Vengeance of Orion Part 25

"I am going to trust Orion," replied Zeus. "For the time being."

All three of the others started to speak at once, but I never heard what they said. Zeus smiled and nodded at me, then moved his right hand slightly.

And abruptly I was in the utter darkness of the tunnel's end, under the foundation of the main wall of Jericho.

I stood there trembling for several minutes. The end was in sight, I knew. They might not be able to track down the Golden One, but they certainly could keep track of me. The instant our paths crossed, they would jump and seize him, kill him, before he had the chance even to try to revive the G.o.ddess I had loved.

I forced my body to calm itself. The bitter perversity of the situation was almost laughable. I wanted to destroy the Golden One. They wanted to destroy the Golden One. But I had to protect him until he had made his attempt to revive Athene. I doubted that I could do that. And the more I thought about it, the more I despaired of his ability to bring her back to me.

Yet-he was clever enough, powerful enough, to elude their grasp. They could not find him, even though they knew that he was at work here at Jericho. They were in fear of him, in fear for their lives. Perhaps he was truly the most powerful among them. And, while they were trying to find him and destroy him, he was scheming to destroy them. I was caught in the middle of their Olympian struggle.

A faint sound startled me. A hooting, bleating noise. The ram's horn trumpets! Blinking, I realized that thin gray pencils of morning light were angling down into the cavern where I stood. Joshua had started up his parade again. It was time for the final stroke against Jericho.

I struck the flint and lit the torch, then put it to the piles of brushwood stacked against the wall's foundation. Dry as the desert in this season of heat, the bare twigs and branches burst into flame instantly. I backed away from the sudden heat, then realized that I had better get out of the tunnel as quickly as I could.

I ducked into the lower part of the tunnel and scuttled along like a four-limbed spider, the heat glowing at my back, reaching for me. I wondered if the fire would take the timbers that sh.o.r.ed up the tunnel roof, trapping me in its collapse. I was crawling on my belly now, much slower than I wanted to be going. Dimly I remembered other lives, other deaths: in the boiling fury of a volcano's eruption, in the blazing maelstrom of a runaway nuclear reactor.

Smoke was making me cough. I kept my eyes closed; not that I could have seen anything in the pitch-blackness of the tunnel. I snaked forward, driven by the heat behind me and the hint of fresh air ahead.

Suddenly a pair of strong hands grabbed my wrists and I felt myself being pulled along the scrabbly ground. I opened my eyes and saw Lukka, tugging, grunting, swearing as he pulled me into the daylight and safety.

We got to our feet, surrounded by the Hatti soldiers. They were fully armed now, with s.h.i.+elds and armor ready for battle.

"Is it working?" I asked Lukka.

He smiled grimly. "Come see for yourself."

We went together outside the tent and looked toward the city. Thin spirals of smoke were rising from the base of the wall. As I watched, they went from whitish-gray to a darker, more ominous color. The smoke thickened.

"The timbers must have caught," said Lukka.

Off around the curve of the wall, the Israelite priests still blew their horns, thumped their drums, clanged their cymbals. They chanted the praises of their Lord, and the people of Jericho stood atop their doomed wall, watching the display, jeering or laughing as they pleased.

I turned my gaze back toward the tents of the main Israelite camp. The men were forming up in ranks. They wore no uniforms, had precious little armor among them, but every man carried some sort of s.h.i.+eld and either a sword or a spear. They were ready for battle.

As the procession of priests rounded the curve of the wall, Joshua gave the order for his men to march. I estimated there were several thousand of them, from teenagers to graybeards. They marched in step with the priests, although their parallel circuit was much farther from the wall, out of bowshot range.

The priests came within sight of the smoke issuing from the base of the wall and turned away, heading back toward the camp. The armed men turned toward the wall, as if expecting it to fall at their feet.

And it did.

As the army of the Israelites approached the wall, the smoke became even thicker and blacker. I could hear strange groaning sounds, as if some creature trapped beneath the earth were moaning for release. The people up on the parapets were pointing and gesticulating now. I heard screams of sudden terror.

Then, with a great grinding, thundering groan, the whole section of the wall caved in, collapsed in on itself in a roar of falling bricks. Clouds of red-gray dust blotted out the smoke and rolled out across the plain toward us.

