Look Inside Book One: The Satan and the Cherubim
Prologue: The Shadow of Eden
The smoke was green in color and shrouded his mind and sight completely.
It was not until the wind shifted that the wanderer remembered where he was. Standing at the very apex of Creation. The parting veil unfolding before him a view too panoramic for the eyes to take in fully.
“This is as close a mortal can get to heaven with the soul still being stitched to the flesh.”
The wanderer was startled by the words, believing it was the mountain itself that had spoken them. But then the old man stepped into view at the other side of the exhaling altar, reminding him he had not found his way there alone. Atop the peak the locals referred to as the Sacred Mount.
“From up here, you breathe the same air the gods breathe, and you behold the world through the same celestial vantage,” continued his guide. The one they called seer. “In doing so, you begin to understand why it is this land, and this people, which our heavenly masters call their own.”
At the old man’s suggestion, the wanderer drew in a deep breath. There was indeed a vibration to the air, like a host of invisible bees inhaled into the chest. The seer was right. The atmosphere was different up there. Alive somehow.
Casting his gaze out toward the vanishing horizon of Creation’s edge, he looked over the land as a unified handiwork. Like an elaborate clay model meticulously carved and garnished by the hand of some eccentric artisan. Rocky precipices rose out of the earth like titanic stone guardians, watching solemnly over the green-carpeted valleys unfurled at their feet. Sparkling-blue streams strewn over the rich canvas like strands of glittered sapphire. But this hidden Eden was an island in a barren sea; its fields of bounty giving way to vast expanses of gray wasteland in every direction. A land uncharted, nowhere to be found on the atlases of merchants and kings alike.
The wind stiffened, curtailing somewhat the spell from the earthy-sweet smoke. For the first time since entering the thin air, the wanderer gazed over the landscape with a discerning eye. The one taught to him in the days of his upbringing. A place that had become as remote to him in memory as it was in distance.
Observing the unencumbered manner of the inhabitants and their free-roaming flocks, he found himself immediately troubled. There were no walls or ramparts to be seen. In fact, there were no defenses of any kind at all. Neither were there the patterns of tilled plots quilted into the earth. Indicative of the kind of crop production necessary to sustain an advanced civilization. In other words, one capable of warding off the proliferating empires of a fast-shrinking world. And while the retiring sun cast a reassuring glow over the land, the wanderer could not help but see it as the false glitter of fool’s gold. Certainly, there was something very wrong here. The only real question was how he had managed to miss it before.
“Something bothering you?” The old seer could not help but notice the thin creases cutting deeper into his guest’s otherwise youthful face. Although, now that he had let it go unshaved, it was a face decidedly less youthful than when he had first stumbled across them. The light brushstrokes of silver in his beard betraying the years creeping up on him.
“How do you protect yourselves here?” he asked, his tone coming off more pointed than intended. “How could this people possibly stand up against the kinds of armies that gather under the banners of both men and gods?”
The seer’s wistful stare sharpened at the question. Almost without realizing it, a bony finger found its way to his forehead to trace contemplatively along the raised ridges of the scar just above the brow line. Branded into the flesh shortly after his first breath, the scar was as innate a part of him as the nose on his face. While hardened and discolored, it had kept steadfast to its original form. An asymmetrical cross resembling a stick sword. Consisting of a shorter horizontal bar against a longer vertical bar, set below the midpoint of its axis. Every one of their people bore this same mark.
“The gods keep this place hidden from the wolves of the earth, so that the ways of purity will not be lost completely. At least they will live on in one small corner of this otherwise fallen world.”
The response left the wanderer wanting to know more. “Have you never been discovered here by the outside world? Not even by the bands of robbers known to roam these remote parts? After all, I found you.”
“Not without a little help, if you recall,” said the seer, flashing a hint of a smile. “But yes, to answer your question, we are found here from time to time. Usually to no harm.” The seer paused, the smile fading back into the recesses of his snowy beard. “But, over the generations, there have been occasions when the intentions of our guests proved to be less than benevolent.”
The old seer paused again, more deeply this time. His gaze being pulled to the side. It seemed something had caught his attention. But as far as the wanderer could tell, nothing had changed. Activity on the plains had all but ceased. The rocky ridges in the distance had darkened against the twilight backdrop, holding exact to their eternal form. Only the west wind still stirred, rustling through the fields while whistling its airy tune. And yet, the old man continued to scrutinize the terrain with his black, penetrating stare, as if trying to tease something out of the unperturbed fabric.
“And when they do?” the wanderer finally said after a patiently endured silence.
“The gods have not left us without defense …”
The old seer trailed off yet again. It seemed his mind had vacated the conversation completely, venturing instead into the labyrinth of spires and crevices below.
“And what would that be?” the wanderer pressed.
