by Daron Fraley
Jonathan hadn’t intended to be so mysterious. But he almost chuckled as he noticed Eli thoroughly enjoying the puzzled frown on Pekah’s face. Eli clasped his large hands behind his head and leaned back against a log, grinning widely.
Fortunately, Pekah asked no more questions. The conversation lagged, and Pekah again grew quiet. Ready to change the subject, Jonathan removed the small stone from the pommel, sheathed the sword, and suggested that they discuss their plans for the next day. Eli agreed.
“Tomorrow is the Sabbath,” Jonathan began. “I would rather not travel on the Sabbath. We’ll need our rest for the days ahead, and so I plan to stay here through the daylight hours of tomorrow. We can leave before dusk in the evening, and then travel under cover of darkness with the face of the moons as far as we can.”
“It’s true,” added Eli. “Tomorrow will be the crossing of the sisters, and under their face, travel will be easy enough, if the weather holds.”
“But where will we be going?” Pekah interjected, staring at Jonathan.
“We believe a large body of prisoners was taken from Hasor,” Jonathan said. “It’s possible they’re traveling toward Ain by way of Saron. If so, it’s my intention to find them and free them, if I can.”
Jonathan watched Pekah’s fire-lit face for a reaction. With the news Jonathan had received from Eli, he knew Pekah was aware of the prisoners taken at Hasor, and he wanted to see how this Gideonite felt about their plan to find them. Pekah’s countenance indeed had changed, but Jonathan could not tell if fear or some other emotion affected the Gideonite.
Sensing Pekah’s great unrest, he spoke with soft tones. “I want you to know, I have accepted your oath to me. You swore you will follow me and serve me until the end of your life. I will do all I can to ensure your life will be long, and that you will be happy, if you seek happiness.”
“Pekah,” Eli said. “Nate is a man of honor. His promise will be kept.”
“Thank you, Eli,” Jonathan said.
Pekah merely blinked as he stared into the campfire embers.
Still curious as to what Pekah’s thoughts were, Jonathan spoke again. “Can you tell me what you know about the fall of Hasor?”
Pekah remained silent. He fiddled with his boot straps as he continued to stare into the coals. Jonathan did not press him, but waited on his answer with hope that he would choose to talk about it. He looked towards the fire himself, wishing he could in some way make this awkward discussion about their plans bearable for both of them.
After a short time, Pekah spoke in a low voice. “I’ve seen things I do not wish to remember.”
Eli cleared his throat, but did not comment.
Jonathan let out a soft sigh. He said a silent prayer for help with their conversation, remaining calm and attentive until the impression came with words to fill his mouth.
“Pekah, there is One who can heal all things. Do you know of Whom I speak?”
Pekah nodded.
“No matter what has happened in your life, no matter what things you saw at Hasor, no matter what troubles you, if you turn to the Great King . . .” Jonathan’s voice became softer. “Turn to Him with all your heart, and pour your soul out to Him in prayer, even if it is by simply expressing the thoughts and the desires which are in your heart. He will hear you. He is the Great Healer, and He can remove many burdens.”
Immense hope, and a love for the young Gideonite man, started to fill Jonathan’s heart. He also noticed that he had been particularly impressed to use the title of “Great King,” but didn’t know why. Pekah still did not reply. His eyes glistened, and he turned from the fire to stare out into the darkness of the trees near the stream.
Jonathan did not feel inclined to talk further, and so after some awkward silence, he suggested they all get some rest. Now past midnight, morning would be upon them before they would want it to be. Eli asked if they should have a constant watch through the night, but Jonathan felt that with the cover of the thorny grove, and the sound of the stream behind them, they would pass the night without being discovered.
None of them had bed rolls, so they fashioned small pillows from sacks and cloaks. By this time, most of the flame was low and red. Eli placed the large log onto the fire to keep it burning.