A single trumpet note rang piercingly clear through the shuddering thunder and screaming shouts from the city. With a roar that shook the ground, the army of Israel charged across the field and swarmed across the pile of rubble and through the breach in Jericho's wall.

Chapter 32.

I held Lukka and his men back for half the day, not wanting to risk them in the fighting. We had done our job, the battle belonged to the Israelites.

But by the time the sun was overhead Jericho was in flames, and even the imperturbable Lukka was quivering to get in on the looting.

I stood by the tent where our tunnel began and watched as clouds of ugly black smoke spread across the cloudless sky. Lukka's men sat or stood in what little shade they could find, casting questioning looks his way. Finally he turned to me.

Before he could speak, I said, "Be back at our tents by nightfall."

He gave me one of his rare grins and motioned for his men to follow him. They sprang up like eager wolf cubs, happy to be on the hunt.

I went with them as far as the demolished section of the wall, to see for myself what our work had accomplished. The wall was more than nine meters thick, where it still stood. The pile of tumbled bricks and rubble on which I picked my way felt hot, even through the soles of my boots. The fire was not out, it still smoldered deep below. Thin gray smoke issued from the lower cross-timbers in the sections of the wall on the other side of our breach. The fire would burn away at them for hours more, perhaps for days, I realized. Other parts of the wall would fall.

Inside the city, it was Troy all over again. The Israelites were like the Achaians in one way: they slaughtered and raped and pillaged and burned just as the barbarians of Argos and Ithaca and the other Achaian kingdoms did, on the plain of Ilios. The frenzy of bloodl.u.s.t was in them, and no matter which G.o.d they wors.h.i.+ped or what name they gave him, they behaved like beasts rather than men.

Perhaps Helen is right, I thought. Perhaps in Egypt we will find civilized human beings, order and peace.

I clambered back over the hot rubble and made my way to my tent. To my surprise, Helen was holding court there, sitting outside the tent surrounded by more than two dozen of the Israelite women. I got close enough to hear a few of her words: "They will be filthy and b.l.o.o.d.y and filled with l.u.s.t when they return. You should have scented water prepared to bathe them and soothe their raging blood."

"Scented water?" asked one of the women.

"In a tub?" another wondered.

Helen replied, "Yes, and let your servants bathe your husband..."

"Servants?" They all laughed.

Helen seemed nonplussed.

"But tell us," said one of the older women, "how do you use kohl to make your eyes seem larger?"

"And what charms do you use to keep a man faithful to you?"

I walked away, out of earshot, shaking my head in wonderment. While the men were following their savage instincts, murdering, burning, looting, the women were following their instincts, too, learning how to subdue and tame their men.

For some time I walked aimlessly among the tents. The only men in the camp were children or grandfathers. The women cl.u.s.tered in little groups, like those with Helen, whispering among themselves and occasionally glancing at the burning city.

"Orion," a strong voice hailed me.

I turned and saw Joshua standing in the shade cast by the striped awning extended over the front of his big tent. A humid breeze bellied the awning slightly and made the woven wool fabric strain against its creaking ropes. I could smell moisture in the breeze, and the sweet fragrance of date palms. The fire from the city was sucking up air from the river valley.

Several of the older priests reclined around Joshua on benches or the ground. They looked tired, spent, slightly ashamed.

"You have Jericho," I said to Joshua.

"Thanks to the Lord our G.o.d," he said, then added, "and to you."

I bowed my head slightly.

"You have performed a great service for the G.o.d of Israel and His people," said Joshua. "You will be rewarded amply."

"I appreciate the grat.i.tude of your people." Somehow I could not bring myself to say that I was happy to have helped them. "In a day or so my men and I will continue on our way... southward."

He knew I meant Egypt. "You are certain that you want to go in that direction?"

"Quite certain."

"It is what she she desires, isn't it?" desires, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Orion, why spend your life as a woman's slave? Stay with me! Be my strong right arm. There are other cities to consider. The Philistines on the coast are powerful enemies."

I looked into his deep, glittering eyes and saw the same burning light that glowed in the eyes of the Golden One. Madness? Or greatness? Both, I thought. Perhaps the one cannot exist without the other.

