Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (22 page)

The fighting at the city walls of Kiriath-arba was intense.
The battering ram was beginning to break down the iron-gilded gates with its pounding force. The Anakim were breaking down the besiegers’ ram engine below with large rocks. Israelite archers and slingers kept picking off Anakim defenders on the walls with their projectiles.

On the far sid
e of the city walls, units of climbing Israelite and Gibeonite warriors were barely kept at bay by Anakim using long poles to push back the increasing number of siege ladders.

Sheshai had chosen to use the high roof of the tavern inn as his command tower from which he could see the field and forces for battle strategy.

Several military captains accompanied him
, his trumpeter for sounding orders, and messengers to carry more specific commands to the field.

He felt the loss of his brothers
weigh upon him. He had thrown Talmai in prison and would later prosecute him for treason and mutiny. Not to mention the torture he had in mind for Talmai’s adultery with his wife. But Talmai had been a mighty warlord. He had not only inspired his soldiers when he was their general, but he had engaged in death defying feats of valor. Ahiman had been the largest most fearsome Anakite in all the land and had garnered allegiance and devotion through his gibborim exploits of terror. But now he was dead by the hand of that Habiru grasshopper, Caleb of Israel.

Together, the three of them had been an unstoppable united force
that even garnered respect from the Most High Ba’al. But now Sheshai was on his own. He had always been the smarter of the brothers, and therefore the brains behind their strategic climb of power. And he had certainly achieved his ultimate plan of becoming king of Kiriath-arba. But he now understood how much he had relied upon his brothers’ support and unique talents to compliment his own.

And his strength was ebbing away
because of the wound in his back. If they discovered Sheshai’s vitality was fading, they would kill him and replace him. Weakness was not tolerated.

He was light headed. He took a long drink of ale and
pushed aside the past and all thoughts of weakness to set his mind like iron toward the task at hand: Repelling and exterminating the godforsaken Habiru termites at his door.

The three generals stood nervously silent around Shesha
i. They had counseled him to engage their stratagem without further delay. But he had shut them up and was waiting patiently for just the right moment to spring his trap.

He wanted to
lure the enemy in, give them the false hope of apparent victory, like flies drawn to poisoned honey. When he struck, it would be a hammering blow of such high losses and crushed morale; he would turn the tables and make the besiegers the besieged.

One of the generals noticed Sheshai was pale and sweating. He asked him, “My commander, are you well?”

Sheshai looked at him with offended eyes.

Then he drew his sword and cut the general down.

He summoned every ounce of strength within himself to do it. The thrill of the kill brought new energy to his weakened disposition. He turned to the others. “Are there any others who question my power?”

The two surviving generals stepped bac
k slightly and almost in unison said with frightful eyes, “No, my lord.”

Sheshai
looked out onto the field from his vantage point. His eyes focused like a falcon’s sighting on its prey. His mind observed every soldier’s movement with godlike calculation.

A slight grin spread across his lips.

Joshua had found his way to the back of the tavern when he realized that the security inside the headquarters was far too
heavy for him to penetrate. Dozens of Anakim gibborim. He would not make it past the entrance to the bar. But he had seen that Sheshai was using the roof as an observation post.

His first order of business was to dispatch a
stray giant and grab his dagger after dragging him into the alleyway and hiding the body with garbage.

In the hands of
the human Joshua, an Anakim dagger was almost the size of a sword. But that was perfect for his purposes. He did not want a sword fight; he just wanted to slit the king’s throat.

He slipped the
dagger into the sash of his servant’s outfit and began his climb of the tavern wall.

The building was built from a stone lower foundation with hardened
mud bricks higher up. It made for relatively easy grip; at least until he got to the final wooden overhang eighty feet above. He had no idea how he was going to scale that perilous structure. But he did not have the luxury of an easy approach. He left that up to Yahweh when the time came.

The climb had been harsh on his hands. The rocks were roughly hewn and the bricks were old and jagged through years of weathered abuse. It made for a good grip, but it was tearing up his hands. His fingertips were bloody and starting to quiver from the strain.

He had to stop a moment to rest, shaking out the cramp in one of his hands while he held on with the other. But then the other one cramped up and he had to switch holds to shake out that one.

He was now about
seventy feet up and nearing the impossible overhang. This would be the moment he needed his strength the most, but he had barely any left in him. And now he could see that the overhang was tightly constructed wood with no places to grip.

He figured his only chance would be to use the dagger to dig out handholds.

He took a moment to pray to Yahweh for help.

When
he started to move upward, he lost his grip momentarily and almost fell. His body scraped against the wall. His sash came undone.

And
then the one chance he had left slipped out of his sash and fell clanging to the ground below.

It was his dagger.

Now he did not know what to do. He had come so far and was now quite literally up against a wall, with no way out.

But it was worse than he realized.

For Joshua did not see that below him where his dagger had fallen, was the companion Anakite looking for his fellow missing guard. He had just noticed an awkward looking pile of garbage in the alleyway, when the sound of the dagger hitting the pavement had caused him to glance above where he had not thought to look.

Just as Joshua prepared to start crossing the side of the buil
ding to find another way up, a large rock the size of a watermelon hit the wall near him, startling him, and making him freeze in confusion.

