Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (25 page)

Uriel’s
head had found his body. The angel had regenerated. He ran full tilt toward the line of Watchers at the edge of the Temple.

The Watchers turned
, too late.

Uriel hit Anu and Inanna
suddenly. They were at the top of the stairway. The three of them tumbled down ten stairs at a time. Uriel held onto Anu with a vise grip. Had they been human, the pressure would have broken every bone in their bodies. But they were not human.

Inanna
fell alone. She steadied herself before Uriel and Anu did. In the tumble, her gaudy horned headdress and vulture winged robe flew off her, revealing a bizarre costume of black leather straps and nothing else. When she rose with dagger firmly gripped in hand, she looked like what she was, the goddess of sex and war.

Uriel and Anu shook off their dizziness about twenty cubits below her.

The sound of a distant trumpet drew everyone’s attention to the desert horizon.

Ten or fifteen leagues out, Uriel could see the armies of the human tribes break
over the far ridge. He knew then that the archangels had accomplished their task. They had rallied the last of humanity.

Another trumpet sound drew Uriel’s smile. He
would know Gabriel’s trumpet anywhere.

Anu bellowed with a voice of thunder, “ALL GODS TO WAR!”

The gods raised their own war horns and blew.

The army encampments outside the city walls transformed into rapidly moving hive
s of armed soldiers organizing and flowing toward the attacking forces on the distant ridge.

Anu
was absorbed in his call to war. So he was not ready for Uriel’s second running leap. The righteous angel hit him square-on. They flew off the edge of the staircase and down into the crevice below, disappearing from sight.

Lugalanu saw the falling bodies. He knew he had to move fast. He yelled to Ham, already in position before Noah’s weak hanging form, “CANAANU, KILL HIM!”

Emzara withdrew her dagger
from where she concealed it in her wedding dress. Back in her bedchamber, she had decided not to take her own life in exchange for the privilege of taking Lugalanu’s instead.

She raised the blade high to plunge it into him with as much force as she could muster.

Lugalanu saw her
motion and grabbed her hand before she could deal the death blow. He jerked away the knife, hit her in the jaw, and threw her violently to the ground.

She hit her head and almost lost consciousness.

Ham saw it all. He also saw the truth of what was before him. This was what his mother had spoken of for many years. This was what he could not understand nor see in agreement with her. Yet, suddenly, it was all clear to him, as if scales had fallen from his eyes. All the riches, all the power, all the sensual delights, all of it was a big lie. In that instant, he knew the truth he had known all his life, but had suppressed; the truth that his mother had sweat blood trying to get him to see. It was the truth that Elohim himself had just confirmed with clarity: This world system was evil.

Ham
did not want it anymore.

He turned to Noah and confessed in tears as he cut him loose, “My name is Ham ben Noah. Father, forgive me.”

Neela had gone to Emzara’s rescue, laying over her as a covering, a desperate attempt to divert the blows onto herself.

Lugalanu
yanked her off of Emzara and cast her aside. She flew over the edge of the Stone Temple precipice.

Ham screamed and ran over to the ledge, “NOOOOO!”

Lugalanu raised the knife blade high over Emzara’s prone figure. She lifted her arm over her head in a hopeless attempt to shield her head.

“This is your last rejection of me, Nindannum!” he screamed, and plunged.

Midway through the stroke, a spear impaled him from behind. I In pain, he turned to see Noah holding the spear, a determined look in his eyes.

“Leave my family alone, you son of iniquity,”
growled Noah. He pulled Lugalanu around and pushed him over the ledge and out of sight. He fell right past Ham helping Neela up from her precarious hold on the edge. She had somehow grabbed the ledge in her fall.

Down in the crevice, below the churning waters, Uriel fought for control over Anu. He thanked Elohim for the fact that the Watchers were weakened by water. Uriel had his opponent up against a ledge of rock, trying to pin him. But he underestimated Anu’s strength underwater. Anu slowly regained an upper hand.

Uriel saw his moment. A large wall of rock above them
crumbled. It tumbled down toward them. Uriel released his grip, surprising Anu He kicked himself away from the wall and Anu. Anu did not have time to avoid the falling debris that cascaded down upon him. He was buried in the depths under tons of sinking landslide.

