Naaman reined his horse to a stop on the slight incline, rose slightly in the stirrups, and gazed over the desolate, narrow valley that stretched before him. He shook his head in disgust. For as far as he could see, it was the same: high black cliffs on both sides of a barren black-sanded nothingness. The intense rays of afternoon sun heated the desert floor and made the rock outcroppings in the distance shimmer and wave. At the very farthest point in the valley, there appeared to be a pond of water, but Naaman knew the sun and heat had joined an unwitting alliance to play tricks on his eyes. There was no water, not a drop. It was an illusion.
Every part of him rebelled at the heat. The dry air sucked moisture from everything, even his eyeballs, and he blinked several times to clear the dust that had been blown into them by the ceaseless wind. He tightened the once-white cloth, now a dingy gray, wrapped around his head to cover his nose and mouth. It was a futile attempt to keep the black sand from lodging in his nose or getting sucked into his lungs. He licked his parched and cracked lips, but the moisture from his tongue mingled with the dust to create a gritty paste. Lifting a corner of the cloth, he spit on the ground and instantly regretted it. Dusty spit was better than none. His mouth was as dry as the volcanic sand that surrounded them, and he’d had no water for an entire day.
“Order the men to halt,” he said to Malik as he contemplated the oddity that lay in their path.
Malik shouted the order with greater intensity, and it echoed along the snake-like column of soldiers behind them until everyone came to a stop. Those who had spears shoved the ends into the hot black sand and leaned on them for respite. Others dropped their shields in the sand and let their arms hang limply at their sides.
Turning to his right, Naaman said, “We’ll rest here for a few minutes. Malik, check on Zeri.”
They were lost again—or still, depending upon how the captain looked at it. He knew it, and all the men behind him knew it, but there was no grumbling. They were just thankful he’d kept them alive this long.
Dismounting and dropping the reins of his beleaguered horse, Naaman walked forward and studied the stone monument at his feet. It stood slightly less than two feet tall and was about the same distance in diameter. It was really nothing more than a pile of volcanic rock, yet he knew it was of critical importance. He just didn’t know why. “What are you trying to tell me?” he asked the stones softly.
Malik walked up beside Naaman and looked down at the monument; then he looked up in the barren nothingness before them, saying nothing.
“How is our young guide?” Naaman asked without turning to look at Malik.
“He is unconsciousness. Death will come soon.”
It had happened two nights earlier, the second night after they’d left Lajat. It was a mistake a more experienced soldier or desert traveler would never have made, one a grizzled old soldier had warned the young man about only minutes before.
“You should never walk without your sandals,” Dekar had said, ramming the end of his spear into the sand. He’d unrolled a thick blanket that would become his bed for the night and shook it vigorously, sending a cloud of dust and sand into the air.
“But my feet are tired, and if I burrow them deep enough, the sand is cool and feels good,” Zeri replied as he wiggled his toes up and down and twisted his feet from side to side, burrowing them in the black sand. It wasn’t that the sand was that cool; it was just that it wasn’t as hot as the surface.
“Still, it is unwise. The deathstalker is never far away,” Dekar warned ominously.
Zeri laughed at the reference to the illusive scorpion. “Scorpions don’t kill people, except maybe children or weak old women. Not strong men like us.”
“The deathstalker does,” Dekar replied matter-of-factly as he smoothed a wrinkle in his blanket.
“How do you know?” Zeri asked skeptically as he spread his own thick blanket on the ground. He’d heard talk of the extremely deadly scorpion since he was a child, but no one he knew had ever even seen one, and he believed they were figments of people’s imagination.
“I’ve seen it,” the deeply tanned veteran said as he unfastened his sword and pulled it from its scabbard. Laying the scabbard to the left of his blanket, Dekar carefully placed the sword beside him on the right. He always slept on his back, his head resting on his shield and his sword within easy reach.
“You’ve see the scorpion or you’ve seen it kill someone?” Zeri asked, not convinced.
“Both.”
Zeri snickered as he straightened a corner of his blanket. “You and your deathstalker.”
“You can laugh, but if you value your life, there are two things you should never do in the desert.”
“What?” Zeri asked condescendingly.
“Put your hand where your eye cannot see,” Dekar said ominously. Then pointing to the boy’s bare feet, he added, “And walk without sandals.”
