The Preacher Man

Michal was quite comfortable following me as I angled eastward from due south, rather than westward back towards the lake. Abigail looked a bit puzzled, but we had agreed to walk silently until the sun came up.

The wind was gusty and the temperature about minus 5 C. I was so glad we managed to get Michal into some decent winter survival gear. Her burqa would have been a cruel and perhaps deadly joke out here. I was still worried about the weather though, and the bears. It smelled like snow, maybe a lot of it, and my instincts were screaming at me not to forget about the bears. I decided to push our speed up a notch, right to the limit of safe walking in the moonlight.

We would hike half an hour and then rest for just three or four minutes, only long enough to stretch and relieve ourselves, drink some water from our canteens, and then hit the trail again. Abigail got into the habit of giving me an affectionate hug before I slung my pack back on. After our third rest, I was very happy to have Michal start hugging me too. It took just a few extra seconds for us to pat each other's rumps, and it was a huge boost to our optimism.

We kept up that hiking rotation for eight full cycles. In the brightening predawn twilight we were passing some boulders that would be easy to sit on, and we had a good clear view of the immediate area. I decided we would indulge in a real break. I looked at my watch, 7:03 AM. Sunrise would be in another ten minutes.

I turned to my two wives and said quietly, "Breakfast time people! We'll start up again in half an hour."

The two women nodded gratefully and quickly dropped their packs, sitting down on the smooth rocks and looking a little tired. Abigail smiled at me and replied very quietly, "So it's okay to talk now?"

"Yeah, I think so. Try to keep it low though, and stay alert! This is the prime time of day for a bear attack."

We stretched and relaxed, kept alert and had a nice meal. I took out my knife and dug up an indigo-root. "Here, try some of this. It's very tasty!"

Abigail blinked her eyes at the spicy taste, but Michal really enjoyed it. "Hey, this is good! It reminds me a little of the pepper fish at Al Maqwa." She looked at me shyly and with a bit of admiration. "And you knew how to find it!"

I nodded. "I grew up not far from here, Anqara, four, five hundred kilometers in... that direction," pointing to the northeast. "There's a lot of food out here, even in the winter if you know where to look. Nuts, roots, even certain insect mounds... There are winter water lilies in the lake right now... somewhat edible..."

Abigail looked at me aghast. "Insects? For food?!"

"Sure Abby. When I was selecting our supplies for this test, I swapped almost all of our food allocation for a double supply of ammo for the pistols. Getting hungry out here was the last thing I was worried about."

Abigail just blinked at me. With the finding of Michal and all of Sofian's food supply, that part of my hiking plan had quietly disappeared.

"But now you have me," said Michal, patting her backpack. And then she paused for a moment. "Ilias?"

"Yeah?"

"These tests, how often do you take them?"

"Security Guild members do it annually."

"Ah," she said, looking thoughtful. "Do you mean others do it differently?"

"Yeah. Priests in the Holy Militia take it once when they join the militia, and then in the year before they reach a promotion gate. It becomes part of their performance review for advancing to the next Citizen Level. All the information gets sent down to Babylon. A few units of the Holy Police take survival tests too, the special weapons units."

Michal looked confused. "Special weapons?"

"The Special Honor Guard at Bandar Arenas. It's a self-contained mini-army at the capital. Their sole mission is to protect the eighty-six members of the Ruling Royalty."

"Oh..." Michal paused for a moment, and then looked at me and smiled. "Thank you Ilias! I could hardly believe what I wrote in my diary last night, but I do now. You are so kind to explain things to me, even though I won't remember what you teach me. I hope my questions never bore you!"

I moved over and held her for a moment, sitting next to Michal and holding her by her waist. We leaned our heads together. I could smell her, feel her warmth and strength, my darling wife. I sighed and kissed her and whispered, "Michal, if I ever catch myself being bored by your questions, I will be so deeply ashamed of myself." I felt her stiffen in shock, and then she hugged me fiercely.

At 7:30 AM we started up again. The half-hour rest and food break had worked wonders. Before I knew it, it was 8:00 AM and time for another short break. Both my wives were looking in fine shape, eager to get going again. After just a couple of minutes I put my backpack on and we continued south.

It looked like we had a bit of easy hiking ahead of us. The sun was shining, the grade of the land was gentle, and the trees had thinned out, providing excellent visibility around us. I started to relax and think about Michal's questions about the Priesthood.

There are over three and half million adult males in the world, and by law exactly 20% of them are Priests. The last time I looked at the number, it came out to about 705,000.

The Priesthood is divided by the holiness of the digit three into three equal parts, the Holy Police, the Holy Militia, and the Holy Administration. The Holy Police are usually unarmed, except for their staffs of authority. Their job is to police the purity of the population, calling on the Holy Militia for physical muscle as needed. Fateen at my boyhood monastery was in the Holy Police.

