by Brian Godawa
Most of the men of the tribe were dead, hanging from trees to be dried out like meat under the soft shimmering of fresh snow fall. The surviving women were corralled in makeshift cages for later sport.
Four Nephilim outlaws ransacked the tribe’s belongings for valuables and foodstuffs. Three of them were nearly seven cubits tall, but one came up short standing at less than five cubits. All were shaven and covered head to toe with occultic tattoos. They wore pieces of strange body armor over what looked like soldier’s garb.
The short one stoked the fire in preparation for roasting their next meal. The leader of the pack, the tallest and the ugliest, crouched in the bush struggling with constipation, the result of eating too much meat the night before. He yelled to the short one, “Get that fire burning, runt! I cannot stand this abysmal cold!”
The other two giants examined some pillaged jewels, trying to figure their worth and conspiring how to secret some away for themselves.
Unseen, Enoch ben Jared peeked out from behind a tree, clothed in near white for concealment. He was just over three hundred sixty years old now, or thereabouts. He had stopped counting because years on this earth were not as important to him as eternity in the heavens. He had spent many years training for his calling with the Sahandrians.
Enoch thought, These brutes do not seem to belong here. Rogue Nephilim do not usually congregate in packs because they were too easy to spot. He frowned over the matter. The giants did tend to hide out in unpleasant environs for the camouflage advantages they provided. He gripped his marvelous bow made from heavenly metal and strung with the indestructible hair of a Cherub. He had become quite a death-dealing archer after all those years of naively condemning all war and violence. Elohim had quite a sense of irony.
Twenty cubits away, Methuselah and Edna crouched behind a bush waiting for the sign from Enoch. Methuselah was almost three hundred now, with Edna four years his junior. Their white Karabu stealth outfits gave them cover. They held the special Karabu weapons of angels: his, lightweight but deadly javelins; hers, a multi-bladed weapon called a sword, which did not just cut but spliced, diced, and shredded. Methuselah looked from Enoch to Edna’s face, mere inches from him, and surprise kissed her. She gave him a “not now” frown, but then pecked him back with a smile. They were inseparable.
On Enoch’s other side, obscured in the brush, Methuselah’s twenty-year old son Lamech, pride of his mother Edna, waited. Lamech took after his grandfather. He was a bit of a hermit holy man, preferring prayer and meditation to socializing with people. A conflict of interests burdened him. He loved his tribe of the Sahandrians and he wanted to become a holy priest of their temple. He longed for the security of his volcanic underground home. But he had been trained by his father for another vocation, the holy calling of giant killing.
Lamech prepared his special sword, created by his trainer the archangel Gabriel, and forged in the volcanic heat of Mount Sahand. The blade worked more like a whip. When opened, it stretched a good seven cubits of flexible metal. When not in use, it rolled up, ready to unravel and strike with razor sharp fury at a distance. Those who relied upon close quarter combat would not have a chance with this little snakebite. He had nicknamed it “Rahab” after the sea dragon of chaos.
The team of giant-killers watched as the short Naphil opened the cage of women. He dragged out a kicking and screaming redheaded teenage girl.
“We have a lively one here!” crowed the short Naphil. “And she is lovely looking. Maybe we should save her for dessert.”
“We do need some breeders,” said one of the other giants. He stepped up to her, shoving the short one aside.
He looked at her with hunger. “I think I will have some sweets before dinner.”
He glanced at the short one for his reaction. Then his body stiffened in shock as an arrow pierced his eye and burrowed into his brain. Before his companions realized what had happened, another arrow buried itself into his other eye. The giant fell to the ground blind and dead.
The short one bellowed. The other giant drew a battle axe and shield to face the Karabu team barreling at them from their concealment.
Methuselah threw a javelin at the front giant, but the Naphil dodged it with preternatural response. The short one behind him, caught the javelin in mid-air, and snapped it like a twig in his hand. He may have been small for a Naphil, but he was still a Naphil — and strong.
