The Chronicles of Gan: The Thorn (8 page)

Chapter 8

Balm

T
he night continued to cool, making Pekah wish for a blanket.
Sounds were all around him—the chirping of forest crickets, the
buzzing of other unseen insects, even the hoot of an owl off in the
distance. He even noticed the low gulping noise of a frog somewhere
near the constant gurgle of the stream. These temporary
distractions were soon lost to his senses, becoming nothing more
than droning background noise as he continued to sink deeper into
his depression. Over and over again, memories and images of the
siege at Hasor played through his mind. Pekah remembered the
dripping rain and damp fields of waist-high grain he had pushed
through when his contingent rushed up to the southern garden gates.
He could hear the creak and boom of the gates falling, and the
pounding feet of charging soldiers upon the streets of the
village.

His chest tightened with disgust as he
remembered seeing some of the unarmed villagers murdered by his
fellow soldiers when they should have been taken prisoner instead.
He saw a young boy, not even ten years of age, running down the
street away from the invading army, but a Gideonite archer’s arrow
had knocked him to the ground before he could escape. The screams
of women and children filled his mind.

He also recalled the purported reasons why
the army had been sent there, and the dubious mission his
detachment had been sent to do. Memories of atrocities committed by
his fellow soldiers offended his sensibilities. He squeezed his
eyes closed, but he could not shut out the horror.

Pekah’s guilt intensified to the point that
he began to feel physical pain, and he groaned under the weight of
it. His chest ached. He rolled from side to side, trying to shake
the horrible darkness settling over him. As he analyzed the events
of the battle, he severely chastised himself at each identified
moment where a different outcome would have been possible. Perhaps
he could have stopped some of the needless death and destruction
that had taken place. But in all of his painful memories, his mind
kept stopping at one particular place in time, a moment that
disturbed him more than anything else. Pekah remembered the smell
of blood as he shuffled past the body of the judge in the Council
Hall of Hasor.

An unexpected connection then materialized
in his thoughts. Intense disgust poured down upon him like a
breaking tidal wave. Pekah recalled loosening the leather belt of
the dead captain, sliding the gilded dagger sheath off the end of
the belt to remove it, and placing the weapon on his own belt just
before they covered the body of Captain Sachar with branches and
brush. Sachar’s dagger. A weapon used for murder. The same one
which he had sharpened by the campfire.

His eyes opened in alarm, and his hand went
instinctively to his side. There he felt the handle: smooth, hard,
cold. Revulsion filled him, and he sat up with a start. He stripped
the weapon from his waist, throwing it to the ground before
him.

There it is.

Pekah frowned at it with extreme
distaste.

I have been sharpening a murder weapon.

The scene of blood roiled in his mind.

Why did I ever touch the vile blade?

The detachment’s orders were very specific.
Capture the judge. Bring him alive to the emperor. But Sachar had
not followed those orders. In anger, Captain Sachar had pulled his
dagger from his belt, and like a coward, threw it into the back of
the defenseless old man. Pekah remembered protesting, but the deed
had already been done. There had been no honor in Sachar’s
actions.

He stared at the sheathed dagger in the
dirt.

What ever possessed me to touch the
thing?

Pekah was no murderer. He had no desire to
use the tool of a murderer. As he thought about those ultimately
responsible for the death of the judge and king of the Danielites,
he questioned his own political leanings. Pekah had felt for a long
time that the three tribes should be united as one people. Like
many among his kindred, he also felt the Gideonite leaders were the
best choice to rule over the Three Brothers. These feelings had
provided justification for going to battle.

Were not the Danielites a rebellious and
wicked people? Were they not in need of strong leadership? From his
youth, he had been taught that the Danielite and Uzzahite peoples
were lazy, weak, and prone to hostility towards Gideon. Manasseh,
the Gideonite emperor, had warned the people that if they did not
attack first, the Danielites and Uzzahites would attack them.

His people were wrong! By Pekah’s
impressions, the villagers of Hasor were far from lazy. The city
was clean, organized, and beautiful. And from what he could tell
when entering the city, the people there were only defending their
homes, not preparing to attack the Gideonites.