Zeri scoffed. “You worry too much.”
Dekar raised his eyebrows at the boy’s remark. “Perhaps, but I’m still alive,” he said as he stretched out on the blanket and looked in the distance. The rays of the twilight sun streamed through the fine dust particles in the air and turned the western horizon a brilliant gold. In not many minutes, the sun would sink below the mountains, and the air would turn cool, making sleep possible.
Zeri finished smoothing out his blanket and walked the short distance to where his bow and quiver were propped against a rock. He undid the bowstring to relieve the tension then picked up the quiver. Turning, he stepped toward his blanket. As his right foot sank into the sand, an unexpected pain shot through the soft skin of his instep, bringing instant pain.
Dropping his bow and quiver in the sand, Zeri hopped to his blanket and crashed down onto it. Given the pain, he expected to find a large thorn sticking from the bottom of his foot, but there was nothing more than a small dot and intense stinging.
In a single, lightning-fast motion, Dekar sat upright on his blanket, sword in hand, and with a mighty swing, slammed the flat of his blade onto a small creature scurrying across the earth. The force of the impact buried the bright steel blade under a thin layer of sand. Relaxing his grip on the sword, he left it lying in the sand, the blade mostly covered. Rising to his feet, he picked up his scabbard and moved to where he thought the small creature should be. Using the tip of the scabbard, he carefully pushed sand from around the blade until he could see the flattened body of a scorpion. He picked up his sword and, with the sharp tip, gingerly nudged the scorpion to make certain all life had been crushed from it. Satisfied the creature was dead, he reached down and gingerly lifted it by its curving, segmented tail, letting it dangle in the evening light.
Unlike the millions of tan and brown scorpions that crawl and burrow in the deserts of Syria, the colorful hues of this one marked it as belonging to a rare group of deadly killers. Larger than most scorpions, it measured slightly less than four inches long from the black tips of its small pincers to its unusually thin tail, which came to a point so delicate and threadlike it was difficult to see in the waning light.
Clenching his teeth so his chiseled jaw muscles protruded, Dekar stepped to where Zeri sat on his blanket holding his foot and writhing in pain. Letting the scorpion drop from between his thumb and forefinger, he said calmly, “Take a close look at the deathstalker that killed you.”
Zeri watched the scorpion fall through the air and land in his lap. He stared in disbelief through panic-stricken eyes and looked up at Dekar. “Do something! You must do something!” He frantically brushed the dead scorpion from his lap and onto the sand beside him.
Dekar slowly shook his head as he looked at the terrified boy-soldier. There was nothing to do except perhaps kill the boy now to save him the excruciating agony and pain that would last several hours if he was lucky, a few days if he wasn’t. First would come the pain, beginning in Zeri’s foot and quickly working its way up his leg until it eventually spread throughout his body, getting more intense by the minute until it became excruciating. If the boy was lucky, he would pass out; if not, he would pray for death. Then the burning fever would begin, causing body fluid to ooze out the pores of his skin and soak his clothes. Soon, very soon after that, the convulsions would begin, mercilessly wracking every muscle in the boy’s body with repeated, violent contractions. Eventually paralysis would come and, finally, the blissful relief of death, but not before each internal organ slowly, agonizingly shut down. There was nothing anyone could do but let the insidious venom run its course.
Ending his misery now would be humane, but Dekar’s thoughts had already turned from the boy’s death sentence to a far more important matter: his life—and the life of every man in the contingent who had depended on their guide.
He looked at the boy, who sat shaking his foot and gritting his teeth as the pain crept from the bottom of his foot toward his ankle. “You must be calm,” Dekar said sternly. “The more excited you become the more rapidly the venom spreads.”
“The pain,” Zeri moaned as he took a deep breath and tried to calm the terror in his mind. “The pain is getting worse and climbing up to my ankle.”
Dekar nodded his head in sympathy. He had felt the sting of the deathstalker’s less deadly relatives and knew what Zeri was feeling. Reaching for his sword, he sliced a long, thin strip of cloth from the edge of Zeri’s blanket. “Lay back; I’m going to tie this around your leg to slow the venom.” Tying the tourniquet snuggly just below Zeri’s knee, Dekar rose to his feet and said, “Stay here. Don’t get up. I’ll go find others.” Then he turned and rapidly sprinted away.
