Enoch Primordial (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (9 page)

Troglodytes knew how to throw a party. They gathered in a series of halls attached to each other that were even larger than the marketplace cavern Enoch had seen when they first arrived. Apparently, most of the city had come to the wedding celebration. There were thousands of them. They filled the carved out chambers with echoes of chatter and laughter.

These were not the simple people Enoch had thought
them to be. Their structure and decorations were simple and sparse, their cave drawings almost childlike, but they were socially integrated and communally connected like no other people he had ever seen. They carried a spiritual quality about them that Enoch could relate to, something he knew his clan could not understand. He had a strange connection to them. He understood why Adam had chosen to live with the cave dwellers. His original bias against them had proven false. It had been based on false legends he should not have listened to.

This
was the time to feast and celebrate the marriage of his son. He saw Methuselah and Edna dancing out on the floor. Adam had officiated the ceremony with his ever-present Havah by his side. It made Enoch cry like a baby. He had been concerned about this insignificant little temple virgin, but had come to realize that she too had overcome his expectations. He was beginning to think that for a wisdom sage, he was not proving very wise of late.

In the midst of the music, Enoch
glanced at Adam and Havah at the table. They smiled and pretended to enjoy the festivities. But even now, they could not escape the pall of sadness that haunted them.

Suddenly, the floor cleared, and everyone
moved to the tables to watch the entertainment. Methuselah and Edna sat down at the head table with Enoch and the others. Adam leaned toward Enoch and said, “You have been wondering what the Karabu can do? Sit back and get ready. You are about to find out.”

The Karabu took their places on the floor. There were ten of them. They were dressed as warriors with armaments of animals. Lion heads and manes, vulture winged robes, and heavenly weapons Enoch had never seen before. Strange blades, shields, and javelins.

They engaged in battle exercises that
seemed more like a dance of acrobatics than about brute strength or power. They ebbed and flowed like a river of water, their movements fluid, not forceful. They moved through the air as if they were fish floating in water. Flipping, twisting, they attacked and defended with such precision and poise as to transform the act of fighting into a ballet of grace.

Adam
could not see the dance, but he could feel it. He knew it well. He said to Enoch, “They were trained by the archangel Gabriel. The original giant killer.”

Enoch caught himself with his mouth open again and quickly shut it. He now knew that Elohim had provided for his calling.

Methuselah was entranced by the javelins and how they glided like birds in the air and spun in the hands of the heavenly skilled Karabu. He thought to himself that this was the weapon for him.

Edna wanted to dance like the wind as these fighters did.
She found it a haunting vision of terrifying beauty.

Adam
touched Enoch’s arm and said softly, “What do you say we go up top and get some fresh air?”

It
surprised Enoch. So far as he knew, this stooped-over old man had not been out of the caves since he arrived here ages before.

“Anything you ask, f
orefather,” said Enoch.

“Walk me, then,” said Adam.

Havah moved to help as she had always done, but Adam gestured to her to stay. He would be all right. Just the men.

As they walked up to the surface through the winding tunnels, Enoch asked Adam about the name he had uttered earlier, Yahweh Elohim.

Adam apologized
, “It slips out too often. It is the covenant name of Elohim. It is reserved for only the most sacred of relationships. It expresses his essence as the foundation of existence itself. The divine council of heavenly host uses it.” He paused for a moment. “We used it in the Garden, but now with the Edenic exile…” his voice cracked for a moment. “It is a name that should remain secret until latter days. For what purpose, I do not know. Perhaps it has to do with the seed of the Woman.”

They stepped out in the evening breeze under the stars. Adam stopped and took a deep breath. “Ah,” he proclaimed, “I do believe I miss this sweet taste in my lungs.”

Enoch helped him carefully so Adam would not stumble on the rough ground at their feet. Adam turned his face to the sky, unable to see anything. Yet he knew every star’s location.

“He brings forth the Mazzaroth in his season,” mused Adam as if remembering Yahweh Elohim’s own words. Enoch smiled and looked upon the host of heaven.

“Elohim’s story for us,” Adam added, still thinking.

His blind eyes found the right place in the night sky. “Can you see the constellation
of the Virgin? The second decans, right about there,” he pointed. “
Comah
, the desire of nations.”

Enoch could see it. One of the benefits of being an apkallu was their learning of the stars.

“It is my favorite constellation,” added Enoch. “Virgin and child. It tells me there is hope. Hope for purity, for a new beginning. For a new ‘Adam.’”

Adam
welled up with emotion.