The Holy Administration works with the township's home Guild to administer all economic activity. The Priests of the Holy Administration also run the township's court system, marriage system, inquisition system, and execution council. They do most of the planning of the programs and Prayer Services for the township's central cathedral, and they also act as the pontificio, the bridge, between the township and the Royalty at the capital. All three branches of the Priesthood have major and distinct roles in the operations of the world's child monasteries.

The capital Bandar Arenas holds 20% of the world's population and a third of the world's Priests. The remaining two-thirds are based among the townships. Each of the 120 townships is home to 3,900 Priests, evenly divided between Police, Militia, and Administration.

"Ilias, I'm puzzled," called out Abigail from the back of the line. She pulled me out of my daydream.

"Yeah?" I called back. "About what?"

"This route we're taking! It seems magical! Except for one large gully, there are never any bad grades! There are never any thick stands of trees! I look left and right, and the way ahead always looks more inviting. How can we be this fortunate?"

"Excellent Abigail! Let me ask you a question. How far do you think we've come this morning?"

There was a pause. "Sixteen kilometers?"

I smiled. "Probably closer to eighteen! This path is exactly what I was hoping for. I think we've already hiked almost two thirds of the survival test."

"Wow!" We hiked for a few moments and Abigail continued, "This is a road, isn't it? What used to be a road, a really ancient road."

I nodded. "On one of my many jet trips this month, I downloaded the history of Jericho, from the earliest settlement times. They wrote about making the trip from Aleppo over old ruined paths. They referred to a path running north-south about a kilometer west of Jericho. They called it I-8-9."

"What a funny name!" called out Michal. "They gave numbers to a road?! Why?"

Abigail answered. "A different mindset, I think. We're so used to geo-position coordinates and the rail network, naming or numbering the travel paths makes no sense. But without a global positioning system, perhaps people would think about the roads differently. Orient travel around individual roads, rather than networks and geo-coding. Travel is the same process of course. It's just a change in perspective, about how you think about it."

"Anyway," I said, "I think we're taking advantage of land grading that was done over eight thousand years ago. If we dug down deep enough, I suspect we'd find an ancient roadbed."

"Ah! So we're hiking an express track to Jericho," said Michal happily.

"Yeah. And it's a Holy-send!" The wind had been shifting throughout the morning. It was now coming in from our backs and from our left, blowing from the northeast. "Smell the moisture in the air? I'm amazed the sun is still shining. I don't think it'll last." High above us thin wispy bands of clouds where flying rapidly to the southwest.

"Ilias?" asked Abigail. "Do you plan to make Jericho today?"

"I wish! I doubt we'll have the opportunity. But I want to cover as much ground as possible while the hiking is still so easy." I paused for a moment and then continued. "When we were dropped off two days ago, we were about 70 kilometers from Jericho as the hawk flies, and I thought about 89 or 90 kilometers by foot, following the contours of the lakes. By taking this path, we might reduce that distance by ten kilometers. At least, that's what I hope."

We hiked for another hour, making another four kilometers. And then we lost the sun. We started being hit with brief bursts of snow squalls. Not enough to slow us down, but more than enough to dust the ground. The landscape turned to winter whiteness. We managed a full additional hour of hiking, another four kilometers, and came to the rise of a short hill. The sun was shining through a fortuitous thin break in the thick rolls of clouds, heavy with snow. I had the feeling it would be the very last time we would see the sun for the next several days.

It was 10 AM and I estimated we were not much more than twenty kilometers from Jericho. If the weather were clear, we really could have completed the test that day, reached Jericho an hour before sunset. But for today, Jericho might as well have been at Bandar Arenas. Further hiking would have to wait. I studied the weather from the hilltop and realized we were out of time. We had to find shelter immediately.

My instincts and training were telling me we were about to be blasted by a blizzard snowstorm. The wind was beginning to howl, and I knew from experience how fast our current good visibility could drop to zero. The weather would be dangerous in itself, and it would also give the bears a tremendous opportunity for attack.

The rocky hilltop provided an excellent spot to scan the area for a safe place to make camp. I pulled out my binoculars and started to scan. As I looked back along our trail, I gasped in astonishment. Between one and two kilometers out, we had crossed a wind-swept clearing, and I could see dozens of bears loping along our tracks in the new snow. I stared in horror as several new bears joined in.

This was incredible! Multiple bear packs were traveling as a loose extended group. And their actions were unmistakable. They were tracking us, following our tracks in the snow! There was no other way to frame it. The implications were mind boggling.

As a boy, I had animal behavior courses at Anqara. We all did. We were all taught how animals hunt, tracking with sight and sound and smell. But this?! Following our footsteps in the snow?! The conventional wisdom was that only humans have the ability to hunt like this. When a lion sees a disturbance in the leaves along the ground, he might sniff them for the scent of prey, but his brain just doesn't make the connection between the disturbance itself and the walking of the deer. The lion doesn't realize that following the trail of disturbed leaves will lead him to his prey.

