“Oh my God,” said Creed. He had opened the door slightly, and the three of them had watched the scene unfold.
Simon backed away from Eleazar, staring at the man’s body in shock as if he had just come upon it. Several men came running from across the courtyard. One of them leaned over Eleazar, putting his ear to the man’s chest. After a moment, he shook his head.
Schwartz watched in mute horror. She had known—or at least suspected—Simon was going to kill Eleazar. According to tradition, Simon had killed Eleazar in a rage, thinking his uncle had betrayed him. Still, it was a shock to see the scene unfold exactly as it had in a half-remembered story from her childhood—and to know they had been instrumental in bringing it about.
“What do we do?” she asked, feeling like an actor in a play who couldn’t remember her next line. Jason stood next to her, too stunned to reply.
Simon murmured something, looking toward the building where the three spacemen hid.
“Sir,” said Creed, “if we’re going to go, we should do it now.”
“He’s right, sir,” Schwartz said after a moment. “Eleazar’s dead. We failed.”
Still Jason did not speak.
“Sir?” said Schwartz.
“Go,” said Jason at last. He pulled the comm from his robe and gave it to Creed. “Contact Freedom. Tell Olson to call off the rescue. Bring the ship to the surface. If I’m not back by tomorrow at dawn, launch without me.”
Creed stared at him. “What are you going to do, sir?”
“I’ve got to see this through,” Jason said, moving to the sconce were the torch burned. “I will probably fail, but I have to try.” He took the torch and handed it to Schwartz. “Go. Now. That’s an order.” With that, he opened the door and slipped outside.
“Damn it all,” Schwartz said. “Come on.” She turned and went back down the stairs toward the tunnel, and Creed silently followed.
*****
Several men now stood over Eleazar’s body. Two of them held torches, and in the flickering light Jason could see a pool of dark fluid under his head. Simon was on his knees next to Eleazar, sobbing. As Jason approached, Simon looked at him and shouted something Jason could not understand. Soldiers moved to seize Jason, and he did not resist. His fate—and the fate of humanity itself—was now in the hands of Simon ben Kosevah, warrior, prophet, hero, murderer and perhaps madman.
“Let me see him,” Simon said, getting to his feet. The soldiers brought Jason face-to-face with their leader. Simon’s face was wet with tears. His remorse, it seemed, was real. But there was something else on his face as well. Anger? Fear? He shouted something at Jason.
“I’m sorry,” said Jason. “I don’t understand.”
Simon said the phrase again. When Jason still didn’t understand, he repeated it once more, slowly, and this time the meaning penetrated. “If you knew, why didn’t you stop it?”
“I could not,” said Jason. “I am sorry.”
“I killed him,” said Simon, agony in his voice. “Just as you said. I killed him.”
Jason did not speak. Simon again sank to the ground. He threw his arms around his uncle’s neck, sobbing and speaking quietly to him. For some time Jason stood there, flanked by two Jewish soldiers bearing spears, not knowing whether he would live through the night. At last, Simon stood again. He wiped away his tears with his sleeve and spoke a phrase to the soldiers, who released their grip on Jason.
“We will lose this war,” Simon said.
“Yes,” said Jason.
“But Judaea will live.”
“Yes,” said Jason.
“What do you ask for?”
“Fifty women,” said Jason. “Young. To have children.”
Simon nodded. “You will take them to your land. They will live?”
“Yes,” Jason said. “They will live.”
“Promise me, Yeh-son. Promise me they will live.”
“I promise to you that they will live.”
Simon called to a man whom Jason recognized as one of his trusted lieutenants. The man hurried over, and Simon spoke instructions to him. The man’s eyes went wide, and he cast several dubious glances at Jason, but when Simon had finished, the man saluted and then hurried away, calling several more men to him.
“We also need—” Jason started, but at that moment, someone across the courtyard shouted Simon’s name with some urgency, and Simon turned and disappeared into the darkness.
*****
“Go from door to door,” said Simon to his lieutenant, Masabala. “Tell the citizens that Simon bar Kochba requires all girls from the age of fourteen to seventeen to come to this courtyard immediately. They are not to pack anything or to say any goodbyes. Tell them that this is so that the girls may be saved from the hands of the Romans.”
“Nasi, you intend to send the girls with this stranger?”
“He is a prince from another land. He will take them on his ship and carry them to his home, far away, where they will be safe.”
“Yes, Nasi. If the families resist, should we take the girls by force?”
Simon hesitated. It hadn’t occurred to him that the families might object. He was accustomed to unquestioning obedience, and after all, he was offering these girls salvation! “If there is resistance, do not force them, but rather go on to the next house. If in an hour your men cannot bring me fifty women, then go to the tents and shacks and bring any unmarried women you can find.”
“Any women, Nasi?”
“That is what I said. Go!”
Simon turned back to Yeh-son, who was trying to tell him something. But then Yeshua ben Galgula, who had taken charge of the city’s defenses, shouted to him from across the courtyard. Yeshua, a veteran warrior and commander, would not interrupt him without good reason. Had the Roman assault on Betar begun? The stranger would have to wait. Simon turned and went to meet Yeshua.
