David Ascendant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 7) (38 page)

When the three archangels followed their quarry into the dark misty forest outside Kiriath-jearim, they knew full well what they were entering—and they were prepared.

When they hit the foggy foliage, Gabriel blew his war horn, and the angels immediately engaged the enemy.

The first wave of gods fought the archangels with the furor of those fighting for their eternities. If any of them should be wounded and bound into the earth or Tartarus, they would remain captive until the judgment.

All of them were frightened by the prospect.

Zeus, Marduk, Horus, Shiva, and Odin struck the three angels with lightning bolts, mace, talons, six-armed swords, and staff.

The angels held their ground, dodging, parlaying, and striking back, blow for blow. These angels were not merely messengers and ministering spirits, they were Karabu, trained in the heavenly art of warfare.

Despite their strength and skill, there was no way in heaven and earth that the archangels had a fighting chance alone against seventy gods and their supporting minions.

There were thousands of the enemy.

But the angels were not alone.

At the sound of Gabriel’s horn, tens of thousands of heavenly host entered the forest from the backside and descended upon their supernatural foes in battle.

The forest became alive with the unseen clash of spiritual warfare.

The three angels guarding the house of Abinadab saw the townspeople running in the streets at the strange sounds in the woods. They all looked out into the misty forest but could see nothing through the ethereal fog. The townspeople could only imagine what must be going on in the invisible world around them.

Inside that bewitched forest, the Seventy saw the host of heaven descending upon them. Before the approaching Sons of God could meet their seventy rebellious brothers and properly engage them, the gods made a break for it and ran away. Just as the Philistine deities had done earlier in the town.

It didn’t make sense to the archangels. Why would they give up so quickly and easily?

They had no time to think.

Uriel saw the huge body and horns of Ba’alzebul. He was getting away with Dagon and Asherah.

He yelled and his two brothers followed him.

As the gods fled the forest, Ba’alzebul saw that the three angels were locked in on them like lions on blood. He cast a knowing look to Asherah, on the other side of Dagon.

Ba’alzebul and Asherah drew their swords and simultaneously swung low, slicing through the ankle tendons of Dagon between them.

He screamed in agony and tumbled to the ground in a pile of pain. His two betrayers raced onward back to Mount Hermon and safety.

The three angels came upon Dagon and stopped to bind him.

Gabriel kept his eye on the gods. “They are too fast. We will not be able to catch them.”

“Cockroaches scurrying from the light,” said Uriel, staring daggers into Dagon’s fearful face. “At least we’ll bind one son of Belial.”

Dagon clutched his ankles writhing in agony. He bellowed in a voice that could be heard for miles, “DAMN YOU BA’ALZEBUL AND ASHERAH! DAMN YOU TO TARTARUS!”

“Oh, they will make it to Tartarus eventually,” said Uriel. “And then you can play dice with them there until the judgment.”

Raphael grabbed his hands and bound him with the material from his armband. It was thin, white and indestructible hair from the Cherubim that surrounded Yahweh Elohim’s throne chariot in the heavenlies. It was the only material that the gods could not escape. It still held many of the original two hundred rebels bound in the depths of the earth from the time of the Deluge.

Dagon would not be getting out of this binding.

Gabriel said, “Nothing like being given up as a sacrifice to save others, is it, Dagon? Or should I call you by your true name, Kestarel?”

Dagon hissed, “You only have me because I was betrayed, godlickers.”

Asherah had led Dagon to believe that they would betray Ba’alzebul to the angels. Dagon boiled with anger at her double-cross. He had been the target all along. He should have seen it. Now they could split Canaan between the two of them as king and queen.

“Which strikes me as odd,” said Uriel. “What was the point of this exercise in futility? Did you really think you had a chance at capturing the ark of Yahweh?”

Dagon laughed. “You fools. Asherah was right. You are such easy targets.”

“Yeah,” said Uriel, “we do not have your depraved minds to think your perverted thoughts after you. But I’ll bite the bait. What are we missing?”

Raphael was already figuring it out.

Dagon said, “We were not here to fight. Or steal the ark. We knew that if we showed up in force you would equal us with all your most high forces—to stop us from capturing your silly little god throne.”

Raphael, who rarely spoke, said it. “The archangels and the heavenly host drawn here leaves the messiah unprotected against the Philistines and the Sons of Rapha.”

“What a genius you are,” mocked Dagon. He mumbled, “Simpletons.”

Uriel blurted out, “We have to get back to the Valley of the Rephaim.”

Gabriel halted him. “But we have to bury this brigand.”

“We cannot make it back in time,” countered Raphael.

“You are already too late,” cackled Dagon.

              • • • • •

When David’s stealth forces hit the rear guard of the Philistine army, the Lords of the pentapolis became easy targets. Their royal war chariots had running guards of four giants each, but many of them went down in a wave of arrows, led by the marksman, the Mouse and his mighty bow.

Three Lords died instantly, Tarhunda of Gaza, Suwardata of Ashkelon and Mutallu of Ashdod.

Dothan of Ekron was severely wounded.

Only Achish survived intact. But he panicked.

He screamed like a woman, pushed his driver off his chariot, took the reins himself and trampled over his own soldiers getting away from the battlefield.

David saw the cowardly king drive his horses into the tree line ahead of them. Achish jumped off, running away into the forest.

Lahmi saw David from a distance. He aimed his loop javelin for a throw, and launched it. The special loop released the missile with an extra strong force that increased its speed fivefold.

