by Overton, Max
"Are you sure this is Yahweh's will?" Jeheshua asked.
Suddenly Khu was not at all sure, but to back down now was to invite rebellion. "Ask Mose then. It is possible I mistook god's meaning."
They asked Mose. The Prophet listened to the elders and then asked Khu, "Yahweh spoke to you? How? What did he sound like?"
"It was...er, sort of a voice in my head. I, er, spoke of the Moabites earlier this evening and then later, when one of my men told me the Moabites are near here, I just sort of knew we should...we should go that way."
Mose frowned and looked hard at Khu, saying nothing.
One of the elders grew impatient. "Well, is that how God speaks?"
"I have often heard Yahweh as a small, clear voice in my head," Mose said.
"Then Khu really did hear God?" Jeheshua asked.
"Yahweh bids me lead you to a chosen land, but he has not told me how to get there. Perhaps that is because I am not a warrior; I do not lead his people through the wilderness. Khu does that, so it is reasonable to suppose Yahweh has told him where to go."
"So you are saying that we should follow Khu to the land of the Moabites?"
"Do you doubt Yahweh?"
None of the elders would admit to that, so they reluctantly agreed to turn their faces to the northeast and follow Khu around the Salt Lake into Moabite territory.
They set out the next morning, Khu and his fifty Shechite warriors in advance of the column, and Chemosh with his volunteer force of young Khabiru men patrolling the flanks and the rear, keeping the mass of people on the move. It took five days to reach the southern tip of the Salt Lake and the landscape was every bit as forbidding as Ednan had said. Sharp crags, unworn by falling water, punctured barren hills, and the heat blazed up from the ground as if they walked on coals rather than sand and rock. The water of the lake was murky brown and rimmed with glittering salt. Nothing moved in the land or water, and the only life was in the sky, where buzzards circled, waiting for something to die.
Khu's heart sank, and he wondered whether his unwillingness to back down had consigned thousands to a slow death. They carried water with them, but unless they could find more out here, thirst would kill them. He waved his men on, and slowly the Khabiru column followed them.
The journey along the eastern side of the Salt Lake took fifteen days--fifteen days of back-breaking work coaxing the herds and the pack animals into steep-sided ravines and up the other side. A few thousand paces was considered a good day, but often they camped within sight of the previous one. The slow pace put a strain on their supplies as forage for the animals was scarce and soon they had to start slaughtering the weakest ones. Water quickly became critical and there were few wells along the eastern shore. Khu sent his men out scouting, seeking both an easier route and additional wells, and found both. Half a day east was a well-marked trade route and a series of stone-lined wells. The Khabiru migration made better progress on the inland route but Khu now worried that they would meet up with the owner of these lands and clung to the hope that when they did, the Moabites would prove as welcoming as his imagination had made them.
They came to a crossroads, with the road west dipping down to a flowing river bordered by grass and trees. The Khabiru called it the Yarden River as they would have to descend to its banks to enjoy its fresh cool bounty after the arid torment of the last half month.
"I feel as if we have wandered the desert half our lives," Chemosh cried. "Let us descend and take possession of this country, for surely Yahweh has brought us here for just this purpose."
With a joyful cry, the Khabiru started down toward the river, and a large body of men mounted on swift camels swept across their path. Khu shouted a halt and the cries of joy within the massed men and women swiftly changed to alarm. Five camels trotted forward toward Khu, bearing robed men with long curved knives. Khu raised his hands in peace and the riders halted in front of him.
"Who are you, and why have you entered my land?" demanded the foremost rider.
"My name is Khu, and the people you see with me are Khabiru, fleeing from the power of Kemet. We seek passage through to the river. May I ask your name?"
"I am Elab-Gil, King of Moab. This is my land and you are trespassing."
Khu made a sign of respect. "We mean no harm, King Elab-Gil, just passage through your lands."
"You say you mean no harm, Khu of the Khabiru, but your herds have eaten my forage and your people have drunk my water. Where is my compensation?"
"We will, of course, compensate you, King of Moab."
