Chariots to jordan, p.3
Chariots to Jordan, page 3
The Syrian soldiers approached the narrow pass with trepidation. Every one of them knew this pass held the potential for ambush. With only a narrow trail leading through its steep, high walls, they would be as vulnerable as a baby bird surrounded by hungry cats. Naaman had warned of its dangers before they broke camp earlier that morning, and he had reminded them again when they stopped for a brief rest. Every set of eyes, including those of the camel drivers, scanned the rocky cliffs and ridges looking for the slightest hint of anything unnatural: a flock of birds that suddenly took flight, the dark color of a cloak or tunic against the light tan of the dirt and rock, a glint of metal in the sunlight, a dislodged stone or rock tumbling down the side of the cliffs. Their survival depended upon their powers of observation, and they all searched rocks, crags, and brush.
They marched four abreast; the outermost columns were archers who walked with their bows at the ready. The inside columns were muscular men, each carrying a spear in one arm and a shield in the other. A three-foot-long sword made of Damascus steel—the hardest steel known to man—hung from a leather sheath at each man’s side. The swords were formidable weapons. Unlike the swords of the mercenaries and Israelites made of inferior steel, the Syrians’ swords were honed, razor-sharp, and could slice through flesh and bone time and time again without becoming blunted. Their enemies feared the swords in battle and eagerly claimed them as prized spoils of war.
While still hundreds of yards from the pass, Naaman raised up in the stirrups of his saddle, lifted his arm in the air, and shouted, “Halt.” He was a big man, standing over six feet with broad shoulders and massive muscles in his arms and legs. His conical bronze helmet hid most of his dark hair, but the few gray streaks in his beard attested to his years of experience. His gray horse pranced uneasily as it fought the bit and reins that held it in check.
The command to stop was relayed down the length of the long column by a series of subordinates, and the ponderously long column came to a standstill. Not a soul broke rank until another order sounded allowing the men to drink water from the sheepskin bags they carried over their shoulders. The water was warm, but it would slake the men’s thirst from walking in the heat of the sun and would wash down some of the dust of the desert that had drifted into their mouths and throats.
Perhaps it was their fascination with the chests of gold and silver on the camels below that prevented the hiding mercenaries from noticing the three men silently traversing the steep sides of the canyon. They were scouts sent out by Naaman with simple orders: they were to survey the area for potential danger and if they discovered anything out of the ordinary, no matter how seemingly insignificant, to shout a warning.
The three men were experienced at their task. Unlike their compatriots in the columns, these men wore no heavy metal body armor. They were dressed in linen tunics over which they wore thick leather jackets. They were not dressed for battle; they were dressed to travel quickly and blend with the landscape. They moved cautiously and noiselessly from one protected spot to the next so they could see without being seen. They moved forward one at a time, leapfrogging as they went. While one moved forward, the other two scanned the cliffs below and on the opposite side of the pass in search of any threat that might be looming.
It was the briefest reflection of sunlight that stopped the lead man in his tracks. He had only seen it out the corner of his eye, but he instantly froze. Crouching behind a boulder, he cautiously raised his head to scour the cliffs and ravines on the opposite side of the pass. From his vantage point he scoured the rock-strewn cliffs as carefully as a hawk searches for a mouse, and that’s when he saw them: first two, then ten, and finally dozens of men lying on their stomachs in hiding.
Motioning for his two companions to remain where they were, he pointed at the hiding ambushers on the opposite side of the pass. In an instant, they too saw the hiding attackers. Noiselessly the lead man crept back to his companions, and the three of them began to retrace their path back to Naaman and the column of soldiers below. They would have made it undetected except for a single rock no larger than a watermelon. As they hurried along, the last of the three men slipped on the steep hillside and sent the rock tumbling noisily down. The noise echoed off the walls of the pass, and both the mercenaries and the Syrians instantly knew something was wrong.
