Travel from Damascus to Lajat was easy. The contingent of one hundred foot soldiers, six men on horseback, and string of ten camels drew stares and curious glances from isolated settlers and nomads herding goats in the almost-barren hills, but civilization soon disappeared in their dust. Except for a horse stepping in a gopher hole and breaking her leg, the three-day trip to Lajat had been uneventful.
Lajat wasn’t the ideal place to wait for their guide, but they could make do. At one time, civilization had taken a sip of the isolated settlement, swirled it around in its mouth, then quickly spat it out as being too bitter. Remote and desolate, the only evidence that humans had even tried gaining a foothold was a shallow well with surprisingly good water. Besides the well, Naaman was also satisfied with Ben-Hadad’s rendezvous spot for another reason. Enough grass, dry and tough as it was, managed to push up through the parched ground to provide a limited supply of feed for the horses and camels. The water was plentiful enough it would slake the thirst of man and beast for days, and as long as the guide arrived as planned, the grass would keep the animals content.
Anticipating their guide might be late, Naaman had timed the group’s arrival for the exact day their guide was supposed to meet them. If necessary, the horses and camels could grub out an existence for two or three days but no more.
On the evening of the fourth day, when their guide still hadn’t arrived, Naaman turned to his second-in-command and asked, “Malik, what is your recommendation?”
The man didn’t hesitate. “We turn back.”
“Do you mean back to Damascus or jut backtrack a few miles for more grass?” Naaman asked.
“To Damascus,” Malik replied firmly. “Backtracking gains us little, possibly nothing. We must still bring the horses here for water at least once a day, perhaps twice, and each day we’ll have to backtrack even farther to find more grass for the animals.” And then in an afterthought and with a smile, he added, “In a week we’ll have worked our way back to Damascus anyway, so we might as well go there now.”
Naaman had already considered this. “Returning will not put us in Ben-Hadad’s good graces.”
Malik shrugged his shoulders. “Better to retreat and live to fight another day than to perish in this forsaken place. Besides, how long do we wait for this mysterious guide to appear?”
Naaman smiled at Malik. He had reached the same conclusion much earlier in the day but wanted to know if Malik agreed. “We’ll leave tomorrow at sunrise,” Naaman said. “Please make sure the men are ready.”
“Yes, Captain,” Malik said with a smile and left the tent.
Naaman sat cross-legged on a small rug studying the map before him. Admitting defeat did not come easily, but regardless of how long he stared at the map, he could see no possible way to avoid the desolation of the Shahba and still attack the small village of Ramoth-gilead without using the main trade routes, something Ben-Hadad was loath to allow.
“Captain,” Malik’s voice called from outside the tent.
“Enter,” Naaman replied without looking up.
Malik walked into the tent followed by a young soldier. “Captain, this is Zeri, a bowman. He says he might be able to help us.”
Naaman eyed the young soldier. Every year they seemed to get younger and younger, he thought. “What is it?”
“Captain, as a young child I grew up herding sheep near here,” he said with an air of authority. “On a few occasions, my father led us across the volcanic fields to Ramoth-gilead and Edrei to trade with merchants.” Seeing a look of interest on Naaman’s face, he puffed out his chest and added proudly, “I can lead us across the fields.”
Naaman shot Malik a questioning look. The second-in-command offered a slight shrug of the shoulders.
“How long ago?” Naaman asked.
“Sir?” the overly confident soldier replied.
“How long has it been since you traversed the volcanic fields?”
“Not long; five, maybe six years?”
Malik let out a snort. “Five or six years? How old where you then, maybe ten?”
“Younger,” Zeri responded. “Probably only eight or nine.”
Malik rolled his eyes and scoffed at the remark. “What makes you believe you can remember how to get through the fields? You were only a child, and it was years ago.” Malik clasped his hand around the soldier’s arm in disgust and began pulling him from the tent.
“It’s not as difficult as it seems,” Zeri said quickly. “That is, if you know the signs or monuments to follow!”
Naaman raised his hand to Malik, signaling him to release his grip on the soldier. “What signs or monuments?”
Zeri tugged his arm free from Malik’s grasp and straightened his tunic, shooting him a look of superiority. “If you know where and what to look for, the way is clearly marked. If you don’t, it’s a maze from which you never return.”
“And you know these signs?” Malik said skeptically.
“Yes,” Zeri said proudly. “I do.”
“Can you describe them to me?” Naaman asked cautiously, surprised that his grandfatherly friend Bisha had said nothing about monuments.
Zeri hesitated. “Well . . . it’s complicated.”
Naaman and Malik exchanged nervous glances, their skepticism growing with each statement the young soldier made. But before either man could respond, Zeri continued, “There are some places where the monuments show the way to proceed. At other places, they show the way not to travel. By knowing the monuments, you can safely travel through the canyons and come out on the other side.”
Naaman looked at Zeri and mentally shook his head; the men really were getting younger. This young soldier was nothing more than a man-child. His matted jet-black hair was thick and wavy, and it clung to his head from being trapped in a helmet all day. His face was smooth—he lacked the maturity to even grow a beard. Deep gray eyes were almost hidden behind bushy black eyebrows, but what Naaman could see of them bespoke innocence not the detached hardness of more experienced men. There wasn’t any fat on the young man, and his arms were so skinny Naaman wondered how he even had the strength to draw a bow. His face was thin and his eyes were close together, giving him an awkward appearance.
Naaman had spent years in command of troops and knew most of the men in this party very well, but this boy was a last-minute substitution for a battle-tested soldier who had become violently ill. Naaman knew nothing about Zeri.
“You’re confident you can recognize these monuments? You’re certain you can determine the difference between where to go and where not to go?”
Zeri shifted the weight on his feet and said, “Oh, I’m positive I can do it, Captain. I remember them as if it were yesterday.”
Naaman ran his fingers through his hair then absentmindedly scratched at the stark white blotches on the lobe of his right ear. The heat and dirt aggravated the blotches, and he wished he could soak in the cool waters of the river behind his house.
Looking first at Malik and then Zeri, Naaman gave a weak smile. “Thank you for your information. Malik and I will discuss it. In the meantime, tell the cooks that you are to receive an extra portion of wine tonight.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Zeri said excitedly. Turning, he looked at Malik with the slightest sneer on his lips and walked from the tent.
“Well, what do you think?” Naaman asked Malik as they watched Zeri trot toward the cooks.
“I question if he could find his way from one side of Damascus to the other if there was only a single road and he had a map.”
Naaman chuckled. “Returning to Damascus empty-handed would not make our king very happy, Malik.”
“Not returning from the volcanic fields of the Shahba would not make me very happy,” Malik retorted with only the slightest smile.
“You think it unwise to trust him?” Naaman asked.
“I think the odds are against him—and us.”