by Brian Godawa
Still, she had two thousand warriors with her. They were on the shores of the entrance to the Garden that hid the Tree of Life deep in its midst. Thanks to the Cursed One, she knew exactly where that tree was.
She looked for her Rephaim generals but could not find them. They had all been lost to the denizens of the deep.
An earthquake rocked the land. It was deep, the precursor of something much bigger.
“Now what?” Inanna complained. She looked onto the horizon of her destination. Black smoke billowing out of the mountaintops of not only Mount Sahand, but the more distant northern Mount Savalan. The earth rumbled again. She realized she did not have much time.
She signaled for her Anzu bird, and called out to Utu, flying above them at a safe height.
“SOUND THE CRY OF WAR!” she bellowed.
Utu put the trumpet to his lips and blew with all his might. The war cry of Inanna echoed throughout the land.
Her Nephilim gathered their arms and dashed toward the heart of Eden.
Inanna mounted her thunderbird. She glanced out at the Lake. Rahab glided on the surface, its eyes watching her. It would not forget this day, nor the Watcher who dared strike out at the sea dragon of the Abyss.
• • • • •
At the top of the Mount Sahand ridge, six thousand Nephilim prepared their sail-chutes. They waited for the call of war. When it came, they jumped off the cliff edge by the dozens. They opened up their sails to float down into the Garden. Handfuls of them failed and Nephilim plummeted to their deaths a thousand feet below. But the most of them worked. The Nephilim drifted from the heavens into the pristine paradise.
Right into the flaming whirling swords of the Cherubim.
• • • • •
The humans and Uriel ran through the foliage, the pack of canines on their heels. Suddenly, ahead of them, they saw the other half of the wolves blocking their path by the brook. They were being hemmed in. They took a hard right.
Within moments they were up against a rock wall, the end of the valley. Hundreds of feet of mountain rock rose above them, at their backs. Ninety ravenous wolves surrounding their front. They had nowhere to go.
They faced the valley again and saw ninety pair of glowing orbs slouching closer toward them. They backed up against the rock. A rocky overhang with vines dangling down loomed over their heads. There was no way they could climb.
Instead, they pulled on the vines.
The vines were attached to wedges that held back a huge pile of boulders ready to fall. Those huge boulders came down upon the wolves in an avalanche of stone.
The humans had not been backed in. They had led the wolves to this prepared trap. They were protected by the large overhang as a hundred tons of rock rolled down on the heads of the wolves, killing a dozen and wounding a dozen others.
When the dust settled, Methuselah and his team leapt forward with weapons alive. Javelins, arrows, angelic sword and slashing Rahab.
The wolves focused all their forces on the angel.
As he fought, Methuselah wondered, Why Uriel? He could not die. Is not Lamech their prize?
They rushed the angel in a wave of claw and tooth. Uriel’s sword slashed and cut through fur and muscle alike. He was a powerhouse, but the wolves were legion. Seventy of them piled onto Uriel and overwhelmed him with their weight. They growled and bit.
He was overcome. He might be an angel, but these large werewolves were no human warriors either. They were hounds of hell.
Lamech snapped Rahab and cut off heads and legs. The wolves could not get near to him. His flexible sword swung like a wild whip. They did not really menace Lamech. They stayed on Uriel.
Methuselah yelled a mighty war cry. He single-handedly threw a dozen wolves off of Uriel’s prone figure. Betenos picked off others of the enemy one by one from a position on a ledge.
The way of the Karabu awoke in Methuselah, and he began to move like a river of doom, dodging and dancing fighting that balanced the equation.
Uriel finally got to his feet, and began again to cut down wolves like a machine. He and Methuselah were a two-man killing force. They took out fifty of the monsters in a bloody wave of fur, javelin, and blade.
While everyone focused on the angel, Lamech fought wide open. Cain jumped him from behind.
The Cursed One had stealthily moved toward his only interest: Lamech. His pack had cut off the guardian angel from the guarded, as he had planned.