Dekar hadn’t taken more than three steps before any thoughts of Zeri had vanished from his mind. The boy was as good as dead. What flooded Dekar’s mind was the death sentence the pathetically small but deadly creature had issued for every man in the contingent. Without their guide, as careless and stupid as he had been, they stood no chance of finding their way out of the forsaken volcanic fields of the Shahba. Zeri’s would be a slow and agonizing death by venom. Theirs would be death by dehydration and starvation. Either way, they were all now sentenced to die.
Zeri was groaning in pain as Dekar led Naaman and Malik to where the young man lay. “Out of the way,” Dekar barked at the small group of soldiers who had congregated around Zeri. “The captain is here.”
Naaman and Malik pushed their way between the men and stood on either side Zeri. Looking at the contorted grimace and the fear in the young man’s eyes, Malik shook his head and demanded, “You must tell us everything you know about getting out of this forsaken place—now!”
Naaman shot Malik an angry glance to silence him; then the captain dropped to his knee beside the boy. “Zeri,” he began calmly, but the young soldier cut him off.
“Captain,” he said in a quivering voice, “I’m sorry I have already failed you.”
Naaman looked quizzically at Zeri. “Failed? What do you mean? How have you failed?”
The boy grimaced and grabbed at his thigh as a jolt of pain spread farther up his leg, but his voice was remarkably calm. “Dekar tells me I will die. Nothing can be done to save me.”
Naaman rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder but said nothing, a tacit acknowledgment of the truth: nothing could be done for him.
Zeri gave a weak smile and began grinding his clenched teeth together. Sucking in a deep breath, he looked Naaman squarely in the eyes and blurted, “We’re lost!” Then without any hesitation, he continued, “Since yesterday at noon. As we’ve come upon each monument, I haven’t been certain of the direction we were to travel.”
Naaman’s eyes widened, and he shook his head in confusion. “What?”
“I’ve been guessing.”
Standing above, Malik and Dekar looked at each other in disbelief. Had Naaman not been in their way, either one of them would have likely strangled the boy out of anger.
Naaman pulled his hand back from the boy’s shoulder. “You have no idea where we are or which way we should go?”
Zeri clenched his teeth and slowly shook his head. “When I saw the first few monuments, everything from my childhood came back, and I was confident I could guide us through. For the first day, everything was exactly as I remembered. But yesterday morning the very first monument we came to didn’t make sense. I was uncertain, so I guessed. An hour later when we came upon the next monument, I was relieved. Everything was fine again until just before noon. When we came upon the next monument, nothing about it was right, and so I guessed once again. Since then I haven’t recognized anything.”
Malik dropped to his knees beside the boy and angrily shouted, “Why didn’t you say something, you fool? Don’t you realize—”
Naaman held up his hand to cut off Malik’s outburst. “Be quiet, Malik,” he commanded. A thousand questions needed to be asked, and Zeri needed to be calm and helpful, not frightened into silence. Looking at Zeri, Naaman said, “I know you’re in pain, Zeri, but I must ask you some questions.”
The boy rolled to his other side, facing away from Naaman, and began moaning as pain gripped his stomach. “I’ll do my best,” he said in a voice not much louder than a whisper.
Naaman stood up, stepped over the boy, and knelt in the sand so he was facing him once more. “What made you decide to lead us the direction you did? Was anything familiar to you? Did you recognize anything?”
Zeri shook his head only slightly. “No.”
Naaman shook his head. There had been thousands of footsteps, hundreds of turns, and dozens of forks in the trail since yesterday. It was impossible to sort them out.
Zeri screamed out as the deadly toxins intensified their attack, spreading to his chest and shoulders. Despite the coolness of the evening, large drops of sweat popped out from beneath his matted hair and ran down his face in an almost steady stream, saturating his blanket. “Please, Captain, do something!” he begged. “I can’t stand the pain.”
Naaman put his hand on the young man’s sopping wet head and, in the most soothing voice he could muster, said, “The pain will subside.” It was a lie. The pain would only get worse until his body was so wracked and tormented that he could no longer withstand it and passed out; then, and only then, would relief come. Standing up, Naaman shouted, “Bring the physician.”