Jonathan and Eli both knelt on the ground with bowed heads. They invited Pekah to join them in prayer, but he declined. After an expression of gratitude for a clear summer night with no rain, both men wished Pekah a good night’s sleep before drifting off.
* * *
Pekah watched them doze as he lay there, feeling depressed and out of place with these two men. He gazed up at the stars, not focusing on anything in particular. He tried to relax, but the events of the previous three days kept crossing his mind. Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. The hard ground made him uncomfortable, and the more he tried to rest, the worse he felt. He groaned and realized much of the discomfort he felt was because of the guilt in his heart. He wished he had never enlisted in the emperor’s army. He wished he had never been in Hasor. He almost wished he were dead.
Chapter 8
Balm
The night continued to cool, making Pekah wish for a blanket. Sounds were all around him—the chirping of forest crickets, the buzzing of other unseen insects, even the hoot of an owl off in the distance. He even noticed the low gulping noise of a frog somewhere near the constant gurgle of the stream. These temporary distractions were soon lost to his senses, becoming nothing more than droning background noise as he continued to sink deeper into his depression. Over and over again, memories and images of the siege at Hasor played through his mind. Pekah remembered the dripping rain and damp fields of waist-high grain he had pushed through when his contingent rushed up to the southern garden gates. He could hear the creak and boom of the gates falling, and the pounding feet of charging soldiers upon the streets of the village.
His chest tightened with disgust as he remembered seeing some of the unarmed villagers murdered by his fellow soldiers when they should have been taken prisoner instead. He saw a young boy, not even ten years of age, running down the street away from the invading army, but a Gideonite archer’s arrow had knocked him to the ground before he could escape. The screams of women and children filled his mind.
He also recalled the purported reasons why the army had been sent there, and the dubious mission his detachment had been sent to do. Memories of atrocities committed by his fellow soldiers offended his sensibilities. He squeezed his eyes closed, but he could not shut out the horror.
Pekah’s guilt intensified to the point that he began to feel physical pain, and he groaned under the weight of it. His chest ached. He rolled from side to side, trying to shake the horrible darkness settling over him. As he analyzed the events of the battle, he severely chastised himself at each identified moment where a different outcome would have been possible. Perhaps he could have stopped some of the needless death and destruction that had taken place. But in all of his painful memories, his mind kept stopping at one particular place in time, a moment that disturbed him more than anything else. Pekah remembered the smell of blood as he shuffled past the body of the judge in the Council Hall of Hasor.
An unexpected connection then materialized in his thoughts. Intense disgust poured down upon him like a breaking tidal wave. Pekah recalled loosening the leather belt of the dead captain, sliding the gilded dagger sheath off the end of the belt to remove it, and placing the weapon on his own belt just before they covered the body of Captain Sachar with branches and brush. Sachar’s dagger. A weapon used for murder. The same one which he had sharpened by the campfire.
His eyes opened in alarm, and his hand went instinctively to his side. There he felt the handle: smooth, hard, cold. Revulsion filled him, and he sat up with a start. He stripped the weapon from his waist, throwing it to the ground before him.
There it is.
Pekah frowned at it with extreme distaste.
I have been sharpening
a murder weapon.
The scene of blood roiled in his mind.
Why did I ever touch the vile blade?
The detachment’s orders were very specific. Capture the judge. Bring him alive to the emperor. But Sachar had not followed those orders. In anger, Captain Sachar had pulled his dagger from his belt, and like a coward, threw it into the back of the defenseless old man. Pekah remembered protesting, but the deed had already been done. There had been no honor in Sachar’s actions.
He stared at the sheathed dagger in the dirt.
What ever possessed me to touch the thing?
Pekah was no murderer. He had no desire to use the tool of a murderer. As he thought about those ultimately responsible for the death of the judge and king of the Danielites, he questioned his own political leanings. Pekah had felt for a long time that the three tribes should be united as one people. Like many among his kindred, he also felt the Gideonite leaders were the best choice to rule over the Three Brothers. These feelings had provided justification for going to battle.
