Among the Gods (Chronicles of the Kings Book #5) Read online

  He gripped it with both hands as he carefully kicked a toehold in the dry earth so he could rest for a moment, catch his breath, and decide what to do next. His arms trembled with weariness, his shoulder throbbed and bled. He started down again, not daring to rest too long.

  Find the next handhold. Now the next. A place for your foot. Keep going.

  He never should have started down this cliff. It had been a bad idea. He couldn’t go on. It was too far. There was so little on this sheer precipice to cling to. What if he fell again?

  God of Abraham, how much farther?

  He glanced down, then closed his eye to make the dizziness stop. The bottom still seemed a hundred whirling miles away. He would never make it down alive. But he had to. There was no other choice but to finish this treacherous descent.

  Don’t look down. Concentrate! Find something to grab onto.

  On and on he went, necessity driving him, weariness dogging him, until it seemed that the only thing there had ever been in his life was this never-ending cliff. Pain cramped his hands. The agony spread to his quivering arms, his shoulders. All at once Joshua’s strength gave out, and with no place to plant his feet, he slid the last twenty feet to the bottom, landing with a jolt. His ankle twisted painfully as he smashed to the ground.

  He tried to stand, collapsed, tried again, then lost consciousness as he slumped to the ground for the third time.

  When Joshua first opened his eye, he didn’t know where he was. Then he saw the mountain looming above him and he remembered the cliff. The endless cliff. God of Abraham, he had made it!

  His knees were too weak to support his weight, so he rolled onto his back and slowly took stock of himself. No broken bones, but his limbs still trembled with fatigue. His clothes were covered with blood—some of it his own, most of it Hadad’s. The cuts on his shoulder and thigh throbbed. So did his bruised hands and sprained ankle.

  He decided to crawl to the nearest hiding place. When he spotted a thick clump of branches several yards away, he rolled onto his stomach and inched toward it. But something jutting from among the leaves and branches looked strangely out of place: a human hand.

  Miriam.

  She lay on her back, half hidden beneath a tree branch, her arms outflung. Joshua looked up and saw the tree where she had landed, growing from the side of the bluff. One of its branches had broken off beneath her weight.

  He crawled to Miriam’s side. Her body and dusty face were battered and scratched, her hair matted with dirt and leaves, but there was very little blood. She looked peaceful with her eyes closed, as if she might have been asleep. With no hope in his heart, Joshua felt her throat for a pulse.

  The faint throb beneath his fingers stunned him. Was he imagining it? He slowly sat up and felt again.

  “Miriam,” he whispered.

  When her eyes flew open, he jerked back, startled. She stared straight up at the sky, unseeing. Joshua gently turned her head to the side until he was in her line of vision. Recognition flickered in her glazed eyes. Her lips formed his name soundlessly. Joshua.

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  Her eyes rolled closed again, as if the effort to keep them open was too great. She shook her head slightly from side to side, struggling to speak. He lowered his head to hear.

  “Yes, Miriam?”

  “It’s … a trap,” she whispered faintly. “Run!”

  Then her body went still.

  11

  GENERAL BENJAMIN SAT INSIDE King Manasseh’s covered sedan chair, gripping a dagger. As they neared the ambush site he was calm yet alert, ready to leap at Joshua son of Eliakim or whoever might attack him. Benjamin was a seasoned warrior, skilled in hand-to-hand combat, eager for the challenge of a good fight. He had trained Eliakim’s son, knew all his faults and weaknesses, and knew that the lad would be a poor match for his own considerable skills.

  The king’s bodyguards on either side of him looked like hazy shadows through the curtains. They were spoiling for a fight, primed to kill, waiting for the first volley of arrows from the archers on the ridge, which would signal the attack. Benjamin wasn’t worried about the impending battle. Hadad had assured him that Joshua’s force would be small and inexperienced; Benjamin had chosen his finest skilled warriors. There would be no contest.

  The procession emerged from a grove of trees onto an open stretch of road. Benjamin glimpsed blue sky and clouds on his right, the edge of the cliff a few feet away. This was it.

