Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (21 page)

The four archangels made their way up Mount
Sapan’s lofty heights. Raphael helped to carry Mikael on his shoulder as they pushed through the wooded forest at the base. When they broke out from the tree line, they saw the summit was veiled in cloud, and the sky above was turbulent. Thunder was already rumbling in what was sure to be a storm of large magnitude.

“Well,” said Uriel, “I can see the storm god is preparing for us. They
do not call him ‘Cloud Rider’ for nothing.”

Cloud rider was a term in Canaanite religion that
symbolized control over the weather as a tool of judgment. The phrase “coming on the clouds” or “riding the clouds” was a symbolic statement of the storm deity arriving to punish his adversaries.

Uriel chided, “Yeah, well, Yahweh is coming on a swift cloud to Mount Sapan.”

Somewhere in the midst of those clouds, they knew they would find the palace of their enemy storm god, Ba’al.

But the
final leg of their journey was a four hundred foot steep rocky ridge with difficult overhangs to traverse. Beyond that towering edifice of rock was their target.

Uriel whistled. “Whew,
that
is
steep.”

“We can hoist you up using rope,” said Gabriel
to Mikael.

“Our rope went down with the ship,” said Mikael through clenched teeth of pain.
His body would heal, but not quickly enough.

Raphael said, “You can hang on my back and I will carry you.”

Gabriel said, “That should not be too difficult. Even Uriel was able to carry Noah on his back out of the pit of Tartarus in ancient days.”

Uriel
was offended. “What do you mean, ‘even Uriel’? Do you realize how deep that pit was?”

Gabriel raised his hands in mock surrender.

Mikael said, “You three will be facing the king of the gods at the seat of his throne on his sacred mountain of power. You will need all your strength focused on binding him, not protecting me in my weakness.”

They were silent. They knew he wa
s right.

Uriel said, “It still vexes me that Yahweh would not answer our prayer for healing when we need it the most,
on the person
who needs it the most.”

Mikael said, “
Apparently, Yahweh wants you to rely on his strength and not mine.”

Uriel said, “You always see the clay pot half full.”

Gabriel said, “And you never
see
the clay pot.”

Uriel said, “Gabriel, the next clay pot I see, I promise to break it over your head.”

“Enough, you two,” said Mikael. “I think we have all missed the point. This is more than a simple lesson of faith. My incapacity is Yahweh’s intent for a strategic offense: Prayer. I will plead to the Lord of Hosts as you are fighting his nemesis.”

“Of course,” said Gabriel.
“How could we be so thick of head twice in a row?”

“Speak for yourself,” said Uriel.

Raphael said, “What if those surviving minions discover you here alone? You have not the strength to defend yourself against their numbers.”

“I will be all
right. Raphael. Now get going. The more you delay, the more ready Ba’al becomes.”

The angels began their climb. Mikael grunted and got up on his knees. Sharp jolts of pain burst through his burned knee like lightning bolts. He felt faint, but continued through until he was on his face prostrate in prayer, and began to seek Yahweh’s face.

It
was not the four hundred foot climb that was difficult; it was the massive overhangs where the angels had to literally hang by their fingertips with feet dangling over a death drop of six hundred feet down. As angels, they could not die. But the fall would place any one of them in a worse condition than Mikael and guarantee failure on their mission.

As they were breaking the ridge past the overhang, Gabriel was in the lead. He was moving too quickly out of an impatient desire to attack their enemy.

His foot slipped.

But when he grabbed a rock to catch himself, it gave way and he plummeted past Raphael.

Uriel was at the tail end and saw him coming. He fastened his foot firmly and reached out to grab Gabriel.

He caught his wrist with his right hand and gripped the rock for all his life with his left.

The jolt almost ripped him from the ledge. But he held it.

Gabriel hung over the ledge, the death drop below him.

He looked up at Uriel with gratitude.

“Thank you, Uriel,” he gasped.