Were not the Danielites a rebellious and wicked people? Were they not in need of strong leadership? From his youth, he had been taught that the Danielite and Uzzahite peoples were lazy, weak, and prone to hostility towards Gideon. Manasseh, the Gideonite emperor, had warned the people that if they did not attack first, the Danielites and Uzzahites would attack them.
His people were wrong! By Pekah’s impressions, the villagers of Hasor were far from lazy. The city was clean, organized, and beautiful. And from what he could tell when entering the city, the people there were only defending their homes, not preparing to attack the Gideonites.
Was the emperor misinformed by his generals? Or was the emperor simply devious? The more Pekah thought about it, the more he could see that what he had been told could not be true. The emperor. His generals. His captains. They had willfully lied.
This realization sickened him. Oh, how naïve he had been. So eager to do something great—to prove himself in battle—he had overlooked the great cost of their campaign. Pekah mentally kicked himself again and told himself he should have known better.
Sitting in the dim flicker of a slow fire, he wondered what he could do to make amends for the great injustice that had been done at Hasor. The pain he felt needed to be expressed, but Pekah didn’t know if Nate would accept an apology on behalf of his people. His thoughts rallied around this idea, however, and he decided to offer a plea for forgiveness at morning’s first light.
Feeling the need to rid himself of Captain Sachar’s dagger, Pekah pinched the pommel between a single finger and his thumb, and then stood. He tiptoed over toward Nate, stooped, then dropped the sheathed dagger into the dirt within Nate’s reach. Nate stirred. Pekah stepped toward his own patch of ground and makeshift pillow and watched, as with a dazed expression upon his face, Nate sat up briefly to look around, but then lay down again and rolled onto his side.
Pekah settled back onto his hard bed and surveyed the stars. “In the morning, I will tell Nate what happened,” he encouraged himself in an audible whisper. For a long time, he rehearsed in his mind how he would tell the story of the fall of Hasor. Sleep still did not come. He sat up again by the fire, and broke up small twigs. One by one he tossed the pieces into the coals. Each one caught fire, glowed, and turned to ash.
In this manner, Pekah passed the entire night, anguishing over the horrible things he had witnessed in Hasor. As the night advanced, the sister moons traced their way across the heavens. Sienna would soon catch her companions. Several times he noted their progress across the stars. Although tired, Pekah still felt restless.
When relief from the darkness finally came as the sky brightened in the west, Pekah stoked the fire again before retiring to the stream to refresh himself. He washed his face, then dunked his head in the water. The frigid stream made him sputter. Dusty from the previous day’s march, he removed his belt, stripped off his dark green tunic, and proceeded to rinse it in the water. After some scrubbing and wringing, he retrieved his belt, then headed back to the fire to hang his wet clothing over a bent branch near the heat.
As Pekah rubbed his hands near the flames, he watched as Eli rose from his bed. Eli smiled and waved a friendly hello, leaving in the direction of the stream. Nate stood up and stretched.
“I hope you slept as well as I did,” Nate greeted.
“Thank you, but not really. I didn’t sleep much.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
Nate looked at the dagger in the dirt beside him. He regarded it with curiosity, then glanced back at Pekah, who was watching for a reaction. Nate didn’t comment about the dagger. He merely stepped around it, aiming toward the stream.
“I’ll be back,” he said as he left.
Dawn approached. It would not be long before the twin suns made their appearance. Pekah tested his shirt, and found it still damp. He turned it around to dry the other side, but after a few more minutes he became impatient with the process, so he shook the wool tunic in the air, pulled it over his head, and cinched his belt. Faint wisps of steam rose around him into the cold morning air.
