Joshua Valiant (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (23 page)

The Israelites
were now on the offensive with the Rephaim. They used the trees as shields while the titans were being cramped by the trees as obstacles—just like Joshua had anticipated.

More than a few of the
immense warriors had gotten their heads knocked or tangled in low hanging branches, making them blinded easy prey for their adversaries.

This was no battlefield for giants.
Caleb could feel it. The tide had turned.

But there was one last wave he had not considered. It came in the form of Og of Bashan plowing through his own forces to find Joshua and take him out.

Og was no mere warrior. He was eleven feet tall and as experienced as the finest of warriors. He materialized through the dust of battle like a phantom wraith of doom. His black cape flowed behind him like a spirit. He wielded two mighty iron swords, one in each hand that brought death to everyone with whom they made contact.

And he was headed straight for Joshua
.

•
• • • •

On
the other side of the valley, the four embattled archangels faced certain demise. They were worn down, wounded, disoriented by the mesmerizing effect of the black magic, and they were surrounded by a raging horde of the living dead. They had killed hundreds of them, but there were hundreds more, and they had no strength left but to gasp for air. The swords had become heavy weights in their arms they could no longer wield.

Except for Mikael, whose swinging blows Uriel noticed did not seem to waver.
Uriel knew Mikael was the strongest of the four of them, but this endurance seemed more than usual. He could not spend any more energy on such distractions and focused back on raising his own heavy weight to smite the pressing hordes.

And that was when it hit Gabriel.

This confrontation with creatures very much like the Shades of Sheol, reminded him of a tactic Uriel had told them he had used so long ago when he was in Sheol with Noah and Methuselah facing the actual Shades.

Gabriel
reached into his cloak and pulled out his trumpet, put it to his lips and blew with the last breath in him.

The sound rang out and
moved like a concussive shockwave of power that flattened the entire army of undead surrounding them. They fell like dead weight under the rolling vibrations of Yahweh’s call to war.

In a moment, it was all over. Everything was still. Everything was dead once again. Truly dead.

The others looked at Gabriel.

He said
to Uriel, “Remember what you told us when you were with Noah in Sheol?”

Uriel
hit his own head like an idiot. “Of course! I cannot believe I did not think of that!”

Gabriel explained, “I figured that since our trumpets had supernatural effect on the
real Shades of Sheol, it might have a similar effect on these occultic imitations of Shades.”

“More than that,” said Mikael. “
This was dark earth magic of the underworld. Ashtart must have been developing it for generations. But the sound of Yahweh’s call to war broke the spell.”

Then Uriel broke in, “Mikael, can I see your sword?”

Mikael handed it to Uriel.

It felt
very light in his grip.

Uriel said, “I thought something was strange when I saw you fighting
with this. I knew you were strong, but this feels lighter than our swords. And a stronger metal.”

Mikael apologized,
“In all our busyness, I had forgotten to mention it to you. It is a new metal called ‘steel.’ An alloy of iron and carbon. Lighter and stronger than iron. It has yet to be revealed to humans.”

Uriel complained, “It must be great to be the firstborn. You inherit all the best stuff. I get the leftovers and hand me downs.”

“Uriel,” scolded Gabriel, “be thankful for what we have. Yahweh owes us nothing.”

“
I know, I know.”

Mikael said, “We have
no time to waste. Uriel, can you track down Molech? We need to stop him from getting any intelligence to Ba’al. Gabriel and Raphael can help me hunt Ashtart.”

Uriel groaned and held his throbbing wound.

Gabriel threw out, “That is unless Molech is just too much for you. We would totally understand if you were just too weak to handle that scourge by yourself.”

He was at it again. Their perennial competition of egos.

Uriel stretched through his pain and said, “No, no. That is all right. You three need all the help you can get for your
single
fugitive. I will take Molech
all alone, by myself
.”

Raphael and Mikael smiled.

But Gabriel would not be outdone. “Well, you can take Ashtart instead, if you would prefer.”

The
y all knew full well that it would take them all to subdue the fearsome goddess of war, who was second only to Ba’al in power and chaos.

But Uriel was second to
none when it came to wit. He concluded their banter with a wink, “I will tell you what, I will catch back up with you three to help even the odds. Yahweh knows, you need it.”

“Okay, you two,” said Mikael, “kiss and make up.
We have gods to bind.”

Uriel said, “
I do need everyone’s help for one last thing before we embark on our hunting trip.”

•
• • • •

Joshua faced off with Og. Caleb joined him. He was not going to let his general face this demonic titan alone.

But the Rapha they recently dispatched was a juvenile compared to King Og of Bashan.

He towered over them at twice their size. His six-fingered hands held his iron blades with
an iron grip. And his armor was something Joshua and Caleb had never seen before. It seemed like something forged in the heavenly height of the pantheon of gods. That is because it
was
forged in the heavenly height of the pantheon of gods, Mount Hermon. And this was also why Caleb’s archangelic whip sword could not penetrate it. He cracked it at Og and it bounced off with sparks.

Og swung at Caleb, who dodged and danced like a gust of wind.

Karabu
, thought Og. He had seen this kind of fighting before. And he had learned how to counter it.

Og immediately increased his focus on Caleb, who
barely kept ahead of his attacks.

