by Angela Hunt
He smiled to himself as he studied Menashe. A shame, really, to cut down such a handsome and passionate youth. A pity the young man had chosen to follow this ridiculous quest instead of remaining at home like his displaced father.
The young man’s dance had spread like a fever; the men around Hondo jostled him, clapping him on the shoulder and moving him into the frantic circle which turned to the inaudible beat of war. Hondo smothered his smile and slapped his arms about his comrade’s shoulders, then joined in the frenzy of the dance.
Long after sunset, sleep finally came nudging in among Menashe’s thoughts.
He dreamed he was a child again, standing in the chamber where his mother and father often breakfasted. “Come here, my boys,” Yosef called, his voice sounding ghostly and faraway, but Menashe and Efrayim ran to him, crawled up in his lap and covered his cheeks with kisses.
Asenath, their mother, remonstrated: “You must always bow before approaching Pharaoh’s vizier.”
Menashe looked at his father, hoping for a word of rebuttal, but Yosef only patted him on the head, his eyes distant, his expression aloof. “Go with Ani now, my sons, and study your lessons. Make me proud of you.” Menashe accepted the challenge but left with a heavy heart, knowing he would not see his father again until the morrow.
“Father,” he murmured through the embracing folds of sleep. His hands reached out and closed on empty air, then his arm brushed the handle of his battle sword. The cold kiss of metal brought him back to wakefulness.
He was not a child, but a man preparing for battle.
A decidedly non-dreamlike cry shattered the night. Menashe fought through the cobwebs of weariness and fumbled for his sword, then squinted into the night, struggling to focus in the heavy darkness. For an instant he panicked, not seeing the other tents or campfires, then he remembered that Jokim had insisted they separate from the others in order to clear their thoughts in preparation for battle. But now, sequestered behind a sand dune, Menashe felt dangerously isolated.
“Menashe!” Jokim crouched beside him in the dim moonlight, his sword in hand and a cold, hard-pinched expression on his face. “They are upon us!”
Menashe hefted his sword and squatted beside Jokim. His breath seemed to have solidified in his throat. “Who moves out there in the dark?”
Jokim flattened himself against the dune that separated them from the camp. “I can’t tell.”
Menashe joined Jokim on the dune; together they crawled upward on their elbows until they peered over the lip of sand. Without speaking they parsed the sounds that came through the night beyond: cries, screams, shrieks of agony. Prickles of cold dread crawled over Menashe’s back.
“Someone is attacking,” Jokim mumbled, stating the obvious. “But who?”
“It matters not.” Menashe stooped to pick up his shield. He thrust his arm through the leather loops that held it to his arm, then turned to look at his cousin. “Our first battle begins tonight. Are you ready?”
Jokim blinked with bafflement, then thrust his jaw forward. “Yes.” He bent for his own shield. Like Menashe, he girded it to his arm, then nodded.
“We should go into the fray together,” Menashe said. “Side by side, the two of us will make a more considerable foe.”
“Or a bigger target.” Jokim gave Menashe a humorless smile as he moved out from behind the dune.
The damage had been done by the time they arrived, but there was no sign of the marauding foe that had passed through the camp. With fearful curiosity Menashe wondered if an enemy could rise from beneath the sand itself. If not for the viscous pools of blood surrounding the bodies scattered around the campfires, Menashe would have thought his men asleep. Man after man appeared to doze, their hands folded across their chests or tucked beneath bearded cheeks. The enemy, whomever they were, had moved confidently, swiftly killing with silent strokes of a blade across the jugular. But others of Menashe’s force lay facedown on their bellies, their hands extended for swords that had been kicked away, their bare backs opened by an ax.
The darkness, laced now with the smells of blood and death, enfolded Menashe like a suffocating blanket. What enemy had done this? And how could they appear without warning and strike in the dead of night? Whomever they were, they had fled, either to hide or to pursue the survivors who sought escape in the darkness.
“Jokim—” Menashe turned to his cousin “—why did you insist that we not sleep in my tent tonight?”