Their cover broken, the three men stood and began scrambling over boulders and down the steep side of the pass as quickly as they could, shouting at the tops of their lungs that mercenaries lay in ambush.
Realizing they had lost the element of surprise, the leader of the outnumbered mercenaries rose to his feet and yelled a command for his forces to attack. Like dead men rising from graves, the ambushers clambered to their feet and hurtled down the steep hillside toward the Syrian soldiers, dust and dirt falling from their robes as they ran. And the killing began.
The mercenary archers were the first to enter the fight. From their high perch, they let fly a swift volley of arrows, but even with their steel bows, the distance was too great to be effective, and the arrows fell harmlessly to the earth, well short of the four columns of Syrian soldiers. For their part, the disciplined Syrian archers formed a solid line against the oncoming mercenaries but held their arrows until the last moment. Then on command, a hundred arrows flew through the air. A dozen missed their mark entirely, and two dozen more bounced harmlessly off the metal helmets and breastplates of the enemy. But the most skilled archers had aimed for the unprotected legs of their attackers, and the leading group of mercenaries stumbled to the ground, arrows protruding from their thighs and calves. The archers quickly sent another volley of arrows flying, and more mercenaries fell wounded. None of the wounds would have been fatal had the men been able to withdraw from the battle and treat their wounds, but injured as they were, they were no match for the Damascus steel swordsmen that would shortly descend upon them.
The Syrian bowmen hurriedly notched arrows and let a third volley fly. This time they took aim at unprotected faces as well as legs, but their attackers took a defensive posture. An instant before the arrows were unleashed, the mercenaries stopped running and crouched beneath their large metal-and-leather shields. Arrows rained from the sky but bounced harmlessly off the shields without injuring a man. Rising to their feet, the men raced forward to close the gap before the archers could shoot again.
Naaman spurred his horse and raced to the head of the column, where he gave the command for the archers to fall back and make way for the soldiers with spears and swords. It would now be hand-to-hand combat—a fight to the death, for neither side would take prisoners.
For two hours, the battle raged as death and carnage spread their ugly faces over the desolate landscape. Although outnumbered, the ragtag mercenaries fought with the intensity that had earned them their reputation as a bloodthirsty army. In the end, though, their ferocity was no match for the discipline of the Syrians and the keen edge of the Damascus steel blades. Before the battle was over, every mercenary had been speared or hacked to death, but not before they had killed or wounded almost the entire columns of soldiers.
His horse cut out from under him, Naaman led the battle on foot. He charged into the fray and, for nearly two hours, alternately slashed at the mercenaries and cheered on his own men. Against all odds he managed to stay standing until almost the end, but the wounds to his arms and legs had taken their toll. When a huge mercenary charged him, sword slashing, Naaman struggled to fend off the relentless blows. He might have succeeded had he not tripped over the severed arm of a downed soldier. Off balance he couldn’t parry the mercenary’s thrust, and the sword pierced Naaman’s side just below his ribs, sending him to the ground in pain.
It was only a well-placed arrow from one of Naaman’s bowmen that saved him. As the mercenary raised his long sword high above his head to deliver the killing blow, the bowman sent an arrow deep into the man’s chest. The last thing Naaman saw before losing consciousness was the bowman who had saved him from being felled by a mercenary’s sword.
The gritty sand digging into Naaman’s cheek was the first sensation he felt as his brain slogged from the world of unconsciousness. With the exception of his eyelids, he moved nothing as he lay on the ground, waiting for his fogged brain to sort reality from hallucination.
Quiet. Everything was quiet. Gone were the screams of dying men, the clash of steel on steel, and the incessant yelling of battle. Slowly rolling onto his side, he pushed himself almost to his elbows and knees before searing pain from his left side made him crumple to the ground. He blinked only a single time against the brightness of the sun before his world went dark, and he drifted into blissful unconsciousness once more.