“Hmm?” muttered the old man. His bubble of concentration only partially pierced by the question.
“What form of defense have the gods given you?”
But his mentor ignored the question, immersing himself deeper yet into his remote search. For whatever mysterious thing it was that eluded him. And just as the wanderer was about to repeat his question, the old seer’s face lit up with the animation of a child seeing a falling star for the first time.
“Look, over there!” he exclaimed. He pointed to a cluster of rocky enclaves a few ridges over. His tone was excitable, yet hushed, as if pointing out a rarely seen animal he hoped not to startle. Lest it withdraw back into hiding.
“Do you see it?”
The wanderer scanned widely back and forth, finding nothing out of the ordinary. “What is it I am supposed to be seeing?” he asked, straining his eyes harder with each pass.
“There,” said the old seer, extending a crooked finger. “The soft glow coming from that deep crevasse—just a bit to the right of the crescent bluff.”
Finally, the wanderer could see. Within the spacious cleft in a far-off bedrock shelf, nearly as deep as it was wide, someone had apparently built a large fire at its base. While the sheer rock wall was brightly illuminated, the flames themselves were just out of view.
“See it?”
“Yes, I do now.”
For a moment, the two of them simply watched in mesmerized silence. Across the land, shadows continued to prowl farther out from their hiding places. Stretching longer with each indiscernible retreat of the sun. And as creeping darkness took dominion over the world, the illuminated rock face beamed brighter in defiant contrast. There was something soothing about it, like a crackling hearth taming the cold quiet of night. But the tranquility was abruptly shattered when a shadowy projection suddenly threw itself against the luminous backdrop. Even though it was a long sight away, the wanderer flinched.
“What in the world—what is that?” he exclaimed.
“He is the Great Adversary.” The old seer spoke matter-of-factly, as if such a thing should be common knowledge to outsiders of this insular paradise.
“The adversary?” The wanderer’s tone begged for further knowledge.
“Or, as some call him, the Good Shepherd.”
The wanderer went back to studying the curious silhouette. The more he watched it, the more distinct—and disturbing—its form became. Even if not a direct manifestation of the original. There was nothing shepherd-like about it, he decided. Nor good. Its aspect was elongated and serpentine. A pair of horns curling from each side of its head. It cavorted wildly, in strange and hypnotic rhythm, with arms wide and beckoning, as if to summon every stray shadow into its ominous charge. And yet, the man whose wisdom he had grown to trust more than any living being he had ever known seemed to regard it with solemn awe.
“It is he who defends us from the ravenous wolves of the world,” the old seer went on. “Carrying out divine judgment and retribution against those who would malign his chosen flock. He is the protection that the gods have given us.”
The old seer practically glowed as he spoke. But the wanderer could not bring himself to share in his mentor’s reverence for this specter. There was something far too unsettling about a people this innocent being watched over by a creature this sinister.
“Ya’ hear that?”
“Hear what?” said the wanderer. It sounded like the old man was either delighted or terrified, although he could not tell which.
“Close your eyes … listen.”
Following his guide’s counsel, the wanderer quieted his breath and tried to clear his mind of the many misgivings rising within. At first, he heard only the soft whisperings of the high-altitude breeze, combined with the muffled buffetings of his own heart. But then another string of sound joined the ensemble, adding a percussion that was faint but steady, and felt more than heard.
BOOOM…bom-bom-BOOM…ba-ba-BOM-BOM-ba-BOOM…
The rhythmic current slithered and curled around him, seducing him into a state of willful trance. With his defenses down, the cadence breached the barrier separating the normally guarded self from its surroundings. Entwining itself to the beat of his own heart. At first, it sent only light tremors through the hollows of his head and chest. But the beat quickly escalated, until it could no longer be contained in the amphitheater of his mind.
“BOOOM…bom-bom-BOOM!” it bellowed. His eyes flew open, alarmed to find that the drumming had exploded into the open atmosphere. Even more alarmed to see the shadow thrashing about maniacally to the cadence which had become suddenly ubiquitous.
“Is he of this world?” asked the wanderer, suddenly uncertain whether these were the emanations of an apparition. Or simply those of a madman.
The old man gave only a cryptic response. “Yes … and no …”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There are some who straddle the veil between this world and the other. In that transitory boundary between mortal and immortal.” The old seer’s response did little to quell the black mystery which was gaining a stranglehold on the wanderer’s mind. He found himself both frightened and intrigued by the idea of a mystical being that would so brazenly flaunt itself to an increasingly disbelieving world. The thought spurred a multitude of larger questions in his head. But in its confoundment, his mind settled on one more basic.
“Does he have a name?” he asked.
“He has,” said the old seer, a multiplicity of horned shadows dancing feverishly in his transfixed eyes. “His name is Satan.”
