Joshua Valiant (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (22 page)

The archangels started slicing throu
gh the waves of wickedness that stormed toward them.

It was easy. I
t was not even a fight. It was an annoyance.

No, it was a
ploy.

The attacking
minions were intended by Ashtart and Molech to delay the angels so they could make good their escape.

The angels had their han
ds and swords filled with their attackers, but they saw the gods depart through a tunnel.

Mikael yelled, “
They are getting away!”

The supernatural team increased their speed and finished making minced meat of their enemies.

Uriel remarked, “You know, I think we might be competition for the Destroyer.” The Destroyer was the Angel of Death who was used by Yahweh to wipe out whole populations of evil.

“Not the time
for levity!” yelped Gabriel.

Mikael said, “Gabriel and Uriel, take the tunnels. Raphael follow me to the surface!”

When Mikael and Raphael broke the surface and exited the megalith entrance, they saw Ashtart and Molech standing at a distance. They had escape tunnels to the surface.

Uriel and Gabriel exited the tunnel to join their comrades.

They froze with trepidation.

Ashtart and Molech were walking
backwards, spraying the blood from the goatskins all around them like a farmer watering his crops.

But these were not crops.

Mikael looked at his feet. They were in a cemetery.

And suddenly the
ground that the gods had watered with their alchemical blood began to erupt.

The angels watched in wonder as
deceased and buried bodies came alive and broke their way out of their graves.

The distance between the angels and the gods was blocked by an increasing number of these rising corpses, these living dead.

They were all in various states of decay, due to the amount of time they had been dead and buried. Some were whole persons with rotting flesh and glazed eyeballs, others were nearly all skeleton, but all of them were now facing the angels and were ravenous for human or angel flesh.

They attacked.

Uriel and Raphael were the closest. They sliced off arms and legs, but the creatures kept coming at them, chomping their jaws.

And they were inhumanly strong.

This would not be easy.

Uriel screamed out, “
They are like Shades of Sheol!”

Gabriel
decapitated a few, which seemed to stop them.

“
Then cut off their heads like Shades!”

Uriel followed suit and the two of them backed up to join the others. They broke into a fighting form
and defended themselves against the growing circle of freakish miscreants.

Mik
ael could see that Ashtart and Molech were now running through the graveyard, finishing up their deadly seeding.

There
were now hundreds of them, animated corpses that could not die because they were already dead, with chomping jaws of death. And all of them surrounding the angels for a breakfast meal.

•
• • • •

The trees had worked as a strategy for Joshua. The battle had been forced into the woods. The Rephaim advantage was
overturned as Joshua had planned because their tall height had necessitated bending down to avoid the branches. The giants could not maneuver easily and the odds were balanced.

But Joshua had not anticipated the technology of the Bashan army.
Their weaponry was superior to Israel’s. Whereas the Israelites had the long rectangle shaped shields of Egypt, these soldiers had smaller round shields influenced by the Sea Peoples who had been recently infiltrating the coastland. The round shield was more versatile and conducive to swordplay.

And the swords were different as well. Whereas the Israelites carried the bronze curved sickle swords, mo
st common in the Near East, their enemies carried stronger heavier swords made of a more durable metal. Joshua had heard of the advances of this new metal called “iron,” and had seen its advantage in strength and durability when he had spied out Canaan a generation earlier. But he had yet to see its effectiveness on the field of battle with many troops.

Unfortunately, iron was very effective
against his bronze. And in the hands of a giant, it would shatter Israelite weapons.

Joshua’s
army was wavering.

•
• • • •

The swords of the four angels were spinning like
fans, cutting off heads left and right.

They had to push forward to
avoid creating a pile that would block them in.

But these living dead were not easy to kill. They were
supernaturally strong and relentless.

The angels were getting tired.

Uriel was drenched with sweat. His arms were getting heavy. These things just kept coming.

And angels were flesh, so even though they could not die, they
could suffer wounds and bites. And they were being scratched in too many close calls.

Uriel
realized that should they be overcome, their bodies could be eaten and they would be forever imprisoned in the bellies of the undead—alive, but chewed up. He grimaced. They would fail their mission. They would fail their god.

This was not looking good.

He saw the gods in the distance split up. Ashtart went north, and Molech went south.

But right now, none of the angels could consider making chase. They had to keep from
becoming a meal for these living dead.

Uriel shouted, “I need a moment
to rest!”

The other three circled around to protect their comrade.
They would surely chide Uriel if they survived, but they would give their lives for one another without a complaint or qualification in such dire moments.

But they also knew their little brother had a secret weapon, and he just needed enough preparation for a burst of energy to pull it off.

Uriel caught his breath and yelled, “Okay, brothers, get ready to be outdone again!”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. But then he smiled through gritted tee
th as he took down another few living dead. As much as he teased him, he loved Uriel and respected him greatly.

But he could
not pass up the opportunity. “I hope you are keeping count, featherhead!”

Uriel screamed, “CLEAR!”

The angels pushed outward and made an opening for Uriel to push through the masses.