It seemed as if the sun had barely moved when Naaman again opened his eyes and blankly stared heavenward. With the little strength he could muster, he wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword and struggled to his knees, shoving the point of the sword into the blood-soaked ground before him. Clenching his teeth against the pain, Naaman used the sword to steady himself as he slowly rose to his feet. His world swirled in uncontrollable chaos as he fought off the dizziness that made him sway as if he had drunk too much wine, and for a moment he thought he might pass out again. He quickly placed both hands on the hilt of the sword and leaned against it for support, hoping the world wouldn’t go dark.
Blood ran freely down both arms from gashes in his biceps and made the grip of his sword slippery. The left side of his tunic was saturated with blood, and searing pain burned from the gaping wound just below his ribcage. He hung his head and closed his eyes in the hope it would give him a better sense of balance. It didn’t, and only a quick shift of his legs stopped him from tumbling to the ground.
The rapid movement caused his world to swim. He yanked the helmet from his head and took several deep breaths in an effort to calm the wave of nausea that poured over him like a waterfall. His effort was too late, and he spewed a stream of green bile onto the back of a disemboweled man on the ground beside him. He looked at the vomit with a small sense of relief. At least there was no blood, he told himself as he wiped his mouth on his shoulder, vowing not to vomit again. The retching caused a surge of blood to flow from his side, and he clamped his hand over the wound to staunch the flow. Strangely, after vomiting he felt better. Even the swirling in his head slowed as he scanned the ugliness that surrounded him.
As the fog in his brain lifted, his senses slowly began absorbing the sights and sounds of the aftermath. First came the moans and cries of the wounded and dying, followed by the grizzly sight of an ended battle. In the yellow glow of the late-afternoon sun, Naaman could see the horror of the carnage. The killing field was strewn with bodies, some with arrows and spears sticking from them, others with arms and heads missing. He had already been hardened to the gore of battle, but he could never accustom himself to the sickening stench of death that filled the air after the killing had stopped.
His world no longer rocking, Naaman straightened up and pulled his sword from the earth. Weak as he was, he had no intention of returning it to its scabbard; too many times in the past, he had watched a mercenary feign death, waiting until an unsuspecting enemy got too close, and then rise up to fight again. Now, though, he wasn’t looking for wounded mercenaries to kill; he was searching for his second-in-command—his friend.
“Joram,” he coughed out as loudly as he could while looking over the bodies littering the ground. “Joram!” he repeated. It was meant as a yell, but what came out was only slightly louder than a hoarse whisper.
“Where are you?” Naaman mumbled to himself. The two of them had been fighting almost side by side for the entire battle. It was only in the final few minutes they had become separated, but even then Naaman was close enough to watch his friend drop under the crushing blow of a mercenary’s sword.
It was the soft moan from thirty feet behind him that made Naaman turn around. Lying in a heap, beneath the crimson cloak of a Syrian army officer, was Joram. Stepping over a crumpled body and walking around another with the shaft of a spear protruding from its throat, the captain knelt beside the groaning man. Gently rolling him onto his back, Naaman scooped his friend up and cradled his head and shoulders.
Joram gasped in pain but looked up into the eyes of the man who held him. “Naaman, I think I’m wounded,” he croaked out. “What do you think?”
Naaman managed a smile at the remark. The characteristic humor of his good friend came through even while the man pounded on death’s door. “Only slightly, my friend,” Naaman lied. The frothy blood dripping from the corner of Joram’s mouth, along with the deep red blood pumping from the stomach wound told Naaman that death’s dark horseman was galloping near to claim another victim.
“You’ve never been able to lie,” Joram said with a cough, spraying a mist of blood on Naaman’s cheek. “We’ve been through a lot, you and me. But now it ends.”
“Nonsense,” Naaman snorted. “You’re going to return home to that beautiful wife of yours.”
Joram slowly shook his head back and forth a single time and grimaced as pain shot through him. “Stop lying. We’ve both seen too much death and dying. We’re warriors, you and I. We know. You will recover; I will die.”