Cain leapt. He took Lamech to the ground. Rahab flew out of Lamech’s grip. Cain’s preternatural strength overcame him. Lamech blacked out.
Cain glanced up, to check the progress of the fighting. He saw Betenos turn. Their eyes met, and he grinned. She let loose a superhuman volley of three arrows. They seemed to simultaneously hit Cain before he could move. They buried themselves deep into his heart. She would kill anyone or anything that tried to take her beloved.
But Cain was not alive to kill.
He was undead, and the arrows had no effect on him. He snapped them off, picked up Lamech and dissolved into the forest.
Betenos bounded after Cain. But she was suddenly knocked off her feet. She fell to the ground in a tumble with the black she-wolf.
They rolled to a stop with the she-wolf on top of Betenos, burning rage in her eyes. She bared her fangs. She was about to rip out Betenos’ throat, when her own throat was cut by a javelin thrown by Methuselah. It missed the jugular, tearing some of beast’s flesh as it passed by it. The she-wolf yelped and bounded off into the darkness after Cain.
Methuselah’s aim had missed because his muscles were fatigued. They had just killed an overwhelming number of foes. He and Uriel stood thigh high in the bodies and blood of their enemies. Methuselah collapsed. Uriel suffered a multitude of bite and claw wounds.
Uriel lay down on the ground, looking up at the moon. He called out for Lamech, but heard no response. He called again. “Lamech, are you all right?”
Uriel and Methuselah sat up, concerned. They saw Betenos running into the forest. They instantly knew what had happened.
There was no time to tend their wounds. They leapt to their feet and ran after her.
Chapter 56
The throne room was silent. Yahweh Elohim conferred with his heavenly host. The satan, Semjaza, and the rest of the Watchers stood to their side. Enoch and the archangels, minus Uriel, stood to the other side before the throne of the Almighty.
The Ancient of Days took his seat. His throne blazed with fiery flames, the Cherubim wheels burned fire. A stream of fire came out from before him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment and the books were opened.
The temple filled with smoke and the Seraphim proclaimed again the trisagion in their voice that sounded as many waters, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Elohim Almighty. Who was and is and is to come.”
Yahweh Elohim spoke and the foundations of the thresholds shook at his voice. “Accuser, you have presented your case before the court this day and I have allowed it in accord with justice. I have appointed my chosen prophet Enoch to speak on my behalf. And now, I have appointed the Son of Man to pronounce my summary judgment on this case.”
The Son of Man came down from the right hand of Yahweh Elohim. He spoke with the soul of a man and with the heart of God.
“The satan has entered this heavenly courtroom in an attempt to place God in the dock. But God is not in the dock, the satan is. He has listed five complaints and made a multitude of legal and moral accusations against Yahweh Elohim, including: partiality, bias, prejudice, jealousy, selfishness, imperialism, sexism, tyranny, speciesism, misogyny, monomania, and lying. He has sought to impugn the sovereignty of Yahweh Elohim. If the suzerain as foundation of the entire covenant is unjust, then the covenant is without authority over humankind and is therefore null and void. On this the satan stands firm. In fact, on this, we all stand firm. That is to say, without Yahweh Elohim, none of us can stand on anything at all. All of the Accuser’s indictments
, every single one of them, from tyranny to imperialism to cruelty assume a moral universe with moral absolutes established by a moral lawgiver, Yahweh Elohim.
“Without Yahweh Elohim, all claims to evil, all the satan’s moral indignation and outrage, all his ethical pronouncements are mere subjective sentiment without any legal weight or value whatsoever. If Yahweh Elohim is not the origin of morality, there can be no moral condemnation of anything, only personal preferences. One man’s genocide is another man’s ethnic cleansing. All is permitted, nothing is forbidden. This Accuser is, in fact, assuming Yahweh’s moral character as he is condemning it. But if all was permitted, then the satan would have no basis for his lawsuit.