Chapter One: Heshbon
Darkness. Utterly black, and without form.
A tide, always ebbing, but never lapping. A vast emptiness, never a boundary to meet. Troubled silence, like an endless scream robbed of air. A nothingness so restless as to be indistinguishable from a chaos that is absolute.
It is me. I am the void. I am the pulse that beats, but with nothing to thump against. I am the angst that sparks, with nothing by which to kindle.
The beginning, I forget. The end, it never comes. Eternity is both my power and my pain. Until finally, a whisper, in a voice vaguely remembered. Sweeping over me like a breeze. Stirring me from a dreamless sleep. I awake to a light. It just hangs there, as if it had always been, dividing the once-monolithic dark into a countless many. Shadows I have long felt, finally revealed. Possibilities, without end, illuminated in the unveiled spaces between.
I reach for it, as it eyes me unblinkingly from across the void. But it is beyond my grasp. So I will myself toward it, with all that I got, and all that I am. With every exertion, I draw closer. By and by, it waxes larger, pushing the darkness to the margins. Bringing the glitter of a translucent surface into focus. Beyond that, an indescribable immensity—painfully blue.
A new world beckoning. New discoveries await. I am afraid. I am excited. I am ready. At last, I arrive, breaking the shimmery surface. Engulfed in a profusion of light, I take my first breath.
Thirty-First Year of the Reign of Josiah, King of Judah
“Samuel!”
At the sound of his name nearly lifting the large tent off its stakes, he sprang upright from out of an out-of-body nap. His eyes flinging open in muted panic. A deluge of cold sweat pouring down his face and neck. He gasped for air, as if barely breaking the plane of a would-be watery grave.
For a moment, he could only sit there, dumbly, slumped on a dampened pile of blankets in a darkened corner. Trying his best to piece coherence back together. As color slowly returned to his cheeks, so too did fuzzy detail begin to fill in across the blank gray slate of his surroundings.
Mutant lamps, glued and re-glued back together many times over, swung lazily from the tent ceiling. Swaying to the playful pitter-patter of a steady rain overhead. In the intercourse of light and shadow beneath, vague figures shuttled busily back and forth, murmuring one to another in hushed, fretful tones.
Somewhere outside, beyond the tarpaulin veil, the grand symphony of battle droned on. Sounds, horrific in and of themselves, were oddly festive when blended together in concert. He could almost picture a gathering of drunkards in some nearby wood. Clinking mugs and offering boisterous toasts as a vagabond band played its makeshift instruments in the background. But Samuel knew the cheery acoustics of it were deceiving. In this party, men were falling dead with every spirited salutation.
But he was much too tired to stew on it. Although he knew it was time to shake off the sleep and get a move on, his foggy mind kept circling back to the dream from which he had just awoken. If one could call it a dream. Mostly, it was just darkness, unremarkable given his penchant for dreamless sleep. But this was more of a conscious darkness. A darkness desperately longing to escape itself. Stirring feelings in him, along with memories, that he had almost forgotten to exist.
“Samuel!”
That was his cue. The one that wouldn’t be ignored. With the angry bellow ripping him out of the catacombs of buried time, Samuel’s newborn daze gave way to his customary rigidness. Languid fragments of recollection quickly fell into place. With a swift scan of his surroundings, it was evident that in his brief hiatus, events had taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
He had awoken to a beehive disturbed, with battlefield messengers buzzing in and out. Each more agitated than the one before. And each also more muddied than the last, as gentle spring showers turned to raucous drumming against the leaky tarp above.
The messengers delivered their reports to the commanders huddled in the middle of the tent. Their light blue tunics embarrassingly vibrant by comparison. But the same could not be said for their expressions, which were increasingly sullied by each incoming dispatch. Samuel shook his head and bent forward. Nonchalantly sorting through the tools of warfare scattered about his feet. By the mood in the air, he knew that he was about to be leaving the cozy confines of the tent. It was time to earn his keep for the day.
Picking out his conical-shaped helmet from the pile of well-polished metal, he yawned. It occurred to him that the strangely timed nap was probably the best sleep he had managed in a month at least. As the Judahite army neared the end of a prolonged, and particularly grueling, campaign, restful sleep had become as rare a luxury as a warm bath. And it was beginning to wear on him.
But he promptly shoved the thought aside. In preparing to go out into harm’s way, it was never helpful to indulge in notions of self-concern. Belting out one last cobweb-clearing yawn, he gathered up his sword, his shield and his wits before making his way to the knotted bundle of frayed nerves at the room’s center. Standing off to the side, his sword sheathed, and his body-length shield strapped to his forearm, he waited patiently for what he already knew would come next.
“Where in the Sheol—Samuel!”