Was the emperor misinformed by his generals?
Or was the emperor simply devious? The more Pekah thought about it,
the more he could see that what he had been told could not be true.
The emperor. His generals. His captains. They had willfully
lied.

This realization sickened him. Oh, how naïve
he had been. So eager to do something great—to prove himself in
battle—he had overlooked the great cost of their campaign. Pekah
mentally kicked himself again and told himself he should have known
better.

Sitting in the dim flicker of a slow fire,
he wondered what he could do to make amends for the great injustice
that had been done at Hasor. The pain he felt needed to be
expressed, but Pekah didn’t know if Nate would accept an apology on
behalf of his people. His thoughts rallied around this idea,
however, and he decided to offer a plea for forgiveness at
morning’s first light.

Feeling the need to rid himself of Captain
Sachar’s dagger, Pekah pinched the pommel between a single finger
and his thumb, and then stood. He tiptoed over toward Nate,
stooped, then dropped the sheathed dagger into the dirt within
Nate’s reach. Nate stirred. Pekah stepped toward his own patch of
ground and makeshift pillow and watched, as with a dazed expression
upon his face, Nate sat up briefly to look around, but then lay
down again and rolled onto his side.

Pekah settled back onto his hard bed and
surveyed the stars. “In the morning, I will tell Nate what
happened,” he encouraged himself in an audible whisper. For a long
time, he rehearsed in his mind how he would tell the story of the
fall of Hasor. Sleep still did not come. He sat up again by the
fire, and broke up small twigs. One by one he tossed the pieces
into the coals. Each one caught fire, glowed, and turned to
ash.

In this manner, Pekah passed the entire
night, anguishing over the horrible things he had witnessed in
Hasor. As the night advanced, the sister moons traced their way
across the heavens. Sienna would soon catch her companions. Several
times he noted their progress across the stars. Although tired,
Pekah still felt restless.

When relief from the darkness finally came
as the sky brightened in the west, Pekah stoked the fire again
before retiring to the stream to refresh himself. He washed his
face, then dunked his head in the water. The frigid stream made him
sputter. Dusty from the previous day’s march, he removed his belt,
stripped off his dark green tunic, and proceeded to rinse it in the
water. After some scrubbing and wringing, he retrieved his belt,
then headed back to the fire to hang his wet clothing over a bent
branch near the heat.

As Pekah rubbed his hands near the flames,
he watched as Eli rose from his bed. Eli smiled and waved a
friendly hello, leaving in the direction of the stream. Nate stood
up and stretched.

“I hope you slept as well as I did,” Nate
greeted.

“Thank you, but not really. I didn’t sleep
much.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

Nate looked at the dagger in the dirt beside
him. He regarded it with curiosity, then glanced back at Pekah, who
was watching for a reaction. Nate didn’t comment about the dagger.
He merely stepped around it, aiming toward the stream.

“I’ll be back,” he said as he left.

Dawn approached. It would not be long before
the twin suns made their appearance. Pekah tested his shirt, and
found it still damp. He turned it around to dry the other side, but
after a few more minutes he became impatient with the process, so
he shook the wool tunic in the air, pulled it over his head, and
cinched his belt. Faint wisps of steam rose around him into the
cold morning air.

Eli and Nate returned from the stream
together, both with wet hair and clean faces, just as the first
beams of direct light fell from the rising suns. As the orbs rose
from the western horizon, Pekah could see that Azure had eclipsed
Aqua. They appeared to be one body except for the color difference
and size of their spheres. Aqua’s almost colorless hue—a light blue
with a greenish tint—formed a near-perfect ring around the smaller,
almost purple Azure. Now superimposed, they seemed somewhat less
bright than they had the day before, yet their intensity still
required caution on the part of onlookers.

With the aid of the morning light, Pekah
took the opportunity to get a better look at his companions, and
found them to be quite a contrast standing together. Nate was tall,
with brown hair and a well-trimmed short beard, large blue eyes, of
medium build. Eli was taller yet, of a strong build, and his red
hair highlighted friendly green eyes.

