Descent of The Watchers

by D S S Atkinson

her own crew’s manic calls. “Stay together!” She screamed as loud as her lungs would allow. With her words she felt a juddering impact from behind. Behemoth ploughed through the small group knocking Heylel across Hermon’s surface. Out of desperation Samyaza charged after the nephilim leader bringing her stillot tip first down into the throbbing muscle upon the giant’s back.

  He jumped, turning, and struck her with a savage swing knocking Samyaza from her feet. In the moment a mass of nephilim bounded upon Heylel’s shaken body. Samyaza collapsed between the ark and Amazarak’s broken ophanim. Behemoth turned his gaze upon her. “Master!” He bellowed, slobbering from his slack jaw.

  “Commander!” She heard one of her crew cry out yet could barely focus. The enormous nephilim lurched at her grasping her throat in his enormous fists. She strained, tensing her neck for the monster lifted her from the ground, its ghastly face scrunching with the force it put into its hold. Feeling her conscience flee the commander looked up, noticing an array of potent lights fill the sky above Hermon. Behemoth’s black spheres moved from her to look up at the distraction, the lights above reflected off of his pitch black eyes. They swirled in confusion at the sight.

  “Look... above...” Samyaza wheezed her words, feeling the giant’s grip slacken from around her throat. There was no reply. Sliding between Behemoth’s fists Samyaza fell to her knees. An endless crowd of naked huddling oddities stood staring upwards, watching with a dumbfounded confusion as the lights grew brighter and the sound of numerous roaring infernos blasted through Hermon’s chilly air.

  Behemoth stepped back from Samyaza, mesmerised, he turned to face the fleet of ophanim which set down upon the mountain. The giant roared out breaking the nephilim crowd’s trance, they burst to life, screeching and hollering, beginning towards the enormous crafts with a feral commotion. Upon her knees the commander felt too weak to react, even as the lumbering nephilim began to storm past her, charging towards their leader’s fixation.

  All at once the ophanims’ seals burst open and from within a stream of bronze suited entities poured out onto the grounds below. “Come together! To me, my kin!” Samyaza recognised the authoritative voice of Michael bellow through her headset. “Spray the surroundings with fuel! Stay within, malakhim. Let them burn to death or die at our stillots.”

  “Michael!” Her scream caught the attention of Behemoth. He abruptly turned his head to look at her before striking her across her visor. She moaned in subdued agony collapsing. On the ground Samyaza watched the high-malakhim form his crew into ranks and at once the gangly deformed giants collided with a wall of blazing stillots and towering bronze bodies.

  The standing ophanim sprayed blazing fuel from enormous limbs consecrating the ground all about the craft. The fluctuation of heat was enough to force Samyaza to crawl for cover. Behemoth and all those stampeding nephilim recoiled at the inferno which swept across Hermon, the ground became drenched in streaks of blazing fuel separating the throng which now pulsed awkwardly in between enveloping flames.

   

  17.

  Michael braced himself for the onslaught of demonic giants marauding his way. What in the name of creation are these abominations? “Hold amongst the ophanim! Pilots, prepare your vessels’ limbs, when they are close enough, pull them apart!” The blustering heat waves whipping across Hermon from the streaks of fuel did not faze the high-malakhim, he had known far worse conditions upon his home world, but these nephilim, such beasts he had not seen.

  Their monstrous deformed bodies and bulging black eyes multiplied tremendously with each passing moment. Michael breathed regularly. His focus fell away from the stampeding view as the first of his enemy collided with his lines of malakhim.

  “Strike together!” Five stillots stabbed into a slobbering nephilim’s heart at once before they each combusted into flame detonating the monster’s chest cavity. Bones and innards sprayed into the air. The deceased being’s remnants slunk to the floor. “Do not falter! Keep calm, my kin!” Michael’s booming voice rallied the malakhim, instilling in them a confidence in the face of their hellish enemy.

  The endless mass of hulking pale skinned giants took little time in filling the space enclosed by roaring ophanim fuel. “Give way to our craft!” The high-malakhim ducked a wild swing, silencing him amidst his kin becoming entangled with the nephilim. He swung back at his towering opponent’s knee joint with his emblazoned stillot slicing cleanly through its soft skin.

