The Descent of the Gods

Descent

A roaring wind woke Azrael. Where he had been and how long it had been since he and his brothers had sworn their oath, he did not know.

But as he opened his eyes, he struggled to focus on anything definite. Large masses of blurred color somersaulted around him - blues, whites, greens. Around and around. His hands and feet could feel nothing, but his body was being blasted by powerful torrents of wind.

A hand suddenly grasped his own, and his twisting body steadied. A face came close to his, a face he could recognize - Sariel.

"We did it! Look!" Sariel shouted above the roar, pointing down at the blurred green and blue colors. 

Azrael blinked, and as his eyes opened, he saw. Earth lay below them, as Azrael had seen it countless times before as he had traversed its surface. But their approach was anything but similar. 

They were falling through the actual atmosphere of the planet, not traveling through space and time on one of the many paths that had been created for them. 

"We did it!" Sariel shouted again, laughing in delight as he dove away from Azrael, his wings extended, guiding his flight. Azrael saw a sight he could never have imagined witnessing. All around him, two hundred angels falling towards the surface of the earth, some still unconscious and being wakened by their comrades. 

Azrael stretched out his fingers into the whipping wind and truly felt it. He smiled because he could understand with his mind that the air at this altitude was icy cold, but enough of their angelic power still remained with them that he was not affected by it.

He opened his own wings and soared in among the angels. They watched him, waiting for his command. He stared out over the landmass beneath them and found the Euphrates river. He signaled to his brothers. 

Shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind, he felt the weight of his conviction.  "We fall, that man might rise!" He folded back his wings and dropped like a stone toward Nod. The angels followed him with a shout.

They entered the lower atmosphere and something happened that Azrael had anticipated. Their speed of entry into earth's atmosphere was blindingly fast, so fast that the friction of the air was generating a terrific amount of heat. So much heat that smoke started to emanate from the angels' wings - a little at first, and then more and more. The angels spread out their flight paths because the smoke became so thick from the angels in front of them.

As flames began to flicker over his wings and reach out toward his body, Azrael looked ahead to confirm his flight path would end at Nod, then he wrapped his body in his wings. The angels saw this and followed suit. And only moments later, each white pod shooting across the cloudless sky burst into raging flames.

The Sethites that had survived the Cainite attack and eluded capture were returning to their village. They stared at the charred remains of their village in despair.

Seth, bruised and battered, emerged from the forest on the hilltop that had been his home. His altar was thrown down and scattered. His hut had only partially burned, the roof the roof collapsing on the interior. Jared sat hunched on a stone nearby, glaring bitterly across the Euphrates at the city of Nod that could just be made out from here.

Seth knelt down with great effort in front of his broken altar.

"Almighty God, do you not hear the cry of your people? They cry because they have forgotten your power. Your name to them is nothing but that... a name. Send your messenger that they might know the power of your name again! I beg..."

Seth paused suddenly. Something in the forest had changed. The chorus of the birds had faded in an instant. Only the sound of the soft breeze in the trees could be heard. Nature was suddenly silent.

Seth looked around. The grass and the forest were bathed in a strange yellow light. He looked up, but could hardly see the cause because of its brightness. He held his hand to his eyes and peered upward.

A lone point of flame burned as it moved east across the blue expanse high above him, but the unearthly silence only lasted a moment before a shock wave rolled through the forest.  The trembling of the earth was quickly followed by a howling wind that whipped the trees back and forth in its wake. 

The blast knocked Seth back against the ruined altar pinning him as he stared heavenward. Instead of calming, the gale only rose as more and more fireballs fell across the sky.

Toward NOD.