Thomas Greanias - The Promised War

"I wasn't there, Salmon," Deker said. "Elezar is your angel of ancient history. I know only the future-or did. Everything is a bit up in the air right now."

Deker in that instant dove over the fire and tackled Salmon, slamming the back of Salmon's hand with the detonators against the ground until the fist opened and they spilled out for Elezar to grab.

"I serve Yahweh, the God of my fathers!" Salmon screamed. "We all serve Yahweh! We need no angels!"

A fire log came down on Salmon's head, knocking him out. Holding it at the other end was Achan. Deker got the distinct impression this wasn't the first time Salmon had gone out like this.

Deker sighed, looking sadly at the poor man sprawled in the dirt. Deker could relate to Salmon. After all, he himself had been questioning reality ever since his escape in Madaba. How could he fault Salmon for doubting his own reality?

"Poor Salmon cannot compromise," Achan explained. "That's what makes him a warrior in battle but a fool around the fire."

The following day Deker watched Salmon wake up on the west bank of the Jordan and get his bearings. Salmon frowned when he saw where he was-in a grapevine hold around a sycamore tree-and that the dam had been made below. Deker, meanwhile, looked down the long, dry riverbed to the south, where seventeen kilometers away a column of smoke rose into the sky.

That was the signal from General Bin-Nun that the armies of Israel had successfully crossed over the Jordan.

"Congratulations, Salmon, you're on the other side," Deker told him, and offered him a fig. "The land of milk and honey. Want some?"

Salmon refused, seemingly determined to go on a hunger strike until he saw the hand of the Lord. "Have the Ark and the people crossed?"

"See for yourself." Deker pointed out the distant, distinctive pillar of smoke on the west bank. "I'm sure Phineas and his Levites dipped their toes in the Jordan as soon as the water table dropped below the top of the washout bridge."

"Some miracle," Salmon said in defeat.

"Yes. Actually, look over there at our dam." Deker pointed it out to him. "See the mud between the boulders? See the small waterfalls? It's beginning to break up under its own accord from the force of the water. I won't have to use my magic mud bricks after all. The Jordan will be back at flood stage in no time."

Deker himself was eager to reach the new Israelite camp, grab the rest of his C-4 and finally save Rahab and blow the walls of Jericho once and for all. Then history would be right again-and maybe Israel and himself too.

"'Our people,'" Salmon muttered. "What do you know about our people?"

"Only their future."

Salmon stared at the IDF dog tag with the Star of David emblem dangling from Deker's sunburnt neck. "I see the future in your Blazing Star. If that is the seal of Israel, then our future is as bleak as Bin-Nun feared. We will conquer the Promised Land only to be conquered by the false gods of foreigners."

"These foreigners are your cousins, Salmon, and some of them fear and worship Yahweh."

"Like this whore you spoke of with Bin-Nun?" Salmon seemed singularly unimpressed.

"Yes. Unlike you, this whore doesn't need to see the miraculous signs of Yahweh to believe. Her faith is greater than yours."

"You offend me."

"That's not too difficult," Deker said. "But don't worry. In three thousand years Israel will still have those like Phineas and Elezar to carry the Law around and enslave the people. Israel will still be surrounded by her enemies on all sides. People like Kane the Kenite will still give Israel weapons, even some that can incinerate cities in the blink of an eye like Sodom and Gomorrah."

They sat silently for a while watching the dam naturally break up from the pressure of the waters behind it. First the large chunks of mud broke off, and then came the waterfalls. The rocks would be swallowed up by the rising floodwaters and disappear.

Deker then helped untie the young Judean from his tree and get him to his feet. "Salmon, would you care to lead us to the new camp Bin-Nun is setting up in the Promised Land? Believe it or not, he wouldn't share the location with me in advance."

Deker's gesture seemed to pick up Salmon's spirit a bit, although the soldier tried not to show it over the course of the long and winding route they and the two hundred Gadites had to travel to avoid any trouble with long-range Reahn patrols.

The day wore on, slowly giving way to night. The convoy stopped to rest, the Gadites pulling out dried dates and flatbreads from their packs, and supplementing their meager meal with fresh figs and other fruits they pulled from surrounding trees. After an insufficient amount of time to sleep, they rose before dawn and pressed on toward the new Israelite camp.

As the horizon blazed red with dusk, they straggled down the rocky slope toward the Jordan and into the camp. Deker smelled smoke.

They passed over a ridge and saw the plains below. Deker immediately knew something was horribly wrong. Hundreds of columns of fire and smoke billowed up into the night above the sea of tents. The last time he had seen anything like it was during his first tour of duty with American forces in Iraq.

"We've been attacked!" he shouted, and raced ahead of the contingent behind him toward the inferno.

Deker jumped off his camel and raced down the hillside toward the new Israelite encampment, watching the columns of smoke rise into the setting sky, worried that the war for the Promised Land was over before it had even begun and that Israel's future and his own were lost forever.

His first hint that something was off was the Judean guards at the eastern edge of the camp. Unlike the Gadites back at Adam, they welcomed him not with shouts and arrows into the air but with bows trained on him until they saw Salmon, Achan, Elezar and the Gadites behind him with their banners.

"Has Hamas struck?" Deker asked.

"No," said a guard. "As soon as the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how Yahweh had dried up the Jordan before us until we crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to back up Hamas and face us! Yahweh reigns!"

"Then what happened?" Deker demanded. "Where is the rest of the army?"

But the guards preferred instead to report everything to Salmon in clipped words Deker couldn't understand.

As Deker left them and marched ahead toward the camp, he saw no men, only women with baskets full of grain picked in the Promised Land. Some were dumping their grain into four silos freshly dug into the side of a small hill. On the hill were six distinctive redbud trees, their thick, bent trunks ablaze with pink flowers. Beyond the hill was the rest of the camp: tents, tarps, stables and the distant plumes of smoke and fire.

What the hell is going on? Deker wondered, and then he stopped in his tracks.

There before him, in the center of the camp, was the golden Ark of the Covenant, incandescent with the reflection of the surrounding fires, perched atop a pyramid of twelve tribal dolmen stones.

The sight of it took Deker's breath away.

He stumbled forward toward the altar of stone, both drawn toward the Ark and yet cautious to keep a safe distance. The Levites had erected a perimeter of poles with banners about twenty cubits around the altar, and here he stopped.

Elezar was right behind him, also breathless. "This is only a tenth the distance required when the Ark is in motion during battle. Enjoy the view now with your naked eyes, Deker, because I don't think we'll ever see it again in our lives."

Deker was mesmerized. The chest of shittimwood was smaller than Deker had imagined: not even two meters long, and barely a meter wide and tall. But its gold overlay gave it a jewel-like aura. A crown of gold cropped the top edges of the chest, on top of which stood two golden cherubs, their wings extended to form the mercy seat.