by Brian Godawa
Talmai towered four feet over Joshua’s near six-foot height. And Talmai was frightening in his special Anakite fighting attire: He was naked, except for his short loin covering, leather belt, and war necklace of gold showcasing his long warrior neck. His head was completely shaven of his blond locks, and he carried nothing in his huge six-fingered hands.
It was going to be a hand-to-hand fight to the death. Talmai was going to rip off Joshua’s limbs one at a time and feast on his brains with relish.
Talmai’s occultic tattoos appeared to move on his skin as he approached Joshua with caution.
Though his opponent was a puny human, Joshua was no mere warrior. He was a gibborim of the Habiru who had terrified the Canaanites and colluded with Talmai’s treacherous brother.
For his part, Joshua knew that once they began to physically grapple, he would not last long in the giant’s grip. He was out-muscled by his opponent. He had to stay out of his reach if he wanted to live.
So how would he be able to kill him if he could not touch him? This was not going to be easy.
This was going to be impossible.
They circled each other, feeling out their adversary, planning their strategies.
What Joshua would not give now for just a scrap of Caleb’s Karabu training.
He saw now, too late, that all his discipline, all his will to power that he had spent his life cultivating, was no match for the will to power of a creature of this size and capacity.
What good would Joshua’s brute force be against a monstrous brute twice his size and probably three times his brute strength? He felt like a hyena facing down a lion. He did not have a chance.
This would not end well for Joshua.
He did the only thing he could do when facing his certain death; he uttered a prayer. A simple prayer.
“Yahweh, help me.”
Chapter 71
On the other side of the city, Caleb’s forces were decimating the enemy. Yahweh had struck fear into the hearts of the Anakim. They were slaughtered by the hundreds. The streets ran red with blood and gore. It would all be over shortly.
Sheshai was captured from the tavern and dragged out to Caleb and Othniel in the street. He was thrown down before Caleb’s feet.
Caleb put his foot on Sheshai’s neck.
But then he realized Sheshai was pale, barely conscious, and mumbling with delirious eyes.
Caleb noticed a blood soaked wound on Sheshai’s back and knew he did not have much time left. It looked like his kidney had been pierced.
He took his foot off Sheshai’s neck, grabbed him by his collar, and slapped him back into consciousness.
“Where is Joshua? What have you done with him?”
Sheshai could only mumble. He was slipping.
“What have you done with Joshua, you Anakite dog?”
Sheshai looked up at Caleb and as his life ebbed out of him, he managed to smirk and mumble, “You are too late, Habiru. He is receiving his judgment in the Pit.”
Sheshai’s face went still and he died in Caleb’s hands.
Caleb screamed in agony.
He shook the Anakite. He tried to slap him awake again. But the giant would not awaken from his death slumber.
Caleb punched him.
And he kept punching him with furious fists as if trying to resurrect the monster by bludgeoning his life back into his broken body.
Of course it was irrational. The grief that overwhelmed Caleb’s soul at this moment was inconsolable.
How dare this worthless Seed of the Serpent murder the mighty general of Israel and claim that Yahweh was judging him in the pit of Sheol.
But Caleb was stopped by Othniel. “Caleb!”
Caleb looked up at his brother with burning red eyes.
Othniel said, “He is not talking about the Pit of Sheol, he is talking about their arena, “the Pit of Death.”
Caleb’s eyes suddenly popped open wide. “Of course,” he said. He yelled to his surrounding men, “To the arena! Now!”
• • • • •
Inside the Pit of Death, Joshua and Talmai could hear the tsunami of battle that was now washing through the city.
It fueled Talmai’s wrath. He bellowed with venomous rage at Joshua, “Your ancestor Abraham tried to wipe out my people. But out of the ashes mighty Anak was birthed, and with him, our revenge. Now you seek to finish what you began. But this day will not be your victory, Habiru.”
Joshua said nothing. He was watching Talmai’s extra-long neck swaying like a cobra.
• • • • •
Caleb, Othniel, and their two platoons of soldiers about one hundred strong ran at full force toward the arena they could see towering next to the royal palace. One of the platoons was pikesmen with long spears and the other was archers.
They arrived at the gates of the arena.
They were gargantuan doors thirty feet high made of cedar wood and gilded with iron.
They were about as strong as the gates of the city.
And they were locked.
There was no way they were going to walk through those doors.
Caleb shouted a command, “Twenty five of you go this way and twenty five of you the other! Find a way in!”
Then Caleb could hear a voice thundering in the arena inside. It was the voice of a giant. It was Talmai.
“We will exterminate every last one of you! We will violate your women and children in front of your eyes! And after we are through eating your flesh, I will dance on the holocaust of your burning bones!”
Caleb said to Othniel, “Joshua is still alive! We have time.”
But none of the soldiers could find another way in. The arena was sealed tight, prohibiting escape or entry.
Their time was running out.
Chapter 72
The gigantic Nehushtan had Uriel wrapped in its coils, Raphael was on the ground stunned and disoriented by Ba’al’s lightning bolt, and Gabriel was starting to buckle under Ba’al’s powerful hammering.