  The procession slowed, then stopped abruptly. He tightened his grip on his weapon. “Why are we stopping?” he asked the aide walking on his left. “Have they fired on us?”

  “No, General. The roadblock is just ahead, but there’s something in the middle of the road. It looks like a body.”

  “Careful. It could be a trick.”

  Joshua may have been a poor soldier, but he possessed a clever mind. If he had changed Hadad’s plans, the general would have no way of learning about it. He parted the curtain slightly and peered out, watching as one of his men advanced cautiously and kicked the body over with his foot. The soldier looked up in surprise.

  “It’s Hadad! He’s dead!”

  For the first time since leaving Jerusalem at dawn, Benjamin felt a seed of fear begin to take root. Something had gone horribly wrong.

  “Everyone alert!” he shouted. “Take your positions!” As he emerged from the carriage, his men scrambled to form a protective circle around him, bows strung, swords drawn, shields raised. He crouched in the road and gazed into Hadad’s staring eyes.

  “This just happened,” he murmured. “His body is warm; his blood hasn’t thickened. Whoever killed him must be in the area.”

  Benjamin rose to his feet and inspected the abandoned trenches, where Hadad’s men had planned to hide in ambush. They had fled hastily, without bothering to replace the loose brush that would have hidden them from view.

  “Hadad must have given himself away at the last minute,” he mused aloud. “This sword that killed him is Egyptian-made. It belonged to one of his own men.” He shook his head. “Too bad. It was an excellent plan.”

  His men stood alert, watching him, waiting for orders. “Spread out! Quickly! They can’t be far. Fan out in all directions until you meet with our forces closing in.” He had spread a huge net around this hill. Joshua’s men couldn’t possibly escape. There was no place to go.

  One of his men pointed to the cliff. “Could they have escaped that way? Down there?”

  Benjamin peered over the edge. “There’s no sign of life.”

  “Should we send some men down, just in case?”

  Benjamin considered it, then shook his head. “Too dangerous without ropes. If our enemies made it down safely, they could easily kill us as we descend the cliff. We’ll send a squadron by the valley road to search the area later.”

  “I wonder how the traitors learned it was a trap?” his aide asked.

  Benjamin shrugged. “What worries me is that Hadad was an excellent soldier. He assured me that all of his men would be young recruits. How did he let himself take a sword in the gut like this? Someone knew how to fight.”

  “Maybe he had more than one attacker.”

  “Perhaps. But Hadad burned with enough hatred to fight an entire squadron by himself. And he took the fatal wound face-to-face, not in the back.”

  The general watched as his men began to fan out, combing the area in an orderly fashion, ascending the ridge, disappearing down the road. His seed of fear burrowed deeper. He knew one fact for certain: If he failed this mission, if he failed to capture King Manasseh’s enemy, he would forfeit his own life.

  “Hadad underestimated someone,” he said slowly. “Let’s not make the same mistake.”

  Joshua remained close to the base of the cliff, out of sight, until long after the road above him grew quiet again. It was safer to stay here than to venture out of hiding with hundreds of Manasseh’s troops searching the area. He would stand a better chance of eluding them after dar
k.

  How had his plans gone so terribly wrong? Why hadn’t he been successful this time? He was doing his best to serve God, trying to win back the nation for Him. Now, inexplicably, Yahweh had abandoned him to this disaster. Alone in his confusion and grief, Joshua struggled to comprehend why God had failed to help him.

  At first he thought the faint moaning he heard was a mourning dove. It took several moments for him to realize that it was Miriam. How could she still be alive? It was impossible.

  He crawled out of his hiding place and shifted the tree branch that covered her body, shielding it from the soldiers’ view above. Her eyes were open. Joshua called her name, and she slowly turned her head to face him. “It’s a trap,” she murmured again.

  “I know, Miriam. I know. Hadad betrayed all of us.”

  “Run….”

  Her unwavering concern for him moved him deeply, especially when he considered where it had led her.

