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

  Amariah found a hiding place in a dense thicket at the bottom of a wide ravine and remained there all day with Dinah. By late afternoon, when they still hadn’t seen any soldiers, he began to hope that they might escape alive. Amariah had insisted that Dinah eat the remainder of their food, and now he felt shaky with hunger.

  “As soon as it’s dark we’ll find the village where Jerimoth is waiting,” he whispered. “It’s only three or four miles from here. We’re going to make it, Dinah. This ordeal is almost over.”

  “What if Jerimoth isn’t there?”

  “He will be.” Amariah chewed his lip, searching for a better way to reassure her. “Dinah, when the Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem, our fathers did everything they could, then they left the outcome to God. We have to do the same. We’re in Yahweh’s hands. Whatever happens to us is His will.”

  She huddled close to him in the cramped thicket, resting her face against his. “How did you end up with so much faith and Manasseh with none?”

  He sighed. “I pity my brother. He was only twelve years old when he became king. I can’t imagine that kind of pressure, can you? I’ve run from the responsibility of governing our tiny community of Elephantine, and I’m an adult, not the child that Manasseh was when he became king.”

  “But he had my father to help him.”

  “Yes, and I’ve had Joshua. Even so, I’ve never really faced up to the task. People’s lives are at stake, Dinah, and I was so afraid of making a mistake that it immobilized me. It wasn’t until I had no other choice—until the guards disappeared and Miriam left and I was faced with the responsibility of caring for you and our baby all by myself—that I finally decided to put my trust in God.” He listened to the stillness around them, the rustling of the wind in the trees, the cry of birds in the distance, and felt strangely at peace.

  “Amariah? Why didn’t you run when you realized Hadad was coming back to kill you? You were willing to die for me.”

  “You’re my wife. I’m responsible for you and our child.”

  “But you don’t love me. Why would you sacrifice your life for me?”

  He shifted so he could look into her eyes. “I don’t think I really know the answer yet myself. Maybe when this is over we’ll have a chance to sort out our feelings, but for now—”

  “I know this was all my fault, and I’m so sorry. I loved Hadad. If I hadn’t betrayed him, all of this never would have happened.”

  He pulled her close again. “Dinah, don’t blame yourself. I could tell you all the reasons why this is my fault. I suspected Hadad’s motives from the beginning. I should have stood my ground with Joshua and refused to have anything to do with his stupid plot. I certainly should have forbid you to come. I’m the community’s leader, not Joshua. But I shirked my responsibilities, just as I’ve done all my life. My father would have used sound judgment and would have sought God’s will. He never would have allowed his second-in-command to coerce him into—O God, no! Dinah, get down! Lie still!”

  He pushed Dinah toward the back of the thicket and crouched over her protectively.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a soldier coming this way.”

  Amariah watched in horror as the man moved methodically toward them, using a spear to poke at clumps of grass and thickets like the one where they were hiding. The soldier carried a bow and a quiver of arrows on his back, a sword strapped to his side. In the distance, another soldier appeared on the first soldier’s right, searching the same way. A third soon became visible to his left.

  Amariah’s heart raced as he tried to decide what to do. The first soldier was coming straight toward them, as if following their trail. He couldn’t miss them. Amariah watched in frozen horror, praying that the man would veer to one side, bypassing them. In a few minutes he would spot them unless Amariah did something. He pushed the bread knife into Dinah’s hand.

  “Stay here,” he whispered. “No matter what happens, stay hidden until dark. Then follow the road to Nahshon.”

  “Don’t leave me!”

  “I want you to live. You and our child.” He leaped up and clawed his way out of the thicket, his robes tearing in Dinah’s hands as she tried to stop him.

  A moment later he was free. Amariah ran, dodging behind trees and rocks as if trying to escape the soldier’s notice but doing it clumsily enough to attract his attention and draw him away from Dinah’s hiding place. He knew he’d be captured, but it didn’t matter as long as Dinah made it safely home. Funny, he thought of Egypt as home. When did that happen? And what did it matter now?

