FOR THE TEMPLES OF HIS GODS

 

Is this the Last Stand of the Spartan 300?

FOR THE TEMPLES OF HIS GODS

“Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the Gate:

"To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods.”

- Thomas Babington Macaulay

 

“Aw, hell, no!” snapped Patton as I wrapped an arm about his shoulders. “Not again!”

I said, “War doesn’t care. To care, you have to feel, and fire does not feel. It only burns until there is nothing left.”

Closing my eyes, I pictured the seared cobblestones where last I saw Helen.

This last teleporting hurt worst of all. I cried out along with Patton.

When I opened my eyes, I had to fight to keep from crying out again. Patton did cry out. I did not blame him.

Flaring fingers of fire reached out for us from every direction.

My Spartans were yelling and shooting in all directions. They ducked behind broken fragments of walls as bullets sent chunks of stone flying.

Flames boiled out of widening cracks in the blackened concrete at our feet.

I could actually feel the ground beneath my boots tremble as if the earth itself was about to give birth to demons.

André was smiling wide as he rolled, spun, and took picture after picture of the fighting. I froze. The boyish blonde woman beside him, squealing in pleasure, took her own pictures.

She was Gerda Taro.

Gerda died on the 27th of July 1937 when a republican tank collided into a car she was traveling in.

LIFE Magazine described her as being 'Probably the first woman photographer ever killed in action'.

Taro was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris on August 1^st, 1937.

The tombstone features the falcon Horus, and the epitaph: "So nobody will forget your unconditional struggle for a better world."

Why a falcon?

I think I know. 

To me the falcon described in "The Second Coming"  is symbolic of the human race in modern times, as it has become disconnected from its roots.

When Yeats writes, 

"The falcon can't hear the falconer” – 

I believe he meant humanity has lost touch with its heart, its soul, its connection to its Creator.

But you decide for yourself.

It’s your life.

Still, here was Gerda Taro laughing and photographing beside the man she had loved.

Maybe in the end, we are all reunited with who or what we loved while living.

Maybe.

All of us will find out for ourselves one day. And, for me, this might just be that day.

One thing was for sure: my life never seemed to run out of strangeness.

To my right, a Tiger tank was ruptured with sharp fingers of metal flaring out as if burst open from the inside by a tremendous explosion.

A foul-smelling column of smoke spiraled from the blazing Tiger tank to my left.

With no consideration of being shot, a half dozen SS soldiers charged straight at us. Their writhing lips were flecked with froth as if they were rabid.

Patton drew his Colt and fired, dropping two of them.

Slacked jaw, I saw that impossible shapes were running at their heels. Nazi soldiers I could understand.

But not the madness I saw snapping at the SS troops heels. 

Not this.

In my head, Sentient snapped, ‘What you do not understand can still kill you! Do not just stand there gaped mouth. It is a dance of death. Dance!’

An icy prickliness moved under my scalp from the base of my skull up over my head to flare down towards my temples.

This sensation had only happened to me once before: when I had first received my draft notice … 

when Sentient had fully synced with my mind due to the jolt of fear that had hit me.

But instead of my mind going black as when Sentient took control of my body, the world seemed to crystalize all about me.

‘Finally!’ breathed Sentient.

‘The essences of those two O.S.S. killers and that of the murderous Captain with his wrestling ability have been fully funneled into your being.’

‘What? I don’t want to be like them!’

‘Which is why it has taken so long for your unconscious to weed out the chaff of them and incorporate the rest.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Their skills, their reflexes, their muscle memories … all yours to utilize. So do so! Now!’

Without knowing how they got there, a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger and a strange sword were in my hands. There was a blurring of attackers, and I saw they had changed faces and forms.

Mr. Morton had stepped in again. I smiled wide. He was cheating.

Elohim would step in to even the odds.

Maybe.

And maybe He already had with my new access to borrowed abilities.

As they rushed in on me, I swayed backwards so low my body was parallel to the steaming ground, just inches off the stones. 

I kept the momentum of my backward movement and tumbled in a ball.  I supported myself on my knuckles, lashing out with my outstretched legs, spinning in a wide arc.  