“Secondly, every appeal to evidence and reason the satan has made presupposes a uniformity of nature upheld by the sovereign right hand of Yahweh Elohim. Without this sovereign control, how would the satan know that morality or nature should or will be consistent? How would he know if contradictions are not in fact legitimate truth in a distant corner of the heavens and earth where he has never been? What is the basis for law in a lawless universe? The only way he can in fact appeal to rationality is to assume a rational universe upheld by a rational Yahweh Elohim. Otherwise everything we say is mere subjective arbitrary chance and all our belief in reason is a delusionary habit.
“The satan does not like the way his Creator acts in this world, but he must assume his Creator’s sovereign control in every appeal to evidence, reason, and morality that he makes, even when he attacks Yahweh himself for being inconsistent. It is like a little child sitting on its father’s lap in order to slap him. Once again, the satan must assume Yawheh’s sovereignty even as he is denying it, because without this assumption his ‘rational’ thoughts are mere illusion. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom.
“Yahweh Elohim is the only valid foundation that provides the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of a rational and moral universe that all of us inescapably presuppose in everything we think, say and do. By coming to this trial and making his complaints, the satan is affirming that Yahweh Elohim is the standard of justice and truth, a standard the satan does not like, but which is nevertheless unassailable. This lawsuit is self-contradictory, frivolous, and without foundation and is summarily dismissed.”
The Seraphim pronounced, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Elohim. The whole earth is full of his glory.” The ten million holy ones lit up with praise and honor to the Judge of all the universe.
The Son of Man leaned over and whispered into the satan’s ear, “You just wasted your best military leaders in a frivolous lawsuit, when they could have been in Eden winning your war. Your plans are going up in smoke.”
Semjaza heard it, too. Both of their faces went flush with shock. They had sought to distract Elohim’s forces with a heavenly lawsuit, but in fact, the lawsuit had kept their best warriors, the Watchers, from leading their forces to victory. It was now too late to turn the tide.
Court was adjourned. The strategy had backfired.
• • • • •
Mount Sahand and Mount Savalan rumbled with a mighty fury of black smoke and gases over the Garden. A cloud of ash filled the night sky, darkening the moon and stars. It was if the very earth was reacting against the Nephilim forces invading the sacred Garden. Two thousand warriors streamed in from the shores of Lake Urimiya and another several thousand sail-chuted down from the heights of the Sahand ridge.
The Garden had been breached.
The forces of evil were closing in.
But the armies of God had not been sleeping. The Cherubim had seen what was coming. They had gathered their forces en masse to meet this two-pronged assault.
The Cherubim of the Garden were several hundred strong and they fought with the technique they taught to the Karabu. They were frightening guardians of the holy. Sphinx-like with bodies of lions, human heads and eagle’s wings, they stood upright in battle. Their hair was indestructible and was used to bind fallen angels. Each Cherub was accompanied by a “Flame of the whirling sword.” The Flame was terrifying, for it was a divine being of the heavenly host that accompanied the Cherubim and wielded a weapon of flashing lightning. The combination was like a sentinel with a personal sentinel.
The Cherubim set a semi-circular battle formation to meet the two forces attacking from the west and the south. Not far behind the heavenly ranks was the target they protected: the Tree of Life. Not far before them surged the demonic horde of warring giants.
The sound of the clashing forces rent heaven and earth as the Nephilim met their adversaries with weapons forged in the occultic furnaces of the Watchers.
Above the battle, the volcanoes exploded with a mighty force. The reverberations leveled the battlefield. For one moment, all fighting stopped. Everyone looked up at the mountain summits. The peaks blew sky-high, bursting forth with rivers of flowing magma. They were not single peaks with portals to Sheol. The entire group of mountain ranges were a series of peaks that were now releasing that same magma, threatening to envelop the entire Garden in a wave of red hot molten lava.
Huge boulders of burning rock from the explosion rained down on both Nephilim and Cherubim. The forces continued fighting. Flashes of lightning from the Flames met with the demonic swords, maces, battle axes, and javelins of the Nephilim. Heavenly chimera faced off with hellish hybrid as heaven and earth came crashing down around them.