Uriel kicked to
ward the surface. Suddenly, he was lifted by a torrential upsurge. The swelling water gushed out of the crevice, launching Uriel out onto land. He rolled to his feet.

Neela and Ham released Shem and Japheth from their post. Noah embraced Emzara with the fervor of eternal devotion.

Ham pulled
the sword Rahab from beneath his cloak and handed it to Shem. Shem looked at his brother startled. Then he grinned. This was indeed a son of Noah.

They heard a whistle from below and ran to the ledge. They saw Uriel waving them down.

Ham turned to Noah and asked, “Are we to join the war, father?”

“No,” said Noah. “We obey Elohim. We must get back to the
tebah.”

“The
tebah?” queried Ham. “A box? What box?”

“
I will explain on the way,” said Noah. They all dashed off, running down the stairs inside the Stone Temple.

Inanna saw them escaping. She let out an ugly howling screech that resounded above the din and chaos. Below her, the people had scattered to the deceptive safety of their homes or places away from the temple. Up above, the gods had gone, on their way to lead their troops. Inanna jumped the distance between Eanu and the Stone Temple, fifteen cubits down. She landed on the Stone Temple terrace, her supernatural legs absorbing the impact. She ran to the edge of the terrace and jumped again, landing this time on a ledge ten cubits below.

At her feet lay the silent unmoving figure of Lugalanu with the spear
head sticking out through his belly. She reached down and held him in her arms with an uncharacteristic gentleness. He opened his eyes weakly. She grabbed the shaft of the spear and pulled it out through his body. He screamed in pain and blacked out.

Inanna bit her own arm, drawing blood. She let the blood drip out of her lesion
onto Lugalanu’s fatally wounded torso. It sizzled when it came into contact with the mortal body. The flesh began to regenerate. The blood of a god surged through him and revived his body. Inanna put her mouth to Lugalanu’s cold blue lips and blew a gush of air into his lungs.

He gasped and coughed awake. He was revived.

“Now, my little pet,” she said to him “muster a company of soldiers. We have a Chosen Seed to catch and kill.”

The armies of man broke over the ridge and lined up in formation, awaiting command. The Mesopotamian plain spread out before them. This drier region that was called the desert of Dudael. It would be the battlefield. They all knew it would shortly be drenched with flowing blood of warfare. None of them had any pretentions, with odds of ten to one glaring them in their faces.

Three generals galloped forward on their horses
, each accompanied by an archangel. Each led a battalion of about seven hundred soldiers, Tubal-cain and Raphael commanded the left flank division, Jubal and Gabriel were over the right flank division, and Methuselah and Mikael led the center division.

They met in the center to counsel. “Have you fought Nephilim?” Mikael asked Methuselah.

Methuselah raised his eyebrow. “In my day, I was quite the giant killer. Now, I think I am just an archangel’s irritant.”

Everyone knew he was talking about Uriel. They all smiled.

Mikael said, “Well, then you should do well on this day.”

“Will you lead us?” asked Tubal-cain.

“No,” said Mikael. “You will. We archangels have gods to bind.”

They could see the
armies of the gods moving into formation on the dry plains before them: Phalanxes of humans, followed by battalions of falcon-headed, hawk-headed, dog-and wolf-headed soldiers. Behind them, platoons of Nephilim finished off a demonic army of genetically mutated beasts. They were twenty thousand strong
.

Then
the three lead generals of the gods came forward from the rear. They were Enki, Ninhursag, and Enlil, mounted on special harnesses on the backs of monstrous Nephilim.

Mikael
mocked, “Three of them. Apparently, Uriel has more than made up for his sloppy guardianship of Noah. He has already bound Anu.”

“He is relentless, that Uriel,” smiled Methuselah.

“Let us pray he was successful in aiding Noah’s escape,” said Mikael with hope.

“Where are the other three gods?” wondered Raphael.

Nanna the moon god was with Inanna on her chase. None knew that Utu had fled from the city, like the coward he really was, leaving his armies without a leader. Utu had led forces with Inanna in the great Titanomachy of the past. He had also fled that battle, when he had seen their forces losing.

