By the time Deker limped through the gate, all he could see was the flash of swords and shields. The slaughter was well under way.
The unstoppable column of Israelites snaked through the north side of the town and up through the gash in the fortress wall caused by the fall of the city's spire. People were shouting to one another but no words could be made out above the screams and shouts of battle.
From the summit, waterfalls of blood streamed down the fortress walls and into the city below, rivers of carnage floating along the streets past Deker's boots.
The dead were already piling up.
Frightened Reahns ran helter-skelter, trapped inside the walls they had erected to protect themselves. From the towers the soldiers could only watch their families die before they, too, were struck and began to fall off the ramparts as the Israelites swarmed them.
But it was the Reahn families fleeing the inescapable wrath of Yahweh, their tragic faces white with terror, that haunted Deker. The foolish among them were still trying to carry their valuables in their fine but filthy garments. The brave, mostly mothers clutching their children, wound up cornered against stone walls and run through by the merciless blades of the invading Hebrews.
The only thing escaping the city that Deker could see was its treasures: one cart after another, filled with gold ingots and silver coins and jewelry, was being wheeled out through the gate by the Levites.
Deker didn't see Phineas and suspected the priest had decided to contribute to the work of the troops in cleansing Jericho for its sins.
The Kenites, meanwhile, were lighting up bronze bowls with oil for the passing troops to dip their torches into so they could burn whatever was left of Jericho.
Deker stepped through the puddles of blood in the market square and headed toward Rahab's to make sure she was safe. Then he noticed a team of Judeans with a small battering ram heading toward a door in the city wall that he hadn't noticed before. It had a red cord hanging outside.
"Wait!" he yelled and raced to the door. "What are you doing?"
"Rahab the harlot and her family are to be spared," the commanding officer replied. He looked a bit like Salmon, and Deker guessed he might be a cousin.
"This isn't Rahab's house," Deker told them.
"But it's in the city wall."
"Her house is in the slums about fifty cubits ahead. A four-story villa overlooking a small square. You can't miss it."
"Then what's this?"
Deker stared at the red cord and shouted, "I think it's a trap!"
Sure enough, upon closer examination he saw a crude charcoal drawing on the wood.
A black dove.
"Stand guard out here," he ordered the troops. "I'm going inside. You'll block this door with carts and crates if you have to, but nobody comes out. If I don't return by the count of five hundred, see that it burns with the rest of this city to the ground."
He looked around to make sure the Judeans understood. They did, but clearly thought he was crazy and in no shape in his blood-soaked uniform to do much damage to anything as he unsheathed his sword.
"A sword may not slay this enemy," a voice said. "You may need this."
Deker turned to see old Kane step forward with his latest invention: an ancient Molotov cocktail. He held the jug with a fuse in one hand and a torch in the other.
Deker handed his sword to one of the troops and took the bomb and the torch. "A final gift to send me off, Kane? You shouldn't have."
Kane smiled proudly. Deker was actually going to miss the old warrior.
Deker didn't know why, exactly, he was so sure that he wasn't going to be walking out of the door he was about to enter. But he was sure.
"Salmon is with Rahab and her family," he told Kane with emphasis. "I've told these troops where they are. See to it that they get safely outside the city before Bin-Nun torches it."
Kane nodded. "Do your worst."
Deker opened the door, slipped inside and closed it. He immediately heard the thuds and scrapes of carts and crates stacking up behind him. Then he turned and saw the secret fail-safe to Jericho that Hamas had been hiding all along.
The shadow army.