The king’s lips curled into an awful smile as he assumed I’d obeyed him instead. “That’s a good girl. I’ll make it quick, I promise.”
BE STILL.
The king forced Darek to his knees on the threshold of the cave and raised his sword for the killing blow, the metal glinting in the sunlight.
A flash of tawny-gold from above and the scream from the king happened in such quick succession that it seemed one horrible drawn-out moment. The lioness was sprawled across the king just outside the cave entrance, his arm in her teeth, tearing and yanking at the flesh. The man keened in agony and screamed for his men. The lioness released his arm and went for his throat. She must have been waiting above the cave entrance, poised to pounce as soon as he stepped outside.
“Go!” Darek commanded as he scooped the king’s sword from the ground where he’d dropped it, breaking me out of my stupor. “Go!”
He grabbed my hand, dragging me away from the lioness who was absorbed in savaging her prey. Instead of heading downhill, toward the king’s men, he led me up the embankment and into the thick trees. The guards’ panicked shouts followed us up the hillside as they worked to distract the lioness from shredding their king to pieces.
“Climb!” Darek released my hand so I could use both of them to balance on the rocky terrain. Tripping and scrambling along behind him, I fell, scraping my knees on the limestone. But with Darek’s help I secured my footing and we pressed on. Once we’d reached a densely wooded area, we stopped climbing and began to follow the curve of the mountain. Ducking beneath low branches and pushing through thick underbrush, we wound through the trees, back and forth, a jagged route to throw the guards from our trail.
When we finally reached the eastern slope of the mountain and the wide valley stretched out below us, I skidded to a stop, desperate for a breath. “Surely they can’t still be behind us. They would have been more worried about the king than the two of us.”
Shaking his head, Darek once again gripped my hand in mine. “Down,” he ordered and pulled me along behind him.
I noticed a small bit of blood trickling down the back of his neck. “You’re hurt. We should slow down.”
“No.”
“But Darek—”
“No. We need to get as close to the Jordan River as we can before dark. We must cross back into Hebrew territory as soon as possible.”
I relented and allowed him to yank me forward as we plunged downward, skidding on the rocks and climbing over downed trees as we made our way down the side of the mountain, away from one bloodthirsty man and toward another.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Nine
Once in the valley, we crossed over the stream that meandered near the foot of the mountain and followed it northeast toward a small river that flowed toward Beit She’an and eventually met with the Jordan. With short, terse words, he told me he planned to skirt to the south of the city to avoid any contact with the local Canaanites and the garrison of Egyptian soldiers stationed there. After his brief explanation, he said nothing as he led me onward.
Confused by his silence, I did not argue, although my feet complained with vehemence. Running in sandals had rubbed my skin raw, the wounds stinging and throbbing more the farther we walked, but I swallowed the instinct to whimper. Darek seemed too agitated; I’d not bother him with a few blisters. At least his head had stopped bleeding on its own.
We emerged from the thick trees into an open space dotted with a few large ponds. The water in them was so blue that in the early afternoon light it glittered like a polished turquoise gem. Majestic palms, along with a dizzying variety of colorful wildflowers, edged the ponds, lending an ethereal look to the clearing.
“Oh!” Surprise slipped from my mouth. “How beautiful! Like the Garden of Eden itself!” I walked to the edge of the largest pond and crouched to dip my fingers in the clear water. “It’s warm!” I turned to him. “Oh, Darek, it’s so lovely. I’d do anything to soak my feet.” I lifted a question into my voice, not caring if it sounded like the desperate plea it truly was.
He glanced over his shoulder, back the way we’d come, and then scanned the trees all around the open area. It had been hours since we’d left the king to be mauled by the lioness.
“Surely they have not followed us this far,” I said. “We would have heard something.”
He seemed to agree, and although his expression was strained, he tipped his head toward the water, indicating I was free to indulge my poor feet. “Quickly.”
Before he could change his mind, I slipped off my sandals and stepped into the water, groaning aloud at the instant relief. “I could stay here forever.” Gathering my skirt in my hands, I walked a few steps farther into the clear pool, where the water reached my knees. “How does such an extraordinary place even exist?”
I looked back to where Darek stood at the edge of the pool, hands perched loosely on his hips and his head down. “I told you of this place,” he said, exhaustion weighting the words. “That night in the vineyard.”
I sucked in a quick breath, remembering the vivid descriptions he’d given me. “It is just as you described.”
As if he hadn’t heard me, he took a few steps backward and then, digging his fingers into what hair he had left after his shearing with the dagger, began to pace. Four steps one way and four steps back. I watched in bewildered fascination as he did so. I’d thought his agitation would lessen the farther we got from the king of Megiddo, but it had only seemed to grow with every stride.
“You must go back,” Darek said.
“What? Go back where?”
“We need to get you back to Shuah. You’ll go north with them, to Tyre. They will keep you safe. Raviv will never know where you are.”