"Good. I will take half your herds and camels, twenty of your virgins for my tent and fifty young boys to be offered to the Ba'al."
The Shechites, and the Khabiru within earshot, muttered at this demand, but Khu waved them to silence.
"Our god Yahweh bade us come through your lands, so we came, knowing that for his sake you would look favourably upon us."
Elab-Gil laughed. "Then your god was mistaken, for Ba'al rules here and allows no other god to be worshipped. Bring out your animals, your virgins and young boys and I will make my selections."
O Lord God, what have I done? How many must die through my mistake ? Khu shook his head. "We shall gladly pay fair recompense, King Elab-Gil, which I think would be nearer fifty goats, but no virgins will go to your tent unwillingly, and no young boys will suffer at the hands of your priests."
The Moabite king looked past Khu to his armed Shechites and beyond to Chemosh's young men. "You have an hour to comply, Khu of the Khabiru. Then my men will take everything."
"With those men behind you?" Khu asked.
Elab-Gil smiled broadly, his white teeth gleaming. "No, with these men." He lifted an arm and swung it in a circle. More camels appeared from behind the others and spread out in a great crescent in front of the Khabiru. Three hundred armed men confronted Khu's tiny force.
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Chapter Forty-Seven
Scarab had been sitting on the ground for an hour while she thought through her predicament. Her experience of her powers had led her to expect that she could not be detained against her will, and yet Horemheb's men had done just that. They had surrounded her, offering her no violence, no harm, yet had made her as captive as laying hands on her. It could only be a temporary measure, she was sure, but she felt an ever-increasing need to be on the shores of the Great Sea, and that feeling could only have come from the Nine.
How do I get out of this? Can I provoke them to attack me and defeat them that way, or must I be more subtle ? Scarab stretched and got to her feet, and at once the circle of men tensed, linking arms to present an impenetrable wall of human bodies. The circle was some ten paces across--she had paced it earlier--not a large prison, yet nearly a hundred men ringed her in. Behind the ring, twenty more held blazing torches aloft, illuminating the prisoner within.
She walked across the circle, straight at one of the soldiers and he shuffled backward as she approached, the rest of the circle moving to maintain the living prison. Scarab changed direction, testing another man, but with the same result. She sighed and pushed hard at the man, hoping he would resist, but the man merely gave way and offered her no violence at all, no retaliation.
"This is ridiculous," Scarab said. "How long do you expect to keep me like this?"
"Your pardon, my lady," said a voice behind the ring of men. "Our orders are to keep you here until daylight. King Horemheb expects to have overtaken your men by then and killed them. I am instructed to tell you that despite your powers, you have failed. He says to tell you it all ends in Sena."
Scarab sighed and sat down again. "Well, in that case let me tell you all a tale. It is a story of a wicked king and a princess who fought against him. Yes, some of you will have guessed that the king was my uncle Ay and that I am that princess. He captured me and, fearing to put me to death, tortured me and left me in the desert to die."
She described what had been done to her by Ay, by his son Nakhtmin
, and by Ay's personal slave Mentopher. "I vowed vengeance on all three, but Mentopher escaped me into death. Nakhtmin I slew with my own blade, and I goaded Ay until he clutched his heart and fell down dead. These things I accomplished without the gifts that come from the gods, because those gifts are something quite different from what I needed for my vengeance. Shall I tell you how I got my gifts?"
The men edged closer and the officer said, "Please, lady. We would like to hear."
Then let us test the power of imagination . "I wandered in the desert, alone, without food or water, and with injuries that would likely kill me if I lived long enough. As I lay dying, the Nine Gods of Iunu came to me one by one in a form whereby I could recognise them. Picture it, soldiers of Kemet, you who spend so much time in the desert--that red land called Deshret where the veil that lies between life and death is stretched thin. How many of you have sat on a calm and clear night like tonight and looked up at the dark body of the goddess Nut and wondered? Do the gods of Kemet exist? Do they walk among us? Could a god be standing silently behind you now?"