In the fading light, Naaman couldn’t see the diminutive man rushing toward him with a goatskin bag tucked under one arm. “I’m here, Captain,” the man said as he slid to a stop. “I was getting water and rags.”
Pointing down at Zeri squirming on the blanket, Naaman said, “Scorpion bite, deathstalker; see what you can do for him.”
The man’s shoulders visibly slumped at the words, but he dropped to his knees and said, “What is your name, soldier?”
“Zeri,” came the weak reply through tightly clenched teeth.
“Where were you bitten?”
“The bottom of my right foot.”
“Well,” the little man said in a hollow effort to lighten the mood, “if you’re going to be stung by a scorpion, that’s the best place—it’s a long way from the heart.” Reaching down, he untied the tourniquet on Zeri’s leg. It was doing no good; the venom had long since bypassed the makeshift dam in the vein and was racing through his bloodstream with each beat of the boy’s heart. Unstopping the spout of the goatskin water bag, the physician wet a small rag and began wiping Zeri’s face and forehead with cool water. It was the only thing he could do.
Naaman turned to walk away but was stopped by Zeri’s shout. “Captain, please don’t leave me to die here.”
Naaman halted in midstride, stepped back, and knelt beside the dying man. “I will not leave you on the Shahba,” he promised, patting the boy on the shoulder.
* * *
“What are you trying to tell me?” Naaman muttered again as he kicked at the pile of rocks with the toe of his sandal. There was no question that someone at some time had carefully and purposely stacked them there. He should have been ecstatic because in the two days since Zeri had been bitten, no one had seen a single monument. Naaman had blindly led the column of soldiers down one canyon after another, always going right except when the left fork descended more rapidly. And he had only backtracked once. Not because he was certain of a mistake but because they hit a dead end. They were boxed in with two-hundred-foot-tall sheer cliffs completely surrounding them. There was no way out except the way they had come, so they retraced their steps until they found another canyon to follow.
He stared at the rock monument in puzzlement. Why was it here? They were in the middle of a wide canyon; he could see for a mile ahead of him. Solid walls towered on both sides. There were no side canyons, not even any cracks or gaps in the walls large enough to pass through. “Why here?” he said out loud but to himself.
Malik looked down again at the stone monument. “The boy is nearly dead, and the men who have been carrying him are weary. There’s no sense packing him farther. Let’s just leave him here.”
Naaman turned and glared at Malik. “No,” he said forcefully. “Put him on my horse and tie him so he can’t fall off.
“But, Captain—”
“Do it, Malik,” Naaman commanded sternly. “I promised him I wouldn’t leave him on the Shahba.”
Malik spun on his heels and walked away, slowing only enough to grab the reins of the horse as he passed.
Naaman wiped his brow, stooped down in the sand, and picked up one of the rocks from the monument, idly tossing it in the air and catching it as his mind worked. Over and over the rock went into the air and landed in his hand—until the last time, when he let it fall past his hand and land back in the stack. Beneath the cloth that shielded his face, a smile spread across his lips. He had it! He had figured it out! “Malik,” he yelled, “come quickly.”
“What is it?” Malik said breathlessly as he ran up.
The dingy cloth puffed out as Naaman exclaimed, “I have it. I understand. The monument was a marker, a sign. Its only purpose was to confirm we’re on the right path; I’m certain we’re almost out of this forsaken place. Tell the men we move out immediately.”
The change began slowly, almost imperceptibly. Two hours after leaving the marker, the men spotted a bird gliding in the sky, the first they had seen in five days. Then the sheer walls of the canyon began shrinking, getting shorter and less confining. By the third hour, the sand through which they trudged had turned from coarse black to dark grey and then a lighter shade of gray and finally tan and brown. Sparse little tuffs of brittle grass began appearing. By early evening the contingent was out of the Shahba and on the edge of the oak forests of Bashan.
Naaman called a halt beside a small stream of water where the dehydrated men dropped to their bellies and guzzled water alongside equally thirsty camels and horses. “We’ll stop here for the night,” Naaman told Malik. “Order the men to make camp.”
“Gladly, Captain,” Malik replied.