This time, the commanders and officers staggered back like a circle of empty vases on a bumped bed. The king erupting out of his chair in the middle of them like a geyser. But his outburst was cut short by the tomb-chilled voice that fell over his shoulder.
“I’m right here my lord.”
King Josiah recoiled at the sound as he spun around. “Haven’t I asked you not to sneak up on me like that?” he said, glaring up at his chief guard.
“Sorry my lord,” said Samuel. His apology lacking the corresponding air of contrition.
“Glad to see you’re strapped and ready though,” said Josiah, recomposing himself.
Samuel nodded, the point of his iron helmet nearly scraping the roof of the tent. Like nearly everything else in Judahite life, the tent was made by Israelite hands, and informed by an Israelite point of view. Thus, the maker did not account for the likes of Samuel—he of nearly Philistinian height—gracing the inside of his creation.
“My gear—please!” barked the king.
As a pair of servants scrambled to gather Josiah’s things, the eldest of the commanders took a tentative step forward to address him. “Uh, my lord, are you sure this is a good idea?”
Even before he could get the words out, the commander began to wilt under the glare of Josiah’s blazing eyes. The king was an imposing figure in his own right. Although in his fortieth year, he was not far removed from the days of his prime. Except for a belly which had gained the girth to match the persona that fed it. But his was a stature enlarged by more than brawn. Or birthright for that matter. He was a king of kings. Emboldened by purpose and elevated by prophecy. Having been told as much since the days of his youth and finding nothing, as of yet, to refute it.
And it was beneath the weight and brilliance of such a glorified crown that this senior commander stood. Only a conviction in the soundness of his counsel kept his chin from rattling off its hinges, and his knees from folding under. Nonetheless, Josiah gave no sign of wavering. After all, a mountain would not be moved by reason alone.
“And what would that say about our faith, if we turned tail and ran from the land our God has bequeathed to us? All because these Amorite squatters were pigheaded enough to put up a bit of a fight?”
“But my lord,” pleaded the commander, “It’s just one battle. We can always return with reinforcements later in the year. Prudence need not be the enemy of faith.”
“Perhaps not, but faint-heartedness most certainly is,” Josiah shot back.
The trim, gray-bearded commander steadied himself with a deep breath. “Besides my lord, you’re simply too important to this kingdom, and to our destiny as a people, to keep tempting fate like this.”
Holding his arms out petulantly, Josiah met the remark with an imposing scowl. Chafed by the lack of fortitude in the room as much as the vest of chainmail in which the royal servants were fitting him. He had promised to wear it anytime he endeavored to place himself within range of enemy arrows. Compelled before God, witnesses and, perhaps most importantly, his queen. Still, this did not stop him from cursing every interlinked loop each time he put it on.
And it was under this jingling albatross that Josiah gave his grated response. “It’s either meant to be or it isn’t,” he growled. “Either Elohim has scripted it, or everything we have set out to do is a farce. And if he has scripted it, then nothing would displease him more than if we rewrote this story of courage and inspiration as one of timidness. And prudence.” He choked on this last word, the commander’s word, as if it were a most distasteful profanity.
The senior commander shrank, his resolve broken. Next to Josiah’s shining star, his own presence nearly faded from sight. “Yes my lord,” he uttered in soft-spoken resignation. “Of course, you are right. Forgive me for doubting.”
Josiah smiled broadly, but not in a way designed to smooth over tension. Instead, it left everyone in the room balancing precariously on knife’s edge. In the habit of a man accustomed to commanding the world around him, he reached out an open hand. As if by sorcery, the hilt of his sword quickly found it.
Sheathing it, the king looked upon the chorus of blank stares and decided to leave them with one last parting thought. “Why all the clenched anuses?” he taunted. “Do none of you trust in prophecy? You all know that Elohim will not suffer harm to come upon me, especially with his chosen protector by my side.”
Josiah motioned to Samuel as he said this. Visibly disquieted by the allusion, Samuel looked down at his sandals, wishing there was a way to crawl beneath them. But his aloofness was not enough to keep Josiah from punctuating his point with one of his favorite lines. “Just like Samson had his hair, I’ve got Samuel.”
Before the officers of the room could flatter the remark with one of their obligatory chuckles, Josiah spun around and stomped out. His chainmail clanking cantankerously with each heavy-laden step. Samuel fell seamlessly into his wake, relieved to be escaping the climate of distress. Finally, he would get some air.
In stepping outside, he got a lot more than that. The rain fell forcefully, ringing his ears beneath the dome of his iron helmet. But compared to the stifling atmosphere inside the tent, he found it to be almost refreshing.
