by Brian Godawa
Thelonius looked over at young Jonathan, who looked as confused as the rest of them. This plan was clearly something Michael had hidden from them. Cassandra had often speculated to Thelonius that Michael and his captains might be angels in disguise. Thelonius prayed that she was right.
“They haven’t failed us yet,” Thelonius said. Following Jonathan over to one of the ropes, he started to climb.
• • • • •
Quintus and his legionaries had left the avalanche of rock behind them. They had lost some time and distance to their prey from that last stunt, but not much.
The Christians were running out of tricks. The Romans were ready for anything.
As they rounded a bend in the ravine, they came to a halt. The Christians were nowhere to be seen. They could not have possibly traversed the half-mile that Quintus could see into the distance.
He looked around at the walls. They seemed too steep to climb. Was this another trick? He and his men searched for signs of subterfuge.
“There’s one!” a legionary cried out. He was pointing to a small opening in the rock wall thirty feet up. Quintus saw a rope pulled up and vanish into a hole. Then a rock moved to cover the opening.
Well, if those cowardly Christians really thought hiding in caves would protect them from his legionaries, they would soon learn that they’d simply trapped themselves. Quintus looked ahead for a path up the cliff face. That was when he saw the Christians’ strange lead warrior again. This time he was simply standing alone in the middle of the wadi, his dark, wavy hair tossed around by a wind coming from behind him.
What was the fool doing? Giving himself up?
Then Quintus looked past the warrior and saw in the distance above the steep walls of the wadi dark storm clouds still pouring rain as they had been doing all day. He reconsidered where they were standing—in the middle of a wadi ravine. Wadis were dry riverbeds in the mountains where flash floods could rage without warning, created by water built up from heavy rain storms like the one in the distance.
His glance dropped down from the sky, and he saw rushing toward them a ten-foot wall of water. And the legionaries were trapped between two tall barricades of rock on either side.
Quintus yelled, “Climb! Climb!”
He found a scalable portion of the ravine that he could scramble up and did so as fast as he could.
Other soldiers followed suit. Still others ran the opposite way as though hoping to find somewhere, anywhere, that offered safety from the rushing waters.
No one could outrun the deluge.
Quintus looked back. The lead Pellan warrior was still standing in the path of the water. The fool was committing suicide. It didn’t make sense.
The centurion saw the water pass over the strange warrior and consume him in its wake. Good riddance, he thought.
Quintus had made it up a good twenty feet when the water hit his location. The splash of a wave slammed into the rock below him. He felt his legs pulled by its force.
But he held on as the wave passed.
The power of the surging flood was unstoppable. Nothing could stand in its wake or survive its fluid fury. Glancing down, Quintus saw many of his soldiers being swept away, caught up and drowned in the torrent.
He would surely lose most of his men. They would no longer have the numbers to be able to carry out Caesar’s command to kill the Christians.
Now, the hunters would become the hunted.
• • • • •
Cherubim hair in hand, Uriel and Gabriel waited for their enemies to be returned to them in the flood waters. They’d positioned themselves with their backs against a large boulder not far up the wadi beyond the long chasm in the ravine floor into which they’d tossed Asherah and Molech.
Michael had planned this preternatural event as their last resort. Just as at the time of Noah’s Flood, the Watchers were stronger in the desert of chaos, but weaker in water.68 The archangels had bound the original two hundred Watchers into the earth at the Flood. In a similar way, Uriel and Gabriel would do so now.
The tidal wave of water soon crashed around a bend in the wadi on its way toward them. Bracing themselves against the boulder, the two angels were slammed by the powerful force of the swirling torrent. Corpses of legionaries swept past them in the current. As with the Egyptians during the Exodus, there must have been several hundred drowned soldiers. Uriel treasured the poetic justice of it all.
He then spotted the larger bodies of the two Watchers, Ba’al and Dagon, flailing helplessly toward them. Michael was not far behind.
Launching away from the boulder, the two angels swam toward the incapacitated gods to bind them. But now they too were caught in the tsunami of water. As the raging current swept them down the ravine toward the open valley, the water reached the huge crack in the ravine floor. The tidal wave spilled over the rim in a mighty cascade.
Everyone—legionaries, Watchers, and angels—were sucked down into the fissure like some monstrous throat devouring the flood waters.
On the battlement of the Hasmonean fortress, Cassandra had glanced up from her urgent prayers in time to see the flash of sunlight on tossing water as a towering wave rushed like a baptism of judgment down the wadi into which Roman warriors had vanished. But the wave never reached the valley. Around her, Cassandra heard astonished exclamations and even screams.
Only Cassandra’s supernatural sight had shown her what was really happening just inside the opening to the wadi—a massive crevice in the earth that was swallowing up the raging torrent. Cassandra kept her vigil until she saw four beings crawl exhausted but victorious out of the crevice—the Kharabu warriors Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, and Raphael.
