The Chronicles of Gan: The Thorn (24 page)

Uzziel breathed more heavily as they
continued on the sloped road. They crossed several intersecting
streets and finally arrived at a beautifully crafted archway on the
west side.

“Please come in,” Uzziel invited his
bodyguards, who were now guests. “Would you join me for something
to eat? Surely you’re hungry.”

The two Uzzahite soldiers said, “Yes, thank
you,” almost in unison. At his direction, they sat down at the oak
table centered in the main room of the residence. The smell of a
hot breakfast wafted in from the brick oven in the adjoining
chamber, making Uzziel’s mouth water.

A woman in her early fifties entered the
room, looking quite surprised to see three of them there.

“Uzziel, I heard you come in, but I didn’t
know you had guests with you!”

The soldiers politely introduced themselves
as they stood up, and then at Uzziel’s insistence, sat again on the
bench.

“I am sorry, dear, for the surprise.” Uzziel
said, smiling. “Did you know it rained all through the night? I
didn’t even notice. It left behind a nice fog to greet us this
morning—couldn’t see a thing! The steps to the wall were slippery,
too. Almost fell on my way up. Thanks to Abram, I didn’t fall—he
caught me. The Gideonites are still there—I was quite disappointed
to see them. I suppose they will not go away as I had hoped. It
makes me wonder what they are eating for breakfast. I bet they
raided everything they could from . . .”

Uzziel did not get the last sentence fully
out before Miriam placed a hand on his arm, and he remembered to
breathe.

“Sorry, dear. I’m so hungry!”

“I am glad . . .
very glad,
that I made
extra today. Would you like some eggs? Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
Miriam brushed her auburn hair out of her eyes with the back of her
hand. Her question was sincere, yet hollow, like an echo in an
empty barrel. She didn’t wait for answers to either question. She
placed four plates on the table and dished out scrambled eggs
before Uzziel even had time to say, “Yes, thank you.”

Josiah and Abram were both young, strong
men. Neither seemed to be married, or at least Uzziel did not think
they were. But at one point in their breakfast conversation, Abram
mentioned that his wife Esther had recently given birth to his
first child, a boy. He commented on the wonderful blessings that
had come into his life, expressing his desire never to lose
them.

Uzziel was genuinely happy for Abram, but
the conversation died as his eyes knowingly met Miriam’s. The
charade Uzziel and Miriam had been playing was too difficult to
keep up any longer, and a palpable despair settled over the couple.
Josiah tried to comfort them.

“Your daughter will be fine. Surely the
Great Creator will keep her safe.”

Uzziel sighed. “Yes, I pray that He will.”
He reached for Miriam’s hands. They were cold, and she shivered as
he pulled her closer. Dread clouded her eyes.

“My dear little Uzzah . . . I cannot lose
another. . .” Miriam whispered.

“Miriam,” Uzziel said with a tremor in his
voice. “Rachel will come back to us.”

Their eyes held each other’s for a long
time, then Miriam stood, sniffling.

“Your food is going to get cold,” she chided
as she returned to serving.

Josiah and Abram proved to have the ravenous
appetites of youth. They cleared every serving bowl or platter of
bread, fruit, eggs, and other items placed before them. Uzziel ate
slowly, privately worrying about his daughter.

Abram wiped his mouth on his napkin and
sincerely thanked the lady of the house for the wonderful meal and
for inviting them to partake without any prior notice. Uzziel
apologized again to his wife and kissed her hand as he rose from
his seat, making her blush. Josiah and Abram stood as Uzziel hugged
Miriam close to him.

“Rachel will be fine . . . she will be
fine!” he whispered in her ear, trying to be optimistic.

Miriam sniffed.

“My prayers are with you,” Josiah said.

“And mine,” Abram added.

“I am most grateful for those prayers,”
Miriam said as she escorted them to the door. “I’m praying
too.”