“But I can’t—”
He interrupted again. “I thought I could do this—take you to Kedesh. I told myself it was the right thing to do, to ensure justice for Zeev and Yared. But I cannot do it. I can’t watch you be put on trial and accused of murder by my own brother.” He slammed a fist against his palm. “I won’t take the chance that, like my mother, you will not be treated fairly. Or that false witnesses will step forward and accuse you . . .” He stopped pacing and stared at me. “I won’t do it. We must go back, run north through the hills, and catch up to them. I’ll tell Raviv you were killed by the king, or the lion. Anything. Of course I’ll tell your father the truth so he does not mourn you but—”
“No.” I dropped my skirt, not caring that it fell into the water, and folded my arms.
“No?” His mouth sagged open.
“I must stand trial. I killed two innocent boys. If I run, it will be the same as admitting that I meant to hurt them. Everyone will think Yuval and I ran off together to escape my punishment, and my father will live with the disgrace of it for the rest of his life. He already lost his son and his wife. . . . Even if I have to live in Kedesh for the rest of my days, at least he will know where I am and that I am alive.”
Hot tears spilled over, burning trails down my cheeks. I swiped at them, and in doing so was reminded of the scar beneath my palm. “I’ve shamed my family enough with this mark. I will not add anything else to my father’s humiliation. I won’t stop. Not until I reach Kedesh or Raviv kills me.”
Darek strode toward me, plowing into the water, his powerful legs devouring the space between us. Before I could react, one of his arms was locked about my waist, dragging me toward him, and the other behind my back, tangled in my hair. “I won’t watch you die, Moriyah. I can’t bear it.”
His nearness nearly undid what little composure I had left. My eyelids flickered as confusion and desire—ice and flame—vied for attention. My voice trembled. “Then take me to Kedesh. Help me reach the city of refuge.”
“But I lose you either way.” His eyes locked on mine, intensity swirling in their multicolored depths. “First I lost you to Raviv. Now I may lose you to imprisonment—or worse. How can I ensure justice when everything in me screams for mercy?”
“It does not matter, remember? It can’t.”
“It does, Moriyah. It matters that I cannot hold you like this every day of my life. It matters that I cannot call you mine for the rest of my days.”
My words were a painful rasp. “That cannot be what you want. I am marred, disfigured.”
He leaned forward, bending to graze the length of my neck with his nose, from collar to earlobe, his warm breath in its wake. “You are beautiful—so beautiful I ache to be near you. I am desperate to know everything about you, to be the only one you reveal your heart to.” He sighed against my neck, the warmth of his breath raising chill-bumps on my skin. “I am a man dying of thirst without another drink of your intoxicating laughter, a man starving in the wilderness without a taste of your mouth.”
I could not move. Could not breathe. Could not make sense of the moment.
He placed his lips in the hollow below my earlobe and his grip on my waist tightened. “I went home from the vineyard that night plotting how I could see you again the next day.” His breathy whisper made my stomach dip to my toes as his lips traced the curve of my ear. “It did not matter that I’d only known you for a few hours or that, content with my role as a soldier, I’d given little consideration to marriage before you. It did not even matter that I had never seen your face. If it hadn’t been for Raviv—”
None of this would have happened, my mind finished for him. Somehow I forced my mouth to move. “But you walked Rimona and her friends home that night. She must have told you about me. About the brand.”
“It didn’t matter. I did not believe most of what she said—it was plain she was jealous of you and exaggerating what little she knew. And besides . . .” He continued his slow trail from my ear to the top of my cheekbone where his mouth brushed against the scar. “I’d already seen who you were, behind the veil.”
My body went stiff.
He leaned back, but only enough that I could watch his eyes as they took in the sight of my shameful mark. “It took every bit of restraint not to throttle my brother when he told me that he forced you to reveal your face to him. And when he described this brand to me . . .” As one hand kept me locked against his body, he lifted the other, placing two fingertips against my cheek, tracing the blasphemous outline. “I could not imagine the terror you must have endured as a girl—the pain, the agony of such a horrific burn.”
“It’s hideous, I know.” I turned my eyes away.
To my astonishment, his lips touched the edge of the crescent moon. “This is merely a war wound, Moriyah. No different from the ones I, and the men I have fought beside, have acquired over the past few years in battle.” He paused until my eyes met his intense gaze. “All it does is prove that you are a survivor—a warrior in your own right in the war for this Land.”
His thumb stroked the line of my jaw. “You were extraordinary with that king today—so calm and brave. I thought for a moment you were even going to challenge him in the cave in an attempt to save me.” He shook his head, incredulous. “But it was that moment after the lion attacked Yuval—when you took off that veil, putting aside your fears and your own safety for the sake of your father’s servant—it was then that I knew there was no one else I could ever want by my side.”
Stunned by such an admission, I could only stare at him, dazed and trembling.
“This mark is not who you are.” He pressed another kiss to the center of the sun disk. “It has no bearing on your soul.” His words slathered balm on my chaffed heart. A tear slipped from the corner of my eye. With a gentle move, his lips brushed it away. He pulled back, his direct gaze penetrating any defense I’d draped between us. “I see you,” he whispered, the tender sound causing my chest to ache. “Not the scar. You.”
He cut off my sob with a kiss that began as a soft reassurance—a statement that I had nothing to fear; but when my hand slid up his chest and curled around his neck, he kissed me until I forgot everything but his mouth on mine, the feel of his arm tugging me closer still, and his palm curved around the line of my jaw.
