahab turned and swam back to the surface. She broke the water and snapped her curved back in an arching leap.
Inanna yanked the sword out. She went flying a hundred cubits, landing in the middle of her decimated, water-soaked Nephilim horde on the shore.
She rolled to her feet. All about her she saw that two thousand out of the horde had made it across the water. They were on the frontier of Eden. A mere two thousand combatants for the invasion of an impregnable fortress. Five out of six Nephilim had perished at the mercy of Rahab and her brood of Leviathan and the tentacled one. The devastation was inestimable. It could lose her the war.