Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Josh, do you think the bandits will rob us and kill us, or just rob us?”

“Rob us, then kill us, I would think,” said Josh. “Just in case they missed something that we had hidden, they could torture its whereabouts out of us.”

“Good point,” I said.

“Do you think Ahmad has sex with Kanuni?” Joshua asked.

“I know he does. He told me he does.”

“What do you think it’s like? With them I mean? Him so fat and her so, you know?”

“Frankly, Joshua, I’d rather not think about it. But thanks for putting that picture in my head.”

“You mean you can imagine them together?”

“Stop it, Joshua. I can’t tell you what sin is like. You’re going to have to do it yourself. What’s next? I’ll have to murder someone so I can explain what it’s like to kill?”

“No, I don’t want to kill.”

“Well, that might be one you have to do, Josh. I don’t think the Romans are going to go away because you ask them to.”

“I’ll find a way. I just don’t know it yet.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if you weren’t the Messiah? I mean if you abstained from knowing a woman your whole life, only to find out that you were just a minor prophet?”

“Yeah, that would be funny,” said Josh. He wasn’t smiling.

“Kind of funny?”

The journey seemed to go surprisingly fast once we knew we were being followed by bandits. It gave us something to talk about and our backs stayed limber, as we were always twisting in our saddles and checking the horizon. I was almost sad when they finally, after ten days on our trail, decided to attack.

Ahmad, who was usually at the front of the caravan, fell back and rode beside us. “The bandits will ambush us inside that pass just ahead,” he said.

The road snaked into a canyon with steep slopes on either side topped by rows of huge boulders and wind-eroded towers. “They’re hiding in those boulders on top of either ridge,” Ahmad said. “Don’t stare, you’ll give us away.”

Joshua said, “If you know that they’re going to attack, why not pull up and defend ourselves?”

“They will attack one way or another anyway. Better an ambush we know about than one we don’t. And they don’t know we know.”

I noticed the squat guards with the mustaches take short bows from pouches behind their saddles, and as subtly as a man might brush a cobweb from his eyelash, they strung the bows. If you’d been watching them from a distance you’d have hardly seen them move.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked Ahmad.

“Try not to get killed. Especially you, Joshua. Balthasar will be very angry indeed if I show up with you dead.”

“Wait,” said Joshua, “Balthasar knows we are coming?”

“Why, yes,” laughed Ahmad. “He told me to look for you. What, you think I help every pair of runts that wander into the market at Antioch?”

“Runts?” I had momentarily forgotten about the ambush.

“How long ago did he tell you to look for us?”

“I don’t know, right after he first left Antioch for Kabul, maybe ten years ago. It doesn’t matter now, I have to get back to Kanuni, bandits scare her.”

“Let them get a good look at her,” I said. “We’ll see who scares who.”

“Don’t look at the ridges,” Ahmad said as he rode away.

The bandits came down the sides of the canyon like a synchronized avalanche, driving their camels to the edge of balance, pushing a river of rocks and sand before them. There were twenty-five, maybe thirty of them, all dressed in black, half of them on camels waving swords or clubs, the other half on foot with long spears for gutting a camel rider.

When they were committed to the charge, all of them sliding down the hillsides, the guards broke our caravan in the middle, leaving an empty spot in the road where the bandits’ charge would culminate. Their momentum was so great that the bandits were unable to change direction. Three of their camels went down trying to pull back.

Our guards moved into two groups, three in the front with the long lances, the bowmen just behind them. When the bowmen were set they let arrows fly into the bandits, and as each fell he took two or three of his cohorts down with him, until in seconds the charge had turned into an actual avalanche of rolling stones and men and camels. The camels bellowed and we could hear bones snapping and men screaming as they rolled into a bloody mass on the Silk Road. As each man rose and tried to charge our guards an arrow would drop him in his tracks. One bandit came up mounted on a camel and rode toward the back of the caravan, where the three lancers drove him from his mount in a spray of blood. Every movement in the canyon was met with an arrow. One bandit with a broken leg tried to crawl back up the canyon wall, and an arrow in the back of his skull cut him down.

I heard a wailing behind me and before I could turn Joshua rode by me at full gallop, passing the bowmen and the lancers at our side of the caravan, bound for the mass of dead and dying bandits. He slung himself off his camel’s back and was running around the bodies like a madman, waving his arms and screaming until I could hear the rasp as his throat went raw.

“Stop this! Stop this!”

One bandit moved, trying to get to his feet, and our bowmen drew back to cut him down. Joshua threw his body on top of the bandit and pushed him back to the ground. I heard Ahmad give the command to hold.

A cloud of dust floated out of the canyon on the gentle desert breeze. A camel with a broken leg bellowed and an arrow in the eye put the animal to rest. Ahmad snatched a lance out of one of the guard’s hands and rode to where Joshua was shielding the wounded bandit.

“Move, Joshua,” Ahmad said, holding the lance at ready. “This must be finished.”

Joshua looked around him. All of the bandits and all of their animals were dead. Blood ran in rivulets in the dust. Already flies were collecting to feast. Joshua walked through the field of dead bandits until his chest was pressed against the bronze point of Ahmad’s lance. Tears streamed down Joshua’s face. “This was wrong!” he screeched.

“They were bandits. They would have killed us and stolen everything we had if we had not killed them. Does your own God, your father, not destroy those who sin? Now move aside, Joshua. Let this be finished.”

“I am not my father, and neither are you. You will not kill this man.”

Ahmad lowered the lance and shook his head balefully. “He will only die anyway, Joshua.” I could sense the guards fidgeting, not knowing what to do.

“Give me your water skin,” Joshua said.

Ahmad threw the water skin down to Joshua, then turned his camel and rode back to where the guards waited for him. Joshua took the water to the wounded bandit and held his head as he drank. An arrow protruded from the bandit’s stomach and his black tunic was shiny with blood. Joshua put his hand gently over the bandit’s eyes, as if he were telling him to go to sleep, then he yanked out the arrow and tossed it aside. The bandit didn’t even flinch. Joshua put his hand over the wound.

From the time that Ahmad had ordered them to hold fire, none of the guards had moved. They watched. After a few minutes the bandit sat up and Joshua stepped away from him and smiled. In that instant an arrow sprouted from the bandit’s forehead and he fell back, dead.

“No!” Joshua wheeled around to face Ahmad’s side of the caravan. The guard who had shot still held the bow, as if he might have to let fly another arrow to finish the job. Howling with rage, Joshua made a gesture as if he were striking the air with his open hand and the guard was lifted back off his camel and slammed into the ground. “No more!” Joshua screamed. When the guard sat up in the dirt his eyes were like silver moons in their sockets. He was blind.