  “Halt!”

  An arrow whizzed past, barely missing Amariah’s head. He dove to the ground, then crawled through the grass to take cover behind the nearest tree. His heart pounded in terror. When his limbs stopped shaking enough to control them, he stood and carefully peered out. Instantly, a second arrow sank into the tree trunk, inches from his face. The noise it made as it buried into the bark sounded like an explosion in the quiet forest. His knees went weak again, and he leaned against the tree for support.

  Amariah waited. Except for his own gasping breaths, there wasn’t a sound. Was the soldier creeping up on him or waiting for him to move, poised to fire again? Amariah’s heart thrashed wildly in his rib cage. He prayed that Dinah wouldn’t leave her hiding place, prayed that she and his child would escape to safety.

  When the soldier suddenly leaped in front of him, Amariah cried out. A sword blade flashed in the sun, blinding him momentarily.

  “Throw down your weapons!”

  Amariah couldn’t see his captor’s face behind his shield. He raised his arms in surrender.

  “I … I don’t have any weapons.”

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Amariah over the top of his shield, then they widened in amazement. “Prince Amariah?”

  “Yes.” The shield lowered, and relief washed over Amariah when he first glimpsed his captor. General Benjamin was his father’s loyal friend. He had been Amariah’s military tutor and guardian.

  But Benjamin stared back with eyes as cold as slate. Clearly he worked for Manasseh now. Amariah was his prisoner, a traitor. Benjamin briskly searched the folds of Amariah’s robes and glared in disdain when he found no hidden weapons.

  “Where is your sword? Why aren’t you armed?” He seemed angry with Amariah, admonishing him just as he had years ago when Amariah had struggled through military training. Back then, he had never been able to do anything right. Now he was alone, unarmed, clumsily trying to flee from hundreds of well-trained troops. Once again, the general seemed disgusted with his performance.

  “I couldn’t use a sword even if I had one,” Amariah said quietly. “You know that better than anyone, General.”

  Benjamin surveyed the surrounding area warily. “Where are all the others? What kind of friends would desert you to die alone and unarmed?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  The general shook his head in pity. “What are you doing mixed up in this plot in the first place? You’re in over your head, son.”

  “I let myself be talked into this against my better judgment.” Again Amariah felt embarrassed to have performed so poorly in the older man’s eyes. Benjamin had been a father to him, doing his best to train Amariah in spite of his ineptitude and lack of interest. But regardless of his humiliation, Amariah still had enough respect for the general to meet his gaze and confront him with a hard question of his own. “Why are you working for my brother? You know that the things Manasseh is doing aren’t right.”

  “A soldier obeys his commanding officer and his king.” Benjamin’s voice was stiff and cold, as if he addressed a stranger, not someone he had helped raise from boyhood.

  “So you’ll blindly obey the king,” Amariah asked, “even when he is wrong?”

  “It isn’t up to me to decide who’s right and who’s wrong.”

  “But surely you can see a difference between my father’s reign and Manasseh’s.”

&nbs
p; Benjamin didn’t reply. He looked away, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.

  “You served under my father, didn’t you, General? Do you remember him at all? I was only ten years old when he died, and sometimes I … I have a hard time remembering him. I have more memories of you and Lord Eliakim than I do of Abba. But I know that God’s Law was important to him…. I know how hard he tried to live by that Law. And I know that my brother—” He couldn’t finish. Amariah stared at the ground, ashamed to be fighting tears. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  “Your father was the greatest man I’ve ever known,” Benjamin said. Amariah looked up, surprised by the gentleness in his voice. “You’ve always reminded me of King Hezekiah. Not your face, but the set of your shoulders, the way you stand. You have his hair. His voice.”

