Stones of Fire

Devil Slayer

The Nephil was moving fast and the odor of the human flesh it had consumed was strong on the wind. Hidden in a stand of quivering larch trees, Enoch, youngest elder of the Sethite clan, heard the giant lumbering out of the mist-cloaked mountains some distance to the north. By the magnitude of the creature's footfall, it would be as tall as a red cedar. Of its girth, Enoch was sure it was weighty.

Yes, this giant had consumed at least one human being today, Enoch mused grimly. Too often now, the hybrid sons of the Shining Ones—half angelic and half human— preferred human to animal flesh, for every day their evil increased. But that would not deter Enoch. He had killed many Nephilim before and would sink his spear into the tender place between this monster's eyes today just as he always did. Unlike their angelic fathers, Nephilim were mortal; this one's blood would soak the ground blue today.

Enoch tied back his long hair and considered a strategy for confronting the giant. It was a choice, as always, and one of these times he might die from that choice. Yet his heart pounded with excitement. He was not called Devil Slayer for nothing, and he relished the confrontation with the Nephil, the meaning of the word being "mighty men." Bizarre breeding practices between rebel angels and willing human women had resulted in these creatures of destruction who now rampaged the earth.

The young Sethite had journeyed north on rumor. A scout from the blue mountains had run into the Sethite enclave with word for their chieftain, Adam, that an especially aggressive Nephil was rioting among the northern villages, where men were still peaceful and did not deny the Creator, as most of the world now did. The Nephilim could do no other than destroy, conceived as they were in the dark rituals of Satanail in unspeakable places. Wherever possible, they must be stopped, and Enoch was one of the few who dared.

He knew how this one would look, for there was little variation in their appearance. Verile in an exaggerated way, the creature would be brawny and canny of eye, entirely naked, belligerently exposing its muscular body, defying all decency. It would behave impulsively and without conscience, and with a cruelty even the remnant of Cain's godless descendents could not match. A belt strung with human and animal skulls would be dangling at its mid-section, and double rows of teeth in the wide, sensuous mouth would betray the creature's supernatural origins as it roamed valleys and swam seas, bringing chaos and death, serving its supernatural father, defying the order of the earth.

But Enoch smiled. Soon the creature's sensitive nose would detect him. They all knew his scent. The Nephil's increased blood-lust would make the encounter all the more interesting. The agile son of Jared prepared himself, checking the placement of the blood-stained spear strapped across his back and reminding himself not to look directly into the Nephil's unearthly eyes. Even a glance into those dark orbs could drive a man to madness; Enoch had seen would-be giant killers fall down and eat grass on hands and knees as though they were oxen after a too-familiar encounter.

He wondered why what was impossible for others was food and drink to him. He loved killing what he hated. When this one was dead, Enoch would ritually pay homage to God Most High, as always, out of his latent respect for Adam's deity. But secretly, he wondered what God had to do with it. It was his spear that would pierce the vulnerable place in the giant's forehead. It was his sweat and skill that would add another severed head to the count. But of course, he thought with a visceral flush to his cheeks, he could do none of it without the woman Eeda—her mysterious way with the music of trance that weakened the giants and made his own efforts possible. The daughter of the potter Danel should have been here by now, for he had left a message in the camp. Eeda never failed to join him.

He moved toward the highest of the nearby cliffs, striated in gray and white. His mind relished the thought of coming into camp that evening. The people would laud him anew. Children would squeal with frightened delight at the sight of the Nephil's dead, staring eyes in the cart. The men would grudgingly admit that despite their youngest elder's extravagant temperament, he was their sure protection. Eeda's admiration for him would grow and soon he would seek to wed her. The great musicians of the earth would compose yet another ballad lauding Devil Slayer's prowess. How he loved the praise of people.

Enoch was the only man among the peace-loving Sethites allowed to carry weaponry, and now he checked again the position of his spear and the short dagger at his waist. His timing must be perfect. Experience was everything. He disciplined his mind not to think about the inconceivable sexual unions that produced the Nephilim. As far as the Sethite elders could discern, the seed of the fallen angels passed through the bodies of possessed human men in order to impregnate women. It was not possible, and yet it was reality upon the earth. The Creator had never intended such a horror.

