by Cliff Graham
The higher up the wall we climbed, the wider the gaps in the stones became, and soon I was pulling and stabbing in a fluid motion, only hampered by the ache in my side.
Stab. Set. Pull.
Stab. Set. Pull.
Up the endless mountain I climbed. The crowd noise was growing dim below me. I heard the chink chink chink of the others as they pounded their chisels into the casing-stone gaps.
Once in a while one of the men would lose his grip, sliding down the surface faster and faster until he hit the bottom, shattering his knees and legs. Some tumbled when they could not keep their loincloths against the surface to slide on. Those men died.
Of course, it occurred to me that I would reach a height where, if I let go, I would slide to certain death no matter how far up I was. But I ignored that warning as well. All for the glory.
The people came to the pyramids and slid on them for amusement frequently, but that was far down below in a set apart area. Only those polishers tied to ropes lowered from the top had ever seen where I was.
Stone by stone I climbed. The heat of midday bore down on me, burning my skin without compassion.
I let myself grow angry to focus my efforts. I would win. I would get there first. I would not merely be one of the thirty chosen.
The face grew steadily narrower as I neared the top. I chanced a look upward to see how much farther I had to go. The capstone was visible fifty cubits above me. I saw some heads near it leaning over and looking down the face I was climbing. Those would be the training masters who had ascended the steps and were looking down as I climbed the other side.
I had been up this high before. I had climbed the pyramid and looked out across the Nile Valley as it snaked away to the north and south, and saw the jagged land of demons that stretched east and west. The green strip of the Nile, the dull brown of the desert. The scene was staggering even from the safety of the small stairway that had been chiseled into the face.
Now the wind blasted against me as I neared the top. My arms ached. Only panic of death kept me hanging on.
Stab.
Set.
Pull.
A few more cubits. The heat was unbearable. The wind was going to knock me off. I hated Training Master Horem for hitting me with those arrows.
Stab.
Set.
Pull.
The apex of the mountain was near. I could see the face of Training Master Horem as he leaned over the side only five cubits away. His glare was murderous, but he did not draw his bow.
Stab.
Set.
Pull.
The top.
I slapped my hand on the golden capstone as I held on to the other chisel. It was not over yet. I had to get to the staircase. I could not descend the way I had come. I’d realized that halfway up.
I dug my chisels in side by side and crept along the base of the capstone. My muscles started shaking like they knew the end was near, and the fright and anger that had powered my climb was giving way to reality.
I reached around the sharp edge line and searched for a place to secure my grip so I could pull myself to the other side.
A strong hand clasped my wrist and pulled me before I could stop it from happening.
I found myself standing on the top of the steps, Training Master Horem beside me. He was beaming. The crowd below had erupted with delirious shouts and cries. Someone must have told them my name, because I heard it chanted over and over, even above the wind at the summit.
“In twenty years of being a Red Scorpion,” Training Master Horem said in a calm voice, “I have only seen a few men reach the top. I was one of them.” He turned to me and smiled. “But we all came up the stairway.”
9
The Gold of Honor
I was branded with the emblem of the scorpion on my leg. You can still see it here. I keep it covered up, of course.
I celebrated with the other men, who made merry for several days along the riverfront. I am not proud of what we did, but I was a young fool then.
I saw Training Master Horem once in a while. It is good that I hated him, and I am glad he is dead now. We might have become friends.
Even if they survived Yahweh’s wrath, the men from my old regiment are long dead from old age. I learned much from those days, and learned even more from Training Master Horem. If I am honest, I would have loved his counsel from time to time while training our own armies. No one knew better than he what the limits of a man’s body and courage are. He would have been the first in the breach against the city of the Anakim, I assure you.
None of that matters. What matters is that I was chosen for the chariot teams.
I reported for duty in Thebes at the arena I had seen near the pyramids when I first arrived. I had not yet ridden a horse, although I had seen them. My first day among them could not be described as easy; I did not have a natural way with them like other charioteers.
And yet the sight of the men rushing around the arena at speeds that were impossible created a desire in me that was profound. I vowed to pour myself into my training.
Oh, the beauty of it. How the cart edged into a smooth turn. How the driver gave the animals their heads at just the right times to either accelerate or stop. The dust cloud that billowed behind their wheels, showing how fast the driver was going and how you could never run away from it.
You know little of chariots, because we have no use for them in our fighting. Joshua and I rode them in battle long before you were born, after we left Egypt. I will tell you of that soon.
These mountains are too steep and narrow, and there are too many rocks for chariots. They are entirely useless to you and this army. But one day you may find yourself on the plains grappling with the Sea People, and if you do, you must know how to fight them, for they are chariot masters of the first order.
First, what they cannot do. They are terrible if there is any type of uneven ground or hidden rock fields. I burst many spokes in my wheels on sand-covered stones.