Jokim gaped in horror. “By the name of God Shaddai, I swear to you that I knew nothing.”
“Do not swear by His name.” Menashe turned. The silhouette of his tent stood black and awkward at the edge of the clearing, backlit by the moon rising beyond the silvered sands. “At least my tent was empty. An enemy would search it first, hoping to kill me.”
Jokim’s hand tightened around his sword. “Zimri! I asked him to sleep there and guard the weapons.”
Menashe darted forward, zigzagging between the bodies on the ground, until he reached the tent. The canvas flap that served as a door had been sliced from top to bottom, and an inky puddle marked the rug where Zimri lay.
“My fault!” Jokim cried, pushing past Menashe. He dropped to his knees beside the boy’s body. “He is not a warrior. I should never have let him come. What shall I say to his father? How can I face his mother?”
Keening in sorrow, Jokim scooped up a handful of sand and poured it over his head while Menashe stepped back to study the scene. Zimri had not been struck while sleeping, for he lay sprawled at an unnatural angle, one leg tucked under him. Blood spangled the sword that lay a few inches from his hand.
“Look there.” Menashe pointed to a mounded shape among the shadows of the tent. Distracted, Jokim stopped wailing and turned.
Menashe moved to light an oil lamp, then held it aloft and brought it near the stacks of shields and weapons. Another warrior lay on the ground, his eyes glazed, his mouth frozen in a spasm.
“I know him.” Jokim’s voice filled with fresh sorrow. “He was one of the newer arrivals. A Medjay. Alas, even our friends are dying for our people.”
Menashe left Jokim in the tent and returned to the field, searching for survivors. But in the lurid red glow of smoldering campfires he found only death. In the space of an hour the army of four hundred had been transformed to a corps of two hundred corpses. The others had fled in the night.
Engulfed in tides of weariness and despair, Menashe crouched beside an ashen campfire. There was now more darkness in the darkness, more threat in the world. If God had called him to win Canaan for the Hebrews, why had He allowed this atrocity to befall them just as they prepared to obey?
“Was it men from Gerar?” Jokim’s voice startled him. “Spies? Somehow they must have been forewarned of our intention.”
“The enemy was not from Gerar,” Menashe answered. He looked across the dead fire to the body of a boy scarcely fifteen years old, one of Yehuda’s grandsons. “The killers made no noise, they carried no torches, they left no tracks in the sand around us. These murderers rose up and killed their sleeping neighbors.”
Jokim shivered and knelt beside Menashe. “Were half our company traitors?” He lowered his voice as if ashamed to speak of such things. “Was it the Nubians?”
Menashe fought to control his swirling emotions and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Behind me lies one of Abnu’s men. He was one of the first to die, I think. He still wears the smile of contented sleep.”
Jokim remained in an attitude of frozen stillness for a long moment. “The Egyptians, then.”
Menashe shook his head. “There are as many Egyptian dead as Hebrew.”
“But surely there was no conspiracy among the men.” Jokim settled back on his haunches. “You saw them tonight. They were in one accord and ready for battle. They were all willing to fight, to die if necessary.”
“Some of them were willing to die, but not for us.” Menashe stood, brushed sand from his knees and picked up his sword. “Did you
look closely at the scene in my tent? Zimri is dead, but he killed the Medjay who lies in the tent with him.”
Jokim frowned. “But Abnu’s men—”
“Not all Medjay are Abnu’s men,” Menashe answered. “I believe the men who rose up against us tonight were sent from Pharaoh and charged to destroy us before we could venture into Canaan.”
“If they were sent to execute traitors,” Jokim asked, the line of his mouth tightening, “then why are we still alive?”
“Because we slept apart,” Menashe answered, moving away from the fire. “They have not finished with us. But neither has God Shaddai.”