It
could not be rock loosening from the wall above. It had come from below. Rocks do not fall upward.

As
he realized what was happening, another rock the size of a human head hit him in the back and knocked the wind out of him. It was not big enough or hard enough to break any bones. It was just enough to jar him loose from the wall.

And he
plunged to his death seventy feet below.

But today was not the day of Joshua’s death.

The large ten foot Anakite was directly below him on the ground and caught his plummeting body like a pet in a master’s arms.

The Anakite
did not want to get in trouble for failing to secure this obvious assassin for questioning by the king. Death was too good for such seditious villainy.

Torture was more fitting.

Up above on the roof, completely oblivious of the assassination that had just been thwarted, Sheshai saw the moment he had been waiting for. His Nephilim senses came alive and he shouted to his
trumpeter, “Sound the call!”

The
trumpeter was startled. Even though he had been waiting for his command, Sheshai’s voice was so intense and sharp, it jarred him. He lifted the war horn to his lips and sounded a prearranged bellow that would announce to the captains on the wall their next move.

Because of Kiriath-arba’s close proximity to the southernmost Valley of Siddim, the Anakim had explored the valley for its natural resources. This was the location that had survived the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah centuries ago, and was just outside the shores of the result of that destruction, the newly expanded Dead Sea.

It was also the location of one of Sodom and Gomorrah’s most precious resource
s: The bitumen pits of the Siddim Valley.

The black pitch
substance had been a profitable source of water sealant as well as other various economic uses.

One of those various uses was
a flammable device. The pitch could coat a torch and burn half the night as a light source.

Or it could be set aflame and po
ured upon enemies at city gates with a fire that could not be quenched with water.

The Israelites were making great headway with the battering ram and scaling ladders. The gate’s iron gilding had been pierced and the wood beneath was splintering.

The scaling ladders had become too numerous to hold bac
k at the other side of the city. The Israelites and Gibeonites were about to breach the wall and enter when the sounds of Sheshai’s war horn reverberated across the walls.

The Israelite allies
paused with surprise.

The Anakim along the walls and at the gates moved cauldrons full of boiling pitch forward to the parapet.

They then poured the pitch down upon the battering ram and upon the scaling ladders.

The
blistering heat burned alive dozens of men in its river of pain. But the real damage came from the fiery tipped arrows that lit the pitch and set afire the wheeled battering ram, scaling ladders, and the ground all around the attacking forces.

It was a wall of fire burning everything in its path with unquenchable flames.

Israelites and their allies screamed in agony.

Anakim laughed in
derision above them.

The battering ram became an oven of wood that cooked alive the men within.

Caleb looked upon the chaos with horror. He sounded the retreat, but it was too late. Hundreds of men were trapped in an inferno of torment.

But that was not the only subversion to occur in this stratagem of Anakim terror.

The team of fifty
gibborim led by Othniel through the secret Anakim catacomb tombs were now at the top near the tumulus.

Caleb had made the mistake of not considering
the fact that once Sheshai had led Joshua to the tombs, he would know that Caleb would now have the knowledge of that entry point.

And
Sheshai had set a small army of several hundred Anakim to guard it.

Othniel’s band
had cautiously exited the tumulus entrance to the gilgal of astral worship. But the Anakim lay in wait and caught them off guard.

Othniel’s
’ warriors put up a mighty defense, but it was not enough for their small number and they were overwhelmed.

They were butchered.

Joshua looked up at the towering form of Sheshai marching in front of him, as he was escorted toward the prison cell
by a dozen guards. He wondered why the king would bother to waste precious time accompanying a prisoner to his incarceration while there was a crucial battle going on above.

But Joshua was unaware of the stinging loss that Caleb had just experienced.

And he
was not prepared for the sight before him in the cell.

In the corner of the chamber were not one but two prisoners chained to the wall. The
giant Talmai was beaten and bruised against one wall, staring into oblivion. Joshua thought he would be dead by now, but evidently, Sheshai had more nefarious punishment in mind for his seditious brother.

Part of that punishment was chained to the wall
crosswise from Talmai.

It was another Anakite. A dead female Anakite with her eyes
, tongue, and sexual organs gouged out, and her naked body full of a hundred stab wounds.

Sheshai could see Joshua’s confusion. He said, “That was my brother’s lover. My wife.”

Sheshai was torturing his brother mentally before he would torture him physically. He was stuffing Talmai’s double betrayal into his face and forcing him to choke on it.

These Anakim monsters were a
vicious and brutal lot.

“Brother,” said Sheshai, “I have company for you.”

Talmai looked up from his delirious stare. When he saw Joshua, his eyes focused and he came out of his delirium. His eyes filled with seething hatred.

Sheshai said with a wry bite, “Have you had sufficient time to contemplate the betrayal of your blood?”

Then Talmai’s broken look hardened with a smirk spread across his lips.

He said, “
You have lived a life of betraying blood. You used our brother Ahiman and you used me as pawns in your ambitious quest for power.”

Sheshai said, “It is the way of our people, Talmai. As Ahiman once said so poignantly not too long ago, there is but one god: Power.”