Noah and Emzara, Ham and Neela, Shem and Japheth, and Uriel halted their mounts on the outskirts of the city. They had commandeered some horses and slipped unmolested into the underground tunnels Emzara and Ham knew so well. They had not run into any other underground Nephilim, thank Elohim. They could see the armies facing off against each other for war on the desert of Dudael behind them.

A swirling black mass of funnel clouds churned directly overhead. It appeared that the wrath of God was truly upon them.

“I should be there leading them to battle,” said Noah.

Emzara touched him lovingly on the arm.

He concluded, “Elohim’s will be done.”

“Now
that
is finally obedient faith,” cracked Uriel.

Noah gave him a side glance, “Will you now finally leave me alone?” he retorted.

“Not on your life,” said Uriel. They shared a smile, but not for long.

“Father, to the south,” said Shem.

They all looked. An ominous dust cloud moved in their direction a few leagues behind them. Uriel’s eagle eyes could see it was a company of two hundred chimera soldiers on horseback, a dozen pazuzu flying overhead, and a handful of Nephilim rumbling in the lead.

“Assassins,” said Uriel.
He could just see the figures riding on the backs of the bull and lion aladlammu creatures. “Inanna, Nanna the moon god, and Lugalanu.”

The earth
trembled again. Lightning and thunder overhead gave a frightening emphasis to their impending doom.

“Elohim be with us,” said Noah. “We are going to need him more than ever.”

He yelled and kicked his horse into a race for the Zagros Mountains and the Hidden Valley. The others matched pace with him
.

Each side weighed its options, observing and analyzing their opponents. It would be
a full day before any assault would occur on the Dudael battlefield. The desert plain was framed in the north with the armies of man, and in the south with the armies of the gods. They stood arrayed for battle a mere thousand or so cubits distance from one another. The human tribes were on the higher ground so they bore an advantage. It was not much of an advantage, but anything would help in this hopeless cause. They did not want to lose this benefit, so they waited to draw their opponents uphill. But the gods were too smart for that. The armies of the gods were defending a city; they would not need to leave their defensive position.

A comparison of these two armed forces could not
reveal a more imbalanced opposition. The armies of man that had come together in this emergency confederation wore animal skins, some protective leather. They carried axes, maces, and spears, and a passion to worship Elohim against the gods. The cities had created professional armies whose sole purpose was to do battle. Their warriors were universally equipped with a new kind of armor to protect them in fighting. They wore copper helmets over leather caps to protect their skulls from fracture and blunt trauma. They draped leather capes over their bodies, with small bronze circlets attached to create a more impenetrable cloak. They were trained and disciplined to fight in a phalanx unit of eight men wide and six files deep, covering each other with leather shields and spears. Some units had even been trained with the newly introduced sickle swords. The humans faithful to Elohim were not only outnumbered by this standing army, they were out-armed and out-trained.

In spite
of this military advantage, the gods would not engage in pre-battle negotiations. They would not risk getting too close to an archangel who could bind them and cast them into the earth. There would be no quarter asked and no quarter given. It would be a war of ultimate annihilation, winner kill all—to the last soul.

The soldiers
did not want to fight at night, but it seemed they would be fighting in darkness anyway. The skies overhead were fast becoming blackened piles of storm clouds, shadowing the entire region.

The armies of the gods would not leave their position for an uphill climb. But the armies of man were not descending. It was a stalemate of strategies.
The archangels and Noah’s generals were in fact, deliberately delaying their engagement in order to facilitate Noah’s flight to the Hidden Valley. Finally, after a second day of stalling, they had figured that by Elohim’s grace, Noah would be close enough to his destination by now. They could wait no longer. They led their forces in a slow march downfield. They would conserve every ounce of energy they could for battle. They would not allow too far a run to tire them. The armies of the gods marched forward as well, in synchronized lock step.

When they were within a few hundred cubits
of each other, they stopped. Mikael, Gabriel, and Raphael blew their trumpets. The armies of man shouted a war cry for all they were worth.

The armies of the gods shouted back.

The archangels blew their trumpets again. Methuselah shouted “A sword for the Lord and for Noah!” The forces broke into a run toward the enemy.