Uriel managed a jab through gritted teeth, “I guess I saw that clay pot coming.”

“Very funny
.”

Then
Uriel crowed, “Would you like me to carry you the rest of the way? You know, like I did Noah. Since you do not seem strong enough to make it.”

Gabriel was not going to apologize just because he was dangling over a precipice. “Why
do you not just let me go? Unless you think you need me.”

Uriel smirked and pulled Gabriel up so he could get his footing again.

Gabriel said, “I do believe I got you on that one, brother. You have to admit it.”

Uriel would not.

“Come on, Uriel. I got you and you know it.”

They cleared the ridge and all bickering went silent.

They stood before the entrance of the palace of Ba’al.

It was magnificent.
It towered over them like an imposing giant. Huge pillared columns surrounded the massive entrance.

Uriel noticed it first. “Hey, this is a counterfeit of Yahweh’s
heavenly temple above the waters.”

It was true.
Ba’al’s past as one of the Bene Elohim, meant that he was intimately acquainted with the architecture of Yahweh’s temple. But whereas the heavenly temple was marble with gold trimmings, it appeared that Ba’al’s palace was megalithic stone blocks and gigantic cedar trees gilded over with silver and gold.

Ba’al had sought
to ascend to heaven above the stars of Elohim, and to set his throne on high in a new mount of assembly of the gods.

Uriel mumbled to himself
a paraphrase of a well-known Canaanite myth from the city of Ugarit, just south of their location. “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like Elyon, the Most High.”

After a pause, he finished the verse with
his own words of biting contempt, “But you will be brought down to Sheol. To the far reaches of the Pit.”

Gabriel stepped up next to Uriel and said, “Let us go bind this son of Belial and be done with him.”

Belial was a derogatory name given to the satan Mastema for his heinous crimes against Israel. It carried the meaning of malevolent lawlessness.

Raphael found a golden plaque at the entrance that said “
House of Ba’al. Built by Kothar-wa-Hasis.”

Uriel said, “Whoever this
Kothar-wa-Hasis is, he will be one disappointed deity when we are through.”

They
drew their weapons and stormed into the palace ready for a fight.

But the storm god was not
awaiting them inside.

The palace was empty.

They walked cautiously into its hallways and rooms. One led to another and to another. And no one was present anywhere. It was not long before they realized that the entire edifice was like a giant maze meant to reduce one to madness. Once you were inside, you could not find your way out.

They stuck close to each other in order to avoid the dilemma they had in Mount Hermon when they were separated and hunted down by Ashtart.
They were not going to let that happen again.

Unfortunately, they were now
lost in the labyrinth.

His commanders on the wall called Sheshai from his war room to the gate of the city
. He had his kidney wound wrapped and hidden, for fear of being discovered and considered weakened by his commanders. That would surely lead to a coup against him.

E
very step brought a stab of pain, but he made sure no one saw it in his face or his walk. He was not going to lose control again.

When
he arrived he saw the Israelite army ready and a small contingent of soldiers wheeling a vehicle toward the city gates. It was a battering ram. It was made of cedar, and it looked like a tower on wheels.

Sheshai knew immediately from his experience that it was Hittite in construction. He figured that Israel must have Hittite advisors, probably taken from Gibeon, because these Habiru were largely ignorant of such practices having come from desert wandering for so many years.

The Hittite ram had a swinging pole inside the enclosure that was operated by a battery of some twenty men. It contained a long cedar tree with a metal tip on the outside that hung from the pole inside like a pendulum. When placed against a wall, they would swing the ram back and forth, and it would pound the normal brickwork into rubble after a period of time. And the men inside were protected from arrows by the enclosure.

Only the men wheeling it up to the walls were vulnerable
.

Sheshai
cursed Yahweh and ordered his men to prepare for their Sodom defense.

But then he saw that the ram was not being wheeled up to the wall but up to the front gate.

The fools
, thought Sheshai.
I will have them for lunch.