Eli and Nate returned from the stream together, both with wet hair and clean faces, just as the first beams of direct light fell from the rising suns. As the orbs rose from the western horizon, Pekah could see that Azure had eclipsed Aqua. They appeared to be one body except for the color difference and size of their spheres. Aqua’s almost colorless hue—a light blue with a greenish tint—formed a near-perfect ring around the smaller, almost purple Azure. Now superimposed, they seemed somewhat less bright than they had the day before, yet their intensity still required caution on the part of onlookers.
With the aid of the morning light, Pekah took the opportunity to get a better look at his companions, and found them to be quite a contrast standing together. Nate was tall, with brown hair and a well-trimmed short beard, large blue eyes, of medium build. Eli was taller yet, of a strong build, and his red hair highlighted friendly green eyes.
Pekah glanced over at his polished armor leaning against a log near the campfire. Eli stared at it as if making eye contact with the raven upon the hardened leather.
When Eli noticed Pekah also looking on, he joked, “Perhaps you can get your bird to feed me!”
Pekah was confused by the comment and shrugged his shoulders.
“You do know the story of the raven, do you not?” asked Eli.
“No.”
Eli appeared dumbfounded. “Well, would you care to hear it?”
Pekah still didn’t feel like himself after the horrible night he had, but to avoid offending his new companions, he relented with a less-than-convincing “Sure.”
Eli made a show of clearing his throat, and the three men each found a place to sit on the logs around the fire. Eli apparently loved to tell stories. He began with excitement and animation.
“The written words of my fathers tell us that this raven was a godsend to Gideon, and it kept him alive. Always fond of hunting, Gideon would travel many days, deep into the wilderness, searching for the largest deer or the largest boar to bring to his family for meat. On one occasion, he was far into the forest when a strong storm arose and left a dense fog which caused him to lose his way for many days, without food for most of them. Almost without hope, Gideon felt as if he would not live. But he prayed to God that he would be spared and led home.”
Eli paused at this point, as if to make sure his student still listened. Pekah didn’t have the heart to tell Eli he wasn’t in the mood for a story.
“As Gideon arose from his prayer, this raven descended with a branch of berries in its beak.” Eli pointed at the image on Pekah’s breastplate. “Dropping the branch, it flew away, and Gideon followed. More ravens came, each one bearing fruit. Gideon ate, and then followed the birds until he was back on familiar ground and was able to leave the forest. On the day when Father Noah gave his final blessings to his sons, he counseled Gideon always to follow the path of the raven, and to do so
by watching out for the welfare of his brethren. Noah charged Gideon to provide for them in whatever ways he could, so they might all dwell together in joy.”
Pekah now understood the prodding joke from Eli about the raven feeding him, yet the story did not cheer his heart—not in the least. It made him feel worse. At this point in time, Gideon as a people was about as far off “the path of the raven” as the tribe could be. Pekah glanced again over toward Nate’s bed where the dagger lay in the dirt, a reminder of the sleepless night he had passed. An overwhelming urge to clear his conscience made his heart race, but words to express himself would not come. Frustrated, he sat in silence, unable to even acknowledge the story Eli had so eloquently related.
Eli took a deep breath as if he was about to tell more, but stopped short. Out of the corner of his eye, Pekah saw Nate grip Eli’s arm.
Nate suggested that they all pray to begin their Sabbath day, and then partake of a meal together. Pekah mechanically knelt and closed his eyes. Still feeling the effects of a difficult night, his thoughts wandered. At the end of the prayer, he could not remember a single thing said, nor could he remember who had spoken. His mind foggy, he joined the other two men in finding a seat around the dying fire.
Saving the bread and dried meats from Pekah’s provision sack, Nate took the food from his own supply, broke the bread, and passed it with handfuls of dried fruit to the others. Pekah received his portion, but held the crust in his hands, staring down at the ground much as he had done the previous evening.
The struggle he felt within was fierce. Guilt. Sorrow. Fear. Insistence that he had done nothing wrong. Yet still there was confusion as to why he felt so horrible. What was it? Then he knew. The murders—a little boy and an old man. Something surged within him, and he felt the sudden need to clear the air.