Below, at the foot of the long gently sloping hill, the fighting festered across the green valley like a gaping and infected wound. But the calamity stopped cold at the walls of Heshbon, which, as of yet, remained intact and unbreached. Inside, all was quiet, with the city’s famed pools reflecting broodingly its growing angst. The only sign of activity being a single column of dark smoke rising from near the main gate. Samuel wondered if this was a signal of some sort. From the top of the hill where the command tent sat, it was impossible to say.
But one thing could be said for sure. The Amorites of Heshbon were embroiled in the fight of their lives. Nothing less than their very survival, as individuals and as a nation, was at stake. It was a position unfamiliar for a city that had long existed as one of the busiest and most prosperous trading hubs of outer Assyria.
For generations it had served as an important commercial link between Assyria Proper and the riches of the Nile. Unlike some of its more defiant neighbors, Heshbon had been quick to submit to their Assyrian masters. From the very day their fleet of chariots came rolling into the pristine valley. Always paying their tribute on time, and never a scintilla light. In doing so, the Assyrian governors rewarded them by channeling a steady stream of merchant traffic through the city. As it turned out, there was great wealth to be had in keeping the Serpent of Mesopotamia satiated.
But with Assyria succumbing to internal strife and rebellion, the old order was crumbling. This cleared the way for hungry upstarts to fight for pieces of the ruins left behind. As far as the Amorites were concerned, the Kingdom of Judah was a particularly frightening example. Judah was a different kind of beast, demanding sole possession of the land, rather than merely a portion of the fruits. No amount of tribute could pacify them. Nothing short of their total removal and annihilation would suffice.
Having recently overtaken the city of Jericho on the west bank of the Jordan, the army of Judah had crossed the River of Miracles for the first time in living memory. According to the keepers of the tradition, it was the first time an Israelite regiment had traversed the river since Joshua and his troops had crossed it going the other way. This coming shortly after Moses had been afforded his only glimpse of the land of their inheritance.
For the Israelites of Judah, breaking through this barrier to reclaim the burial place of their national savior was a symbolic and monumental event. A harbinger of even greater things to come and of ancient prophecies fulfilled. But the battle for the foothold of the Valley of Og was not going as expected. Apparently, in their haste to grab fate by the throat, they had arrived with an insufficient amount of force to get a firm stranglehold on it.
But Samuel did not concern himself with matters of war and prophecy. His objective was simple. Keep the king alive at all costs. Even if it meant following him into every perilous scrape he had a mind to go. But at least they would ride. Keeping their thoughts to themselves, they untied their respective horses and prepared to start the peaceful jaunt downhill toward the bloodbath awaiting them at the bottom.
Pulling himself up onto the animal’s comfort-shaped back, Samuel immediately felt the weight of the world begin to lift. If there was one amenity that made the rigors of a prolonged military campaign almost worthwhile, it was the privilege of riding one of the king’s finest horses on a daily basis. A luxury that had been gradually taken away back home in Jerusalem. Stigmatized by the priestly leadership as creatures of haughtiness, they were rarely seen within sight of Mount Zion. But in the theater of battle, they were far too useful to forswear. Even in the driving rain, Samuel relished the ride, ignoring the occasional corpse that marked the way ahead.
But as they neared the foot of the hill, the rain-cleansed air quickly gave way to the rotting stink of death. Stinging the nostrils as if by the embered end of a stick of incense gone foul. A fiery roar and an earth-renting scream drew Samuel’s attention to the main gate of the city, where the plume of smoke suddenly flared angrily.
It turned out not to be a signal. Engulfed in the flames was a woman, writhing in unearthly agony. Her flesh melting off the bone like a brick of wax thrown into a hot furnace. She was chained to a wooden post that had been laid down horizontally over a large stone altar. Her sky-bound shrieks ringing out across the valley plain, striking that chilling chord between righteous triumph and unholy suffering. The flames and the screams so fierce that not even the rain could dampen them.
As detestable as it was, it seemed to be achieving its desired effect. Each time their martyr cried out, the rugged band of Amorite fighters would raise their voices in harmonized madness. Swinging their swords with heightened ferocity, they promptly forced the bewildered Judahite soldiers back a few cubits more.
Like Elohim, the Amorite gods were thought to be strengthened by the ascending smoke of burnt sacrifices offered in their name. But unlike Elohim, the Amorite gods had never fully disavowed themselves of the taste for human flesh. With their earthly patrons pushed to the brink of extermination, the time, apparently, had come to feed this long-dormant craving.
It did not matter that their weaponry was of inferior quality, or that they wore cloth wraps around their heads instead of iron helmets. Neither did it matter that their combat techniques were rudimentary compared to their more organized assailants. Their frenzied savagery overcame all. The flames of which only their gods could keep stoked.
But as the martyr’s screams dried up in the slackened jawbone left behind in the ash, the strength of the Amorite gods began to quickly wane. They were in need of more. Every Amorite man and man-yet-to-be on the battlefield could sense it. Apparently, even for the gods, supplying a rag-tag army with heightened vigor was a draining task.