The reason for Sheshai’s confidence was the construction of the city gate. Rather than being a straight gate that opened out onto the field for easy access, instead, it was a casemate enclosure that jutted out from the wall and opened to the left side of the wall. The approach to the gate was up an incline, making it harder to wheel the ram, and making the attackers vulnerable to assault from the walls above to their right.

Had the attackers approached the wall straight on, the defenders could only attack when the Israelites reached the wall. But by attacking the gate, the Israelites were subjected to abuse from above all along their approach to the gate along the wall.

It
would be devastating—had Caleb not simultaneously launched a scaling attack on the far side of the walls with a division of a thousand men with ladders.

Sheshai was forced to split his army in half to address both issues
at once, thus dividing his attention.

The third prong of attack was the strike force, led by Othniel through the catacomb tunnels from the backside of the city cliffs. He led fifty of the mightiest gibborim warriors on their way up to the city. They were to find Joshua and extract him, while also seeking opportunity for assassination of the king if Joshua had failed.

Projectiles of rocks and arrows assaulted the soldiers pushing the battering ram. They wore their shields strapped to their backs to protect them, but it was not enough. Too many were killed and had to be replaced.

But then Israelite slingers and archers
strafed the walls above the battering ram to force the Anakim back behind the parapet.

The ram made it to the gate and began to swing and hit with powerful percussive force. It shook the walls with each hit.

Flaming arrows launched at the vehicle were useless because it had been covered with a resin coating of deciduous tree sap that acted as a fire retardant.

On the other side of the city, ladders were thrown up against the walls for Israelite and Gibeonite soldiers to scale.

There was an art to
using ladders in a siege. If they were placed too close to the wall, they could be easily pushed over by the defenders with poles. So they were laid out at a lower angle to make that impossible.

But the problem with a low angle was that the ladders could not bear the weight of too many soldiers
and would often break under the strain of the weight. So the Hittites supervised the proper angle and height that could achieve maximum offensive capability with minimum risk of collapse.

The first
wave of attackers was not immediately successful and suffered high losses trying to gain a foothold against the wall. But they kept coming with the faith and ferocity of Yahweh.

Rahab was left in Caleb’s tent under protective custody of a platoon of gibborim. Caleb was not going to allow any other possible danger to assault her while he was still alive, especially since she was due to deliver any day now.

But he also could not allow himself the luxury of being around her for it would distract him from
the most serious battle of his life. This was more consequential than facing the mighty Ahiman in hand to hand combat, for now the sands of time were running out on Joshua’s life, and if they did not break through in time, all would be lost.

Uriel left markings with one of his swords on the walls to mark their direction
in the maze of palace rooms through which they traversed. Upon entry of each room, they prepared for surprise attack, but there was none. It was as if they were being drawn deeper and deeper into a spider’s web of peril.

Raphael stopped with sudden awareness. The others gripped their swords.

“What is it, Raphael?” asked Gabriel.

And then they all felt it. But it
was not what they had expected. It was not the preternatural tingle of danger, but of faith and hope.

Raphael said, “I can feel the effect of Mikael’s prayer.”

Gabriel said, “I also sense it.”

Uriel said, “It is a good thing we finally
listened to Yahweh, or we might be a trio of morons wandering aimlessly without supernatural guidance. Not that I feel entirely comfortable with our current situation.”

It was at that moment that
they entered the final room, a large wide-open area with a huge twenty-foot golden statue of Ba’al. He was posed in a naked walking stance, wearing a Canaanite conical horned hat of deity, and brandishing a war mace in one hand held high, and a lightning bolt in the other, ready to strike.

They
approached the statue and glared up at it with contempt.

“Phew,” exclaimed Uriel. “These gods sure are a self-aggrandizing lot. Look at the size of his genitals.”

“Obviously fictional,” quipped Gabriel.

Uriel said, “At least we now know one of his weaknesses. He has an inflated view of himself.”

Gabriel said, “
And he is probably impotent.”

Suddenly, the
ground opened up below their feet.