“Father Adam,” said Enoch, “I know this is probably not the time to ask you, but…” He hesitated.

“But what?” queried Adam. “Speak.”

“Is it true, the legend about Cain the cursed one?”

Adam hesitated in uncomfortable silence. He wished Enoch had not spoken after all. It was another sore wound for him in a life of many self-inflicted wounds.

He
sighed. “Cain is a scourge upon my existence. He has made it his one purpose in life to foil the plans of Yahweh Elohim because of his punishment for murdering his brother.” Adam kept using the covenant name of
Yahweh
because he was in private and knew Enoch was a chosen vessel of Elohim.

“But how can he deny his guilt?” asked Enoch.

Adam shook his head. “The mind of man is never so cunning as when it is involved in the art of self-justification. I know, I am guilty as well.”

Enoch
steadied Adam as they stepped over some volcanic rubble on their walk.

“At first, Cain accepted his exile in the land of Nod. His family line left him when he began to show signs of lunacy. He had discovered that Yahweh
planned a new righteous lineage through Seth to replace his own cursed line. Many of the names of the sons of Seth were even similar to Cain’s line, which reinforced the substitution. To be forgotten, erased from the tablets of history was a fate worse than his infamy. Punishment still affirms the value of the guilty party because it shows they had the nobility to do otherwise. But annihilation means they have no value, and they could not do otherwise. Like a clay pot created merely to be destroyed.”

Adam took a long breath. “Cain learned of Yahweh’s curse of enmity between the children of the Woman and the children of the Serpent
. And he learned of the Promise of the Seed that would crush the Serpent’s head even as it bit the Woman’s heel. Cain realized that the only revenge he could inflict upon Yahweh would be the destruction of the lineage of that promised Seed. So he set out to destroy Seth’s bloodline. Unfortunately for him, it had already grown and splintered into many lines of descent, leaving Cain with an impossible goal.

“
He seeks the chosen line of the Seed of Havah, and when he finds it, he will destroy it.”

Enoch remained silent. He could not imagine the weight of sorrow that burdened this great man.

He changed the subject. “Father Adam, it is getting cold. Let us return to the wedding party.”

“Let me return to my bed to get some much needed sleep,” said Adam in reply. “My talk with you has made me tired.”

Enoch knew he had been a help to the old man. There was something very freeing that came with confession of the heart. It had the effect of relaxing the soul from what it could not carry.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” added Adam. He stopped and reached into his shoulder sack and pulled out a couple of animal skins. He handed them to Enoch.

“I want you to have these. They are the original skins that Yahweh Elohim clothed Havah and me with after our fall.”

Enoch looked at them with reverence.

Adam finished, “They were a covering for our sins. May they be a covering for you.”

Enoch embraced his forefather with all his heart.

• • • • •

Methuselah waited for what seemed like an eternity on the large
wedding bed they received as a gift from Adam and Havah. He had only one thing on his mind: Edna. She was preparing herself in the wash area.

He had waited too long for this moment and it had finally come. He thought back on the years he spent pouring his soul into this precious jewel, with nary a thought that she would one day pour back into him. It was the perfect dream. They had been best friends, soul-mates, and now they would be lovers. They would finally become one.

Where is she?
he thought.

“Edna,
are you sleeping in there?” he teased.

S
uddenly, she pounced on him from behind.

It took him by surprise. They rolled on the bed laughing and playfully wrestling, as they always used to in their sport room.

Then he saw her gown, soft and translucent over her supple form. Play turned to passion. Finally, they were released for love, and they melted together as one.

Many years passed.

Enoch and his tribe sojourned with the cave dwelling Adamites, raised their families, and learned the way of the Karabu. The Watcher gods of Mount Hermon consolidated their reign over the land of Mesopotamia. They built large temples to their names and continued to pursue the outlaw giants. They offered bounty on Nephilim packs and rogues who roamed the desert badlands and mountainous hideouts of the earth.

Rumors grew and persisted that the gods were experimenting with occultic sorceries, creating unspeakable abominations and monstrosities. For what purpose, no one could tell. Whispers of conspiracy filled the cities. But in the rural areas of desert, forest, and mountain, life was less complicated. For those who did not serve the gods of the pantheon, life was not as bountiful. Survival was a foremost priority.

Survival was not in the stars for the snow tribe of Barakil the elder. They numbered about a hundred members, living and hunting in the snow-capped mountains of Aratta near the Greater Zab river basin.

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.”

H
e 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.

S
he 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 red
headed 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, she was still a tigress in the marriage bed.

Enoch examin
ed 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
.

T
hey 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.”