So another woman was hurriedly escorted through the gate by a priest who jingled under an ensemble of gold pendants. The graying woman following close behind was led along by nothing more than her own convictions. The toes of her sandals nipping impatiently at the fringed hem of the arbiter ahead of her. It seemed the priest could not bring the woman to the place of her harrowing demise quick enough. But while she held her face unnervingly calm, her interlocked fingers, clasped in fervent prayer, squirmed like a bundle of worms cradled against the bosom.
Almost as quickly as the charred remains of the previous martyr could be discarded, the new one was chained into place. With a few heartfelt incantations, she was laid over the altar as if another log on the fire. And once again, the valley echoed with the sounds of mortal anguish, with the Amorite fighters rising to the impassioned call.
To the extent that the human sacrifices incited the Amorites, they diminished the Israelites, sapping them of their will to fight. As Samuel and Josiah approached the line of reserve troops, they could see the dread of imminent defeat weighted into their postures. Dismounting their horses, they handed over the reins to a battlefield servant and walked around to address the men.
“My lord, we are greatly honored,” said the field commander in greeting the king. He bowed forward only slightly before catching himself. Remembering that Josiah did not care for the customary gestures of veneration in the theater of combat.
Josiah promptly dispensed with the niceties and went right to the business at hand. “What are your plans for the deployment of the reserves,” he said curtly.
“They’ll be protecting the rear once we signal the withdrawal,” said the field commander, giving his bravest face to a capitulating answer. It was only with heroic restraint that Josiah did not strike the man down on the spot.
“We won’t be withdrawing,” he said bluntly. “I’ll take over from here.”
The commander stepped aside, swallowing back resentment as Josiah brushed past him with an air of disdain. The reserve troops stood shoulder-to-shoulder, about fifty strong. With their king gauging their fortitude from less than an arm’s length away, each man did his best to hold himself firm upon spines of sponge. As much as they wanted to mold themselves into figures of heroism, they could not help but squirm at the spectacle of yet another woman submitting herself to the tormenting flames. But Josiah was not about to let them sink away into their personal mires. Pacing before them like a caged lion, he grabbed hold of each man with a glare that burned even hotter than the flesh-eating fire across the field.
“Men, do not let these barbaric and abominable acts rob you of your valor,” he began. There was lightening in his countenance and thunder in his voice. “If anything, your resolve should be galvanized by it. For it is only further proof that these are a savage people—not worthy of this sacred land.”
The king’s undaunted conviction sparked an immediate change in the men. Their bewildered eyes taking on a steely sheen. “Do not think of this as enemy territory,” he continued. “This ground beneath our feet, it is a sacred ground. It is a part of the Promised Land. The same soil where our father Moses was granted his glorious glimpse of the land where God’s kingdom on earth would one day reside.”
Josiah paused to look out across the valley and over the surrounding hills. The bitter fighting, the anguished cries, the unscathed walls—all nothing more than narrative fodder for a much grander story. And in the reflection of his all-seeing gaze, the soldiers of the reserve unit were ushered into that same idealized space. Where the works of mere men paled next to visions of the divine will.
“Men, today is that day—the day that the exalted vision of Moses will finally be realized. This is the land, the place of his burial, where his soul will finally be set at peace.” He spoke in a forceful cadence, his words keeping rhythm with the clinking of chainmail in his every earth-conquering step.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he continued. “And not a one of you is here by accident. Each of you has been chosen, since the day of your birth, to help take back that which was stolen from not only our people, but from Elohim himself. And as I look into each of your eyes, I know that you can feel it. I know that you want nothing more than to do this thing for our God. To spare him this pain, this humiliation, that this heathen people continues to bring upon him. Not because he is incapable of doing so himself. But because he has given us the great honor and privilege of sharing in the glory of it. To prove our faith. To prove that we will be worthy caretakers of his vineyard.”
The Judahite soldiers were now staring straight ahead with stone-faced resolve etched into their faces. Word-by-purpose-driven-word, their doubts and fears being chiseled away. Each man understanding, in his own way, that their king would gladly turn back the hand of time if he could. Leading the charge himself into the teeth of the enemy. Tasting with his own tongue the sweet nectar of divine triumph. But since this could not be, each man also understood that this solemn duty—this privilege—fell to them instead. It was the least they could do for their king, for the many years he had put his own life on the line for their people. And for their God, who had given them everything, down to the breath of life itself.
“Men, we will not come back some other day, in some convenient future, in hope that our prize might be more easily won. Today is the day that we will free our God from this defilement! Today is the day that we will prove our love! Our faith! And our fortitude! Showing the world why we are the Chosen!”