T
hey fell through a trap door and slid countless yards down a shaft that was so smooth; they could not grip it to stop themselves. It was like glass. It must have been made through intense heat melting the rock surface.

When they finally landed, it was into
a cavern that reminded them of the seat of assembly inside Mount Hermon. But in this assembly hall, there were no stalactites or stalagmites, but glorious silver pillars that filled the room with regal splendor. And there was no throne of simple stone but an elevated throne of gold with a canopy and footstool.

Uriel said, “Well,
is he not just a pompous little divinity, trying to outdo both Yahweh and his own pantheon with vain gloriousness.”

“Welcome to my throne room, archons,” said a booming voice
. It came from nowhere but echoed throughout the cavern.

They looked around
, and then Ba’al appeared out of the shadows and sat down upon his throne.

The angels saw that between them and the throne was a
six-foot tall bronze barrier that blocked their immediate access to him. It looked like a huge round pillar lying horizontally. Uriel figured it was an occultic barricade since Ba’al seemed too at ease on his throne in the face of their impending attack.

Ba’al was dressed as his statue
was, up above in the palace: Bare-chested with conical horned hat and mace. But he wore a battle kilt tied to his waist.

Uriel retorted,
“Thank you for sparing us the laughter by covering yourself up, King Kumquat.”

Ba’al bellowed with fearsome volume, “SILENCE,
GODLICKER!”

And then as quickly as he exploded, he returned to calm
—an ominous calm. “I am the Most High, king of the gods. Yet, you dare invade my palace with such audacity, and speak with such brazen incivility?”

It was just a thought
to Uriel to insult Ba’al by reducing the god’s realm of authority over vegetation and storm into sarcastic jabs. But he did not realize it would have such effect. What he did not know was that it reminded Ba’al of the insolent sarcasm of Ashtart when she would insult him in a similar way through the ages. He was a deity of calculated coolness, but for some reason, those verbal digs really got under his skin.

Too bad
for Ba’al, Uriel’s wit was sharper than Ashtart’s.

Uriel muttered to the others, “
Another weakness.”

Raphael
said, “Good for us it is
your
strength.”

Gabriel added, “For once.”

Uriel shot Gabriel an angry look.

Ba’al stood from his throne and removed his horned hat
and grabbed a chalice full of blood on a stand before him. He took a drink and then poured the rest over his head in a baptism of gore. The crimson red glistened over his shining body that now flashed like burning bronze. This Watcher god’s intensity was brimming over like a volcano ready to erupt.

He said, “
You think this is a replay of your battle with Ashtart? You have no idea. Ashtart was my slave.”

Uriel muttered to
Gabriel under his breath, “I have to hand it to you, Gabriel. He
is
impotent.”

“You said it first, brother,”
returned Gabriel.

It was like their
rivalry could turn on a shekel into loyalty—if either of them could just stop competing so much.

Ba’al said, “Where is your lead archon? How dare he send his lackeys to do his work.”

At that very moment, Mikael was outside where the others had left him
, praying to Yahweh with all his might. His archangelic voice could not be heard above the whirlwind of fury that was above him tearing the heavens in half. Bright flashes of lightning struck the rocks near Mikael, thunder pounded his eardrums, and sheets of rain attacked his skin like pine needles.

But
Yahweh could hear him.

The angels moved slowly but determinedly toward Ba’al. Uriel said, “Well, god of temper tantrums, we apologize for being so unimpressive to your royal windbag. But Yahweh has a way of using the weak things of this world to confound the muscle bound.”

Ba’al was shaking
with fury. He was shining with such brilliance from his anger that it would have blinded a human.

But these were not humans. They were archangels.

Ba’al gave a fangy grin and raised his hands in the air as if summoning his powers.

He proclaimed,
“NEHUSHTAN, ARISE!”

Suddenly, the large
, round, bronze barricade began to move.

To s
lither.

It was
not a fallen column.

It was
alive.