Pekah glanced over at his polished armor
leaning against a log near the campfire. Eli stared at it as if
making eye contact with the raven upon the hardened leather.

When Eli noticed Pekah also looking on, he
joked, “Perhaps you can get your bird to feed me!”

Pekah was confused by the comment and
shrugged his shoulders.

“You
do
know the story of the raven, do
you not?” asked Eli.

“No.”

Eli appeared dumbfounded. “Well, would you
care to hear it?”

Pekah still didn’t feel like himself after
the horrible night he had, but to avoid offending his new
companions, he relented with a less-than-convincing “Sure.”

Eli made a show of clearing his throat, and
the three men each found a place to sit on the logs around the
fire. Eli apparently loved to tell stories. He began with
excitement and animation.

“The written words of my fathers tell us
that this raven was a godsend to Gideon, and it kept him alive.
Always fond of hunting, Gideon would travel many days, deep into
the wilderness, searching for the largest deer or the largest boar
to bring to his family for meat. On one occasion, he was far into
the forest when a strong storm arose and left a dense fog which
caused him to lose his way for many days, without food for most of
them. Almost without hope, Gideon felt as if he would not live. But
he prayed to God that he would be spared and led home.”

Eli paused at this point, as if to make sure
his student still listened. Pekah didn’t have the heart to tell Eli
he wasn’t in the mood for a story.

“As Gideon arose from his prayer, this raven
descended with a branch of berries in its beak.” Eli pointed at the
image on Pekah’s breastplate. “Dropping the branch, it flew away,
and Gideon followed. More ravens came, each one bearing fruit.
Gideon ate, and then followed the birds until he was back on
familiar ground and was able to leave the forest. On the day when
Father Noah gave his final blessings to his sons, he counseled
Gideon always to follow the path of the raven, and to do so by
watching out for the welfare of his brethren. Noah charged Gideon
to provide for them in whatever ways he could, so they might all
dwell together in joy.”

Pekah now understood the prodding joke from
Eli about the raven feeding him, yet the story did not cheer his
heart—not in the least. It made him feel worse. At this point in
time, Gideon as a people was about as far off “the path of the
raven” as the tribe could be. Pekah glanced again over toward
Nate’s bed where the dagger lay in the dirt, a reminder of the
sleepless night he had passed. An overwhelming urge to clear his
conscience made his heart race, but words to express himself would
not come. Frustrated, he sat in silence, unable to even acknowledge
the story Eli had so eloquently related.

Eli took a deep breath as if he was about to
tell more, but stopped short. Out of the corner of his eye, Pekah
saw Nate grip Eli’s arm.

Nate suggested that they all pray to begin
their Sabbath day, and then partake of a meal together. Pekah
mechanically knelt and closed his eyes. Still feeling the effects
of a difficult night, his thoughts wandered. At the end of the
prayer, he could not remember a single thing said, nor could he
remember who had spoken. His mind foggy, he joined the other two
men in finding a seat around the dying fire.

Saving the bread and dried meats from
Pekah’s provision sack, Nate took the food from his own supply,
broke the bread, and passed it with handfuls of dried fruit to the
others. Pekah received his portion, but held the crust in his
hands, staring down at the ground much as he had done the previous
evening.

The struggle he felt within was fierce.
Guilt. Sorrow. Fear. Insistence that he had done nothing wrong. Yet
still there was confusion as to why he felt so horrible. What was
it? Then he knew. The murders—a little boy and an old man.
Something surged within him, and he felt the sudden need to clear
the air.

“Nate,” Pekah began very abruptly. “I was
there on the day my people attacked Hasor. I wanted so badly to
stop them, but I could not find the strength to try. I witnessed
the murder of innocents. A little boy was killed for no
reason.”

Pekah hesitated, and then
without regard to what he was saying, he spat out, “I saw other
things. The man you killed yesterday, Captain Sachar—I saw him kill
the judge. He threw his dagger into the judge’s back, like a
coward.
That
is
the knife.” Pekah stiffened, fully expecting some sort of
retribution.