Inanna cursed. Elohim was making the earth vomit slag in order to bury the Garden under molten debris and destroy the Tree of Life. That juvenile deity decided that if he could not have his Tree and Garden to himself, then no one could and he would destroy it all and go home.
The Watchers knew the war was already over. They did not stick around to be part of the casualties. Inanna, Utu, and Enki abandoned their command and flew their Anzu birds into the West, back to Mount Hermon.
• • • • •
Methuselah, Uriel, and Betenos heard another great sound of thunder from the north. The earth trembled. They turned and saw the moon and stars darkened. The sky rolled up like a scroll. They knew their heavens and earth would never be the same. But they had a son, a husband, a ward to save.
By the time they arrived at the village, Cain already had Lamech bound and lying on the stone altar next to a blazing fire.
This was all too familiar to Methuselah. He remembered Lilith and her demons, who almost sacrificed Edna in just this way. It was the way of the gods, blood sacrifice. But in this case, the god who would be drinking the blood was Cain and the victim would be Methuselah’s son, the bloodline of the Chosen seed of the Woman.
Cain’s raven she-wolf, the transmuted Awan, stood watch for him with bared teeth and snarling growl. Cain’s advantage was also his disadvantage. He held the future of Elohim’s chosen Seed at fangpoint. In one bite, he could achieve the revenge he had spent his whole life seeking. On the other hand, as soon as he did, he would be vanquished by these putrid sacks of flesh and their heavenly toilet slave. Cain would end up in Sheol and who would be the winner? The problem was that Cain did not want to die. He wanted to live forever, even if just to spite his Creator, the one who cursed him.
He grasped the sacrificial dagger tightly, holding it against Lamech’s neck. The edge drew a bead of blood. It excited his bloodlust. It became difficult to think straight.
Methuselah, Uriel, and Betenos stepped closer. Lamech’s bonds were tied tight. He could not fight back.
“I know what you want, Cain,” said Methuselah. “I have felt the pangs of revenge. But you cannot win.”
“The Titanomachy has failed,” said Cain. He looked at the heavens, darkened by volcanic ash. He could feel the failure in his restless soul.
Uriel spoke up, “The war on Eden was never your concern.”
“No,” said Cain. “It was only a helpful diversion. With all of Elohim’s heavenly host tied up in court, and all his martial forces defending the Garden, I knew his depleted resources would increase my
chances to strike down his Chosen Seed. And here we are.”
He smirked. “Though I did not realize he would care so little as to send an incompetent guardian angel, an old man, and a woman to protect him.”
Uriel laughed. “Do you really think Elohim has not foreseen that this would happen? That he does not plan ahead? That he does not ordain the future? Go ahead and kill Lamech. It will not stop the bloodline of the Chosen Seed.”
Cain was taken aback with surprise.
Lamech and everyone else also looked at Uriel with surprise. What in the world was he talking about?
Uriel continued, “Lamech’s seed is already in Betenos. What do you think they were doing in the valley before you caught them? Twiddling sticks?”
Betenos and Lamech looked embarrassed. Betenos backed up a step a little behind Uriel, touching her belly softly.
Cain tried to process what he had heard. Did he have the wrong hostage? Was it a bluff?
“I do not believe you,” said Cain. “I think you are lying to cover for your failure to protect the Seed.”
“On the contrary, protecting the Seed is exactly what I have been doing,” said Uriel. “By stalling you. Not with a sword, but with words.”
Cain’s mind raced, trying to figure out what game Uriel was playing.
Uriel was not playing a game. He pointed behind Cain.
A cloud of ash cleared away to show the morning sun cresting the mountain range of the Hidden Valley.
Cain’s eyes went wide. The sun’s rays burst through the village and spilled over Cain. He screamed in pain and dropped the knife he held to Lamech’s throat.
The she-wolf started whimpering at the sight. Cain’s entire skin bubbled and smoked. He was burning alive from within.
The light rays were like a flaming blanket on his body, penetrating his very core. He gave a last guttural scream that filled the entire valley like the sound of Behemoth.