What Gabriel did not see was that Nehushtan had reared its head behind him and was preparing to strike at the same moment that Ba’al had conducted a more powerful surge of lightning into his hands.
He threw the lightning bolt at the angel.
As soon as it hit him, he would be incapacitated, just as Nehushtan’s fangs struck.
But it never made contact with Gabriel because a sword swung in front of Gabriel and diverted the electrical jolt upon itself.
It was a steel sword.
It was Mikael’s sword.
In Mikael’s hands.
Steel was a conductor of electrical current, so the sword effectively absorbed the surge and Mikael leapt behind Gabriel in time to strike at Nehushtan’s open jaws with his newly electrified blade.
He pierced the giant serpent’s upper palate. The electrical current flowed into the creature’s head and it spasmed with paralyzing force.
Its coils loosened and dropped Uriel to the ground coughing and catching his wind.
Raphael was already up in full force and moving in unspoken synchronicity with Gabriel who had now traded places with Mikael as he faced down the mighty Ba’al.
Raphael and Gabriel took the moment of the serpent’s paralysis to jump on either side of its huge trembling head, and plunge their swords into the beast’s eyes, blinding it.
It hissed with fury as its muscles came back under its control. It snapped blindly at the smell of the archangels. But it was all for naught as Uriel joined them in a trio of dancing Karabu warriors slicing and stabbing the giant reptile over and over.
Since they did not have the size to deal significant cuts, they were using their small advantage to bleed it out through a multitude of insignificant cuts.
Uriel was the most efficient with his two swords and whirlwind spinning that cut a swathe of open wounds and gushing blood.
Nehushtan was like a big lumbering cow being attacked by a school of piranhas. It would only be a short matter of time befor
e the thing would be consumed by a thousand small bites.
Uriel noticed that Mikael had been completely healed of his burns. He blurted out to Gabriel, “A delayed answer to prayer!”
“But it was an answer,” said a huffing Gabriel.
“In Yahweh’s time,” said the usually silent Raphael.
They were actually having a bit of fun now with their handicapped opponent.
Mikael however, was not having fun. He may have been miraculously healed, and he may have been the strongest of the band of archangels, but he was still no match for the mighty storm god who was pummeling him relentlessly with his battle mace in one hand and a newly drawn battle-axe in the other.
Mikael’s steel sword was about the only blade that could withstand Ba’al’s thunderous force, but he was tiring under the relentless storm of blows. Ba’al handled battle-axe and mace with unrelenting synchronized strokes and blows.
Uriel shouted, “It is time to finish off this over-bloated worm, and help our brother!”
Nehushtan was now swaying around deliriously with loss of blood and stinging pains all over its body. Its heart was pumping feverishly as its lifeblood leaked from a multitude of cuts.
Raphael had seen that desperate pulsating just a few yards down the gullet from the monster’s reared head.
He shouted, “Gabriel, on your knees!”
Gabriel responded immediately with obedience. Over the millennia they had learned to respond with fluidity to each other’s commands in such hectic moments. Because there was no time to explain strategy in the heat of battle, they trusted one another, even if they did not know the other’s intent. The result was that they acted in union like a single warring organism divided into four separate parts.
Gabriel was right under the serpent’s head. He went down on his knees.
Raphael took a running leap.
He used the back of his comrade as a ramp and launched into the air with sword grasped in two hands above his head.
He hit the belly of the beast at the spot where he had surmised the beating heart was.
His blade pierced the monster’s scales and plunged deep into its life muscle, all the way up to the handle.
Raphael’s weight ripped the sword downward, slicing the heart in half.
The creature had a momentary jolt from the shock to its system.
And then its head fell to the ground, dead.
Raphael was trapped underneath the reptilian corpse, so the other two cut through the scaly flesh until they found him and pulled him out, covered in the blood of his nemesis.
When they turned to join Mikael, they saw that he was barely holding his own against Ba’al.
In fact, Mikael had been backed up against the crevice that surrounded the throne. They knew he was moments away from being pushed off the ledge down into the abyss of molten lava below.
They had no time to plan, only to act.
Gabriel called it. “Enki at the War of Gods and Men!”
The three of them bolted for Ba’al without thinking.
The archangels had also developed a shorthand way of communicating strategy in a battle when appropriate. They called out references to other battles they had won, so that they would know what move to make together if needed. In this case, Gabriel was referring to the war on the fields near Erech before the Flood. Gabriel had been struggling with the god Enki by a crevice when the humans Tubal-cain and Jubal simultaneously rammed into Enki, sending them all down into the waters of the Abyss where he was bound until judgment. The humans had died by sacrificing themselves to achieve their victory.
In this case, Uriel was planning on saving Mikael. He yelled, “Under!”
Gabriel and Raphael launched into the air.
Uriel dove to the ground underneath Ba’al’s legs in order to grab Mikael’s leg’s to keep him from falling to his doom.
Mikael was between the god and the chasm. He would be pulled over into the lava below if they did not time it just right.
The two angels hit Ba’al’s lower back, throwing the god forward in a tackling motion.
Uriel grabbed Mikael’s ankles.
The two angels grabbed for the ledge to stop their own descent.