Down by the fissure, Uriel complained to Michael, “Did you help Gabriel bind Dagon? Because if you did, then that means I won the bet. I bound two gods by myself.”
“I did not help Gabriel,” said Michael. “I was busy finding Raphael.”
Raphael was only now starting to overcome the poison of Dagon’s trident. He stumbled. Michael helped steady his fellow wounded warrior.
“So we are tied, little guy,” said Gabriel to his competitor.
“We’re not done yet, big guy,” said Uriel.
“That is beyond dispute,” said Michael. “But I have an urgent mission for Uriel.”
A half-hour later, a rain storm arrived in the valley along with hundreds of Pellan Christian men who came jogging out of the flood-swept wadi and up to the fortress gates led by the Kharabu. Cheers for God’s deliverance resounded throughout the fort.
Up above on the battlement, Rachel stood close to Cassandra, her head scarf extended to shield Samuel from the rain. To Cassandra, the rain was like a cleansing flood washing away the evil that had threatened them—and with it their fear. Many all over the fortress had their hands raised to heaven in worship to the true storm God.
Down below, Noah was among the young “guardians” who stood proudly, if soaked to the bones, to receive the incoming soldiers. As the Pellan warriors passed through the fortress gates, Cassandra saw Noah beaming as Michael greeted him and the other young lads with gratitude. Yes, her son was becoming a young man.
“Jonathan!” At Rachel’s exclamation, Cassandra glanced beyond Noah to see her daughter’s suitor among the crowd of warriors entering the gate. He strode shoulder to shoulder with Thelonius, both smiling proudly. Alive.
So the young Jewish warrior as well as Thelonius had survived the battle. Impressive. But Cassandra leaned over as Rachel began waving desperately and hissed, “Now is not the time. We are still in danger.”
Rachel backed down with a frown of disappointment.
Overhead, the storm passed quickly over the valley, and the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The warriors gathered the civilians around. Then Michael announced that the surviving Romans who had escaped the waters were so few that they ran in fear of being captured. Pella had won the battle.
Cassandra was not satisfied with the news. She asked Mi
chael, “But won’t they return with greater numbers?”
Michael smiled. “Fear not. Yahweh will protect you.”
She didn’t want to know how. She trusted the commander of the Kharabu. He had always proven himself worthy through the years. This would be no different.
But the deliverance of Pella only made Cassandra more determined to let her husband know that his family was alive and safe. Unfortunately, they had received word that Jerusalem was now surrounded by Roman armies. And she had not received any letters from Alexander for some time. She wasn’t sure he was even alive. She had to know.
As dangerous as it was, she had to get to Jerusalem.
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Apocalypse 12:13–17
CHAPTER 19
Jerusalem
Jacob followed Gischala and two centuries of legionaries through the underground horse stables below the temple mount. This was a vast arched cavern built by Herod for horses and chariots. They were only a quarter full. Famine and civil war had taken its toll. Jacob thanked God they were not planning on engaging in any field battles beyond the walls because the Jews would clearly not do well against Roman cavalry with such insufficient cavalry of their own.
The company marched through the tunnel on their way to a secret entrance in the residential area southeast of the temple. They exited the tunnel into a government building. The soldiers checked their weapons and waited for Gischala’s command while Jacob snuck out ahead into the streets to reconnoiter.
Their target was a small marketplace with little activity going on. Only a handful of stands were open, and most of these were leatherworks or pottery. There was so little food to go around that many merchants were saving as much as they could for themselves during the siege.
But the market square had a large platform in the middle where the Two Witnesses were spewing their hateful message to the few who would listen, just as Gischala’s spies had told him.
Above the city, the sky had gone dark with storm clouds and rumbling thunder. Jacob could see the rains coming their way. It would make things messy, but it might also keep the incident from drawing too much public attention. Especially if anything went wrong.
Gischala had become fed up with the two false prophets, especially since he’d proved unable to find out anything about their secret power from his captive Alexander. So Gischala had left the doctor in the dungeon, deciding instead to lead an entire armed company to take out the Witnesses. He reasoned that whatever sorcery these two troublemakers had been able to conjure in the past few years, it would surely not be enough to stop two centuries of a hundred and sixty armed soldiers from overwhelming them.
Despite his Jewish faith, Gischala didn’t believe that there was such a thing as guardian angels watching over them. Such were the fantasies of heavenly imagination and storytelling, but certainly not earthly reality.
Jacob was not so sure. And he felt that even Gischala was hedging his bets just in case. A handful of so-called invisible guardians would find their hands full of these experienced visible warriors.
Just in case.
So here Jacob was, forced to help Gischala hunt down the Christian prophets and confirm their location for Gischala’s strike force.
Marching out into the market square, the warriors surrounded the platform where the Two Witnesses were preaching. Gischala stood back with Jacob, watching to see what happened next.