Caleb’s sword sliced through the air in a wide arc. Og jammed his iron sword into its path and managed to get it wrapped
by Caleb’s blade.

His strength far outweighed Caleb’s. He yanked and the sword
ripped out of Caleb’s grasp and flew into the air thirty feet away.

Caleb was weaponless.

He dove out of the way and picked up a round shield from a dead soldier to protect himself from Og’s slashing.

That was when the sound of Gabriel’s trumpet penetrated the forest and vale from the other side of the city. When they heard it, the Israelites
gained new strength and the upper hand in battle. It was as if they heard their own victory call and became empowered to finalize their triumph.

T
he warriors of Bashan became frightened and began to withdraw.

The
Israelites chased them back to the city of Edrei. In the lead was the ever-determined brother of the mighty Caleb, Othniel.

But Og continued to fight with Joshua and Caleb.

Joshua’s training kicked in and he attacked with every ounce of force left in him.

Og
was driven back as he blocked Joshua’s slashes, thrusts, and hacks.

And because
he had focused on defending against Joshua, he had lost track of Caleb.

So by the time he countered and began to push Joshua back, he did not
know that Caleb was behind him—in a tree.

And when Joshua backed Og against that tree, Caleb jumped.

He landed on Og’s back and grabbed his collar with all his might.

Og immediately layered both of his swords
across his back and across Caleb’s back, and sliced them through Caleb’s body.

But
Og did not know that Caleb had shouldered his newly acquired shield against his back like a turtle shell.

The iron blades dug
through the shield, but they did not reach Caleb’s flesh.

And Caleb was not without a weapon after all.

He had pulled a dirk from his belt and jammed it in the base of Og’s skull underneath his headdress.

Og screamed and backed up against the tree, crushing Caleb, who fell to the ground unconscious.

Og tried to reach for the blade, but his arm and armor were too bulky to reach the small thorn penetrating into his brain.

And that
meant he was entirely open for Joshua to thrust through the joints of his special hardened armor to penetrate his giant heart.

Unfortunately, the blade stuck in the armor and Joshua pulled away without
his weapon, its handle sticking out of Og’s sternum.

Og was going to die. But he was not dead yet.

He had dropped his swords, and had fallen to his knees. The brain wound from Caleb paralyzed his left arm.

With his life bleeding out of him, he found one last gush of strength to grab
the stunned Joshua with his good hand. His huge six-fingers held Joshua in the air, crushing his windpipe, choking Joshua’s life out of him.

Og
crowed, “I have you at last, you Yahwist fanatic. And I will take you with me to Sheol.”

But before Og could make good his promise, he felt the sensation of cold metal wrap around his neck like a rope.

And his eyes saw the world tumble around him as his head fell to the ground, severed from his neck by the blade of Rahab in Caleb’s newly conscious hands.

Caleb said,
“No, you will not, you son of Belial,” and spit on Og’s head, which was still looking up at Caleb moments before it slipped into oblivion.

He went to help Joshua, who was massaging his wounded windpipe. He could barely speak.

He did not have to. They looked at each other. Grabbed wrists. They were comrades in war. Brothers in the Lord.

“
You really owe me that land of Abraham now,” said Caleb.

Joshua croaked out, “What do
I
get for saving
you
?”

Caleb thought for a moment and said, “
I will not tell Moses you took too big a risk.”

Joshua shook his head and said, “
Let us finish off this city. Find me the spy Salmon.”

When Joshua and Caleb arrived in the city, their army greeted them. But no one else was in sight. It was a ghost town.

Othniel
announced, “My lord, when we broke through the gate, there was no one here. They have all vanished.”

Salmon had been brought with them.
“They are underground,” he said. “In their city beneath the city.”

Joshua
said to Salmon, “Where are the passageways you discovered, so we can smoke these badgers out.”

•
• • • •

But Joshua would not have to
pursue the underground fugitives, because at that moment on the backside of the plateau, a hundred feet in the air, Uriel was in the cave opening he had discovered on his reconnaissance trip. It was the one with the magnificent hornet’s nest filling the tunnel.

Uriel took out his two swords and ran through the gauntlet hive like a miniature
tornado, cutting up the hornet’s nest all the way to the opening of the cave.

The hornets were driven mad with rage at the attack. They began to
pour out of their nest like a billowing storm cloud.

But Uriel reache
d the opening and dove out, landing fifteen feet below with a thud on a rocky ledge.

Simultaneously above him, Mikael, Gabriel, and Raphael used all their strength to dislodge a boulder at the entrance and cause a cave in that sealed the entrance and trapped the angry hornets inside.

That is,
blocked
the angry hornets from going that direction, which forced them to go in the other direction, straight into the catacombs beneath the city where the populace had hidden out with the surviving soldiers.

•
• • • •

Up above
, the city was already in flames and black smoke billowed into the sky. Salmon had led Joshua to one of the passageways that he had found on his spy mission.

But before they could enter
it, Joshua and his forces suddenly saw soldiers and citizens screaming and running for their lives from secret openings in the city. Many of them were swatting at hornets still following them, and others were dropping dead from the stings that covered their bodies.

But the hornets were repelled from Joshua’s men by the smoke of the fires
around them.