Unsheathing his sword, Josiah lifted it high above his head, shouting, “For our God!”
The line of soldiers did the same, lifting their swords to the heavens while echoing the mantra in deafening unison. With their murderous conviction harnessed at the tip of his sword, Josiah spun around and swung it toward the direction of the battlefield.
“Attack!”
Upon his command, the men surged forward like a pack of rabid dogs breaking free of their leashes. Charging ferociously into the fray, they bore down on the tiring Amorites with the fury of the Great Deluge. Raining down upon them a storm of vengeful steel. Quickened by the spilling of fresh blood onto the beaten earth, Josiah drifted toward the periphery of the fighting. Vicariously joining in through words of added incitement. Samuel became increasingly wary as he did, shadowing the king with his full-body shield.
Beneath the chainmail, Josiah wore the same light blue tunic as the rest of his men. Except his was hemmed with purple fringe to signify his royalty. For Samuel, the man charged with keeping the king alive at all costs, this was hardly helpful. It only made Josiah a more coveted target in hostile settings. Keeping his head on a swivel, he watched for signs of danger from all directions. Blocking the occasional arrow with his oversized shield, made from tanned cattle hide and stretched tautly over a solid wood frame. Despite his best efforts to steer Josiah away from the fighting, the king continued to edge perilously closer.
The momentum had reversed abruptly and dramatically. Even the front-line infantry, back on their heels only moments ago, now fought with renewed fervor. The troops of Judah were no longer dazed by the dark, pungent cloud of human sacrifice that permeated the valley. Now it was the Israelites who seemed energized by it, as if the Amorite gods had capriciously switched favor.
With the inevitability of their pending doom being written in messy red script across the grass and mud, the Amorite army quickly gave up the will to fight. Some simply fell to their knees to accept their final death blow without further struggle. Others charged headlong into the jaws of death. Throwing themselves onto enemy spears while shouting unintelligibly, or, in some cases, laughing maniacally. But most found themselves caught in the hazy middle between these two extremes, their efforts driven by force of habit more than the spirit of a greater cause. They knew the end was near either way, whether they went out with a whirlwind or a whimper.
Yet, in one respect, they were all the same, in that none of them attempted to flee. Down to a man, each of them understood that there was no point in prolonging a life where all that was precious to them was utterly lost. Robbed of everything which they had ever worked to attain, with all their loved ones brutally massacred.
Even the last of the maiden martyrs realized this. Her cries did not rattle the pillars of heaven like those proceeding her. They were instead drowned out in the rainfall, which washed away all sound and hope. The priests simply turned away from this sad valediction, leaving her remains to incinerate unceremoniously upon the ashes. Like the mournful spirits of the dead, they slipped quietly back through main gate, as if to resign themselves to their hollow eternal abode. Their only prayer now would be for a swift and merciful end.
Moved by the inspired butchery, Josiah unsheathed his sword and crept even closer. Near enough to contribute to victory in more than rhetoric alone. Dutifully, Samuel’s steel came out as well. He was now more worried about a direct assault than a flying arrow.
His fear was almost immediately validated. A pair of bloodied Amorites came bursting out of a nearby entanglement. One from the right and the other from the left. Their shields left to fall impotently to the ground as neither would be encumbered by notions of self-preservation. The boiling tar in their eyes saw only as far as the king’s purple fringe. The color of their final, bitter revenge. Josiah flinched, fumbling his sword to the ground, his reflexes momentarily beset by rust.
He knelt forward to pick it up, but it was too late. The Amorites’ strides devoured the preciously scarce ground between them faster than he could recover. Both their swords went up, gleaming hungrily down upon the king’s exposed neck below. Samuel had time only to react.
With a quick snap of the arm, he fired his sword toward the Amorite on his right. He did not have the luxury of watching as it sank deep into the chest. Dropping the assailant like a bird in flight, as if plucked out of the air by an archer’s arrow.
Before the impaled brute knew he had been struck, Samuel was already spinning to his left, his arm slipping magically out of the shield’s strap. For a falling grain of time, it hung there before him, momentarily forgetting that the laws of Creation forbade it. But before earthly realization could dawn upon its wooden and rawhide sensibilities, Samuel caught the shield by its outer edges, mid-spin, and let it fly at the point of maximum torque.
The heavy shield went hurtling toward the knees of the other attacker just as his sword had begun its swift descent toward the meatily offered target below. With a sickening crack, the Amorite’s stonecutter frame was propelled into a wild somersault. Instead of severing Josiah’s head at the collar, he lost grip of his sword, causing it to sail aimlessly off into a nearby patch of wet grass.