The Nephilim brought miscarriages and nightmares to the earth's people. But the nightmares did not turn to vapor with the dawn, for those dreams thundered into their villages in bodily form and brought worse than dreams. Where their spirits went after death, even the forebear Adam did not know.

But Enoch refused to shrink from the presence of the evil ones as most men did. He would rather live with the death angel camped behind his ear than live a life of cowardice. He rarely wondered where his extraordinary confidence came from. Like all Sethites, he had a general respect for spiritual beings, but kept the one called God Most High at the periphery of his attention. He knew grudgingly that in his own strength it was impossible to best the towering giants. Yet he wished he did not need God.

A shudder shot through the forest floor and the golden larches shivered. The giant was nearer now. Enoch set his legs wide to steady himself. Small animals scurried into dens and a sudden wind began to moan high in the trees. God’s good creation understood the approach of something that should not even exist. He lost his footing at the next jolt and was thrown to the ground. He lay on the mossy earth, air chased from his lungs. He grinned. Let the beast come. Maybe this one would have only one eye, in the manner of the repulsive cyclops he had seen several of. The more frightening, the more interesting.

A wide fissure was opening in the forest floor from the impact of the giant’s footfall, etching its random path beyond Enoch’s sight. He rolled away from the crack as a thick-trunked angel oak split and leaned into the depths. The earthy scent of decay and unseen subterranean life rose out of the fissure, and tree roots protruded from its sides like the rungs of a ladder. He got up and peered in. If he chose to descend far enough on the support of those roots he might reach Sheol, where the spirits of the dead languished. He did not fear death or the underworld; when he found himself there one day he would make of its shadowy depths as much an adventure as he did the present life.

He laughed into the sky and his blood ran warm with the vision of spearing the giant, watching its surprise, its bulging eyes. At the age of sixty-five among the long-living Sethites, Enoch was at the height of his powers. He cinched his tunic tighter and pictured the impressions in the land being left by the monster’s enormous feet as it moved into the vast, loamy steppe of nourishing grass that stretched southward to the Flood Sea. Some of the six-toed indentations blighting the land were large enough for five men to stretch out inside. When ground water rose inside the impressions they became foot-shaped ponds people called "devil’s water," and they would not allow their cattle to drink from them.

“But I drink devil’s water all the time,” Enoch shouted into the sky. He was ready. He did not care if the destructive brute heard him now. Besides, the Nephilim maintained a certain respect for him. He had once seen a depiction of himself painted on the walls of one of the many enormous caverns where some of them slept. The mural had been a remarkable likeness, painted in vivid shades of azure and saffron and the black of obsidian. The painted figure’s spear was poised, the lips thrust in concentration, the long hair flying. “He who pierces” was written beneath the image, not in the universal language of the earth, but in cryptic angelic ciphers Enoch had learned snatches of through the years. Since that day he had dyed his tunics golden ochre and his gaiters blue as the morning sky, another sign of his defiance toward the giants. If the people of his clan thought him extravagant, he did not care. After all, did any of them risk their lives to rid the earth of wickedness?

“Today is your doom, mortal one,” Enoch muttered. He kicked off his sandals and pressed his bare toes and the tips of his fingers into tiny nubs on the rock face and began to climb. A surge of elation pulsed through him as he moved fluidly upward. On rock, intense and physical, he felt most connected with life. Scaling a cliff without a rope was as easy as walking. He had conquered this high face as a child and knew it like his own breath. It did not bother him that one false move would send him to serious injury or death below.

Who was God, after all? Enoch mulled cheerfully as he climbed. Adam often preached of how the Creator had been visible to him in the Garden of Eden, where he and his wife Eve once co-ruled among angels of the Divine Council. The earth had been pristine then, uncorrupted by sin or decay. When those first two human beings were evicted from Eden, God left to make his throne in Shamayim, the heavenly realm. Now the Creator no longer walked among people as though they were intimate friends, for sin had hidden God from their sight. The older Sethite elders taught these things diligently. But Enoch, Devil Slayer to the world, did not care. This day, this present moment, was all that mattered.