Two more arrows buried themselves in the shield of the axe giant. He shortened the distance between himself and Enoch in seconds, making the bow and arrow useless.
He swung his battle axe with raging fury, chopping down trees as mere nuisance, but it was like fighting a ghost. Enoch danced around the giant’s moves as if in a ballet with boulders. It made the giant more angry — and sloppy.
Edna raced straight at the short one and choreographed her own dance of battle with the miscreant. She slashed the creature’s spleen, stomach and kidneys before it had the chance to even stop and bleed. He fell, and bled out on the snowy ground in his own spreading pool of death.
She did not see the lead Naphil behind the bush. He jumped out roaring with a spiked mace — and to his embarrassment, his loincloth still down at his knees.
The poor redheaded teen had been out of the fray, frozen in terror watching it all. The lead giant saw her and snatched her up, intending to throw her at his enemies. He stopped short. A javelin and arrow pierced through his heart. Then Rahab, in the hands of Lamech snapped out, removing the despicable head from its body.
The teen girl dropped to the ground in a heap. The giant’s body fell forward, his knife hand just missing Edna as he hit the ground in a splash of bloody snow. He was the last one to fall.
Killing Nephilim was not usually as easy as this battle had been. This crack team of giant killers had become so well trained over the decades that they were a formidable force even for an organized pack of Nephilim. They had been trained by angels.
Within seconds, Lamech was by the young girl, checking to see if she was dead. He lifted her from the snow. When he got a closer look at her, he almost lost his breath. She was as beautiful as a sunset. Ravishing red locks, large pulpy lips, a mature full figure ahead of her age.
Edna looked around to see Enoch standing on his quarry’s chest, smiling with bow in hand. He saw her, and then his smile faded into dismay. She realized her arm felt numb — and wet. She glanced down. The giant had not missed her. His knife had grazed her arm, leaving a gaping bloody wound. The bright red flowed down her arm and pooled on the ground. She thought, Is that blood all mine?
She passed out.
When Edna came to, she found herself surrounded by the team. The redheaded girl was applying a paste of plant leaves and tree sap to her wound. Edna pulled back in dazed fear, but the men held her down.
“It is fine, my love,” said Methuselah. “She is a healer shaman. You will be all right.”
Edna dropped her head back in relief.
Methuselah leaned in close to her face and gave her a big smacking kiss.
“Nice moves Pedlumnoonypoo!” he said. The years had brought a more developed nickname among many others. “You deserve a back rub tonight.”
She smiled through her pain.
He added a caveat, “Of course, he was a small one, more manageable for your size.”
He always looked for a way to tease her, catch her off guard. It was his prankster nature to do so, even in the face of grave danger, like now. He used it to diminish fear and evil and she loved it. She had also learned how to tease right back.
“You are right, Poozelahbunnybunch,” she bantered. “Apparently, your javelin was not big enough. But do not worry, size does not matter to me, my lovebird of heaven.”
It was all in good sport. He adored her thoroughly. She respected him completely. He admired her fighting skills. She had even saved his life more than once. But he knew that did not mean they would not be competitive. She was still a tomboy at heart. Thank Elohim, he thought, sh
e was still a tigress in the marriage bed.
Enoch examined one of the pieces of body armor. “Strange,” he said. “This is specially designed armor that they are wearing. It is almost as if they were a scouting party or a strike team.”
Methuselah and Edna looked at Enoch with surprise. “Nephilim hordes are virtually extinct, and packs have not been seen in over a hundred years,” said Methuselah. “Where could these have possibly come from?”
“That is a fitting question,” replied Enoch. A pack was a company of about four to eight Nephilim and a horde could be as small as twenty organized giants or as large as a hundred strong. A cold eastern wind started to pick up and blow snow around their faces. Enoch bent closer to examine the bodies.
Lamech stared at the redheaded vision before him.
“Thank you, for saving me,” she said to him, brushing off snow and pulling her tangled hair back.