  With a wretched screech the deformity collapsed to one knee only to have Michael’s blade thrust through its gullet. “Stand strong, my malakhim!” He kicked the giant’s body away into the surrounding flames releasing his weapon. The leader could hear a growing panic spreading throughout his troops, the pains and fears of his kin bogged his headset. “Give way to the ophanim! Pilots, assist us!”

  Together the bronze skinned entities backed away beneath their towering vessels. To Michael’s pleasure his tactical manoeuvre did nothing to deter the nephilim’s charge. To his dismay however many of his crew were succumbing to these rampant fiends. Their bodies disappeared beneath the unending wave of his enemy. “Now!”

  On his word the ophanims’ free limbs came to life to join his malakhim who fought off their unrelenting foes with a stoic determination. The colossal vehicle arms struck the giants out of the sky from where they leapt. Some grasped at flailing limbs, pinning their wild outbursts to make for easy targets.

  “Give them no chance to recover! Do not let them flee! Bring them down, malakhim!” A cheer thundered through Michael’s headset. Those who could hold together worked fluidly as teams, out moving and cutting down their gigantic foes. For many however the nephilim’s sheer strength and numbers was overwhelming.

  Michael watched in frustration as the wild beasts turned focus upon the ophanim. They coursed their naked bodies straight into the crafts’ legs and exteriors, some of the larger giants causing the vessels to rock and limbs to shift uneasily. “Michael!” A female cried out to her leader. “They’re inside!” He glanced around hectically to see some enormous legs flailing about beneath an open ophanim seal.

  Without hesitance he sprinted through his combating crew, rushing to aid his stranded pilot. He lunged up beneath the craft grabbing the writhing monstrosity by its ankle yet with a powerful buck Michael was thrown to the ground. His failed action enraged him. He leapt up taking a hefty swipe with his stillot, cutting a deep burning wound into the nephilim’s thigh. It squealed glancing below as Michael grasped at its wounded leg. He yanked the entity down thrusting his stillot up into its jaw with the beast’s descent.

  Its grunt of death was joined by yelled out warnings from his crew. Across the fuel enclosed grounds a sound of cringing metal filled the air followed by an almighty crash. Amidst troubled breaths Michael sighed at the sight of one of his crafts being levelled. “Come together, my kin! Rebuild your formations!” The endless sea of pale bodies was diminishing, but so was his crew.

  Michael’s frustrations climaxed at sight of another nephilim charging him beneath his ophanim. At his will, despite knowing his actions might cost him his suit’s life support, every remaining stillot on his back came alive with a spectacular fiery explosion. The encroaching monster flinched at the sight before being torn apart by Michael’s flailing and striking tentacles.

  He roared with fury, being overtaken by the sensation of his power. “Push them back!” He bellowed through his headset, taking lift from the ground he swooped into the nephilim ranks lashing out precise strikes at his prey. Their sliced necks and joints sprayed blood upon Hermon’s surface in the high-malakhim’s wake. They are merely animals.

  The crazed fiends snatched at him from below, screeching and snarling as Michael plunged in and out of them. To the malakhim’s alarm another sound of straining metal and heavy collision ricocheted in the air. He leered back to see one ophanim being toppled into another. The towering crafts tumbled to a chorus of dire screams and agonizing pleas of help. Together the ophanim
smashed into Hermon crushing many beneath their reflective shells.

  In his distraction Michael felt a heavy thud and great pain shake through his body. A nephilim leapt through the air colliding again with the high-malakhim. The strike stunted his aerial movement. The burning stillots on his back flickered with his suit’s fading power. He could feel his breathing becoming troubled, watching another monster bound upwards towards him.

  The impact caused his stillots to fall dead. The snarling beast held on dragging him down a short way to the ground. He stabbed at the creature with the stillot he held in their fall. It still seared with an intense heat despite his suit’s weakened state. “Die!” He shouted, crashing into the dirt with the writhing giant. The experienced leader immediately stood driving his weapon down into his foe’s heart. The monster fell limp. Michael turned, feeling a heavy blow strike his skull. Three slobbering deformities hurtled at the malakhim raining gargantuan fists, feet and gnashing teeth upon him.

  In desperation Michael clutched his closest target tightly. The stillots on his back enclosed around the beast pinning it to him, despite its bloodcurdling screams and frenzied efforts the malakhim held it close using the pale