Jericho. City of the Moon. Reah, as the Reahns who worshiped the celestial and lunar deities called it. The city looked like a piece of the moon had crashed to earth in the middle of a tropical oasis. Its walls seemed to rise more than fifty meters above the surrounding palm trees. The late-afternoon sun only lengthened the walls' ominous shadows-and shortened the time Deker and Elezar had to make it to the main gate before it closed at dusk.
They rode side by side along the wide entrance road, dressed in the uniforms of the Reahn soldiers they had killed and buried back in the fields. They had passed a couple of chariots and a number of oxen pulling empty carts. The farmers had already brought their goods to market and were returning. Now the traffic was heavier flowing out of the city than in. That would only draw more attention to them when they tried to enter the city gate.
More fortress than city, Jericho's profile resembled a giant aircraft carrier cut from a single rock. All the fortifications were aimed at the single main gate in its narrow eastern wall at the bow, pointed like the barrel of a giant cannon at any who approached her.
The monolithic walls began to separate into two as the road bent to reveal the main gate. Deker could see that there were really two walls around the city.
The lower outer wall ringed the base of the city mound. It boasted an impressive five-meter-high concrete revetment skirt at the base. The rest of the outer wall, comprising red bricks, rose another ten meters to the parapets on top, where uniformed soldiers with gleaming spears marched between two stone watchtowers on the north and south walls.
The city's higher inner wall ringed the fortress at its summit. This wall was almost fifteen meters high and also built of red bricks, with two additional stone towers on its east and west walls. All the towers had slits for the 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.