The mood among the men was lighthearted as Naaman made his way to the string of camels and horses, their sides puffed out from the gallons of water they had consumed. Camel drivers using long, thin staffs uttered a string of nonstop commands to encourage their recalcitrant beasts to kneel down so their packs could be unloaded. A lone horse stood tethered to a tree and strained at its rope trying to get at a clump of green grass just beyond its reach. Slumped over the saddle was a lifeless body.
“Easy, boy,” Naaman said as he slowly approached the horse. It briefly raised its head in acknowledgement but quickly turned its attention back to the grass.
“He’s dead,” came a voice from behind Naaman. Naaman turned to see the small-framed physician striding toward him. “He breathed his last as we neared the trees.”
“Will you help me untie him and remove him from the horse?” Naaman asked.
“Most certainly, Captain. But you needn’t do this; I’ll have others tend to it.”
“No, I’d like to do it, but I would welcome your help.”
“Whatever you say.” The man walked to the other side of the horse and immediately began loosening the ropes that bound Zeri’s arms and feet to the saddle.
With the knots untied and the ropes removed, Naaman reached up, grabbed the young soldier around the waist, and pulled him from the saddle. The lifeless body slid easily into his arms, and Naaman walked a short distance to a small oak tree and lowered the boy to the ground. Kneeling, Naaman looked into the dirt-and-dust covered face of the boy-soldier, taken aback to see Zeri staring back through open eyes. Though open, the eyes were unmoving and had no light in them. Naaman reached out with his hand and gently closed the eyelids. “May the gods of Syria allow you to rest peacefully,” he said. Then placing the boy’s hands on the lifeless chest, Naaman stood and walked to where the physician watched in silence. “See that he’s buried there, beneath that small oak tree.”
“Yes, Captain,” the physician said. “And, Captain, thank you for leading us out of the volcanic fields.”
Naaman smiled and nodded his head but said nothing as he turned and walked toward his tent, which a small group of soldiers had just finished putting up.
“I brought us food,” Malik said as he strode up behind Naaman with a plate in each hand.
“Thank you,” Naaman said as he took one of the plates, eyeing the dates, almonds, figs, and chunk of dried bread and goat cheese. “Come in, and we will discuss the raid on Ramoth-gilead.”
The two men made themselves comfortable on the floor of the tent but said nothing as they began devouring the food, paying no heed to the gray-and-black mold on the cheese and bread. Naaman popped two almonds in his mouth and said, “We must attack quickly. If we delay, our presence might be detected, and this nightmare will have been for nothing.”
Malik chewed rapidly as he nodded. “I think the men are up to it,” he said taking a bite of cheese. “They’re tired, but the fresh water and a day’s rest in the coolness of these trees will revive them quickly.”
“As soon as you finish eating, select a small group of men to spend tonight and tomorrow spying on the settlement. We will plan to attack at dawn the next day.”
“Yes, Captain,” Malik said as he shoveled the remaining food from his plate into his mouth.
* * *
The black of the early morning made vision difficult as Naaman swung his leg over the saddle and slipped his foot into the stirrup. Nudging his heels against the horse’s ribs, he rode forward, weaving his way through the oak trees. There was no talking or chatter among the hundred Syrian soldiers as they silently dodged from tree to tree until they were huddled on the edge of the forest. Bowmen quietly reached into their quivers and deftly notched arrows in their bows. Spearmen cradled their smooth, wooden-shafted spears and ran their fingers over the bronze and iron tips, making sure they were secure. Everyone checked the straps on their helmets and breastplates one final time then settled down to wait for the first rays of the morning sunshine to spread over the eastern horizon.
“Malik, are the men in place and ready for the attack?” Naaman called softly as he cautiously walked his horse up beside Malik’s.
“Yes, Captain. All is ready. We await only your command,” he replied as he switched the reins to his left hand and drew his sword with his right.
“Is everyone clear on their orders? There are to be no survivors,” Naaman said.
“Perfectly clear,” Malik replied.
Naaman turned his horse around and spurred it to the edge of the trees just as the morning’s first rays lighted the tile roofs of the unaware and innocent inhabitants of Ramoth-gilead.
“Sound the charge,” Naaman yelled as he spurred his horse hard in the ribs, his sword held high over his head.
And the killing began.