“My name is Betenos, Betenos bar Barakil,” she said, awaiting his reply.
Lamech gave none. He just stared at her with gaping mouth, just like his grandfather.
Betenos giggled. It brought Lamech to his senses. “Oh, I am Lamech ben Methuselah. This is my family.”
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“The Sahand.”
“I have never seen such skilled warriors before.”
“I have never seen such beauty before,” he blurted out without even thinking, and then caught himself. He turned as red as her hair. She giggled again.
“I am sorry, I did not mean to…”
“I thank you for your compliment, Lamech ben Methuselah.”
He looked around at the carnage. “I am very sorry for your tragedy,” he said. “These Nephilim deserve eternal damnation for what they have done.”
“I thank you for your kindness,” she responded. “My father, Barakil, was the elder of the tribe.”
“Is there no end to your loss?” he said. She saw his eyes blear with tears.
“Would you help me free the others?” she asked.
“Forgive me for my thoughtlessness,” he said.
They tromped through the snow to the makeshift cage. The six remaining members of her tribe, all women, cowered in the cage, all alone in the mountainous wilderness without a defense of their virtue. Lamech and Betenos freed them.
“Lamech, come here!” shouted Methuselah.
Lamech led the women over to the Nephilim carcasses surrounded by Enoch, Methuselah, and Edna.
“We need to move quickly. Apparently, these Nephilim are part of an organized militia of some kind.”
“How could that be?” asked Lamech.
Methuselah pointed down at the thigh of one of the dead. “They are branded by the same rulers.”
Lamech saw the cuneiform on the thigh amidst the tattoos. There were two names. He read it out loud, “Thamaq and Yahipan.”
Methuselah suddenly screamed and thrust one of his javelins into the cadaver’s branded thigh. Edna held him and pulled him aside to whisper to him. He was clearly in mental anguish, over what, Lamech did not know.
Enoch explained to Lamech, “Thamaq and Yahipan were co-rulers of the city where I was apkallu many years ago. They killed your other grandparents and almost killed us.”
Lamech’s eyes went wide with shock. He turned to comfort his mother, but she was too busy selflessly comforting Methuselah. “And now they have an organized pack?”
“Or worse, maybe a horde,” said Enoch. “We need to wrap up these bodies and transport them quickly to Nippur and get the bounty, before they are discovered missing and sought for by their pack.”
“Or horde,” reminded Lamech.
“Or horde,” said Enoch. The thought was too horrible for him to imagine. He knew things had been getting worse. Evil was spreading across the land. But what use would his calling as a giant killer be to Elohim if Nephilim were organizing and congregating into packs and hordes again? It would be too overwhelming for them. They could take out stragglers here and there. But packs of four to ten could become very lethal and a horde of fifty to a hundred was invincible for their small team.
Enoch turned to Betenos and the others standing behind her. “What can you tell us about your ambush?”
“The men had gone hunting,” said Betenos, “so it was easy for them to overpower our camp and catch the hunters unawares when they returned.” As the strongest of the survivors, Betenos had became the spokesperson for them.
“They used the women as human shields,” she said.
“Cowardly,” said Enoch.
“Strategic,” countered Methuselah, He had returned to the discussion, his anger suppressed. “Nephilim have no conscience. They cannot be cowards. They must be hunted and slaughtered like the animals that they are.”
Methuselah bit his lip. He would hunt down Thamaq and Yahipan and slaughter them, if it was the last thing he did before meeting his maker. He was sure his maker would understand. Or would he? Could Elohim know the pain of losing a father or a son? Or was he a distant and removed being without a soul?
Enoch asked Betenos, “Did you hear any conversation that might suggest they belonged to a pack?”
“Or horde,” added Lamech. Enoch gave him an annoyed look this time.
Betenos looked to her fellow tribeswomen. They all shook their heads no.
“Just that they came from a great distance,” concluded Betenos. “They only seemed to be passing through. But I could not tell from where.”
