Deker edged close to the cave's entrance and looked out. The troops with their torches were already halfway up the narrow path toward the cave. Another unit was coming down from the top of the mountain, where the Reahns maintained an outpost. He and Elezar were sandwiched in between.
"We break into the open and we're dead," Deker whispered, listening to the voices of the troops as they drew near. "What does it mean 'to feed them to Molech'?"
"It means they're going to turn this cave into an oven and burn us alive," Elezar told him. "If we stay here, they could fry us."
"I don't think we have a choice." Deker peered back into the dark cave. "How far back does this cave go?"
But Elezar had already vanished.
Deker felt his way along the cave walls, penetrating deeper and deeper into the mountain. The farther he went, the colder it got. He found Elezar hunched over a small crawl hole from which Deker felt an even colder blast of air.
"Now we're animals crawling through holes," Deker told him.
Elezar said nothing and disappeared into the hole as the illumination of torches and the sound of voices behind him grew closer.
"There!" shouted one of the Reahns, and the ground began to shake as the entire unit raced toward the back of the cave.
Deker dove into the hole as splashes of some tar-like substance hit his feet and slowed him down. Slithering as fast as he could, he looked back in time to see a torch at the mouth of the hole.
"They're in Molech's Maze," a Reahn said, his voice echoing through the narrow hole. "Any volunteers?"
There were none.
"Then we feed them to Molech."
The torch touched the mouth of the hole, and a giant fireball erupted and started chasing Deker through the tunnel. Soon the fissure sloped down, and he started sliding uncontrollably down the chute. He landed in the bottom of a larger cave as a blast of fire shot over his head and singed his hair.
Deker took a deep breath and coughed in the smoky air. He tried to get his bearings before searching for Elezar. He might have escaped the frying pan only to land in the fire. The Reahn scouts obviously called it Molech's Maze for a reason: a man could get lost in these caves and never come out.
"Elezar!" he called out.
There was no response.
He started moving farther into the mountain, because he couldn't go back the way he came in. A deep sense of doubt began to torment him. What if his infiltration and escape from Jericho were all for naught? What if he failed to return to Bin-Nun with his intel on Hamas' plot to hit the Israelites as they crossed the Jordan? They could be slaughtered as soon as they touched foot on the west bank. What if he didn't get back to Rahab before the Israelites hit Jericho? She'd die with the rest of the Reahns, and with her the Psalms of David and future kings of Israel.
Deker prayed for the first time in a long while that this would not be the case. That Yahweh would reveal himself to him now.
Deker was now aware of another presence in the cave with him. A large presence, bigger than a man. He could hear the deep, groaning breath of some creature. Slowly the outline of a shape became clearer as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and Deker saw a giant hairy head with red eyes staring back at him from the face of a bull.
It was Molech incarnate.