Blades of Valor (18 page)

Rashim pointed past Thomas. “Soldiers have followed your tracks away from Jerusalem. They are nearly within sight of these hills. Barely an hour away.”

“We did not know,” Thomas said. “And it does not change the matter of the wealth promised last night. Moreover, if I am dead or my friends harmed, the treasure will never be yours.”

Men scurried in all directions as they loaded donkeys.

“Indeed, indeed.” Rashim smiled cruelly. “Fortunately for you, the soldiers’ pursuit readily confirms there is truth in your story.”

Rashim lashed out one final time, hitting Thomas with such force that it loosened several of his teeth.

“Take care we don’t leave you behind to be crucified,” Rashim said.

“His death means you forfeit the treasure,” Katherine said quietly. “He is the only one of us who studied the scroll.”

Rashim snarled and touched the tip of his sword to Katherine’s throat.

She didn’t flinch, but met his gaze without blinking, until he lowered the sword and was forced to look away.

“If we can’t outrun soldiers,” he said finally, “we don’t deserve the treasure.”

On the morning of the third day, Thomas almost wished instead Rashim had removed his skin in slowly as threatened.

They had left the rugged hills near Jerusalem, traveled quickly through valleys filled with fields and olive trees for only a short distance more, then abruptly reached great and desolate ravines carved through steep ridges of sandstone and limestone.

It was difficult enough to stumble ahead with his hands bound behind his back. The pressing heat squeezed sweat from every pore, sweat that immediately turned to tiny balls of mud from the choking dust. Despite the pain on the inside of his mouth, Thomas refused to ask for water, and it was rarely given.

The path took them through twists and turns and difficult climbs and descents as they followed the course of the ravines. The bandits were hampered by their lack of knowledge of this forbidding terrain, and they could not race forward and risk trapping themselves in a ravine with no exit. Instead, scouts had been sent ahead in various directions to report back the safest routes. They moved so slowly that it had taken the two full days to cover a mere twenty-five miles; on each of the two nights, because of pursuit by the Mameluke soldiers, the camp had been without the comfort of fires.

Thus far, they had made no effort to cover their tracks. To do so properly would have taken too much time, a luxury they did not have with over one hundred soldiers advancing steadily behind them, at an equally slow pace because of the bulk of their numbers and the heat that worsened as they neared the massive rift that held the Dead Sea, some thirteen hundred feet below sea level.

Now, despite the early hour, the heat was already oppressive and progress was still slow. The bandits hugged the base of cliffs so tall on each side of the narrow valley that Thomas had to crane his head backward to see where the rugged edges cut into the sky. Ahead, where the valley broke to open horizon, was their destination—the Dead Sea.

Thomas wished he could speak with Katherine. Or with Sir William. But Rashim kept them separated to prevent them from planning escape.

Thomas despaired. Hands bound, stripped of everything but his clothes, without water, and exhausted from heat and pain, his outlook seemed hopeless. He knew the same applied to Sir William. While Katherine’s hands had been unbound—Rashim now treated her more gently—she, too, had nothing that would help them in a fight or in escape.

And they could not leave without the priceless parchment book that had been taken from the Druids so many centuries earlier. Even if escape were possible, they could not turn back now.

Thomas forced his mind to wander away from the pain and thirst to review what must lie ahead.

“When you reach the Dead Sea, go south.”

Directions spoken by shy, elderly scholars, nestled in Jerusalem near the ruins of the Temple that had been destroyed by the Romans twelve hundred years earlier. Thomas had visited their monastery, which had been spared by the Mamelukes, who found their work both harmless and useful. They had not been surprised to see Thomas, nor the small book with its directions to their monastery. When Thomas had asked of the Caves of Letters and the Dead Sea, two of the scholars had stood as quickly as their old bones would allow and retrieved ancient scrolls from nearby chambers. They swept their long white beards over their shoulders as they hunched over the unfurled parchment to retrace the markings onto another, smaller scroll, and accepted quietly the gold offered by Thomas.

“It is a land so bleak you will discover no towns on the edge of the shores. You will easily find the ruins of Engedi, for there are no other ruins, and this one is marked clearly by the dozens of collapsed stone buildings. The Dead Sea will be on your left, and deep ravines on your right. Pass by the ravine that leads from the hills into Engedi. Do not enter the next ravine, nor the next. The fourth ravine will lead you to the caves of Bar Kokhba, where he and the last Jewish rebels died. There are five caves high on the sandstone walls. Bar Kokhba took his last stand in the fifth cave, the one farthest west from the Dead Sea.”

Despite each painful step across the scorching earth, Thomas smiled to remember the curiosity that had shone from the luminous eyes of the Jerusalem scholars as they posed him their final questions:
“Why is it you want to know, young one? How is it that you even have the knowledge to ask of a rebel so obscure?”

“From an old one such as yourselves,”
Thomas had answered.
“One who would have loved to spend endless hours poring through these scrolls with you.”

They had smiled mysteriously in return and nodded as Thomas left them in the quiet chambers of study.

“What cause have you to smile?” demanded Rashim.

In his thoughts, Thomas had not noticed the attention of the bandit leader.

“I think merely of the treasure that will buy our lives,” Thomas replied after a moment, for he had been so engrossed in recollection that it was not easy to close his mind’s eye to the dark, cool chambers of the Jerusalem monastery. “You will fulfill your end of the bargain, will you not? You will release us after we have led you to the wealth?”

“You have my word of honor,” Rashim said.

Anger surged inside Thomas like the suddenness of fire exploding in dry brush. This monster meant to take from him his life and, far worse, perhaps take Katherine’s.

The rage so completely replaced his despair that Thomas forgot his helplessness, forgot that he had no weapons, no means of using any secrets from his precious tomes of knowledge. Somehow, Rashim would be defeated.