Then wrapped in each other’s arms, we stood in the still, warm water for a long while, my head against his chest. The steady thrum of his heartbeat was a call to rest, to share my burdens. The only other place I’d felt so cherished was gathered in my father’s embrace.
Pushing aside the ache of missing my abba, I soaked up the shalom of the moment, basking in Darek’s nearness, the beauty of the crystalline-blue water, the sound of the birds in the trees, and the warm afternoon breeze that curled itself around our bodies and offered up the sweetness of the flowers on gentle fingers. Stillness settled in my bones, and I drank in the precious quiet like elixir.
GO!
The command nearly audible, I jerked backward, gasping at the soul-deep knowledge that we were in immediate danger. “We have to go. Now!”
Confusion weighted his brow as he looked around the empty clearing. “What’s wrong? Did you see something?”
“No . . . but you must believe me, we must go. I just . . . I know that we must leave.”
He studied me for a moment, and then to my surprise nodded his head in agreement, grabbed my hand, and led me out of the water. I snatched up my sandals and we ran.
CHAPTER
Thirty
Staying close to the narrow river that now barreled downhill through the valley toward Beit She’an, we kept within the trees as much as possible. Although both of us continued glancing over our shoulders, no one seemed to be following. The only sounds were the few sparrows passing a lazy afternoon within the graceful willow boughs along the river and the swish of the water against the vegetation that lined its banks. Had I misheard the summons to run? Perhaps I’d deluded myself into thinking that Yahweh had spoken to me—simply the imagination of an overactive girlish mind.
The river meandered north, nearing the road that cut through this valley. Across the water the wide trading road traversed this dusty corridor, bridging the eastern reaches with the western coastlands, hard-packed ruts speaking of unfathomable years of travel by both man and beast.
Darek’s hand whipped out to grab my arm and then without explanation, he yanked me down behind an enormous bush, a finger to his lips. Blinking with confusion, I waited, hearing nothing but the sound of my galloping pulse and the rush of the river a few paces away.
“I don’t hear—”
He clapped a hand over my mouth and shook his head. No louder than a breath he whispered, “Horses.”
He released me, and I shrank back farther into the brush, trusting his well-honed instincts. We waited, neither of us moving.
Then I felt, rather than heard, what Darek had—the rumble of hooves against the earth coming this way. Darek dragged me down, pressing my body against the ground where neither of us might be spotted in the tall grass.
“See anything?” called a voice, the sound traveling across the water. They must have stopped directly across from where we lay.
From farther away another called out, “No. Maybe we should go back to those hot springs.”
They were searching for us. And we’d probably narrowly missed them back near those beautiful pools. My reaction to the Voice had been the correct one.
“No, they’ll be on the move,” said the first man, the leader perhaps. “The Hebrew knows what he is doing. Heard he was some sort of mercenary.”
“Oh?”
“But even traveling with a soldier, a woman can’t get too far on foot. What’s he going to do, carry her on his back?”
A few laughs and rough comments followed. Five, perhaps six men were in this party searching for us. No doubt the king’s best men set on paying us back for leaving him to the lioness, and on stopping Darek from relaying information about Megiddo to the Hebrews.
The leader cut them off. “We’ll catch up to them. They were seen by the king’s guard from atop the mountain, slinking along the river here. They’ll be headed over the Jordan into Hebrew territory.”
One man scoffed.
“You mean the lands they stole.”
“Won’t be long now, you’ll see.” The leader’s voice strengthened with conviction. “Pharaoh can’t ignore the king forever. He’ll send an army to reclaim it—all of it.”
“If the king lives,” returned another voice.
The leader swore at the man. “The king of Megiddo will not be brought low by a lion. He has bested hundreds in the wrestling arena and thousands on the battlefield.”
“But I heard that beast ripped out his—”
“That’s enough,” said the leader. “While we stand here flapping our lips, that Hebrew and his whore are getting away.”
The scuffle of men mounting their rides melted into the sound of hooves clipping off at a quick pace toward Beit She’an.
Darek waited an excruciatingly long period before allowing me to sit up, but his gaze remained pinned to the opposite side of the river. “We’ll have to veer off here, get farther south, and then cross the Jordan.”
I checked the position of the sun in the sky behind us, which was now nearly touching the summit of the mountain we’d descended. “We have little daylight left.”
“Now that they are looking for us, we’ll have to get over that river before dark . . .” He paused, head down, scratching the thickening stubble on his chin. “But first.” He looked up at me. “How did you know? Did you hear the horses back at the spring pools?”
I shook my head.
He waited, unrelenting, brows lifted.
I glanced across the river, terrified that the soldiers would return, but almost as fearful that he might dismiss my warning as mere fancy. “I . . . I can’t explain now.”
He studied me for a moment and then stood, brushed off his tunic, and put out a hand. “Let’s go.”
Cutting south, we fled through fields of ripe wheat, thick olive groves, and a number of recently harvested vineyards, which stirred thoughts of home into the fresh memory of the kiss Darek and I had shared, making me ache with questions over what might have been.
A Light on the Hill Page 21
