by Cliff Graham
All were aimless and wandering, their worlds upheaved. They waited numbly for the hours to pass. The very air was pregnant with dread as we waited for the two Hebrew monsters to appear to smite us again, now fully convinced that our god-king could do nothing whatsoever to stop them apart from giving them what they wanted.
I tucked my short sword into my belt and draped the Gold of Honor around my neck. Did it mean anything to me anymore?
It did, I suppose. It was all I had left, my last idol that had not been taken from me, and I had to hold fast to it.
I left the barracks and walked through the market. In better days it would have been bustling with the exotic smells and sights befitting the center of the universe, where goods and pleasures from all realms were only an exchange of coins away.
Now it was half filled with silent, living corpses who had only their routines to rely upon, while their fates were determined echelons of power above their heads, behind the walls of the palace that had once gleamed white but were now charred black from the fire storm. Many were still shoveling the rotting, putrid intestines of the dead livestock into oxcarts to be removed.
“Did you hear?” a cracked voice called out. I turned around and saw an old man with his hand cupped around his mouth, trying to get the attention of the silent mass of people. “The Hebrews are before the palace again!”
I felt my stomach tighten with terror. Whatever was coming, I did not want to be in the city for it.
I quickly purchased a goatskin water pouch from a vendor, who did not even acknowledge my Gold of Honor. I did not bother to correct his disrespect but hurried through the streets until I came to the well. After I shoved aside others who were clamoring for the water the same as I was, I filled my pouch and ran immediately toward the edge of town.
I was going to climb the bluffs that overlooked Memphis and wait out what was coming in the emptiness of the desert, but then a thought occurred to me. Goshen was only a day’s journey to the north if I moved quickly.
Rumors had persisted that the Hebrews themselves had been untouched by any of the plagues except the first two, the two that Nembit and the other Egyptian magicians were able to conjure themselves. But it was widely spread on the streets of Memphis that the lice gnats had not come to them, and neither had the fire storm or the boils or the other horrors that had laid us so low.
I was now running for the training pitch to secure a chariot to take to Goshen to find out for myself. I had witnessed impossibilities since Moses and his brother had emerged from the desert, but I needed to know what their god was allowing to happen to his own people. Was he vindictive against them as he was against Egyptians? When they failed him, did he lash out at them with violent destruction?
The chariot master recognized me as I approached him at the pitch.
“Caleb. It has been a long time.”
We embraced.
“It is good to see you, Amnon.”
“The palace has made your muscles soft,” he said, squeezing my shoulders tight. “Come back to the wheel regiments and we’ll harden you again.”
A quick glance around told me the chariot pitch had been spared none of the Hebrew god’s wrath.
“It has been no better in the palace than out here, Amnon,” I said.
“I’ve heard. Pharaoh himself had the boils?”
“He did.”
Amnon shook his head. He was older than I, a rough veteran who was disturbed by very little. His face, like everyone else’s, was covered with the gruesome remnants of the past months. Scars and scabs, especially the effects of the boils.
He did not appear to notice. “We had no horses left, you may have assumed,” he said cheerily, guessing my intent. “Then another herd arrived from Canaan to replace the ones killed in the . . . sickness. But then I lost most of those in the fire storm. The locusts took most of my remaining hay. Another caravan with hay is supposed to arrive any day, but kham sur! How wonderful it is to be utterly dependent on outside nations for our supplies! Mighty Egypt, begging from the barbarians! A few horses remain, but I expect those will soon be consumed when every grain of sand in the western desert turns into a lion and we are devoured by them.”
I smiled, appreciative of his good humor. Soldiers were always the first to complain but also the first to tease.
“I need a rig, my friend,” I said.
Amnon scoffed. “You and the entire army. Everyone wants to flee our land. I’d do it myself if I had the gold. The first place I would head is Nubia. The girls there are marvelous; they’ll do anything you—”
“I am sorry, Amnon, but I am in a terrible rush,” I interrupted, holding up the heavy chain of the Gold of Honor from around my neck.
I tried not to appear too eager, merely decisive. I could not help but glance at the horizon toward Memphis.
He eyed the chain, then bowed his head slightly. “I acknowledge the Gold of Honor. But it was not needed.” His eyes were now full of curiosity and inwardly I scolded myself for not trying to merely persuade him more.
He led me to the stables. As we walked, I tried to think of something to ease the suspicious mood I had likely put him in. I was not acting under official orders, and he might report me to a superior.
“I am to survey the northern territory to evaluate what remains of our posts on the Way of the Sea,” I lied.
Amnon grunted. “I will tell you what remains. Piles of ash and bones. Let me know if monsters crawl out of the Great Sea when you are there. I wagered fifty to Horemheb in the archer regiments, do you remember him? Ugly, lost an ear? I wagered fifty that the next one from that Hebrew would come from the sea, and he . . .”
Amnon chattered uninterrupted as he led me to the stables. I picked out two fine brown-and-white animals with sturdy necks and strong flanks. My trained eye told me they would not have been the fastest in a sprint, so I would not have taken them against foot soldiers and archers, but they would hold their pace longer than the others.
