Angels at the Gate (11 page)

We are careful to stay on the road after we leave the city. The stone surrounding the Dead Sea is easily tunneled, and people have brought their dead here since ancient times. Before the more modern mud-brick charnel houses were built, families brought their dead to the shaft-graves that still pocket the land.

Once we have reached Lot's tents on the plain and rejoined my father and the caravan, we will carry the pitch to Egypt. It is no small task to journey to the Black Land, and it is not one I look forward to. But since it appears Raph and Mika will travel with us, this trip will be different. My confidence in my father's negotiations skills is high. Zakiti is not a poor man. He will be happy I have a solution to the problem of my being a woman.

B
Y MIDDAY, WE
are well past the burial grounds and into the lush plain. It is constant work to keep the camels from grazing. I prod their legs with my stick to encourage them forward. Raph matches pace with me. As always, his presence makes my breath short.

“Adir, you miracle are with animals.”

I smile, pleased. “But I know little of weapons, as you do.”

The look he gives me is one of surprise. “How know you?”

At that moment, the lead camel angles her head toward a succulent patch of grass, and I raise my rod, stepping to her flank. She mouths, as if chewing, a sign of submission, and turns back to the path. I shrug. “It is obvious.”

“How?” he asks.

“In the way you move.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I see. And Mika? What your wise eyes do see in him?”

I consider his question. “Mika moves more like a prince or king, as if everything he does is special, only he does not realize it.”

“He not king is.”

“‘King' is not the right word,” I admit, “but I do not know what the right word is.”

“You asked him?”

It was my turn to be surprised. “No.” My gaze finds the back of Mika's broad shoulders. “Would he tell me?”

A fond, amused smile flickers across Raph's face. “Not hopeful. He shares little.”

I look up at Raph, following the square lines of his jaw, covered in copper beard. He is so beautiful. Will he mind having a wife who is not?

My gaze returns to Mika. “You saw the same thing I did … on the cliff?”

He hesitates. “Yes, I saw.”

I wait, sensing his discomfort.

“I not know,” Raph's gaze also wanders to Mika's back. “I think he not knows, but I heard tale of such once.”

“Of someone holding blue fire?”

“No, but herder told of storm where blue lightning danced on his horns.”

I frown. “… danced on his horns?”

Raph shakes his head in frustration. “The horns of his rams.”

I consider this. I don't know what the blue fire was, but I don't know what lightning is either or how a flower blooms. That is the gods' business. And priests' business to determine what such things mean or if they mean anything at all. Lot, however, has decided it meant Mika was El's angel, but if blue fire has played on rams' horns—I will wait and decide my own mind.

I
T IS DUSK
when Nami alerts us to trouble. We left the city later than planned, and our pace has not been swift, so Danel has decided we will camp for the night and reach Lot's tents in the cool of morning. I lie my pallet against the back of one of the kneeling camels. Through the night,
her body will give off the heat she has soaked up during the day. Because there is plenty of dried food for a meal, we make a fire only for warmth. When fresh, pellets of camel dung make an excellent fuel, as their bodies suck all the moisture out before making the deposit. When we travel through the desert, I will collect it with the other boys … or perhaps not, if I announce myself as a woman. Collecting camel dung is not my favorite task. This is a compensation, I suddenly realize, for giving up my boyish disguise.

Nami, who had curled beside me, is suddenly on her feet, a low growl in her throat. Raph and Mika have noticed and come to stand on either side of her, staring into the darkening landscape. I am not concerned. Raiders do not come into the Vale. It is when we brave the desert, their land, that we must have guards and wrap ourselves in wariness.

With that thought comes the rumble of hooves out of the gloaming, and my heart rises to my throat. I am wrong. There is just enough time for me to grab Nami when a raiding party of armed men erupt from the dark beyond our fire and surround us. Small horses with arched necks and wide, flaring nostrils pull four chariots.