  Amariah nodded, still fighting ridiculous tears. “We both know that Manasseh is going to kill me. I won’t ask for mercy, General, but will you do one thing for me? Will you tell me what you remember about Abba? It’s been so long … and I need a piece of him to hang on to when my brother …” Amariah’s knees gave way, and his back slid down the tree trunk until he slumped to the ground—hunger, exhaustion, and fear taking their toll at last.

  “Poor kid,” the general mumbled. He sighed and sheathed his sword, staring into the distance for a moment as if Amariah’s distress embarrassed him. But when he finally crouched down to face him, the general’s eyes were kind.

  “What I remember most about King Hezekiah was his courage and his faith. They were fused together so tightly that you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. I was very young to be in command, barely thirty-five years old when the Assyrians attacked Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of them. Everyone was terrified, certain we would all die by their swords or be carried off as their slaves like all the other nations had been. But your father defied them.” A faint smile passed over his stony face. “He and Lord Eliakim walked through the streets, comforting everyone, telling us to trust God. I stood watch on the wall beside King Hezekiah all that night before the miracle. He never slept, never showed fear, just calmly recited King David’s psalms and waited. He had surrendered to God, not to the enemy.”

  Amariah swallowed. “Then how can you … How can our nation—?”

  “How can they tolerate King Manasseh?” Benjamin gave a humorless laugh as he rose to his feet. “Manasseh gives the people exactly what they want—anything they can imagine or lust after. Nobody wants moral laws; nobody wants to be told that his life is sinful. Why wouldn’t they freely embrace a leader who abolishes all the rules? People don’t want a leader whose purity puts them to shame. They want someone like themselves, maybe a little worse than themselves. Your brother is exactly the kind of leader the people want.”

  “I see. And what about you, General? Would you rather serve Manasseh than my father … or me?”

  “I serve whoever happens to be the anointed king of Judah.” His voice turned cold again. “I don’t have the luxury of choosing who that is.”

  “Then let’s get this over with.” Amariah stood, shakily brushing the dirt from his robes, determined to face death as courageously as his father had. But Benjamin didn’t move.

  “Tell me where the others are, son. Where’s Joshua?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since we split up yesterday.”

  The general glanced around nervously, as if considering something dangerous. For a moment Amariah had the insane hope that Benjamin was going to let him go free.

  “Listen, son. I’ll trade your life for Joshua’s. Tell me what your escape plans are and help me capture him. In return, I’ll convince King Manasseh that Joshua held you against your will all this time. I’ll swear that I rescued you from him. For all I know, that’s the truth. After all, you weren’t even armed when I found you.”

  Amariah’s pounding heart seemed to fill his chest as he considered Benjamin’s words. The general wasn’t offering freedom, but Amariah might win mercy at his brother’s hands. He thought about continuing his life where he’d left off a year ago—living in the palace again, working for Manasseh and Zerah, worshiping idols at the Temple. He slowly shook his head.

  “I wasn’t held against my will. I was an accomplice in Joshua’s plot.”

  Benjamin gave a snort of frustration. “King Manasseh doesn’t know that. Listen, we’d be helping each other. I’m responsible for this mission, and if I don’t capture Joshua, my life is over. I’ll be sitting in the palace dungeon beside you. Why don’t we help each other? Tell me where I can find him, son.”

  Amariah hesitated, tempted by the opportunity to escape certain death, aware that Joshua had manipulated all of them into this mess by his blind quest for vengeance. Then he remembered Hadad. “I can’t do it, General. None of this would have happened in the first place if I hadn’t betrayed a friend. I won’t betray another one. You told me you admired my father’s courage. Well, I’d also like to be remembered as a man of courage.”

  “But you’re signing my death warrant as well as your own!”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. Now let’s get this over with.”

  Amariah had decided to accept his fate and face the inevitable consequences when suddenly, for the second time, he felt an absurd ray of hope.

  “Wait a minute, General. I think I know how we can both get out of this alive.”

  “How?”