Long after his captor walked away, the anger smoldered within Thomas, then became cold determination. Thomas would keep his life and return to England with Katherine and the knight.

A shout rose at the first sight of the water of the Dead Sea.

Thomas gritted his teeth. The Dead Sea. It meant he had until nightfall to find a way to live.

Thirty-Five

I
have heard much of this sea,” Rashim said, gesturing past the wide beach. “Were not the soldiers in pursuit, I would send one of my men to test its waters.”

Thomas concentrated on his balance. It was difficult work, to slog through the sand along its shore. Without freely swinging hands, the task was doubly difficult.

“Yes,” Rashim was saying. “I am told the water is so salty that men float in it like pieces of wood.”

Just one more step,
Thomas told himself,
one more step. And then another. We have traveled beyond Engedi. The next valley holds the Caves of Letters. Just one more step.

Rashim grabbed Thomas by the arm as he stumbled.

“My friend,” he said with a wide, false smile. “We cannot have you die.”

Rashim whistled.

Thomas was too exhausted to lift his head.

The bandit ran up from behind, and Rashim impatiently called for water.

Within moments, Thomas was drinking deeply. He did not mind the musky, leathery taste of water hot from hours in the sun.

Rashim pulled the water bag away.

“Are we near our destination?” Rashim asked.

Thomas closed his eyes.

Rashim slapped him. Gently.

Thomas opened his eyes. He was able to briefly focus again.

Beyond Rashim, the beach led to the flat, waveless water of the Dead Sea. Its waters appeared silvery white from the glare of the sun. Wavering in the heat, yet somehow appearing close enough to touch, were the high hills on the opposite shore, hardly more than ten miles away.

“Are we near our destination?” Rashim repeated. “Already we can see the dust of the soldiers behind us. Their pace quickens now that they, too, have reached the shoreline.”

Thomas nodded in a delirium of confusion. All he wanted to do was lie in shade, close his eyes, and finally die. His mouth had swollen and cracked from the blows dealt by Rashim earlier. His feet were blistered and his arms numb. Because his hands were bound so tightly, each jolting step had seemed to pull his arms from their sockets.

“Where?” Rashim was saying. “Where from here?”

Thomas tried to mumble something.

It was not soon enough or clear enough for Rashim’s liking.

“Bring the girl,” Rashim commanded the bandit who had brought water.

When Thomas opened his eyes again to sway where he stood, Katherine was there, in front of him.

It felt like a feverish dream. He struggled to push aside the curtains of white haze between them, to reach out and touch her.

But his arms wouldn’t move.

A sharp crack brought him back instantly.

Rashim’s hand had flashed to strike Katherine flat across her face. A red welt appeared, showing clearly the outlines of Rashim’s hand.

Rage burned away the mist in his brain and ignited his final reserves of strength. He set his feet wider, and the swaying stopped.

“Where from here?” Rashim asked again and raised his hand to strike Katherine once more.

She held her chin high, defiant, even as blood trickled from her mouth.

His thoughts crystallized. One thought took hold and grew. A thought of hope.

“Send most of your men ahead,” Thomas said firmly. “They must continue along the shoreline.”

“Now you give commands?” Rashim asked.

“The soldiers,” Thomas said.
This small chance may be all we will be given. I must convince him.

“Soldiers?”

“Surely if all turn away from the sea into the valley of the caves, the soldiers will follow. And the valley has no exit. We will all be trapped.”

Rashim squinted as he considered the advice.

“We send most ahead to draw the soldiers,” Rashim finally agreed. “And cover our own tracks as we go into the valley.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “But Katherine and the knight must go with us.”

Thomas held his breath. Any chance they had required the bandits be divided. If Katherine or the knight continued on with the others …

Rashim shrugged.

Thomas then felt his stomach shrink with momentary fear to the hardness and size of a walnut.
He agrees easily because he cares little what happens to us when the treasure is found.

“As you say, the girl and the knight travel with us,” Rashim said with a mock bow. “After all, I am a man who bargains fairly.”

Thomas took a deep breath and looked around. Hands bound, he had no other way to point except with a jerk of his head in the direction of the rocky ravine just ahead. In his mind, the directions echoed clearly.
“The fourth ravine will lead you to the caves of Bar Kokhba, where the last Jewish rebels died. There are five caves high on the sandstone walls. Bar Kokhba took his last stand in the fifth cave, the one farthest west from the Dead Sea.”

Thomas hoped he and the knight would not join those rebels in the slumber of death.

One hour later, he and the knight and Katherine, along with Rashim and five of the largest bandits, stood at the top of a path, near the dark circle of a cave’s entrance.

Thirty-Six

M
y good friend,” Rashim said, “I am pleased to discover you did not deceive us about the caves. But perhaps now it is time for you to die.”

Rashim nodded once.

The largest of the bandits drew a scimitar high above Thomas’s head and waited for another nod.

Thomas set his jaw straight and stared straight ahead.

I have done everything I can,
Thomas thought.
If this is how it must end, I will not beg nor show fear.

The sword hung against the sky.

Thomas became vividly aware of sharp details—a spider darted across a nearby boulder, intricate shadows of spiked leaves framed the cave’s entrance, a hawk screamed overhead.

In that long, timeless heartbeat, Thomas became overwhelmed by awe. And joy.
The smallest of things reflect eternity,
he thought, suddenly unaware of the sword.
What a marvel, that a creature as insignificant as a spider may be constructed so perfectly that it moves with such grace on legs lighter than thread. What an incredible mystery, the forces that direct this bush to grow, to shoot forth branches and leaves. What a wonder, the hawk that learns to conquer even the wind and untamed, goes where no man might predict.