Mikael’s ankles slipped out of Uriel’s grasp as the bulky god hit the archangel and the two flew over the ledge.
The plan had failed.
Uriel screamed, “MIKAEL! NO!”
He scrambled to the edge only to see the body of Ba’al hit the flowing lava with an explosion of fiery slag. He sunk beneath the burning crust. They were not able to bind the god’s hands and feet, but this would be the next best thing. The river of flowing magma would take Ba’al deeper into the earth and deposit him in an encrusted solidified pool of hardened volcanic lava. There he would await his judgment, unable to escape his imprisonment in the earth.
And then Uriel saw Mikael, dangling over the precipice just a few yards down. But his hands were slipping. The rock was slick from the massive heat, and there was no grip above him.
So Uriel called out, “Raphael, hang on to me!”
Raphael grabbed Uriel’s hands and dropped him over the edge until his ankles were within Mikael’s reach.
The rocks in Mikael’s hands crumbled and gave way.
But he reached up just in time to grab Uriel’s ankle with one hand without plummeting to his own volcanic imprisonment.
Raphael and Gabriel pulled the two of them to safety.
Gabriel said to Uriel, “You lost your grip on Mikael.”
Uriel said, “If you would not have hit Ba’al so hard, I would have been fine.”
“Would you have preferred a love tap?”
Uriel turned professorial. “Successful strategy requires sufficient intelligence to appropriate the correct amount of force in order to achieve one’s objective. I apologize, Gabriel. I forgot you had a smaller brain.”
Gabriel retorted, “And I forgot you had smaller hands.”
Mikael broke in, “Archangels, I hate to interrupt your underestimation of each other’s abilities, but we have a job to do. Let us burn this diabolical palace to the ground.”
“With pleasure,” said Uriel looking up at the structure above them. “Cloud Rider, my rear end. Yahweh rides the clouds.”
Chapter 73
Inside the arena, Joshua continued to stare at Talmai’s swaying cobra-like neck. He remembered something Caleb had taught him long ago: Knowing your enemy’s weakness is better than facing his strength.
Joshua could never best Talmai on strength. He had already calculated the giant’s height and weight as dwarfing his own. His six-fingered hands that could squash Joshua in their grip. And he could see that Talmai was a bonfire of fury.
Joshua had already concluded that he did not have a chance.
All he had was a prayer.
And a simple lesson from Caleb he had learned several years ago.
It was that scrap of Karabu training he needed.
Without warning, Joshua ran directly at Talmai and jumped up into his arms.
The giant could not believe this puny little wart would do such a stupid thing. He welcomed Joshua into his bear-crushing hug and squeezed the life out of him.
As Joshua was passing out, he could barely hear the sound of a distant shouting voice from outside the Pit.
It was Caleb. He was shouting, “Joshua! Joshua, we are here!”
• • • • •
Outside the walls, Caleb noticed that Talmai stopped taunting Joshua. He was most likely fighting him now.
He knew Joshua was no match for the titan.
He knew he would not stand fifteen seconds in the ring with the crazy son of Arba.
Fifteen seconds passed in silence.
Then he heard a crack echo through the empty stadium.
He cinched his eyes in pain. It sounded like the cracking of a human’s spinal column in half.
Caleb started to pound uselessly on the door.
NO, NO, NO, NO! JOSHUA!”
Caleb sunk to his knees in defeat.
Othniel filled with rising rage. He knew there was nothing he could do to help Caleb.
The other soldiers arrived back at the gates with sorrowful eyes and no intelligence of a way in.
Caleb knelt there wondering why would Yahweh allow such a thing? Why allow him to get so close to helping his commander and friend, only to snatch the opportunity from his hands? Was Yahweh a cruel god after all?
Suddenly, the clinking of chains followed the sound of oxen grunting behind the gates.
The arena gates began to open. It was an ox-driven gate mechanism.
Caleb shouted, “Prepare to back me up, soldiers! But I want this Anakite for myself!”
The soldiers lifted shields and prepared weapons. They lined up phalanx style behind Caleb, all one hundred of them, long spears in front, archers behind.
Othniel stood beside his brother and commander with drawn sword.
Caleb unfurled Rahab as the gate opened wide.
But they were not aware that there were six Anakim warriors guarding the duel inside. And those six were lined up shoulder to shoulder blocking the entrance to Joshua’s body.
The six of them gave a unified war cry.
Only to have their bodies punctured like pin cushions by a dozen arrows each, launched by the elite archers.
The Anakim were stunned. But not dead. It took more than a few needles to take down these giants.
It took the long spears to take them down, piercing their hearts, lungs, and vital organs. The phalanx had moved in synchronized precision with the archers. The bodies of the Anakim guards fell and Caleb could now see the inner arena.
In the center of that arena lay a corpse.
A lone figure walked toward Caleb.
It was stooped over and stumbling.
But it was not a giant.
Caleb yelled, “Joshua!”
He ran to him.
Othniel stayed protectively close behind.
Caleb tried to embrace Joshua, but Joshua groaned. Caleb pulled back.
“Sorry, Caleb. I am a little crunched.”
“My Commander, you are alive.”
“My loyal friend,” said Joshua, “it was you who saved me.”