“We had best move quickly,” said Enoch.
Betenos implored Enoch, “Please good savior, may I request funeral rites for our dead?”
Enoch looked around. “The snow and cold has made the ground too hard to break,” he said.
“My people do not perform ground burial,” she replied, “we perform excarnation.”
“What is that?” asked Methuselah.
“Sky burial,” she said. “We remove the heads and place their bodies in the trees to have their bones stripped by carrion vultures. We then cremate their remains so the soul goes to the gods and the body returns to the earth as dust.”
The barbaric ritual repulsed Enoch. On second thought, he realized that no matter how removed from the true God these rural pagans were, their beliefs still dimly reflected the image of God that was in every human. Betenos’ words reminded him of the words that Yahweh Elohim spoke to Adam so long ago in the Garden, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
“We will respect your wishes, as far as we can,” said Enoch.
Relief flooded Betenos. “Thank you,” she said, She impulsively hugged Enoch.
Methuselah felt proud of his father for his wisdom and grace. He was sensitive to the weakness that is humanity.
Enoch’s mind drifted in painful memory to the recent deaths of Adam and Havah. Through the years of Enoch’s stay with the cave dwellers, he had become close to his forefather. Adam had died first, but Havah followed close on his heels, as she always did.
Enoch remembered the burial ceremony of the Sahandrians. They laid the body into a pit curled up in a sleeping posture. This expressed their belief that death was only a sleep from which they would one day awake. Around the body, they placed various mementos and souvenirs of the beloved’s life. They included fruits and vegetables because Adam had longed for the Garden to the very end. They had prepared the body by mixing red ochre powder with water to create a paste with which to cover the body. For them, it was a token of the red earth from which Adam himself had come. It was the red earth they all longed for in their souls. They had then covered the body with flowers of all kinds; yarrow, ragwort, hollyhock and others chosen for their medicinal purposes in life with hope for the afterlife.
Chapter 19
After the bodies of the snow tribe’s dead had been placed in the trees and on makeshift platforms, Enoch and the others hauled the corpses of the Nephilim onto wagons they had brought with them.
Wagons came into use by adapting the recent invention,
the wheel. Four round pieces of wood attached to axles, and were secured underneath a sled. Towed by a couple onagers, this wagon device could carry heavy loads across great distances in shorter amounts of time than the old sleds had been capable of. Enoch did not know who originated the invention. He wondered if it was from the angels. But whoever had done it should be a king for his brilliance and imagination.
Once they had the corpses loaded, they had to stop. They were completely exhausted, with no strength left to continue. A death defying battle with rabid giants and then the sky burial of a hundred tribal dead had used every ounce of their strength. Not even the benefit of wheels was enough to help them. They had to rest. even though they would lose more time and risk being tracked down by other Nephilim.
Betenos, however, had not exhausted her bag of herbal tricks. She gave each of them some special root to chew on that provided them with a burst of energy. They put their belongings on the wagon and started down the path toward Nippur.
They wheeled the wrapped Nephilim carcasses through a dozen or so leagues of lush mountain valleys to a river port where they rented boat passage down the Diyala river another sixty leagues or so to the Tigris. From there they took the artificial canals to Sippar on the Euphrates, and then on to Nippur. The bounty on four Nephilim outlaws could carry them for months with supplies and bribery money.
It was a tiring life to be always on the move, gathering reconnaissance and tracking giants. For Methuselah and Edna it had been particularly difficult being separated from their family for months at a time. They felt they were missing out on their children’s growing years as the tribe took care of them in their stead. Bringing their favored son Lamech with them had brought some peace of mind, but it had its own stress. He was good at giant killing, but his heart was in Sahandria. He did not like the lonely rootless life of a wayfarer.
They had left Sahandria with many tears to become nomads. It seemed more appropriate to Enoch’s calling, but it made it harder on everyone, feeling unattached to a substantial community, always unsettled, always leaving.