I am stunned to see such here. A horse this far south is rare and a chariot rarer still. All are dressed for war, three men to each chariot. The drivers keep their attention on the horses, but the black eyes of the bowmen and shield bearers glare from beneath their pointed helms. Drawn arrows menace our hearts. I have examined such bows in Egypt and Mira. Made of horn, wood, and sinew, they have extraordinary power. At this range, one might pierce me completely. I gape at the arrows' bronze tips. These are not the people of the desert with whom we normally trade. They are warriors and somewhat familiar, yet I cannot place them. What are they doing here? And, more importantly, what do they want?

Raph slowly releases the hilt of his dagger. Resistance in the face of such numbers would be a foolish gesture … and certain death. When the chariots halt, Raph steps forward.

Two men ride their horses, one a gray mare and the other a black mare. These men do not carry bows because they cannot easily shoot arrows from horseback. From their dress and the easy skill with which they guide their horses, I know them to be Hurrians, horsemen of the north. When I was eight summers, my father engaged a Hurrian to teach me to ride.
I begged him for a horse of my own, and he purchased Dune, despite Chiram's complaint that the horse was clumsy compared to the donkeys and ate too much.

Casually, the man riding the black swings a leg over and jumps down. Unlike the charioteers who are clad in a heavy linen shirt sewn with metal disks, he wears the lighter robes of a desert nomad. A curved sword and axe hang at his belt, but he touches neither weapon, well aware of the arrows ready to spring should we pose a threat.

“What you do want?” Raph asks. He seems calm. I fear for him and admire him for posing as our leader and putting himself at risk for us.

The man looks Raph over with a steady eye. “What do you have?”

Danel steps forward then and shrugs. “Only what you see, a few camels, a few worthless items, but know they belong to Zakiti, son of Yakud, a friend to the desert people.”

“I do not know this man or care whom he calls friend.” The warrior turns his attention back to Raph, but the sweep of his gaze includes Mika, who has stepped forward to stand with his brother. “Who are these?” he asks Danel.

“They are holy men,” I say quickly.

The man's gaze flicks over me, as though I am an annoyance unworthy of his attention, but he signals his men, and several leap from the chariots to pilfer through our belongings. One discovers the fur-wrapped box from Raph's donkey. He pauses to finger the thick bearskin, itself worth several donkeys and maybe a goat too, and then unwraps it, revealing the box of polished wood. Though my fingers have run across the smooth surface in the dark and known it to be skillfully made, this is the first sight of it. The wood is a fine cedar with a carving of a crescent moon positioned like a smile, cupping a five-pointed star.

“Take box only.” Raph says, “A worthless thing inside.”

“It is yours, eh?” The head raider signals, and the box, unopened, joins the pile of goods stripped from Philot and the other donkeys. I am not surprised when they take the camels, but horror stabs my heart when the head raider strides to me with a rope and loops it around Nami.

I start forward as he drags her away, but Danel's strong arms grab me and hold me back. “He will kill you, Adir,” he whispers harshly in my ear. “Do not be an idiot.”

Nami turns her head toward me with a whimper but, half-strangled, she cannot fight the man.

As if my misery is not complete, Raph, too, is taken, stripped of his hidden knives, his hands bound behind him, and forced to mount one of the camels, who protests loudly at having to kneel and then rise with his weight added to her burdens.

Mika steps forward in protest, “He my brother. Take me where you take him.”

The raider eyes him. “I do not wish for another mouth to feed. Or should I kill you?” he asks with no change in his voice, as though asking if the day will be hot.

“No!” Raph shouts from the camel. “He lies. He my servant.”

The raider shrugs and turns his back on Mika. In two steps, he is beside his stallion and mounts with a graceful leap. With ululations of triumph, the raiders turn their chariots, leading our camels and goods, and disappear into evening gloom.

We are left with the donkeys and our clothes, and I am left with a desert in my heart.

She sobs through the night; tears stream down her cheeks. Among all her lovers, there is no one left to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her and become her enemies. Judah has been led away into captivity, oppressed with cruel slavery. She lives among foreign nations and has no place of rest. Her enemies have chased her down, and she has nowhere to turn.