He took his swords and held them out like a horizontal windmill blade. He then spun in a circle like a
one-man cyclone. The blades created a moving fan that cut through zombie bodies and heads by the dozens.

But there were so many of them.

He created a kind of pathway for the angels to advance and find a moment of rest.

But Uriel could
not go on forever.

When he stopped, the area around them was cleared. But he fell to the ground dizzy. He had spun the longest he had ever done with this signature move, but it had taken its toll. Even angels can become disoriented when pushed to the limit.

And so he did not see the two zombies that had evaded the death spin.

They jumped for him.

Gabriel and Mikael had seen it coming. They threw their swords.

One
blade cut off the head of one zombie. But the second one merely lodged in the other’s chest cavity.

That was not enough to stop the monster.

The thing caught Uriel from behind and took a big bite off his back muscle. Uriel screamed in pain, and swung around blindly, cutting the thing’s head off. But he had been wounded, and even though angels healed quickly, this would not be a speedy recovery because of its occultic properties.

They were all cut and bruised and wounded from their encounters, and now that they had a moment to rest, they realized that they too were
impaired by the demonic magic of their cuts and gashes. Had they been humans, the wounds would have turned them into the walking dead as well. But angelic flesh was heavenly. They could be damaged by death magic, but could not be transformed by it.

But they
could
be eaten. And that would split them in a thousand different pieces sitting imprisoned in a thousand different bellies. That fate was unthinkable to them.

W
hen they looked up, they discovered that they were already surrounded anew by a circle of hundreds more ravenous undead pressing in.

They would not have the strength to finish this fight.

• • • • •

Down in the heat of the battle, Othniel had noticed that these Rephaim were not the same as the giants they killed at Jahaz. They were in every way superior. They were bigger, stronger, more skilled at warfare, and organized.
The Israelite forces were weakening. They just didn’t have the vitality without their general in their midst leading them on. Othniel thought they needed a surge of new strength. They needed the faith and presence of Joshua and Caleb.

Fortunately, Joshua was thinking the same thing as Othniel, because he almost fell out of the tree in his hurried rush from his perch down to his horse.

When he landed, Caleb just looked at him and said, “
It is about time, general.”

Joshua barked, “To the battle!” and they were off.

When Othniel saw them arrive at the fray, they were at full strength and pumped up with energy.

Othniel
knew that the soldiers would find inner renewal from seeing their general by their side slaying giants.

And he was right.

These titans were fierce and brutal. But they bled and they died like any other living creature.

Joshua and Caleb
jumped from their steeds. They were more versatile in their movements without them.

Caleb unfurled his whip sword Rahab and faced six men surrounding him immediately. He twirled the blade around his head and cut them down as fast as Uriel with his windmill move. But this was not surprising considering Caleb was trained in the same Karabu technique as the archangel.

Joshua pummeled several opponents with sheer force. He was fresher to the fight and he used that to his advantage.

But then he faced his first giant, a ten foot tall blue grey Rephaim staring him down with venom in his veins and hatred in his eyes. The Rephaim roared and Joshua could see his double rows of teeth.

The gargantuan had a double-headed battle-axe. The common axe head of many Israelites was the duck-billed socket axe. A fine instrument for piercing armor and bones. But this thing was the size of a round battle shield with opposing curved semi-circular blades that cut completely through the small trees behind Joshua as he dodged the swings.

SWOOSH! CRUNCH! SWOOSH! CRUNCH!

The Rephaim kept coming, kept swinging. He was relentless. Joshua had to back up until he slammed into Caleb. Both of them turned to face the Rephaim.

The monster swung down and the axe buried in the earth
with an explosion of dirt.

Joshua had just that second to spin around and come down on the giant’s left wrist with the full force of his
sword blade. He cut clean through the giant’s flesh and bone. The Rephaim howled with anger and pulled back, its severed six-fingered hand lying on the ground. Blood was pumping from his mangled stump.

But it seemed not to slow down. It only got angrier.

It now came swinging the battle-axe with its right hand. It seemed to be as agile with one hand as with two.

Caleb pushed Joshua back out of the way and took the titan’s attention. Caleb was eighty years old, but he was as strong and vigorous as a forty year old.

And he was Karabu.

He m
oved with the fluidity of a river and the grace of a butterfly as he wove a dance around the frustrated swinging of the giant.

The giant’s anger made him sloppy and Caleb swirled his flexible blade behind him until he could find an opportunity to wrap it around the giant’s good arm and yank it back, slicing the arm from the body. It fell
to the ground like a log and the giant screamed again.

Joshua finished off the limbless monster by throwing his blade up and through his throat. It choked, gurgled and fell to the ground with a crash.

Joshua retrieved his sword.

He
did not see the warrior behind him, about to pierce him through with spear.

And
Joshua also did not see the flying whirl of Rahab from six feet away snap off his attacker’s head with ease. The body fell to the ground on top of the dead Rephaim.

At that moment, Joshua and Caleb
understood fully that the general’s joining in battle had rallied his men with supernatural inspiration. Joshua was a powerful symbolic figure to them. His valiant presence gave them the faith they lacked.