Knowing that their enemy had slipped away under cover of darkness, Menashe and Jokim crept away from the camp, cowering in shadows, avoiding the open patches of moonlight where a man might easily become a target for a silent spear. From time to time they heard movement in the dunes beyond; once or twice a sharp cry twisted through the silence of the night. Menashe had no doubts that Pharaoh’s guards were tracking survivors in the hills beyond.
After seemingly endless night, a gentle radiance low on the eastern horizon indicated where the sun would rise. Menashe and Jokim kept that horizon at their backs and crept toward the river. Once they reached the Nile, they could either find a boat or beg a ride from a passing barge. If they did not encounter the enemy in the desert, they would reach the river within a day; within two days they could be back in civilized Thebes, where assassins did not work so openly.
At last the horizon’s glow spread and brightened until the gleaming sun rose swollen and red above the dunes. Menashe felt his fear abate in direct proportion to the sun’s advent, and by the time the horizon glimmered blue he felt he could again stand tall and face any approaching adversary.
He and Jokim talked little on their long walk across the sand. The sun spread its rays over the dunes, baking their skin and parched lips, but neither man dared to speak of his thirst, hunger or weariness. Any admission of weakness was tantamount to surrender, and Menashe had given up all he intended to during the previous night of horror. The enemy would have to be content with divesting him of his dreams—for a short time. Once he had regrouped the survivors, he would undertake another incursion into Canaan, even if he had to launch it from Edom or Moab.
If there were any survivors. Guilt, heavy and sharp, avalanched over Menashe as Zimri’s earnest face rose in his memory. If not for Menashe that young man would not have been in the desert. If not for his dream, none of the Hebrews would have left their homes and families. His relatives would look askance at him now; mothers would weep at the mention of his name, fathers would curse the day Menashe had been born. Even the Egyptians would consider him a pariah, a young fool who had flagrantly rebelled against his father and led four hundred men to ignominious deaths in the desert.
A man could die honorably on the field of battle.
No man died honorably sleeping by the fire.
The dead Egyptian warriors, denied the glory of battle, would have no funerals or tombs. Some of the wealthier families would send search parties to bring home the mortal remains of their sons, but the poor families would have no way of gathering their loved ones until the desert sun had dried and desiccated the corpses, leaving them to a sorrowful, sandy afterlife with no provision for eternity…
Menashe swallowed hard, wanting to forget every moment of the past twenty-four hours. What a cruel joke the divine will had played on him! He had done all he could to please God Shaddai, and yet he had been defeated. How could God allow such a thing to happen? Was He not a god of justice and fairness?
His mind skittered away from the unsolvable dilemma. He could not think about God in his present state; his thoughts scampered around in confusion and made no sense.
“At last,” Jokim said, sighing. He paused a step ahead of Menashe and gestured beyond the rocky hill they were climbing. “I can smell the river.”
Menashe’s heart thumped with relief as he lengthened his stride, passing Jokim. But at the top of the rim he thrust out his arm to hold his cousin back.
The river lay as bright as a spill of silver across the barren sands, but Menashe’s joy was tempered by the sight of a ship anchored in the small cove south of Tura quarry. A standard featuring Pharaoh’s royal insignia flew from the barge’s mast. At least a dozen seamen and warriors wandered over its deck, and another dozen lingered on the shore, their blades glinting in the sun. Judging from the depth of their firepits, Menashe guessed they had been situated at this location for several days.
“Our traitors,” Menashe whispered, dropping to the earth like a stone. Jokim fell beside him and they lay flat on their bellies, peering over the rim of rock. Laughter and the taunts of the warriors echoed among the hills; the scents of roasting meat wafted up from their cookfire.
Menashe’s stomach clenched in sudden hunger, and he realized he had not eaten or drunk anything all day. Jokim had to be starving, too, and yet food and water lay within reach.
“What do we do?” Jokim whispered, watching the men below with an observant eye. “If we advance northward we can move around them.”
Menashe cut him off. “We take them just as they took us. Their work is done, so why haven’t they left? They are waiting for others to rejoin them. So we will lie in wait here, in these hills. I know these rocks, I know the path that leads down to the cove. We will guard it, and any traitor who passes by us is a dead man. And then tonight, if they still remain here, we shall slip among them like shadows. They are guilty of ruthless murder, and so we shall avenge—”
“You shall avenge nothing.”