The soldiers followed the temple priest out
as Miriam shut the door, and Uzziel led the way back down the
street. At the first intersection, they turned to the right onto
Marketway, a cobblestone road higher on the sides than in the
middle, a natural drainage ditch in the center. Waste water
trickled downstream, carrying an occasional food scrap or piece of
straw with it. Although the street was a permanent marketplace,
most of the small tents and stands were not yet open on account of
the early hour. Even though they were just passing through, Uzziel
either waved or briefly chatted with almost every person they met,
but Josiah and Abram were patient.

Leaving the marketplace, they crossed a
large court, fenced in by buildings on two sides and a massive wall
on the north end. Walls of brick and stone provided an immovable
complement to the animal pens bordering the wide courtyard, all of
which were filled to capacity with sheep destined for the temple
just beyond the archway in the high wall. The sheep here were not
tended by street vendors, but rather by priests who had the
rotating assignment to care for them. All the temple herds had been
gathered into the city when news of the approaching armies arrived,
and once the courtyard pens had been stocked, the remaining animals
were driven into the Karmel-Ramathaim Canyon to graze. There, they
would be guarded until the hillsides around the city were again
safe.

Arriving at the archway, the high priest and
his bodyguards passed underneath and into view of the glorious
white granite temple that loomed before them. Each stone used to
build the magnificent structure was much lighter, even almost
white, compared to the gray granite blocks used in every other wall
or building of the city. The walls of the temple were smooth and
somewhat reflective, but not so shiny that Aqua and Azure could be
discerned in their surfaces. The blue orbs were just high enough in
the sky to illuminate most of the temple grounds, which were no
less striking than the building itself. Trees with ornately braided
trunks, well-groomed shrubs, a stunning fountain on the west end of
the plaza, and immense flower beds framed the building on all
sides, except for the eastern porch. This area, an expanse larger
than the temple itself, had been paved with gray granite flagstones
so finely cut, so expertly coupled together, that a person would
find it difficult to insert a knife blade between the stones.

The raised porch stood three steps above the
rest of the grounds. At its center stood the Rock of Sacrifice—an
altar that had been cut from a single massive block of white
granite. At the time of the temple’s construction, it took a
thousand men and several teams of horses to move the block down
from the special quarry in the Karmel-Ramathaim Canyon. Stonemasons
worked for several weeks on the rock to shape it, the craftsmanship
unparalleled.

The altar featured recessed stairs to reach
the top from the west, a large central depression for the fires
that burned there every day, wide slots on the other three sides to
allow for stoking the flames with additional cedar planks, and an
iron grate seated into hewn notches in the top, providing the level
surface where the sacrifices would be offered. Each corner of the
symmetrical platform also had been carved into the shape of an ox
horn—a symbol of both the sacrifices offered there and the Tribe of
Uzzah.

Directly east of the Rock of Sacrifice was
an octagon-shaped laver, or font, fed and drained by unseen
aqueducts beneath the flagstones. Built into the platform, the
recessed font enabled those who came for the ritual washing by
immersion, or baptism, to descend into it. It was large enough for
the priest and the initiate both to stand in the waist-deep water,
where they could perform the ordinance without fear of striking the
sides of the font.

From the vantage point of the Rock or the
font, an observer could gaze up at the single temple spire. It
towered far above the hand-carved oak entrance, reaching for the
suns. The stepped, cylindrical spire was the most impressive
feature of the structure, and the top-most cylinder had been
crafted from small, white granite blocks, intermingled with large,
exceptionally wide glow-stones from the Hasor mines. The natural
prism-like surfaces of the glow-stones spilled rainbow colors and
bright shafts of light all around the complex. The capstone of the
spire held both stone and crystal together—a semi-globe of pure
gold that dazzled the eyes of anyone looking thereon.

Uzziel would never tire of the temple.
Gazing upon it brought such deep and poignant feelings to him, he
always felt inclined to smile and say a prayer of thanks in his
heart for the beauty of it.

Now at the second hour of the day, a group
of temple priests arrived to begin their duties. One of the more
senior members of the group broke off from the others and
approached Uzziel with obvious excitement to see him.

“Boaz!” the high priest greeted as the man
approached.

“Peace be to you, Uzziel! What word have you
had from the Captain of the Host?”