Samuel did not pause to admire his handiwork. Chasing after his shield-turned-projectile, he pounced into the wind-milling attacker. Drawing the dagger from its waist-tied sheath as he did. As the Amorite’s shoulder blades were hitting the ground, Samuel was descending into him like a bird of prey. Knee to the chest and dagger to the throat. The would-be avenger was all but dead before his heels had settled into the rain-softened earth.
Josiah lifted his head, half expecting to see the ghosts of his forefathers gathered round him as a greeting party to the next realm. What he saw instead were the haunted expressions of his men. Each whitened stare taking in the horror of his sudden death. Their minds, it seemed, yet to catch up to the moment where he was spared.
Josiah stood up to wipe the mud off his knees, not bothering to pick up his fallen sword. He never did manage to regain a handle of it. In the grass to his right lay the body of the first attacker Samuel had vanquished. Propped to his side by the hilt of the embedded sword. Samuel was still crouched over the other attacker, with ribbons of cascading blood painting his hands bright red. He appeared vexed in trying to retrieve his dagger out of the dead man’s neck. But it was lodged good and tight. Losing his stomach for the task, he gave up, surrendering a perfectly serviceable weapon to the corpse he had just created. It was an uncharacteristic capitulation on Samuel’s part, and it did not go unnoticed.
With the rest of the Judahite soldiers returning to the formality of banishing still-lingering Amorite souls to the next phase of existence, Josiah turned to his chief guard.
“You alright?” he asked.
Out of an immensity of respect he held for his king, Samuel constrained his annoyance behind a façade of indifference. “Aye,” he grunted, bending down to wipe his hands clean as best he could in the wet grass.
Josiah shrugged. He would have gladly showered his chief guard with his most heartfelt of gratitude had he believed it was wanted. It was not the first time Samuel had saved his life, and it would not likely be the last. It was God’s will, after all.
His pondering on the matter was abruptly shattered by the growling voice of the battlefield commander. “In formation men!” he barked. “To the city gates we go!” Hurriedly, and practically frothing at the mouth, the men fell into order. The sound of weeping from within the walls of Heshbon was reaching a crescendo, inflaming their animal senses. They were more than ready to consummate their hard-won victory.
“You know what to do men!” shouted the commander, giving the order to march. “Spare no living thing!”
That was Josiah’s cue. Rarely did he participate in the clean-up. He believed it to be beneath the monarchical calling. Much as it would be to sweep up after a palace event back home. As the troops began their triumphant advance, led by the iron-headed battering ram at the forefront, Josiah impatiently looked about in search of his transport. As typical, his want was almost immediately satisfied.
“Here you are my lord,” the battlefield servant called out as he approached on horseback. He rode one while leading the other by the reins. “They are both fed and watered,” he reported in good cheer.
Although his mood was entirely out of place, Josiah nodded in thanks and promptly traded places with the young man. He was ready for his warm bath, to go along with a cup of his favorite homegrown wine. Samuel did not move with quite the same bounce. His nagging bones seemed to be remembering just how tired they were. He hoped to skip the wine and return directly to his favorite pile of blankets in the back corner of the tent. But as the young servant went to hand him the reins, he could see there would be yet one more obstacle to overcome.
“The prophecy … it’s true, isn’t it?”
The young man’s eyes were welled almost to the point of tears. It was a look Samuel had seen all-too-many times before. As usual, he didn’t know whether to feign a wooden smile, or pretend he didn’t hear. Caught between, he simply stared blankly at the kid, waiting for him to voice the words which were very clearly written across his beaming expression.
“You really were sent by God to protect this king, weren’t you? Just like the prophecy goes.” His speech bordered on the verge of song. The frown that came to Samuel’s face fell just short of an open cringe, but the servant carried on. “The story of how you first rescued Josiah at Sorek has always been my favorite. Until today. I must say, nothing confirms my faith in this glorious work more than your continued heroics.”
Samuel’s lips all but disappeared into his furrowed face. He was in no mood for a devotional. Fortunately for him, neither was Josiah.
“Sorry son. We ought be on our way,” admonished the king.
“Oh—of course, my lord,” stammered the young servant. “I’m so sorry, I …”
With a benevolent wave of his hand, Josiah pardoned all burden of the boy’s imposition. “No worries son. It’s just been a tough couple of days, that’s all.”
More like a tough month, Samuel thought to himself before clambering atop his own horse. Across the field, the implacable iron hammer was knocking emphatically at the gate. Every hanging leaf in the valley shuddering at each wood-splintering blast.
Josiah stole but a brief glance before yawning and pointing himself uphill. “Shall we?”
Samuel nodded, and without another word between them, the iconic pair trotted back the way they had come. The driving rain washing out the tormented sounds of God’s reckoning being brought to bear in the valley behind them. Samuel tilted back to let the rainfall work its cleansing magic on him. With the tribulations of the world momentarily at his back, he let his thoughts drift back into the solace of a blessed nothingness.
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