Scarab smiled to herself as fully a quarter of the men turned to look before turning shamefaced to face her once more. "Not every god can be seen unless the god desires it." She prayed to the gods, clutching the golden scarab of Atum tightly. "Auset is a woman in white linen bearing the crown of the sun disk. You have seen her carved and painted on temple walls--can you see her now, even as I saw her that night? What of Nut herself--another woman clothed in a pearly glow." Scarab rose slowly to her feet. "Nut stood before me, even as I stand before you."
"I...I see her," shrieked one of the men. He stumbled back, his hands over his eyes, and the circle tightened slightly as the others took up his place.
"Geb appeared to me," Scarab went on. "Rising naked from the sand, clothed only in plants, his skin green and glowing. Also Asar, green but swaddled in the linen strips of burial, the crook and flail of kingly authority in his hands, the odours of spices heavy upon the air."
Another soldier moaned in fear and abruptly turned and ran into the night.
"I think we have heard enough," the officer said, a tremor in his voice.
"Not yet, for Atum appeared as a big black bull...see!" Scarab flung out a hand and pointed to the inky shadows beyond the torchlight. A hundred heads followed the direction of her finger. Several men cried out or sank to their knees. "Just so, he came, jet black with glowing red eyes, pawing the dirt, and the spray of his breath hot on my face. With him came Shu, the black-maned lion and Tefnut the tawny lioness--there! And there!" To terrified eyes, two large boulders seemed to move in the flickering torchlight. "They yawned, and their breath, stinking with the flesh of their prey, washed over me. Do you feel it, soldiers of Kemet? Can you smell the stink of carrion carried in the breeze? The gods of Iunu gave me their gifts and gave me the greatest gift of all, to conjure them from their realm. See there--the god Set comes, dark in his anger, a destroyer..." A wave of dizziness swept over Scarab and she recognised the touch of the god. "Can you feel him as he strides toward us, his footfall threatening to unmake the world."
Hard on the heels of her words, the earth shook and a low rumble came from the northwest. The ring disintegrated as the soldiers fled from the wrath of the gods. Scarab walked out of the circle of discarded torches, and only one man tried to stop her--the officer who had spoken before.
"I...I have to stop you." He fingered the sword in his belt.
"Not even King Horemheb can ask that of you," Scarab said kindly. "I do not want you to be hurt or even killed, so stand aside and live long enough to learn wisdom."
The man did not move, so Scarab stepped around the young officer and walked out into the night. He made no further effort to stop her. When the torchlight was no more than a smudge in the darkness behind her, Scarab knelt and offered up her thanks to the Nine.
"One more thing, Great Nut," she whispered. "Which way is Sena?" A streak of light in the sky answered her and she set off running.
Scarab saw a dead man sprawled on the ground a little after dawn, and she stopped to examine him. He was Daoud, a member of the Pillar, and he had died from a spear thrust to his chest. She closed his staring eyes and murmured a quick prayer that his spirit might find its way safely to the underworld.
As she got closer to Sena, she found many more dead, and a few soldiers who had mortal wounds but had not yet died. She questioned these and found out that Horemheb had divided his legion, sending a mere Troop after the fleeing Shechites and sending the bulk of his men into the city of Sena to capture the leaders of the exodus whom he believed were praying there. She turned away from Sena, and followed the Shechites as they turned north toward the coast.
Scarab heard the cry of gulls and felt the salt breeze long before she came in sight of the shining expanse of the Great Sea. She smelled blood also, and found the source of it a little later, near the south-westerly end of the lagoon. The Shechites had fled as far as their orders would take them and had turned to meet the Troop of the Geb legion following them. The dead lay like flattened barley in a storm-struck field, and Scarab picked her way through the Kemetu dead toward the spiralling smoke of the Shechite camp.
Jesua came out to greet her as she drew close. His head was crudely bandaged and blood stained the sleeve of his left arm. "Eye of Geb, I thought we had lost you."
"Horemheb got a bit inventive, but he only delayed me. How many have we lost?"
