Thomas Greanias - The Promised War

Deker turned in time to see Ram cock his giant clenched fist before it hit him like a sledgehammer in the face. His head slammed against the wall and he blacked out.

Slowly the lights went on in Deker's head. He was in a small, spare room with a table and two chairs on either side. On the table were his bricks of C-4 and detonators and a bowl of rotten apples. Two guards stood at the door.

"I've always been fascinated by the occultic practices of the Hebrews, and before he died your comrade Elezar called these magic mud bricks," Hamas said. "What did he mean by that?"

Deker said, "If that's why you're keeping me alive, you're wasting your time, Hamas. Kill me and be done with it."

"I need you for the show trial. But you need not worry. It will be brief. And then you'll be exterminated. The people have to see that we're doing something about the Hebrew vermin crawling inside our walls."

Deker said nothing. He was too tired. Hamas was disappointed he hadn't gotten a rise out of him.

Hamas was smarter than he looked. But perhaps that was because of the care he took to maximize his size and build with his armor. He was beefier than the lean Israelite commanders. But his eyes betrayed a stormy disposition, as if he were constantly running scenarios through his head. None of the faraway look of a nut job like Bin-Nun. Perhaps because the Israelites had nothing to lose except their lives. Hamas was compromised in this way, dealing with fanatics like Bin-Nun and presumably Elezar. Perhaps he saw some hope in Deker-a kindred spirit, so to speak.

"Did you know Bin-Nun was a mercenary with the Egyptian army before the Exodus, Deker?" Hamas said. "Oh, yes. He and my father served together. They even got cut together. That's right. Circumcision used to be a rite of passage for elite Egyptian officers. I see that Bin-Nun has begun to institute the practice with his men, like you. What I can't understand is why he'd risk using such men as spies. It's a dead giveaway that you're a Hebrew. Because you're certainly no Egyptian."

Deker was clothed now, but Hamas had wanted him to know he had been carefully inspected.

"You know what I do with my men who disappoint me?" Hamas asked rhetorically as he picked up a worm-ridden apple from the bowl of fruit and began to slice it and the worms to pieces. "I cut off their penises and then their balls to make them eunuchs so they can become priests in the service of Molech. It's a shame I can't do the same to you. But I need to show your circumcision at the trial to prove you're Hebrew. No matter. It's not like you'll ever get to use it with Rahab again." Hamas paused for effect. "I'd hate to drag her into this nasty business."

Deker showed no emotion, but Hamas smiled as he stood up and pointed his knife over the table at him. The Reahn general either suspected or knew for certain that Deker was one of the two spies who had escaped him the week before at Rahab's.

"You think you can drop into my city for a night and make one of our moon princesses fall in love with you and risk her life and family for a bunch of Hebrews? Which is more likely, Deker: that Rahab used me to pass along information of our fortifications to you, or that she used you to betray your invasion plans?"

Deker stared at the mud bricks spread out before him as

evidence. "I don't believe you."

"Just explain the plan to me, and I'll spare her," Hamas said. "There's no reason why she should be executed along with you this morning for the king's pleasure."

Deker's mind raced in circles, and to his profound amazement he found himself standing up and heard himself shouting.

"We are the Jewish people!" he cried out. "We came to this land by a miracle! God brought us back to this land! We fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land!"

"So be it," Hamas said, and delivered a devastating blow to Deker's gut.

Deker collapsed to the floor, bloodied and bowed. He writhed in pain and saw flashes of light and stars and then the tip of a boot as Hamas gave him another swift kick to the face, breaking his nose.

"The last thing you will see before you leave this earth is me killing Rahab before your eyes," Hamas told him, making a gesture with his knife across Deker's neck as everything began to fade. "Then I'll make a show of killing you in front of the king. Then my ten thousand troops and I will kill Bin-Nun and all the Hebrews. As surely as the sun sets today, the world will finally be rid of your kind forever."

Deker kept his head up as the guards brought him outside to the vast temple court of the fortress like a condemned gladiator into the arena. At least two thousand chanting Reahn citizens were on hand to watch him burn as a sacrifice to their god Molech in hopes the deity would save them from Yahweh.

The rising sun bathed the dust on the paving stones with a golden hue in the early-morning light. The ground quaked as he walked and he could hear the Israelite war trumpets blasting in the distance. With every blast of those Israelite horns, nervous glances would erupt from the faces of the crowd for a moment before the Reahns redirected all their fear and hatred toward the prisoner. A young mother with her three children, all with the same blue eyes, watched him as he was marched past them, and began shouting.

"Molech! Molech! Molech!"

The bronze Sphinx-like visage towering above the temple court had a bull's head with two towering chimneys for horns and an immense two-story stone oven for a belly. Even now nine eunuch priests, bejeweled and dressed as horned devils, danced before Molech and fed him with sacrifices.

To his horror Deker realized those sacrifices came from a pile of several dozen human corpses beside the statue. One by one the corpses were flung into the furnace of Molech's belly, much to the delight of the crowd. Every time a corpse was consumed, Molech's eyes would turn red and smoke would erupt from his horns.

The Reahns had cleaned Deker up and clothed him in a sackcloth tunic, and painted his swollen eyelids in the way they marked their dead, but without the honor. Now they tied him to a stone obelisk in the center of the courtyard before the colossal metallic statue of their god.

The flames from Molech's belly were so high that Deker felt the heat halfway across the courtyard. But there was a method to this madness, he realized. Every time the Israelites gave a short blast of their terrible war trumpets, the priests would toss another corpse into Molech to divert the crowd.

Deker had no idea if this was the Israelites' first go-around of the morning or the seventh. At any moment a long trumpet blast would fill the air, followed by the Israelite war cry. But there would be no explosion, no "divine escalator." Instead, Bin-Nun's eight thousand troops would smash themselves to pieces against Jericho's impregnable walls while ten thousand Reahn troops picked them off until neighboring armies, seeing the carnage, would sweep in for the mop-up.

All because he, Sam Deker of the Israel Defense Forces, had brought this cataclysm upon his people and the world. Now, for the first time since Rachel died, he prayed the only prayer he knew by heart.

Hear O Israel: the LORD our God is One.

Deker lifted his eyes to see thousands of bronze helmets, gleaming spears and red, white and black banners. The faces looked like the walls surrounding him: impenetrable stone gazing down at him dispassionately on this Day of Judgment, with no sign of fear or anything else. Only the backs of the Reahn troops on the ramparts and watchtowers facing out seemed to acknowledge the eight thousand armed Israelite troops marching around the city.

Hamas knew he had already won this war before it had begun. This much was clear on his face as a gong sounded and Hamas walked out in his full military regalia before the royal tribunal seated before the pillars of the palace opposite the temple. The small, slight figure of the king sat in the center. He had the face of a bureaucrat, a caretaker, and looked lost amid all the pomp and circumstance of death.