Naaman held the dying Joram in his arms and unconsciously rocked, as a mother would rock her injured child. The blood from their wounds mingled and flowed freely down onto the pebble-strewn sand. “Don’t exert yourself by talking,” Naaman said softly as he removed the man’s helmet and brushed sweat-soaked hair from his forehead.
Joram stiffened slightly as another jolt of pain coursed through his body. He coughed again, spraying blood all over Naaman’s face and into his eyes. His body went slack, and had Naaman not been able to see the blood still pumping from the wound in Joram’s stomach, he would have thought his friend’s heart had stopped and the man dead.
After a moment Joram said in a strained voice, “I’ve never thanked you.”
“For what?”
“For many things,” Joram said breathlessly, “but especially for never revealing my . . . sickness to our superiors.”
Confusion spread across Naaman’s face. Of all the things his friend could have said, this was the last thing Naaman expected. “It was a very small thing,” he replied in a hushed voice.
Joram moved his head from side to side. “Leprosy? A small thing?” he said in a weakening voice. “Knowledge of it would have ruined me, and being a soldier was all I ever wanted.”
Naaman gazed down at his friend through moistening eyes. He was right. Had knowledge of his leprosy become known to those higher in command, Joram would have been cast out of the army and shunned. To Naaman’s knowledge, only three people knew of the leprosy: Joram; Naaman; and Joram’s wife, Lilith. Over the past several months, she had done a marvelous job of disguising the small gray and white patches of dead and dying skin on his hands, ears, toes, and face when her husband went out in public.
Joram’s breathing became more labored, and a gurgle came from deep in his throat. “I have one last favor to ask of you,” he said after a long pause.
“Anything,” Naaman said softly as he held his friend more tightly.
“Please tell Lilith and my sons that I love them and that they were my last thoughts as I died.”
Naaman drew a breath to respond but slowly let it escape through his parched lips as the last bit of life ebbed from Joram’s body. No more raspy breathing escaped his mouth, and the blood coming from the wound in his stomach slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Naaman clutched the man tightly in his arms and continued rocking back and forth as tears streamed from his eyes and washed down his cheeks.
It was only the pain in his own side—and the sound of someone calling his name—that made him tenderly lay his friend’s lifeless body on the ground.
“Captain Naaman! Praise the gods that you are yet alive,” the man said as he leaped over bodies and rushed to Naaman’s side. Upon seeing the still body of Joram, the man added, “And may the gods be merciful to Joram.”
Naaman looked up at the man standing above him but said nothing. As much as he wanted to continue kneeling beside his dead friend and let memories of better days play through his mind, he knew he couldn’t. “Please, help me to my feet,” he finally said.
The soldier grasped Naaman under his arms and slowly lifted. The captain struggled to his feet and asked, “What is our situation? Do you know any details?”
“Including you,” the soldier began, “I have counted thirty-two soldiers who are alive, all with injuries. Four, maybe five, are seriously wounded, and I don’t expect them to live until sunset.” Looking at Naaman’s bloody tunic, he continued, “Ten or twelve more have injuries that are serious, like you, but with proper attention and rest, they should recover. The rest of us have only flesh wounds, which we can easily bandage.”
“What of the mercenaries? How many of them survived?”
“I’m not certain. We pursued three or four who fled, but they outran us and disappeared into the hills.” Sweeping his arm out over the battle scene, he added, “There are probably a few others who are wounded, but we haven’t looked carefully.”
Naaman nodded in acknowledgement and asked, “And what of the camel drivers and the camels? Where are they?”
The soldier took a deep breath. “The drivers fled to the hills at the first sign of attack. All but two of them have now crawled out of their hiding places.” Pointing to a small hill a quarter mile away, he said, “We’ve placed the seriously injured men on top of that hill. The camel drivers are huddled over by them. The camels are gone. They bolted early in the attack.”