Uzziel put his hand on his friend’s shoulder
and said with some consternation, “I have not spoken to Jeremy this
morning, but I fear the outlook will not be good. I went upon the
outer wall just as the suns were rising, but could not see the
progress being made on the trenches. I would guess, from what I saw
yesterday, that there may be only one more day before Gideon is
close enough to use the machines.”

Boaz scratched his beard as Uzziel released
him. “I’ll join you at the wall with my own bow, if you wish.”

“I know you would. But for now, we’ll leave
the battle to the younger warriors,” Uzziel said with a wink.

Boaz gave a low chuckle and patted Uzziel’s
arm. “You’re right. My eyes are not as sharp as they were
yesterday.”

Uzziel laughed with him for a moment, but
then became grave. “Boaz, I came to tell you that I got word from a
pair of our scouts, who returned last night under the cover of
darkness. They confirmed that both Hasor and Saron have been
taken.” He paused, then said, “I fear there will not be any
assistance from Daniel.” His eyes misted.

“I have feared the same,” Boaz acknowledged,
a tremble in his voice.

Both were silent for a moment. Josiah and
Abram glanced at each other, but said nothing.

Uzziel took a deep breath. He needed to
remain positive. “All will be well. The Holy One will give us
aid.”

“We’ve been praying for such aid,” Boaz
said. “We have also been praying for your children. Please take
courage, Uzziel.”

“Thank you, my dearest friend,” Uzziel said,
a fresh tear tumbling down his cheek. There was another awkward
silence, and then Uzziel spoke to Josiah and Abram.

“We must be going, my friends.”

“Yes, sir.”

Boaz said goodbye and trudged toward the
entrance of the temple, his head low as he went.

Chapter 21

Siege

T
hat day passed, and the auroras of the season burned across
the skies once again during the night. Uzziel did not sleep well.
All night long, he searched through wooded mountains and called out
for his children in his dreams. None of them answered.

The first signs of light appeared behind the
thin curtains of his bedroom window, and Uzziel awoke to find he
was holding Miriam close. She did not stir. He lay there, his mind
churning over the scenes he had witnessed the previous afternoon.
He had watched the progress of the Gideonite advance—slow, yet
constant, the enemy never tiring. By day’s end, they had come
considerably closer to their goal of bringing their siege weapons
to an attack position within range of the outer city wall.

Uzziel gently pulled his arm out from under
Miriam’s neck and dressed in silence. He left just before dawn to
meet Josiah and Abram at the base of the outer wall. A fire-pit
stood near the stone stairway by the outer gates—one fire among
many scattered between the inner and outer walls. In addition to
the soldiers assigned to protect the high priest, ten more Uzzahite
warriors were present, each nursing steaming hot cider.

“Peace be to you, Priest of Uzzah,” came
their formal greeting.

“And to you, my sons.” He tried to hide the
sorrow in his voice. “Have you heard the enemy stirring this
morning?”

“Not yet,” Josiah said.

“Then let us get to the top and see if we
can wake them up. I brought a nice big torch-arrow to light their
morning,” Uzziel said, attempting to be playful.

Abram set down his mug with a wide grin, and
grabbed his bow. Uzziel handed him the arrow. Josiah yanked a cold
torch from a holder near the fire and lit it before handing it to
the high priest. Uzziel invited the other soldiers to stay behind
to finish their breakfast, and motioned for Josiah to lead the way.
The three of them walked to the familiar stairway and began the
ascent. As they climbed, they could see Azure and Aqua just peeking
over the western heights of Bald Mountain, bathing the entire
valley in bright light. It was going to be a beautiful, clear
day.

Once they attained the walkway, they huddled
behind the merlons for a few seconds before venturing a peek below.
What Uzziel saw nearly took his breath away. Somehow during the
night, and without the knowledge of the patrols of Ramathaim, the
Gideonite army had succeeded in bringing one of their siege engines
within striking distance of the wall. The catapult was hidden
beneath a camouflage of brush.

As he watched, a contingent of Gideonites
uncovered the catapult, while other enemy soldiers stood by with
bows ready. None of them paid any attention to the top of the wall,
and the three spying Uzzahites were not noticed before they had a
chance to duck behind the parapets again.