  “Why don’t you escape to Egypt with us?”

  Benjamin glared at him. “And walk out on my sworn duty? Leave all my men?”

  “We live on an island in the Nile, a military garrison. We could use someone with your experience and skill to help with the training. You swore allegiance to the House of David and to God—well, I’m an heir of David, the only one who’s still faithful to God.”

  “I can’t just walk away from—”

  “From what? From evil? From immorality? What’s keeping you in Manasseh’s service besides fear?”

  He witnessed the struggle being waged in General Benjamin’s soul as decades of duty and loyalty battled his wish to live. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. “I can’t leave my family.”

  “Who’ll take care of them if my brother executes you? Listen, even if you capture Joshua, even if Manasseh lets you live, you’ll forfeit your soul if you continue to follow my brother’s orders. ‘Above all else, guard your heart,’ the Scriptures declare, ‘for it is the wellspring of life.’”

  Sweat trickled down Benjamin’s face, leaving trails on his dusty skin. “I need time to think,” he breathed.

  Amariah sank down at the base of the tree again as hope turned his knees to water. “I can wait.”

  12

  AMARIAH WAS STILL WAITING FOR General Benjamin to reach a decision when he spotted another soldier moving toward them. “Someone’s coming, General.”

  He looked up. “That’s my aide. I was supposed to meet him outside Timnah.”

  When Amariah saw the icy determination in Benjamin’s eyes, fear pounded through him. “Do the right thing, General. Come to Egypt with us.”

  Metal hissed against leather as the general drew his sword. He turned and waved it high in the air to catch the approaching soldier’s attention. The aide spotted him and waved in return, then began jogging toward them. Amariah stayed where he was, too weak with hunger and fear to stand, but Benjamin strode forward to meet his aide. They were too far away for Amariah to hear their words, but he saw the general gesturing broadly as he talked, and the younger man nodding, pointing behind him in the direction he’d just traveled. Amariah’s chest ached from the relentless hammering of his heart.

  Finally the two men parted—the soldier heading back the way he’d come, Benjamin returning to the tree where Amariah still sat. The general’s face betrayed nothing as he sheathed his sword. “Tell me what our escape route would be. How did you plan to get out of Judah and back to Egypt again?”

  “You’re going with us?”

  “I’ll point
my men in the wrong direction, then meet up with you and the others. Tell me where.”

  Amariah couldn’t speak. What if he was walking into another trap? What if the general was using him to lead his men to Joshua? And what should he do about Dinah?

  “We didn’t have an escape plan,” he finally managed to say. “Joshua never imagined that his plot would fail.”

  Benjamin shook his head impatiently. “I don’t believe you. I trained Joshua better than that.”

  “I … I’m sorry, General … but how do I know this isn’t a trick?”

  He smiled slightly. “You’re not as naïve as I always thought you were. And very wise to be suspicious. But you can trust me. A soldier is a man of his word.”

  “Hadad wasn’t.”

  “I’m not Hadad. I won’t betray you.”

  Amariah had never made a decision of this importance in his life without turning to Joshua or someone else for guidance. He didn’t know what to do. So many people’s lives were at stake, including his own. He thought he now understood how it had been for his father when he was forced to decide whether to trust God or surrender to the Assyrians. This was what leadership was all about—and what Amariah had always tried to avoid. He needed to make a decision. He would have to trust God to help him make the right one.

  Benjamin gestured impatiently. “Look, we know you probably smuggled everyone into the country on a caravan—Hadad told us that much. I figure that’s how you’re getting everyone out again, right? What city are you leaving from and which caravan is it?”

  Amariah whispered a silent prayer, then told him. “The village of Nahshon. We’re leaving with Ishmaelite spice traders.”

  “Good. Now go back to your hiding place and stay there. I’ll clear all my men out of this area so you can make it to Nahshon after dark. I’ll meet you there early tomorrow.” He was gone before Amariah could reply.