  “I’ll run when it’s time,” he said gently. “After dark. I’m safe here, for now.”

  “Where … are we?”

  “At the bottom of the cliff. Well hidden. Hadad is dead, and I think Manasseh’s soldiers are finally gone.” He lifted her lifeless hand and held it between his, stroking it gently. “You saved my life again. I wish I had more words to say than just ‘thank you.’”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Am I going to die?”

  Joshua looked up at the cliff, towering above them, then back at Miriam. He knew in his heart that it was hopeless to think that she’d survive, even if the tree had broken her fall. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her. “Shh … don’t think about dying.”

  “But I don’t know what happens after I die.” The terror in her eyes pierced his heart.

  “We go to paradise and rest in Abraham’s bosom,” he answered gently.

  “But will I be accepted there? My parents were never married…. My … my mother …”

  “The Torah says that children aren’t judged for their fathers’ sins, nor fathers for their children’s.” As he repeated the familiar words, he realized for the first time how deeply ashamed she was of her background and how much he had taken his own parentage for granted. He had been highly esteemed because of who his father was, but he hadn’t earned that good reputation any more than Miriam deserved to be tarnished by her mother’s bad reputation. He thought of Hadad, who had been unfairly judged because of his father’s sins. All he had ever wanted was a name.

  Hadad’s pain-filled cries echoed through Joshua’s mind. Against his will, Joshua relived the moment he had run his sword through Hadad, then cruelly twisted it deeper, killing him. But Joshua knew that he had really killed Hadad months earlier at the Passover table. Now he was reaping the terrible consequences of his actions that night. He began to tremble until every inch of his body seemed to shake.

  “I’m so scared,” Miriam whispered. “I’m afraid to die.”

  “Shh, it’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Words. Worthless, inadequate words. How many times had Miriam rescued him, waited on him, cared for his needs? Yet all he could offer her in return were meaningless platitudes. It wasn’t all right. He feared death as much as she did. He groped for something better to say.

  “It’s written in the psalms, ‘Though my father and mother for-sake me, the Lord will receive me.’ And it’s true, Miriam. You can believe His promise.”

  “Joshua … will you hold my hand?”

  He looked down at her hand, clenched tightly between his own, and dread filled his soul. “Are you in pain, Miriam? Tell me where it hurts, and maybe I can do something.”

  He watched her take stock for a moment, then her eyes widened in horror. “I can’t … I can’t feel anything! I can’t move! My legs … they won’t move! My arms—!” Her panic wrenched his heart as painfully as the sword had wrenched Hadad’s. He couldn’t imagine the terror of being paralyzed, of lying totally helpless.

  “Shh … it’s all right, Miriam. Everything’s all right. It’s God’s blessing that you can’t feel anything. You fell such a long way that you would be in agony. I couldn’t bear that.” He lifted her hand so she could see it between his. “I won’t let go. I won’t leave you.”

  “But they’ll capture you if you stay here. I don’t want them to capture you.”

  “I’m safe here, for now. I can escape when it’s dark and meet up with the others.”

  “Will Amariah and Dinah be all right?”

  He marveled that she could think about someone else when her own condition was so grave. “They have two guards to protect them,” he said. “They’ll make it back to the caravan.”

  “No, the guards left us. And Amariah didn’t even have a sword.”

  “You mean he and Dinah are all alone out there?”

  “He wanted me to stay with them, but I had to warn you.”

  Miriam’s loyalty shamed him. There was no explanation for it, especially after the way he’d treated her and Nathan these past two years. He wanted to ask her why she had risked her life for him, but he was afraid to hear her answer. He feared it had something to do with Maki’s loyalty to Joshua’s family. And Miriam had no idea that Joshua had caused her father’s death.

  “How did you know it was a trap?” he asked instead.

  “Amariah figured it out. I told him Hadad had come to the cave … then the two guards disappeared …” She closed her eyes and her voice trailed off as she lost consciousness again.