The horses tire quickly, so you have to plan attacks knowing that you only have a short window of heavy battle in them before they must rest. Many eager charioteers were lashed because they drove their horses to death needlessly. Men are replaceable. Chariot horses are not.
The animals can be ornery. The training rubs your hands raw as you hold the reins for hours in the hot sun, sweat beading on your forearms and running into your grip. You only get about an hour of fighting before you have to withdraw from the field. You miss most of the battle because your part is so short.
But, oh, that hour of battle.
Yes, when the wind is tearing across your face and the wheels are running smooth, the horses snorting and whinnying with battle rage, and the look of fear in the eyes of your enemy.
When you are spread in the hawk formation with two long wings on either side of you, the electrum-coated chariot shining so brightly in the sun that it hurts the eyes, the archer leaning over the side to bring a terror-filled death to those you hunt.
The rig itself is wondrously simple and yet it has sophistication that we can only dream of creating. A joint from the front post sits in a notch that absorbs the shock of the terrain as the wheels bounce over it, wheels that are spoked and sturdy and can withstand high speeds. The balance is perfect.
And so I learned to master the chariot. I alternated between handling the reins and holding the bow.
I will sketch for you the hawk formation, for it was unstoppable. We were never defeated with it.
One chariot was in the lead. This was the commander. The rest of the unit stretched back from him in a line on his left and on his right, forming the shape of an arrowhead.
As we approached the enemy’s infantry lines, we swerved one direction, allowed the archers on that side to release their arrows, clearing the way in the enemy ranks for us to then turn head-on into them, cutting them like a blade and tearing their front ranks to pieces with our bladed wheels before swerving at the last moment to the other
flank and letting the archers who had not yet loosed do so.
We struck hard and violently, then wheeled away before the enemy could know what hit him. Chaos and fear were our weapons as much as arrows and blades.
May Yahweh forgive me if I miss those days. Riding hard until sunset, the Nile glittering below us as we wore down the training pitch on the bluffs above. The nights we went to town and celebrated a day off.
I loved battle. I loved seeing my blade drenched with the gore of a man’s guts. I loved the wineskin shared with comrades around the evening fire as meat roasted on the spit. Wine, women, and war. Those were our life.
I had two friends closer than all. They were the men in my fighting team, the ones I trained with every day for endless hours. We hated each other one hour and wanted to hug like lovers the next. We grew so sick of sleeping in the same small campaign tent, smelling one another and rolling on top of each other that we woke up every morning with murder in our hearts.
“Elbows in faces, and faces in legs!” That was the motto the training masters used to shout at us as they described how we were to fit three men inside a tent built for one.
“We disguise the size of our forces this way,” they would yell as we shuffled and grunted inside the crammed spaces. “The enemy watching us on those hills only sees tents for five hundred men, when really there are fifteen hundred! If you want to kill Amalekites or Nubians, you need to sleep with your face in another man’s legs! They don’t tell that to you when you are being recruited, do they?!”
The names of the two men in my fighting team were Amek and Senek. They were pure-blood Egyptians and treated me like dung and called me foreign filth, until I whipped them so badly in sparring that they ran from me in terror. Then we became the closest of friends. That is how men begin relationships, Othniel.
We trained in small unit formations from the rising until the setting of the sun. Our hands no longer knew blisters because they had become as hard as the leather in our shield straps. We drilled and drilled and drilled. So many hours. Senek was the left, Amek was the right, and I was the point. We trained blindfolded to prepare for if one of us lost our eyes to a blade. We went two days without water and then trained for two full overnight watches until the sun rose and we were almost dead from thirst. We chased women and they chased us, unable to resist our toned and hardened bodies and well-paid army purses.
The stories of those first battles on the frontier with the Red Scorpions are for another time. Perhaps in other chronicles when I am willing to share in a moment of weakness. We must get to when Moses enters my story.
But there was one battle that I will tell you of, because it helps explain how Yahweh used it in my idolatrous heart to finally turn away from the false gods, and how I was so intimately familiar with the events when Moses and Aaron emerged from the wilderness and brought their God with them.
The highest award in the Egyptian armies, even in the kingdom itself, is the Gold of Honor. And I won it.
Presented by Pharaoh himself, it is reserved only for those who exceed every understanding of courage and valor in battle. It is a simple gold chain of links that can be worn like any other necklace, with the exception of the hawk seal emblem on it that marks its identity.
The Gold of Honor presents the bearer anything he wants in the kingdom. You move to the front of every line, win every negotiation, and are generally treated like a member of the royal household.
You will still be outranked in the armies, but even every great general must bow to you when he first sees you, even though he may give you orders in the next breath.
It is rarely awarded. I know of only three others in all my years in the armies who won it.
It was early in my career as a soldier when my opportunity arose. I sensed it as a man can sometimes sense his destiny. Humility was difficult for me in those days. I was exceptionally gifted at everything I tried. I thought to myself: Why would I not distinguish myself in battle?