—Lamentations 1:2,3

I
BURY MY FINGERS INTO PHILOT'S
coarse, upright mane to still their trembling. Raph is gone. I am a woman who has opened her arms in anticipation of embracing her lover, only to discover he has dissipated into smoke. Not that I have ever had a lover and, at this moment, it seems doubtful I ever will. My heart is torn between losses—Nami and Raph.

But a glance at Mika's stony face reminds me I am not alone in my abandonment, though for long moments, not a muscle on his face or lanky frame moves.

Danel is the first to speak. “We have our skin intact, and the donkeys. It could be worse.”

Only then does Mika turn and, for a moment, I wonder if he will pull a dagger and slay Danel right in front of us, but he only says through tight lips. “Who were they?”

Danel frowns. “Horse people. Hurrians and foreigners.”

“Where have they taken my brother? And why?”

His question goes unanswered. I, too, do not understand why the Horse People are raiding this far south and who the charioteers with them were, but a sudden realization shakes me from my shock. “They came from the direction of Lot's tents!”

Danel exchanges a glance with me, and I know he understands my agreement that things could indeed be worse. My trembling has spread to my legs.

“I will take a donkey and ride ahead,” Danel says.

My need for action courses through me like a flash flood through a wadi. I wish for Dune's swift legs. “I will ride with you.”

“No,” Danel shakes his head with the same finality of Father's hand slicing the air. Then his face eases a bit. “I need you to manage the rest.”

I start to insist, but he says, “Adir, my father is also at the camp. I will ride quickly, I promise.”

I swallow and nod.

From the corner of my eye, I see Mika striding toward his donkey. “I am going after my brother,” he says, taking up its halter rope.

“Do not be a fool!” Danel calls. “They have taken all our water. You will not last a day where they go without water. You can resupply at Lot's tents. It is not far.”

Mika hesitates and then, seeming to understand he cannot help his brother if he is dead, nods.

I pick up my camel stick and wave it at the donkeys. “Hiya! Hiya!”

Mika goes ahead. His long strides would have soon taken him beyond our sight, but it is clear from his frequent stops where he squats and examines the ground, he is not merely leading us to Lot's encampment, but making certain we follow the trail the raiders left. This only confirms my fears. I push the donkeys, my heart squeezed between concern for Raph and for my father. Nami is a prized animal. They will not hurt her, but I miss her already.

W
HEN WE NEAR
Lot's encampment, I race ahead. The raiders have been here. Goods are scattered; goats and people mill in confusion. I run to father's tent, my legs clumsy with dread. Danel meets me before I can enter, grasping my shoulders.

“Is he all right?” I demand, panting.

For a moment, his eyes cannot meet mine. “Chiram fought them,” he says. “My father was wounded too.”

Wounded too
. The words are unreal. Blood drains from my head, leaving it as light as air, and my knees wobble.

“Zakiti is … bad, Adir,” Danel warns.

I start to tear from his grip to enter the tent, but he holds me. “He is not here.”

“Where?”

“In the tent of the strangers.”

How I get there fuzzes in my mind. Only when I duck into the shadows of the tent, do the sharp edges of reality re-form. A woman I do not know kneels beside my father. When she looks up, her eyes are thick with sympathy.

I drop to my knees at his other side.

Slowly, he opens his eyes, though neither of us has spoken of my presence. “Adir?” His hand lifts, seeking, and I grasp it with both of mine.

Amazed that even now, he protects me with my boy-name, I manage, “I am here, Father.”

His eyes are curtained with film. I hold his hand tightly, keeping him here with the strength of my grip.

He tries to speak, but coughs; a spittle of blood edges his lips.

“Do not speak,” I beg.

For a moment, his eyes grow fierce again. “I will,” he rasps. “And you will listen.”

His features blur. “I am listening, Father.”

“Take my knife.”

“No.”

The woman pulls the dagger from his belt, holding it with both palms cupping the blade, presenting it to me as Zakiti's first-born son. It has a silver-worked hilt and bronze blade, curved at its tip. All my life it has been in my father's sash.