Menashe lifted his head and felt the sharp bite of a blade against his neck. His gaze darted toward Jokim; he, too, had been pinned to the ground by the sharp point of a spear.
The pressure at Menashe’s neck eased slightly. “Stand up,” came the terse order, and he did, rising slowly from the sand. Behind him stood a half-dozen men wearing the distinctive kilts and leopard belts of Medjay warriors. Their eyes glittered with battle-lust.
The group was dominated by the dark figure of a powerful and familiar man. The set of his chin suggested a stubborn streak, and he folded his powerful arms and smiled. “A very great honor to meet you face-to-face, Menashe, son of Zaphenath-paneah. It was not even an hour ago that I asked of your whereabouts and was dismayed no one could recall having killed you.”
Menashe stiffened at the challenge in the man’s voice. “God Shaddai spared me. As He will spare me again.” He squinted toward his captor, remembering the man’s voice and face and form. They had met before, on a winding pathway through the marketplaces of Thebes—but today the barbarian was not drunk.
“You are Hondo.” Jokim spat the words in anger. “I remember you. You joined us at Kadesh Barnea.”
The warrior smirked. “On the direct orders of Queen Tiy my men and I joined your pitiful band. And I fully intend—” his gaze darted back to Menashe “—to bring my lovely queen the gift of your head, Menashe. Though I personally think beheading is rather too merciful a punishment for traitors.”
“You are the traitor.” Menashe jerked away as two men stepped forward to bind his arms. “You trained, slept and ate with us and then rose in the night to murder your own comrades in combat.”
“You are not my comrade, Hebrew.” Icy contempt flashed in Hondo’s eyes. Visibly trembling with suppressed fury, he jerked his thumb toward a narrow path. “Take them down to the river. We shall have some fun with them while we wait for the others.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
In later life, Menashe would have trouble clearly recalling the next several hours. The traitorous Medjays drove him and Jokim down the narrow path that wound through the rocky cliffs, urging them forward with the points of their spears and an occasional jab of a sword. Breathless and bleeding, they finally arrived at the makeshift camp on the shore where a host of men stared at them with the wide eyes of cowardly conquerors. Hondo barked out an order; eager servants dragged the Hebrews
into the shallows of the drought-wasted river and tied their hands to mooring posts.
Standing in knee-deep water with his hands bound together, Menashe wondered if Hondo truly intended to take his head back to Thebes or if he would simply leave them in the river as crocodile bait. Nothing, he realized, would be too horrific for Hondo to consider. His actions had already demonstrated that he had no morals, no conscience and no royal mandate other than to stop the Hebrews.
Menashe lifted his eyes and blinked up at the sky. Now that Zaphenath-paneah no longer served as Pharaoh’s vizier, Hondo did not even fear retribution from the second-highest throne in the land.
Jokim, overflowing with bravado, poured a steady stream of vituperation on his captors. Ignoring Jokim’s insults, Hondo and his men retreated to the cookfire, and now their bloodstained hands lifted hunks of meat in mock salute to their starving captives.
“Sons of dogs and jackals!” Jokim yelled, struggling against the ropes that held him tight. “If Pharaoh has ordered this, he is the son of a water buffalo! A curse on all your idolatrous gods! May your wives and mothers bear illegitimate curs! May your daughters marry vile—Arraugh!”
One of the warriors, tiring of Jokim’s curses, had picked up his bow and sent an arrow winging through the air. It struck Jokim squarely in the thigh, pinning him to the mooring post. Jokim screamed, then clenched his teeth and grimaced at Menashe as he twisted in a vain effort to move his hands toward the painful spot.
“I am a dead man, cousin,” he whispered, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Don’t speak of defeat.”
He closed his eyes and screwed up his face against the agony. “We are in the water, and the blood—see, it gushes already.”