"I have no quarrel with the Philistines or anyone else," I said. "And I have my own reasons for going to Egypt."

"You are tied to a woman's skirts," he taunted.

I replied. "I seek a G.o.d in Egypt."

"A false G.o.d," Joshua snapped. "There is only one true G.o.d..."

"I know what you believe," I said, before he could go further, "and perhaps you are right. Perhaps the G.o.d I seek in Egypt is the same one that you wors.h.i.+p."

"Then why seek him in a land of slavery and tyranny?"

"Egypt is a civilized land," I countered.

Joshua spat at my feet. One of the old white-bearded priests who had been listening to us climbed arthritically to his feet and, leaning on a staff, pointed a bony finger at me.

"Egypt civilized? A land where the king orders the murder of every Israelite baby girl, simply because his ministers have told him that our numbers are growing too fast? That is civilization?" His weak old voice trembled with anger. "A land where our whole nation was enslaved to build monuments to the tyrant who slaughtered our infants?"

I blinked at him, not knowing how to answer.

"We fled from Egypt," said Joshua, "with nothing but the clothes on our backs and what little goods we could carry. Their king sent his army to find us and bring us back. Only the miracle of our Lord G.o.d saved us and allowed us to escape. We spent years wandering in the wilderness of Sinai, willing to starve and go thirsty in the desert rather than return to slavery. No, Orion, do not think that Egypt is civilized."

"But I must go there," I insisted.

"To find the G.o.d who in truth resides among us? Stay with us, and G.o.d will bless you."

"The G.o.d I seek is wors.h.i.+ped by many peoples, in many ways. To some he is the G.o.d of the sun..."

"There is only one true G.o.d," the old priest intoned. "All other G.o.ds are false."

"He told me to seek him in Egypt," I blurted, nearing exasperation.

The old priest staggered back from me. Joshua's face went white.

"G.o.d spoke to you?"

"This G.o.d did."

"In a dream?"

I raised my arm to point at the distant riverbank. "There, by the river, a few nights ago."

"Blasphemy!" hissed the old priest, pulling at his long white beard.

Joshua shook his head, an almost smugly understanding expression on his face. "It was not the G.o.d of Israel you saw, Orion. It was a man, or a false vision."

By definition, as far as he was concerned. All very neat. I decided it was senseless to argue with them. If they knew that the G.o.d they wors.h.i.+ped was the one I had promised myself to kill, they would have torn me to pieces on the spot. Or tried to.

"Perhaps," I conceded. "Nevertheless, I must go to Egypt."

Joshua said, "That is a mistake, Orion. You will be better off staying with us."

"I can't," I said.

Joshua said nothing in reply. He merely spread his hands in a vaguely dismissive gesture. I took my leave of him and headed back toward my own tent, my insides churning with the realization that Joshua was not going to allow us to leave-willingly.

As night spread its dark cloak over the ruin of Jericho, the men came tottering back to camp, stained with blood and carrying the riches of the oldest city in the world. In twos and threes they made their way back to their tents, where their women waited for them. The men were silent and grim, the memories of their atrocities just beginning to burn themselves into their consciences. The women were silent, too, knowing better than to ask any questions.

Lukka brought his two dozen soldiers back in a group, each of them staggering under a load of silks, blankets, armor, weaponry, jewels, even precious carvings of ivory and jade.

"We will enter Egypt as rich men," he said to me proudly, once the loot was arrayed at my feet by the light of our campfire.

Softly, I said to him, "If we enter Egypt at all, it will be despite the efforts of Joshua and his people."

Lukka stared at me, his dour face half hidden in the flickering shadows thrown by the fire.

"Keep the men together, and be ready to move swiftly when I give the word," I told him.

He nodded curtly and immediately started the men packing up the loot and storing it in our wagons.

Helen was more impatient than ever to leave, and when I told her of my misgivings, she demanded, "Then we must flee now, this night, while they are drunk with their victory and sleeping without sentries posted."

"And what about the next morning, when they find we've left? They could easily overtake us and force us to return."

"Lukka and his soldiers could hold them off while we escaped," she said.

"And die giving us a few hours' head start on our pursuers?" I shook my head. "We'll leave, but only when I've convinced Joshua to let us go."

She grew angry, but realized there was no other way.