*****
Within an hour, some two hundred women had assembled in the courtyard, ranging in age from their early teens to their thirties. The women stood blinking the sleep out of their eyes and murmuring quietly among themselves as they cast nervous glances at Jason and the score of armed men at the perimeter of the courtyard. Many of the men held torches, illuminating the courtyard with a faint yellowish glow. Eleazar’s body had been carried away, but a dark spot on the stone attested to his death.
It was not clear to Jason whether the women had come of their own volition. He wasn’t even entirely certain what that term meant under the circumstances. Most of the women, he was certain, had come to Betar fleeing the advancing Roman army. Whatever threats Simon’s men may have made toward them, they faced worse at the hands of the Romans.
The women were dirty and poorly dressed, even by the standards of war-torn Judaea. Simon’s men evidently had some trouble securing volunteers from the respectable families of the city. As the rebel’s chances of victory faded, so had Simon’s authority in Betar. Probably the families the men had first approached suspected some act of desperation on Simon’s part, such as offering two hundred young Jewish women to the Romans in exchange for ending the siege. Those who came either had no one to protest on their account or simply couldn’t imagine their lives getting any worse.
Simon, whom Jason hadn’t seen for the last hour, suddenly appeared, striding quickly across the courtyard. He barked something at his lieutenant, who responded in an apologetic tone. Simon continued to Jason, stopping a few paces in front of him. “These women are…,” he started, and then, after a pause, said a word that Jason didn’t recognize.
“It is all right,” Jason said, guessing the meaning. Wasn’t there a story in the Bible about a prostitute helping two Israelite spies? Far be it from him to turn up his nose at such an offering. A much bigger concern, from the point of view of their mission, was the lack of male gametes. “We also need… seed,” said Jason, feeling ridiculous. “From men. Our people—”
“You need men?” asked Simon, his face contorted in puzzlement.
“No men,” said Simon. “Men fight.”
As if in response to his statement, there were shouts from the direction of the main gate. Jason could make out enough to understand what was happening: the Roman assault on Betar had begun.
“Go,” said Simon, pointing to the building through which Schwartz and Creed had accessed the tunnel an hour earlier. “Take women to sky ship.” He turned and shouted to a man holding a torch not far off. The man jogged over, and Simon spoke briefly to him. The man nodded, saying, “Yes, Nasi.” Simon shouted orders, and the other men standing at the perimeter of the courtyard began to move in, corralling the women toward Jason.
“Come,” said the man with the torch. He shouted something to the group of women and then went into the building. Jason, not knowing what else to do, followed. The man with the torch went down the stairs and plunged into the tunnel. Jason hesitated a moment at the tunnel mouth. The women, chattering nervously amongst themselves, began down the stairs behind him. Feeling like he was on a carnival ride that he couldn’t control, Jason ducked into the tunnel.
*****
Simon bar Kochba ran, rallying men to him as he went. The news was not good: the Romans had breached the gate. If it were true, it meant certain doom for the rebels at Betar. It also meant Simon had been betrayed. The Romans could not have broken through the gate so quickly, and with so little warning. While Simon had been lashing out at Eleazar, the guards at the gate had let the Romans in—no doubt in exchange for clemency.
Fury once again arose in Simon’s breast—fury at the traitors for betraying their cause, fury at the Romans for their presumption to rule a proud and free people, and fury at God Himself for failing to live up to His promise to redeem Israel. Well, if God could not be relied upon to deliver a miracle, Simon would bring one about through sheer will.
“To the gate, men!” he roared as he ran, the power of his voice seeming to be lent strength by exertion. Few soldiers were stationed in this area; most were in one of the towers or guarding the wall. But word had begun to spread of the breach, and Simon was heartened to see hundreds of men pouring out of side streets and alleys toward the gate. Some wore armor and bore spears and shields, while others carried only staves, clubs or slings. Many were little more than boys. This is why you will never defeat us, thought Simon. The spirit of Israel burns like a furnace in the heart of each of these men.
He saw them now: the Romans advancing toward him in a wedge, shields held high. They moved as one, their movements as coordinated as those of the segments of a caterpillar. Simon could not help but admire them, in the way a man admired the harmonized tensing of the muscles of a powerful horse in motion. But these phalanxes, like a workhorse, were driven by habit and by fear. Maybe the Jews would lose this war, but people across the Empire had seen the Romans could be beaten. No—they had been beaten. Severus and the Emperor might not know it yet, but their legions had been dealt a mortal blow in this war. From Britain to Arabia, people across the Empire had learned the one truth that Rome had striven for a thousand years to keep from them: they did not need to live in fear.
Men with spears and clubs launched themselves at the wall of shields with cries of Rak Chazak Amats! Though haphazard and chaotic, the Jewish counterattack was so ferocious that the Roman line was almost immediately broken. More rebels poured through the gaps, swinging wildly with swords or clubs. The advantage was fleeting: the rebels died quickly, run through by sword or spear, and the Romans, seemingly infinite in number, soon regrouped. The fervor of the Jews, though, was undiminished. You may take Betar, Simon thought, but today you will know what it is to face free people in battle, and you will know fear.