The sky released its floodgates and poured down upon city. The few tradesmen still lingering had packed up at the sight of rain, and now fled the scene with the arrival of the soldiers. No one wanted to be collateral damage.
The group of soldiers held their shields high and their swords firmly in their grips despite the pounding rain that drenched them all.
To Jacob, the Two Witnesses looked like cornered and drowning rats in their soggy sackcloth clinging to their frail bodies beneath the wind and rain that pelted them with fury. The last three years had not been kind to the two of them as they scrounged for scraps to live. Even the younger and stronger Egyptian had withered in his strength.
Jacob glanced over at Gischala, who waited to give his command. Was he reconsidering his plan? Could these two false prophets also command the weather?
Then suddenly the rain stopped. Rather, it moved onward through the city, carried along by fast-moving summer storm clouds.
Jacob saw a grin of confidence cross Gischala’s lips. The luck of the Witnesses had just changed. The two men looked up, then knelt down, bowing their heads in prayer. Or were they baring their heads to be removed by Roman swords?
“Centuries!” Gischala yelled out. The soldiers readied their battle stance. “Forward!”
The warriors inched forward cautiously, preparing for an unforeseen attack. They too had heard the rumors and gossip about those who had previously tried to harm the Witnesses.
But Jacob did not see any of them falter as if seeing alleged invisible guardians. They stepped up the stairs with unified precision. They were now a mere thirty feet from their weak and unarmed targets.
Jacob reconsidered his own fears. Perhaps their special protection had been taken away. Perhaps their luck had run out.
Before he could think any further, he heard the sound of rumbling thunder, the last of the passing storm, following by a blinding flash in the sky above.
A fiery bolt of lightning punched through the clouds and hit the circle of soldiers. But this was not a typical lightning bolt that vanished upon impact. This one seemed to hang from the sky with its flaming fury and then move around the band of soldiers, burning them to death in a circle of fire.
Soldiers screamed in agony as their flesh roasted on their bodies. Most dropped their weapons and shields. Some ran wild without direction before dropping dead in a sizzling, smoking heap. But all of them were burned to cinders by the flames.
And then the fire was gone back up into the sky, followed by a crack of thunder so loud Jacob covered his ears.
When he looked back up, he saw the circle of one hundred and sixty soldiers, now smoldering corpses, surrounding the Witnesses—who remained untouched by the catastrophe.
Jacob peed in his tunic with fright. He looked over at Gischala, whose face was frozen in shock.
Whatever they had just seen—sorcery, a freak of weather, a miracle—it had completely obliterated Gischala’s forces with pinpoint accuracy while leaving the Witnesses alive.
Whatever it was, this was no coincidence nor luck.
Gischala turned and ran back to the temple. Following, Jacob caught up with him. Gischala’s expression was full of confusion, but he said nothing. It was as though he’d been made mute by the sorcery. Unable to even respond. His only concern was to get as far away from this scene as possible.
And Jacob knew Gischala would never try to touch the Two Witnesses again.
For his own part, Jacob was shaken to the core. Was he on the wrong side of this war? He was helping Gischala for the sake of the city, but he had just seen Gischala’s power burn up in a flash of fire. Jacob had despised the Christians, seeking to punish them for their treason against the temple and against Torah. But why were the demon-possessed prophets being protected?
He felt futility come over him. Despair.
What side was he on?
What side was God on?
CHAPTER 20<
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Transjordan Mountains
Quintus Magnus dragged his feet through the dirt of the desert highlands of the Transjordan. He had led his seventy soldiers who’d survived the flash flood near Pella deeper into the mountains to regroup and make their way to Jerusalem.
The plan was to face the shame of failure before Titus, then request a full legion to return and take swift and ruthless revenge upon the Pellan Christians. The centurion knew Titus well enough to feel assured the general would let Quintus redeem his failure.
But they had to find their way to Jerusalem first. And something was wrong. They had a scout who knew these mountains, and they had been following the setting sun toward the west. But for some strange reason, they had been marching for two full days but still seemed deep in the mountains, miles away from any life.
It didn’t make sense to Quintus. By all accounts, they must have travelled thirty or forty miles easily, which should have placed them on the other side of the Jordan River on their way to Jerusalem.
But here they were surrounded by the same desert mountains of the Transjordan without any sign of the Jordan Valley.
What was happening? They had lost most of their food and water rations in the flash flood, so they had run out after two days. They could not survive much longer without water. And they were lost.
Were they hallucinating? No, that wasn’t possible. They were all following the sun in its westerly direction. They couldn’t possibly all be having the same hallucination.
Quintus coughed through a parched throat and croaked out, “Scout, come here!”
The scout, a small, blond legionary, approached with a map he’d pulled from his pouch.
“Where do you reckon we are?” Quintus asked.
Opening the parchment, the scout pointed to a place on the map. “I recognize these hills. We should be about here. The Jordan should be just past these couple ranges.”