  Joshua watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest, afraid that each breath would be her last. Dread and guilt consumed him, forcing him to face the truth: Miriam was dying because of him. His sister and Amariah were alone and defenseless because of him. It was his fault that Hadad had sought revenge.

  He realized, then, that this disaster wasn’t Yahweh’s fault—it was his own. If this mission had been God’s will, Manasseh would be dead and Joshua would be in Jerusalem by now, not huddled at the bottom of a cliff watching Miriam die. God didn’t make mistakes—His purposes were always fulfilled. People made mistakes, and Joshua had made plenty. His biggest one had been not trusting God for vengeance but pursuing it himself. Striving for his own way instead of yielding to God’s will was rebellion. That meant he had rebelled against God just as surely as Manasseh had.

  Joshua punched the ground with his fist. Then why didn’t God punish him? Why wasn’t he dying instead of Miriam? She had never done anything wrong. He shuddered when he thought of all the other innocent people who would suffer because of his rebellion. Their blood was on his hands: the soldiers who had volunteered for this ill-fated mission; Prince Amariah, who faced arrest and execution as a traitor; Joshua’s brother, Jerimoth; his sister Dinah. If Manasseh captured Dinah again … if Joshua had delivered her back into his hands …

  He let out a strangled cry and fought to catch his breath, horrified at the enormity of all that he’d done, the terrible consequences of his mistakes, the innocent blood he had shed. But there was more, much more. He had killed Hadad, whose only crime had been falling in love with Dinah. Hadad would still be drinking wine in Moab, spending his grandfather’s gold, if Joshua hadn’t involved him in his rebellious quest for revenge.

  And Miriam. Joshua’s eyes filled with tears as he looked down at her. She had no business getting mixed up in all this. She shouldn’t be lying here in his place. It wasn’t fair…. God of Abraham, it wasn’t fair!

  “Forgive me,” he murmured. “Please, Miriam … please forgive me!”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “For what?”

  He knew then that he had to confess everything. He had to ask her for forgiveness before she died. It was the only way he’d ever be free from his tormenting guilt. If only he could find all the others, too, and ask their forgiveness. He swallowed the lump in his throat so he could speak.

  “Miriam, I need to ask you to forgive me for something that happened two years ago. It was my fault that your father died. I rushed out of the hous
e too soon. Maki was—”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “You know?”

  “Mattan told me the night after it happened.”

  “You mean all this time you knew I killed your father?” She nodded, her eyes fastened to his. He wanted to look away in shame, but he forced himself to face her. “But … but why don’t you hate me, Miriam? How could you risk your life for me again and again if you knew that my mistakes killed him?”

  “I forgave you.”

  Her words devastated him. He understood hatred and vengeance but not forgiveness. He would have understood if she wanted to avenge her father’s death, but he couldn’t understand her willingness to forgive his murderer. He shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

  “No one does, but God forgives us anyway. Your mother taught me that.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes. Didn’t she teach you, too?”

  Of course she had. Jerusha had taught all her children about forgiveness when she’d told them the story of her life and how much she’d been forgiven. Joshua had always condemned Miriam for her mother’s lifestyle, but he suddenly realized that his own mother had once lived the same way. Miriam knew all of this. She knew how he had caused Maki’s death. And yet she forgave him.

  He could no longer avoid the question he feared. “Miriam, why did you save my life? Why did you go back to the Temple for me a year ago? Why did you come back to warn me today?”

  She uttered a weak sigh and closed her eyes. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore if you know.” A tear escaped from beneath her lashes to roll down her cheek. “Because I love you.”

  Joshua groaned in despair. “No, that’s impossible. You should hate me. You should be happy to let Hadad kill me. I used you. I used your father. It was my fault he died!”

  She shook her head faintly, too weak to reply.

  Joshua gazed at Miriam’s pale face as she lay motionless and saw for the first time what a truly lovely woman she was, what a beautiful, unselfish heart she possessed. He had never bothered to see her, to know her. And now that it was too late, he realized that losing her would be his greatest loss of all. He pressed her lifeless hand to his lips and wept.