David raced after Achish, with Benaiah and their armor-bearers by their sides.

Lahmi’s javelin hit a soldier where David had been a second before. Lahmi cursed at his second miss against the messiah in two battles. It would not happen again.

Lahmi sprinted after David into the forest.

Ittai saw his childhood friend and lifelong enemy, Lahmi, through the fighting.

Ittai and his armor-bearer, Elhanan, sprinted after him.

The Philistine forces were now without leadership. They were pinched in front and behind by the Israelites.

Chaos erupted.

But Rephaim thrive on chaos, so the regiments of giants leapt into action.

Abishai met the attacking giants with a strike force he had put together of several hundred of the finest gibborim. They pounded each other in a clash of unrelenting fury between giant and Israelite.

Abishai cut down giants on his way to his target: Ishbi ben Ob, the prized leader of the Sons of Rapha.

Abishai could see a whirlwind of demonic spirits around the giant as he fought. It was as if the supernatural evil that accompanied this beast had become visible to the naked eye. They added a level of terror to an already terrible and frightening warrior. He was covered by the enchantment of sorcery.

Abishai didn’t care. He was covered by Yahweh, the creator of spirits.

Achish ran like a scared pig through the underbrush of the forest. He kept tripping and falling and picking himself up, a bungling and pathetic mess. Then the chubby leader ran headlong into a tree and knocked himself to the ground, dizzy and seeing stars.

When David and Benaiah came upon him, they noticed Achish had crapped in his battle skirt and was crawling on the ground like a wounded rat trying to get away.

Benaiah stood back with their armor-bearers.

Achish looked up at David and cried out, “You traitor! You double dealing spy! I trusted you! I let you into my palace, and you betrayed me!”

“You betrayed yourself, fool. Philistia is an abomination of desolation, and you expect me to be loyal to you? To double cross my countrymen? To betray my anointed king? To blaspheme my god?”

“I should have listened to Bisha! I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“
I
should have killed Bisha when I had the chance,” said David. “But be aware O king, that you will see her today where you are both going.”

“You think you are so holy and pure, you Hebrews.” said the king. “But you are no different than your enemies. You kill women and children, you annihilate and enslave. Your god demands exclusive worship, yet he is just one among many who seek power over territory with violence.”

David replied, “There is a difference between us, Achish. You worship demons. But Yahweh is the Creator of all things. You defied him, and now you blame him for your evil.”

David raised his sword to Achish. “You are a Seed of the Serpent. You will bite the heel of Yahweh’s people no more.”

Then, with a determined resolve and a mighty stroke, David brought down his weapon on the neck of the debauched Philistine. Achish’s lifeless head tumbled aside and landed facing skyward; his final expression of horror a trophy in David’s heart.

              • • • • •

Twenty miles away, in the royal palace of Gath, the Gittite spy sent by Ittai stepped out of Lady Bisha’s bed chamber. He wiped blood from his dagger and made his way to the city gates.

Inside the chamber, Lady Bisha lay in a spreading pool of her own blood, gasping with what little life she had left in her. Her intestines were spilled out on the floor beside her, and all she could worry about was how bad she would look when they found her. Her hair was a mess and she had not gotten the chance to put on her makeup for the day.

She couldn’t go out this way. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She was Lady of Gath. She deserved better.

Blood all over her new dress.

I should have killed that Hebrew
, she thought as her life slipped into the oblivion of Sheol.

But David was wrong about her reunion with her Lord. They would not be seeing each other ever again. They would be seeing nothing but the eternal worm, utter darkness, piercing shrieks, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

              • • • • •

On the Jerusalem side of the Valley of the Rephaim, Joab held the Philistines at bay. The giants began to push back, when Joab implemented the next plan of action.

He and David had studied the tactics of warfare used by Joshua to defeat the giants of Canaan in the conquest. They had read in the
Book of the Wars of Yahweh
how Joshua had overcome Og of Bashan. How they had built large composite bows the size of two or three men, laid on their side and operated by several soldiers. The large size of the bolts could take down giants.

Joab rolled up a dozen of these newly crafted huge bows, and they aimed above the heads of the normal soldiers at the giants in their midst. They released large bolts that found their large targets, skewering two or three giants at a time.

A contingent of giants charged the bows and scattered the Israelites, smashing the large devices to smithereens.

But the damage had been done. Casualties were high for the Rephaim.

That is when the Lion Men of Moab mobilized their offensive. Eight sharp-in-tooth, long-in-claw, lion-maned hybrids armed to the teeth with iron pounced. This clash between Rephaim and Ariels would not end well for either side. They ripped each other to shreds. Within the hour, the last of several hundred giants were bleeding in pieces on the valley floor—but so were eight mighty Lion Men who gave their lives in a heroic last stand for the King of Israel.

From this came the saying of these warriors of Gad and Moab, “The least was a match for a hundred men and the greatest for a thousand.”

At the rear of the battle, Abishai and his gibborim slaughtered their giant enemies. The Rephaim numbers dwindled in the face of the Israelite warriors, as they had with the Lion Men. Six hundred had become one hundred. The gibborim had been commissioned to fight until every last Rapha was dead. It was like hacking up a den of snakes.

When Joshua first conquered the Promised Land and decimated the Seed of the Serpent, he had left Philistia alone. He had cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron and Debir, and Anab. There were no giants left in all the land. They were all devoted to destruction along with their cities. Only in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod did some Rephaim remain, left by the withholding of Joshua’s hand. These Serpent Seed were the descendants of that remnant of giants.