I helped Amnon harness the horses and attach the chariot. The old movements were mechanical and felt like coming home after a long sojourn. The hours I had spent doing this very mundane task! My fingers still flew with ease over every buckle and strap.
Amnon loaded up the chariot with water pouches and filled the quiver with arrows. “Why didn’t you bring your bow?” he asked.
I thought quickly. “They told me you had extras in the armory. I just strung mine again and don’t want to put it through a journey.”
This seemed to suffice. Amnon knew well that a newly strung and waxed bow was cherished by charioteers and only reluctantly used.
“So you just assumed you would use one of mine?” he said in a mocking tone.
“I knew you had nothing to do anymore but string bows. We aren’t invading anyone anytime soon.”
I mounted through the back of the chariot and gripped the rail. I was in a hurry, yet the familiarity of standing behind a loaded team, the equine smell, the fresh fletching on the arrows made me pause.
Amnon smiled. “You’ve been too long in the palace. Palaces aren’t where men are supposed to live.”
I nodded. “I’ll have it back within the week.”
I cracked the straps against the flanks of the animals, and they lurched forward. My left foot slid back against the bar brace, with the weight of my body slipping instantly into its old balance.
I cracked the straps again, and the horses moved to a trot, then again and into a run. I would not run them for long, but I was overcome with the desire to feel the wind rushing against my face again, the sensation of the distance I could cover, and the terror I could strike into even the hardest of soldiers.
How I loved the chariot! How I loved angling in on a rank of troops while my weapons mate wielded a javelin, or riding as a passenger and sending arrows whipping through the air into throats and bellies.
The horses snorted and kicked up the sand, and I laughed. They were testing me, and I them. I guided them down the bluffs
toward the river, only slowing enough to ensure I would not be thrown in a fit of their fright, then when we reached the open silt-covered river plain I spurred them again.
For a moment I forgot all that had befallen us. I did not notice the burned and ruined land around me, locust-eaten and hail-crushed. I knew only the speed of the chariot and the wild freedom that a desert gazelle must know when it is in full flight.
Finally I slowed the team to a slow trot again. I had had my fun and now I needed to spare them for the journey to Goshen.
When I first came to Egypt along this very route, it had been a vibrant, lush land of fat cattle and swollen fields of dense grass. The Egypt I passed now was unrecognizable.
A fine dust cloud rose from the horses’ hooves and chariot wheels. An endless skeleton forest of dried-out stalks poked up from the earth from when the locusts had passed through. It occurred to me that I had no way of knowing whether there would be anything for my horses to eat; I had just assumed that, as always, I could easily find a patch of river grass to feed them.
Few farms had anything resembling crops. I shuddered as I thought about the famine that could be coming once the land had gone through its grain stores. There was of course no harvest this year of any kind.
Brush fires, more than could be counted, had spread along the river from the fire storm. The pattern appeared to have been a strike of lightning and sparks of hail igniting a patch of ground, burning for an hour or more, then snuffing out once the drenching rain had washed over it.
I saw people occasionally. They looked as though they were ready for the embalmers. It occurred to me that they would have little idea of what had been transpiring in the cities, or what had even been causing these calamities besides the unknowable wrath of the gods.
Did they know that the two ragged-looking old men who came and went along this road were responsible? Did they know that the desert god Yahweh had overrun their sky and earth, driving out the weak and womanly gods of Egypt? Did they comprehend that they were mere ash and dust in his hand? Did I, truly?
I know of no other way to describe it, Othniel. It was an endless scene of horror and suffering, very much the embodiment of desolation. The deserts of our wandering would be sparser in coming years, but the tragedy of that once-beautiful land going to ruin was more than I could bear.
The farther north I went, the more I found myself looking over my shoulder with increasing frequency, ever since Amnon had mentioned the sand turning into hungry lions.
I rode all day as fast as I dared, not knowing when grass would appear for my horses. The road along the river had always been filled with travelers and their mules or oxen; today it was rare to see a single person.
Dusk was approaching when I pulled the horses up to a small inlet in the river. I let the animals drink and stretched my legs.
Standing up, I saw a flicker of movement in the barren trees nearby. I did not wait to see what it was but darted for the back of the chariot, shouting “Yah! Go, yah!” to the horses and yanking backward on their reins. They snorted and whinnied, protesting that I had interrupted their drinking. I cursed myself for my tactical error, being lazy and not pulling them into a place where they could quickly withdraw.
“Yah!” I shouted louder, pulling desperately on the reins. I sensed something rushing toward me and ducked.
A loud twang as an arrow punched through the chariot wall near my head.
“Go! Go!”
The horses were finally pulling back, handbreadth by handbreadth, but they would not be able to turn and run forward in time. I stayed crouched behind the chariot wall and pulled the bronze short sword out of its sheath near the front.
Another arrow whistled overhead. Then another came that struck the opposite rim and clattered onto my lap. I had just been wondering who my attackers were when I recognized the fletching and blade of an Egyptian military arrow.
Deserters.
Driven by hunger or greed, these well-trained fighters were no ordinary bandits. Deserters from the armies, and like their namesake predatory bats that hunted the deserts, they prowled the trade routes and used their weaponry skills to plunder caravans, but they had never been seen in our very land itself.