“For Yerusalem!” Simon roared, throwing himself at the shield wall, sword raised overhead. “For Eleazar of Modi’im!”
Chapter Fifty-two
Creed and Schwartz made their way through the tunnel, which snaked back and forth through the hills, sometimes so narrow they had to turn sideways to squeeze through, sometimes opening to natural caves the size of a house. The first of these larger chambers had a barrel that contained a dozen or so torches; taking the hint, Creed took six of them.
Several times they went down what seemed to be the continuation of the passage only to find themselves in a chamber with no exit. Some of these were strewn with bones, broken weapons, or other signs of an ambush. Each time they retraced their steps to find a less obvious passage that seemed to take them deeper into the hill. They were down to their last torch when they at last emerged into a torch-lit cavern where a man with a long gray beard sat slouched on a boulder, snoring, a spear leaning against the stone wall behind him. The torch flickered in the cool air emanating from a man-sized opening in the far wall.
“The sentry, I take it,” said Schwartz, not bothering to lower her voice.
“Guarding the way in or the way out?”
“Neither, it looks like.”
“Should we wake him?”
“We don’t have much choice. We’re thirty klicks from Freedom. No way we get there without help.”
With some difficulty, they awoke the sentry, whose name was Malachi. Far from being startled by the presence of visitors, he seemed happy to have company. Presumably he’d have been more circumspect if they’d been wearing Roman insignia, but perhaps not. Schwartz spoke the name Eleazar almost as an afterthought, and Malachi nodded, as if expecting them. He instructed them to leave their torch in the cave and led them outside, where the light of dawn was just visible above the hills. He pointed them down a narrow path that was barely discernible in the dim light, and over the course of a long, confusing exchange in broken Aramaic, they came to understand that they were to follow the path until they reached a dry creek bed and then turn right, following the creek bed until they came to an impassible rock wall. Satisfied that his instructions had been adequately understood, Malachi disappeared back into his cave.
Schwartz produced the earpiece comm the captain had given her and tapped it. “This is Commander Mika Schwartz to Freedom. Come in, Freedom. Olson, you there?”
“Schwartz! You’re alive! Where are you? Is the captain with you?”
“Creed’s here. Captain is still at Betar. We’re in the hills somewhere about two klicks to the west.”
“Freedom is going to surface tonight at sundown,” Olson said. “The team is ready to come get you,” Olson said. “Stay put and keep the comm transmitting and they’ll pinpoint your location.”
“No, Olson. Tell the team to stand down. There will be no rescue. Captain’s orders.”
The comm was silent for a moment. “Are you in contact with the captain?”
“No, but those were his final orders. No rescue.”
“All right. What’s the plan?”
“We’re going to try to get to you. Captain is still trying to acquire the payload.”
“He’s… how is he going to do that?”
“I don’t know, Olson. Creed and I need to get moving. We hope to get to you sometime tomorrow night. If we’re not back by dawn, launch without us. Captain’s orders.”
“But Schwartz—”
“I’ll update you when I can, Olson. Schwartz out.” She turned off the comm and put it away. “Let’s go.”
As the sun peeked over the hills, Schwartz and Creed started down the path, hoping they hadn’t misunderstood Malachi’s directions, and half-expecting at any moment to be set upon by bandits, rebels, Roman soldiers, or wild animals. About an hour later they came upon a narrow impression running perpendicular to the trail that might have been the creek
bed Malachi mentioned. While they stood debating whether or not to follow it, a man shouted at them from behind a nearby boulder. They turned slowly, keeping their hands visible. The man—older and frailer even than Malachi—stepped out from behind the boulder, clutching a spear. He shouted at them again.
“I don’t understand,” said Schwartz. “Eleazar sent us.”
The man muttered something, seeming annoyed but somewhat mollified. Two boys who looked to be in their early teens came into view, also holding spears. The old man motioned for them to follow the creek bed. They did so, the old man and the two boys following. After another twenty minutes or so, the man directed them toward a narrow opening in a rock wall. They made their way through this, coming into a deep, roughly oval-shaped crevice, perhaps twenty meters wide at its widest point. They were directed into another narrow opening, which led to a cave. A sentry—a boy who looked no older than twelve—met them at the cave, shouting incomprehensible challenges at them. The old man shushed the boy, who stepped aside to let them in.
They found themselves in what was evidently a rebel hideout. It looked like it had housed at least forty men at one point, but at present there were only half a dozen, and all of these were either old men or young boys. All the men of prime fighting age were at Betar or fighting the Romans somewhere else in Judaea.
The old man asked them a question. After several repetitions, they realized he was asking where their ship was. Evidently Eleazar had told them something about the spacemen.
The question was directed at Creed, whom all the rebels seemed to assume was in charge. Schwartz answered. “The Mediterranean,” said Schwartz, using the Aramaic word. “Near Ashkelon.”
The Legacy of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic Page 33