Men, women, and things were knocked sprawling into a tumble of arms, legs, and claws. 

I snapped to my feet, spitting into the face of a white-wigged judge trying to smash in my head with his gavel.

With a flick of the dagger, I slashed across both eyes.  “Didn’t you know?  Justice is blind.”

He clutched his bleeding face and fell upon the sword of the foppish Pharaoh behind him. 

I sent the mewing boy to inquire how his soul fared against the weight of a feather. 

My sword and knife were living fire, weaving, flashing, seemingly everywhere at once.  I darted in and among my yelling enemies.

“Damn him!” screamed a satyr.

“He’s not human,” snarled a jackal-headed woman in what struck me as almost funny.

“He’s never in one spot,” growled a confederate soldier, blood-stained whip on his hip.

Mr. Morton must have dipped into Hell for reinforcements.

It was a nightmare hurricane of slashing swords and blooded claws. 

If hurricane this indeed was, it was a storm at night, illuminated with but brief flashes of lightning, fast glimpses of dying faces, snarling fangs, tumbling bodies. 

It was chaos come to life: a true creation of the living lie that was Mr. Morton.

They came in waves. 

I thrust, feinted, swayed to the side, rolling over the mailed back of an on-rushing crusader, lashing out with the dagger again.

Two Swiss guards clutched their torn-out throats. 

I snapped to my feet, weaving an elaborate figure eight of death with my sword and knife. 

The knocked-down crusader was crushed to death under the stampede of attackers.  A howling seemed to explode all around me.

I staggered back from the push of an invisible cloud of power.

The surviving Hell’s rejects evaporated into clouds of writhing fog before my stunned eyes.

I looked at the figure to my left who had dispersed them.

Darael.

Gently he took back both the dagger and sword from my unfeeling fingers. “You fight well … for a mortal.”

Smiling, he whispered low.

“I knew from your days at St. Marok’s that you fight best with blades.”

Sister Ameal was behind and to my left, wielding a sword that looked too long for her. Behind her were three crosses holding three writhing SS troopers impaled upon them.

Have I ever told you to not anger Sister Ameal? Consider yourself told.

Patton rushed to my side, reloading his Colt. “That was madness! What the hell were they?”

Amos, panting and bloodied, said, “You answered your own question, General.”

Theo grunted, “Darael, why didn’t you ‘disappear’ them earlier?”

He shook his tawny head.

“I could not. Not until they had served their purpose. The Adversary sent them to panic Helen Mayfair into calling Blaine back from terrorizing his Nephilim with that weapon from the future.”

In her flaming angel form, she landed beside me lightly. “I do not panic.”

Dickens warily walked up, keeping a keen eye on the sizzling tongues of lapping fire so close to him. 

“What I cannot ascertain is the reason behind the dearth of the Nephilim.”

Darael shook his head at the not too wary to be verbose Spartan.

“Not too puzzling, Dickens. Brave when they thought themselves invulnerable, not so much once they saw that not only could they be injured, but they could also be killed.”

He shrugged, “They chose to be elsewhere.”

Darael looked grim. “Which is why The Adversary dipped into the shallow end of his Domain to buy time.”

Amos frowned, “To buy time for what?”

“To coerce a more formidable Other to enter the fray … at its own peril of course. But then, the welfare of his pawns has never mattered overmuch with that one.”

Eric, his uniform stained with blood but untorn, yelled out, “Great! The third Tiger!”

Reese, his face smeared with dirt and blood, cried out, “Franklin, turn around. I need to dig into your pack again and get out another thermite missile.”

Dee Stevens hurried to our side with Sam Wilson alongside him.

 “I already got the corporal here to load me up. I expected those Jerries to try us again.”

He raised the Stinger missile to his right shoulder. “Why should you get all the fun?”

As the Stinger roared, Cloverfield screamed over the sound.

“Incoming!”

Darael groaned, “Great Cthulhu!”

I looked up … and up … and up.

Darael was not cursing … he was identifying … our approaching death.

 

“Just because you die, it doesn’t mean you lose.”

 – Richard Blaine

*

Listen to the music below for an added plus to the reading of this chapter.