But the armies of the gods did something unanticipated
. Enki, Enlil, and Ninhursag blew their trumpets and the phalanxes of human soldiers on the front lines split apart. From behind them, came droves of bird-men and dog-men soldiers. The gods sent their elite squads out against the first line of humans. It would be a slaughter, a definite demoralizing tactic that would be considered risky for enduring battles. But in this case, no one expected an enduring battle. The mutant warriors were of such caliber, they would level the first human troops quickly and maintain enough strength for the second tier fighting. Against these numbers, the faithful human forces would be pulverized.

The charging armies met
with a crash of bone and metal. Spear met mace, axe met sword, human met demigod. The gods on their Nephilim crushed their opponents with ease. The archangels plowed through their enemies like so much chaff. It would take some time, but the humans would ultimately be overwhelmed by the hybrid beast soldiers, who were created and mutated for just this purpose. They were soulless fighting machines.

Methuselah called down their second of three waves of forces. He had prayed that their previous fighting would weaken these elite chimera monsters. But it was not to be
.

A
s soon as Methuselah made his call, the gods made theirs. A company of Nephilim dressed for war ran out to battle; a hundred of them. They were fierce, diabolical, unstoppable, and they hit the newly arriving human forces like a tidal wave. But these Nephilim did not just kill their enemies; these Nephilim killed everything in their path, including their own soldiers. They went mad on the bloodlust of battle.

Suddenly, another huge quake shook the entire valley, throwing everyone to the ground
. It split the battlefield down the middle with a huge crevice. Water gushed out of it from the fountains of the deep. It sucked soldiers of both sides into the Abyss to their deaths.

T
hen, from the enemy side came the sound of long horns. As suddenly as the Nephilim had charged, they returned to their own battle lines, leaving the human armies confused. Why would they retreat in a moment of sure victory?

Methuselah stood up on the
height of ridge, trying to assess their options. Then he saw what the enemy waited for. From behind the enemy lines, a thousand men carried a very large ornamented box, one hundred cubits long and thirty cubits square, onto the field. It was made of cedar wood and covered with pitch, with large occultic spells and charms inscribed all over the sides of the box. When they set it down, water spilled out of its cracks onto the ground. It was immensely heavy. All the warriors stopped fighting, to see this monstrosity set near the battleground. Methuselah could not imagine what it might be.

But they would not find out for another half day, because the malice of the gods led them to draw out the inevitable and build a
mounting dread in their human opponents before they would unleash their next wave of terror.

Noah and his family had pushed their horses to the breaking point as they fled to the Hidden Valley. The animals were frothing from the exertion. Emzara’s horse had already died beneath her, so she rode with Noah.

An unstoppable force of evil, their hunters had stayed on their tail
. They were close enough to the family to see them approaching the opening to the Zagros Mountains.

That was when the pazuzus
finally attacked. A swarm of the hideous black flying hellions had left the chasing party and raced toward Noah’s band. They dropped out of the sky upon the fugitives in a rage, talons flashing and slashing.

Neela was
the first under attack. A pazuzu lifted her off her horse. Ham hacked off its beastly legs, and Neela dropped back onto her steed. His back swing caught another one by its wing, sending it crashing to the ground to be trampled by the horses. Ham had worked with these creatures and had a good sense of their movements and attack patterns.

Japheth did not. Three of the dog-faced
creatures attacked him together. They gouged his head and shoulders with their razor talons. Blood oozed freely from the multiple wounds.

Uriel was just ahead of
Japheth. He grabbed a bow and quiver of arrows and spun around on his horse. Riding backward, he picked off pazuzus like target practice. With his superhuman speed and preternatural aim, he rapidly downed six of the flying fiends in quick succession.

Then
he ran out of arrows.

Shem swung Rahab over his head like a twirling rope fan, slicing half a dozen pazuzus in half with ease. He was actually enjoying it.

Then, for no apparent reason, the remaining few pazuzus gave up and returned to the sky above them.

But the damage had been done. They had been dramatically slowed down. Inanna’s assassin squad was almost upon them. Noah worried what they would do about Behemoth
, who was surely blocking their path through the gorge.