archers. They might as well be housing machine guns, Derek thought, because either way the targets of their fire would be shredded to death in seconds.
Jericho’s layers of defense at first glance were proving to be far more impressive than Deker had anticipated. So shocked was Deker at this level of engineering that he once again doubted if he was in fact in ancient times or dreaming all this up. The challenge taking shape both perturbed him and yet strangely excited him.
Soaring high above the city’s walls and the four watchtowers was Jericho’s landmark octagonal spire. It resembled a giant Muslim minaret with a watchtower on top, and afforded the Reahn army 360-degree visibility of all lines of approach. From that vantage, Deker didn’t doubt the Reahns could see the pillar of smoke from the Israelite camp at Shittim.
He also doubted that anybody up there could miss him and Elezar as they rode up to the wide stone ramp leading to Jericho’s massive and iconic iron gate.
An iron gate in the Bronze Age, Deker thought. There was no greater symbol of strength and impregnability in this world.
Deker took in the red banners with the black six-pointed Blazing Star on a circular white field draped from the walls. It was the same color scheme the Nazis used to unfurl their swastikas. He also noted the sun sinking rapidly behind the dark ridge of hills to the north. By now the ravens must have led to the discovery of the slain patrol. All it would take was a smoke signal or blast of a horn in the distance to alert the gate.
“Even if we beat the gate, we’re going to lose the light,” he warned Elezar.
“Just stick to inspection of the fortifications, Deker, and let me do the talking,” Elezar shot back quietly. “Maybe, just maybe, we’ll live to see tomorrow.”
They dismounted and walked their horses up to a line of three camels and a cart at the gate’s entrance. Two armored chariots flanked the gate while Reahn soldiers with scythe blades and spears inspected every sack and person entering the fortress city. More soldiers on the ramparts of the wall paced back and forth, their eyes fixed on the line below. Beyond them was a second line of archers and slingers in the east tower of the fortress above. Deker could pick out their shadows moving behind the slits in the stone.
The gatehouse was a garrison unto itself, with two dozen Reahn guards and passport inspectors checking papers, baskets and weapons. Two gigantic bronze doors ten meters high, now open, guarded the gatehouse tunnel through the five-meter-thick city wall. The tunnel itself was rife with murder holes for Reahn archers and spearmen to cut down anybody who managed to slip through the heavy doors as they closed. But that seemed unlikely to Deker. For hanging overhead in front of the massive doors was a heavy portcullis made of crossed iron bars, ready to drop like a guillotine should the city come under attack.
A military official waved them up to the gate and Elezar handed over their military papers, stamped with the seal of General Hamas himself. An orderly, meanwhile, led their horses to a stable door inside the southern wall of the gatehouse tunnel. That told Deker some sections of the wall were hollowed out for storage of food and other supplies. Depending on the nature of the fill, some sections of the outer wall were either less stable or more reinforced than others.
The Reahn official then looked about for the rest of the patrol and frowned. “Where are the rest?”
“Back at the last oasis checkpoint, detaining foreigners,” Elezar said. “They’ll be here soon enough. This couldn’t wait.”
Elezar unfurled the leather wrap with the jewelry, and Deker gauged the official’s attention.
The official seemed surprised by nothing, as he had probably seen everything in this post. Nor did he display even a hint of temptation to help himself to any bribe. The ranks of Reahns were apparently more loyal to Hamas —or afraid of him—than Bin-Nun believed.
“This isn’t the protocol,” the agent said.
“This isn’t your business,” Elezar said sharply, using his natural arrogance to full effect. “But then, you can explain our delay to Hamas yourself.”
The agent paused, a pained expression creeping across his stone face. “Carry on,” he said, and they were cleared to enter Jericho.
15
As soon as they cleared the gate, Deker and Elezar found themselves in Jericho’s main market square. The square was a flat acre in size and nestled between the main gate and the upper fortress wall. It was a deceptively cheerful, noisy scene, with splashes of color from the shop awnings, fabrics and ceramics. But the troops patrolling the ramparts on both walls above gave Deker the distinct impression that the prosperous ancients shopping and trading in the square below were, in the end, nothing but better-dressed rats in a stone cage.
“It won’t be long before they figure out what happened to the patrol,” Elezar whispered as they walked. “You’re going to have to make your assessments quickly if we’re to have any hope of getting out before the gate closes.”
Deker nodded. Like everything else in this world, Jericho paradoxically struck him as smaller than he had envisioned and yet more formidable just the same. Jericho’s mound looked to be barely eight acres if that, maybe the size of six square blocks in modern midtown Manhattan.
“I’ve got the pop count here at three thousand—maybe four thousand during the day when it swells from workers and tradesmen from the surrounding areas,” Deker said, applying the ancient numerical ratio of five hundred people per urban acre. “That gives us a troop count of anywhere between eight hundred to fifteen hundred tops.”
Elezar must have detected the dismay in his voice, because he asked, “Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning who needs Yahweh when you outnumber the Reahns ten to one?” Deker replied.
“Maybe Bin-Nun should even the odds by instead attacking Hazor to the north with its population of thirty thousand,” Elezar said in an icy monotone. “You forget we’re but two men in this city of three thousand. That’s fifteen-hundred-to-one. You like those odds? And what about the mysterious ‘shadow army’ that Caleb and Bin-Nun are so worried about? Their ranks, if they exist, could number like the stars in the heavens or the grains of sand in the sea.”
Deker said nothing and looked up at the sheer fortress wall that rose above them like a stone monolith with nothing but a horizontal slit near the top for still more faceless slingers and archers. Beyond it, the city’s signature spire tower rose higher still. Even if the Israelites could ladder over the city wall in superior numbers, they’d be blocked by this even more immense wall inside, surrounded by the spearmen and soldiers on the ramparts above.
“Ladders are no good,” Deker reported. “The first five meters of that concrete revetment wall will kill them before they even reach the rest of the city wall. All the while, the archers on the ramparts have clear shots from every angle. Then there are the four main towers, two along the lower city walls and two more along the upper fortress walls. On top of that, there’s the fifth tower rising above the entire city.”
They could barely see the glint of spears moving back and forth on the ramparts as they walked. Above them was the second line of sharpshooters atop the fortress wall and, above them all, the stone spire.
Tunneling was out too, Deker could see. The city wall extended belowground, thanks to its concrete skirt, and the city itself sat on a mound inside. As for a sneak attack through the sewer system, the drainage holes were too small for a man to crawl through, and the main well for freshwater, just to their south, had to drop fifteen meters to the natural spring below. It was guarded with its own platoon of Reahn troops and topped with iron crossbars like the main gate. A huge circular stone the size of one of those monster dolmen slabs back at Shittim sat nearby, and Deker expected the Reahns used it to seal off the well any time they closed the main gate.
“You look and I’ll listen,” Elezar said.
They joined the foot traffic moving between the market district and the commercial district on the city’s south side. Deker noted the large number of metalworkers, carpenters and masons. They would be the ones who reinforced the walls whenever earth tremors or water damage eroded their foundations. Then there were the tanners, potters, tailors, bakers and cheese makers he would have expected. One small winery employed workers to stomp on grapes. Their hands had been cut off. Theft was no more tolerated here than bribes.
Most striking to Deker was the grain. It was everywhere: overflowing from jars, drying in stalks on rooftops, being carried back and forth in baskets. This was the harvest in the land of milk and honey. The people were