"Seventy-three, and another hundred injured."
"Did you save me a Kemetu soldier alive? I must send a message to Horemheb."
Jesua shook his head. "Sorry. All dead."
Scarab grimaced. "The only way Horemheb is going to find us is to backtrack to where he divided his legion and then to follow their trail. I need him here sooner than that."
"Why would you want him here? We have done it, Eye of Geb. The Khabiru are safe by now, Ramesses is chasing a flock of goats and Horemheb is sitting in Sena. We can just disappear into the desert and find the others."
"I wish we could just do that, I am sick of killing, but the gods require something more of us."
"What?"
"I don't know, but I must get Horemheb here, and quickly."
"We could send a Shechite as messenger, but I wager he would not live to return."
"I will not willingly put a friend at risk."
Jesua looked around the desolate site. "I suppose we could find a fisherman somewhere to take a message."
Scarab shook her head. "There is only one way open to me, and I hoped never to have to do it again. The gift of Asar."
Jesua looked sick. "That is a foul thing to happen to a man--even a Kemetu."
"I cannot think of a reasonable alternative." Scarab took a deep breath and let it out in a long shuddering sigh. "Find me a young man whose wounds are not in the legs or lungs."
Jesua set his men to searching and after a short while found three candidates. They brought them back to the Shechite camp and laid them out on the warm sand. Scarab looked them over, moving their limbs to test for broken bones, examining the wounds on their bodies. She rejected one corpse with a stomach wound, as the young man's guts were visible through the rent in his abdomen. The other two had died of head wounds, and she hoped they would not prove to be incapacitating.
"Anyone who does not want to see this has my leave to withdraw," Scarab announced.
"What are you going to do?" asked Lotah, a young Shechite who had only been with the Pillar for a few months.
"The gift of Asar is to raise a man from the dead."
"That does not seem a bad thing," Lotah said. "If I died, I hope you would do it to me."
"No, you don't," Jesua said. "They live for only an hour and they know they have died. Some have crossed to the other side and are dragged back into life by the command of the god. They know what is happening to them."
Lotah blanched and walked away quickly. Most of the other Shechites also withdrew.
Scarab nodded and knelt
beside one of the bodies. She lowered her head and prayed silently to Asar, and then opened her right eye and stared at the corpse with the stone eye of Geb.
The corpse twitched and drew in a shuddering breath. The man's eyes flew open and he stared wildly about him before sitting up. "Are...are you gods? I remember...I remember fighting and pain, then darkness. I crossed the river and darkness and people...no, things...moving in it. Am I dead?"
Scarab knelt by him and smiled gently. "Soon you will be able to move on the Field of Reeds, but I need you to do something for me first."
"What?"
"I need you to take a message to King Horemheb."
"I don't feel well."
"I know, and I'm sorry, but this is important."
The young man nodded. "Why don't I hurt? I was...hit on the head..." A hand went up and he felt the wound in his scalp, the fragments of bone moving under his fingers. "I should be dead."
"Soon you will be able to rest, to move over the river and meet your ancestors, but first you must do as I ask."
"Why must I?"
"Because the gods demand it. Asar released you to me for an hour."
"One hour?"
"Slightly less now."
" I will do as you ask. Where is the king?"
"In Sena, at the temple of Amun. You must tell him that Scarab commands him to meet her at the south end of the Lagoon."
"You are Scarab? I have heard of you."
"Can you remember the message?"
"Scarab commands you meet her at the Lagoon. The south end."
"Very good. Off you go then." Scarab helped the young man to his feet and pointed him toward the city of Sena. The man staggered away, almost falling, but then gained a greater control over his limbs and settled into a slow jog toward the distant city.
"That wasn't too bad," Jesua commented.
Scarab nodded. "It was better than I expected, perhaps because he was young and recently dead. He had not been through the rigours of judgment yet."
"Will Horemheb come?"
"Wouldn't you? Kings are not used to being commanded. Get the men fed and then get some rest. I imagine we have a couple of hours before he arrives."