Where there is a dying carcass, the vultures soon gather.
I drew a long, steady breath. Another arrow overhead, followed by another.
“Kah! Go!” I shouted again, pulling hard on the reins while keeping my head as low as possible.
I kept my head turned back, waiting for the first sign of a body to appear in the entry gap. They would be too smart to rush me, not wanting to risk a blade or an arrow over a simple robbery. They would recognize the chariot as one of the king’s, though, and might take extra risks to capture it.
“Kah!” I shouted. Finally the horses had pulled back enough from the water to allow me to crack the right side twice, signaling a fast right turn and sprint. They responded instantly and lurched to the right. I did not have the time to brace myself and I crashed against the opposite side.
I had to risk peering over the rim to see where I was going and quickly did so. The horses had found a narrow path back to the main road that they were charging along, and then another arrow struck me in the shoulder and I felt the deep, intense burn of the metal searing its way through my sinews.
I cried out and fell back down. I managed to hold on to the reins and cracked them hard twice to remind the horses to keep going as fast as they could.
A man appeared overhead. He had leaped onto the chariot despite its speed. His sword was immediately stabbing downward toward my chest, but I rolled my shoulder over in time and it missed. I kicked at him clumsily, my angle far off. He avoided my foot and stabbed again, this time getting me in the hip, yet my leather sheath turned the tip aside.
I threw myself sideways against the flat of the blade to pin it against the wall, and the chariot suddenly hit a bump and sent both of us into the air, spinning, landing in the ash-covered ground as the chariot careened away.
I hit the dirt hard. Instantly the breath was forced from my lungs. No time to catch it, as I was being rushed by three others, maybe a fourth, five total, including the man who had leaped onto my chariot, and he was now back on his feet and charging me again with his sword.
I had no strength in my fighting arm, felt very tired all of a sudden, but then it surged back into me and I was able to roll out of the way of the first sword strike and gain my feet. I ran in the direction of my chariot.
I was the fastest man in the armies. It had been decided many times, and I knew that no matter how fast these men were I could outrun them. Only a fool chooses to fight when outnumbered if escape is both available and honorable.
That did not mean I would not send them to the underworld if given the chance, and I did so to my first pursuer, whom I had allowed to gain on me and then I stopped, cut to my left, and jumped backward before he could react. He tried to stop himself, but I was right behind him, my footwork as quick as it always had been.
I snaked my arm around his neck, pulled hard, feeling his windpipe crush in my elbow, the panic and surge of fright I had felt turning to anger that he and the others would dare assault me, Caleb, bearer of the Gold of Honor and the rank of Scorpion of Egypt.
I wrenched his neck until I broke it, then dropped the corpse.
I took off running down the path again, this time giving my legs full strength to fly. I glanced over my shoulder and saw one of my pursuers stopping to notch an arrow.
I looked back ahead, believing that around the next bend in the burned forest I would see the chariot horses waiting for me. They were trained to sense the loss of weight when their master had fallen from the rig and stop.
My ears caught the sound of the twang of an arrow being loosed, and I darted to the right, avoiding the arrow, then back to the path when I saw it land.
There, ahead, the chariot and the horses waited patiently for me.
“Well done, Amnon, you prickly old oaf. You
have kept our discipline alive!” I said as I ran. I reached the chariot and leaped into the back. Grabbing the reins, I gave them a solid two cracks, and the horses lunged forward.
I turned around and saw the remaining pursuers stop and put their hands on their knees to catch their breath. I had not noticed it before, but now that I was safely away, I could see the skeletal outlines of theirs ribs and bony shoulders. They looked emaciated.
It was a wonder that I had been able to evade them so easily, I with my fattening diet in the palace. As struck as we had been, the king was always able to dine on the best of whatever remained, and the palace kitchens were stocked.
The famine had not even begun yet and people were already trying to attack each other over food.
I rode all that evening and through the night. When it was fully dark, I found another place to water the horses and unhitched the rigging this time, leading them to the edge of the river and listening as they lapped at it eagerly. I bent over and drew my own handfuls of water, also replenishing my pouch.
I slept for an hour while the horses were tied to one of the few remaining living stands of trees that I had seen. The undergrowth was still growing as well, providing concealment.
I awoke and hitched up the chariot again, a very difficult task for only one man, but you will excuse me if I say that I was no ordinary charioteer.
As I rode out in the early morning darkness, I hummed various songs that I knew so as to pass the time. I saw no other people; it was likely that they had fled to the cities for the grain stores. Once verdant farmland now lay barren and scarred. Rotting cattle carcasses were everywhere still. The stench had become so prevalent that I only noticed it when the air cleared every few hours and it was missing.
Dawn broke as I guided the chariot up a small bluff to get a better view of my progress. When I reached the top I almost fell out the back again. I was in the northern territories of the Lower Kingdom, where the Nile began to divert into thousands of smaller channels as it reached its delta. To my right, the east, was the land we called Goshen. Ahead and to my left was the Nile Delta region known as Avaris.