These events occurred some years after I finished selection with the Red Scorpions. Pharaoh had come to visit the Red Scorpions and train amongst us for a moon cycle. He had only recently been rid of Queen Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh who had so offended everyone by her very life. She had been Thutmose’s regent, and upon her death he set about destroying as many references to her as he could.
He was obsessed with the martial disciplines, and his first years of engagement were spent with the foot soldiers. When he wanted to learn the chariot, he came to the Red Scorpions because we were the best riders in the two kingdoms.
You cannot imagine how remarkable it was that the god-man himself, the King Who Would Reign Eternally, would actually come amongst his fighting men and train with them. Sweat with them. Bleed with them.
I had ascended rapidly as a training master in my own right, and Akan the Stone Broker had ensured that I would be the king’s instructor on this day. Many jealous eyes followed me as I rode the designated royal chariot to the edge of the tent where his majesty was staying. Amek and Senek were there, and my comrades teased me with jealous humor because they would be staying behind to make room for the king.
The king came out of the tent with a spirited attitude. He was young; he could not have been more than his third decade. Eager to prove himself to the men he ruled.
The chariot was coated entirely in electrum, an alloy of gold and silver with traces of copper. The effect was a dazzlingly bright reflection of Ra’s light that marked the chariot as belonging to the king. His men could see it anywhere on the battlefield. This was a mixed result, of course. His men may see him and be inspired, but he also attracted every archer’s aim.
As he approached, the ranks of the army and his personal guard bowed low. I did so myself, and he stepped into the chariot and beckoned me up with him.
He leaned against the railing, his royal war headdress perched on his shaved head. I then struck the horses and we were off.
There would be one squadron in this training run. None of the pharaoh’s guards would come with us. There was not room in the chariots, since he wanted to know what it was like in a battle-ready rig with a driver and archer, and he had ordered the guards away, which I found remarkably brave and provided the first instance of begrudging respect we gave him.
We were to take him out at full speed, let him get his first feeling of the rushing torrent of chariot battles by feeling the wind in his face and the lurching and creaking of the rigging, but we were to preserve the royal safety above all.
I was nervous in the extreme. There, next to me, the king of Egypt. The royal court that normally surrounded him and exalted his majesty was falling far behind us. It was only the desert and our squadron of twenty chariots.
As soon as I had brought the horses to a gentle trot and was guiding them to the desert road that led to the nearest training pitch, the king, who had been silent to this point, suddenly said, “Take me to the farthest pitch. My training masters tell me it is the one with the most difficult obstacles.”
My blood went cold. The fifth pitch, the one he was referring to, was an hour’s ride away and was the most advanced pitch in the regiments. It was dangerous to anyone who had never been on a chariot before. His eagerness to prove his valor to us was admirable but entirely foolish.
But I could not tell him no. He was the all-powerful ruler who could command my death instantly just for looking at him without permission. And yet if harm came to him in my care, I was dead anyway. I searched for any kind of reason to speak and possibly dissuade him.
“Great Egypt,” I said, “I will take you directly to the fifth pitch. Would you spare one moment of kindness to your servant and allow him to ask you if you are aware of the name of the fifth pitch?”
“Do not speak that way to me,” he said evenly. “Out here we are fellow soldiers. What is the name of the fifth pitch? They did not tell me this.”
I was stunned at how casually he wished to engage with me. Glancing behind me to see if we could be ove
rheard, knowing certainly that we could not, I cleared my throat and said, “It is called the Ring of Horus.”
“Similar to the Ribs of Horus?” he asked.
I nodded. The Ribs of Horus was an obstacle course that the elite foot soldiers conducted near the riverbank. Horus was our falcon-headed war god; we named everything after him.
“Similar, your majesty, but men are allowed to attempt it much sooner than we allow our chariot soldiers to attempt the Ring. And we don’t have anyone attacking us; the course is dangerous enough.”
The king looked at me eagerly. “Take me there directly!”
I hesitated for effect.
“What is it?” he asked. “Take me there now.”
“I will take your majesty, if you will absolve me of any wrongdoing in whatever your fate may be. Otherwise I ask permission to end my life immediately.”
It was a horrific gamble, but I had no choice but to ask. It had been both my honor and my terror to host the ruler of the Great Realm this day.
It worked. He was now so desperate to know what lay in the fifth pitch that he raised his hand dismissively. “Yes, I absolve you. Now tell me what is there.”
And so I did. The entire hour it took to get to the fifth pitch, I told him of the challenges we would face by running the course, and of my own experiences drilling there and fighting bandits on the frontier.
I was a natural storyteller, and he was enraptured by my tales.
When finally we arrived at the Ring of Horus, we had two different reactions. His was of awe and excitement, mine of trepidation.
It was not just the course that worried me, for it was dangerous enough. A wild, uneven road that traversed thirty leagues of rocky desert, on narrow trails and with hidden snares, it was a course that had to be taken at full speed in order to qualify under the time limit of one hour.