But here was clear evidence before my eyes that the bears had made such a connection. Our lives had suddenly become a lot more complicated. I scanned urgently to my left and right and ahead, trying to find a defensible position, not for a tent and defense against the coming blizzard, but a place where our pistols could defend against the bears.

I thought I finally saw something to the southwest, a V-shaped wedge in a nearby hill, the rock walls short but vertical. I frowned at the possibility. We wouldn't have to watch our backs, but without technical climbing gear there would be no other way out. I motioned for Abigail and Michal to follow me. It began to snow in earnest almost immediately. Within a few minutes, our universe was enclosed in a thick veil of whiteness.

Chapter 17. The Battle of the Braun

We traveled almost blindly for a while, our visibility down to a few meters in the swirling snow. I had a good image in my perfect memory of the path to our destination, and that was the only thing that kept us going. On the plus side, I was hoping the blowing snow would also confuse the bears, or at least slow them down. My instincts though were telling me to find a defensible position, and to find one fast.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the hilltop, we came to the outer opening of the small canyon, about 250 meters wide with steep walls. Around the opening we saw an amazing sight. Bears! Both dead and alive, clustered around the opening. The live ones seemed to be juveniles by their size, three and four year olds maybe, both sexes, probably a year before sexual maturity. The young bears scattered as we approached, growling and howling but not trying to block us.

The juveniles were difficult to count in the blowing snow, but they seemed like a large number, perhaps as many as a dozen, certainly larger than any pack size I've ever heard of. From my own experience, bear cubs after weaning would be kicked out by the alpha-male. They would then wander alone until they were accepted by a new pack. It was very strange to see such a large loose group of pubescent bears around without adults.

On top of the wind I heard answering howls, adult bears, a lot of them, maybe two to three hundred meters behind. I recognized the aggressive display roars of the males. We were out of time. We dashed forward into the mini-canyon.

And there we saw the more bears, adult ones, all dead this time. Two female corpses, and then two huge alpha-male types, both looking heavily chewed up by rifle fire. It suddenly occurred to me what we might find at the end of the canyon.

I turned around. "Abigail! Give me your devil-dog, holster too!" She looked reluctant for just a fraction of a second and then quickly complied. I strapped the pistol to my left leg and then we continued to jog away from the bears, as fast as we could carry our packs safely over the snow-covered rocks.

I discovered my view from the hilltop was a bit deceiving. It was not a wedge-shaped canyon. It was more like a U-shape, 300 meters long and narrowing to perhaps 200 meters at an abrupt end. Along the back wall about three meters off the ground was a large entrance to a cave, irregularly shaped, roughly two meters high and four meters across. Two men in Holy Militia uniforms appeared and started waving to us wildly.

We were out of time. Abigail and Michal ran the last thirty meters ahead while I drew both devil-dogs, set them to single-shot exploding darts and turned to face our pursuers. Out of the swirling snow came a rush of juvenile bears baring their teeth and growling. Behind the youngsters and to my sides were the adult bears. I had the wild feeling that the adult bears were herding the juveniles, using them as shock troops for the charge.

I started firing rapidly while walking backwards blind, knowing that tripping on a rock now would probably be fatal. I was taking two quick head shots per target. At this distance one solid hit inside the skull would be fatal. I kept backing up as fast as I could, firing both pistols at once.

I tried to keep track of my shots as I backtracked. I knew my own pistol had an ammo reading of 27:29 before I started firing, 27 exploding darts and 29 non-exploding, and that Abigail's pistol was at 28:30.

In the twenty seconds it took me to backpedal thirty meters, I created a scene of carnage before me. About half my targets were cleanly killed, and a number of others were at least hit once and not an immediate threat. The explosion of a single dart in the shoulder or chest cavity of a bear will cause a shock wave great enough to cause the bear to stumble and be disoriented. Any bear not actively charging me I ignored. One bear caught a dart in his cheek deep inside his mouth, and the explosion blew off half of his jaw.

As I reached the back wall, a large, alpha-male-sized bear reared up at me from my left. I gave two quick shots from my left-hand pistol. I thought my aim was dead-on, but the bear howled and kept coming. I realized the pistol had switched to non-exploding darts. I flicked the firing-mode to full auto and started draining the pistol at his head. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another bear coming in on my right, a full-grown female. I fired at her with the other pistol and felt the pistol click between my two shots.

The female bear kept on coming. There were also more targets looming out of the snow in front of me, but the bear on my right was my most imminent threat. I needed to focus all my attention on her, grimacing with the realization there would be no time to reload before the front bears would be upon me. I started draining my last pistol at my right-side target at point-blank range.

There was the crack of the sound from a military rifle, then another, then another. The bears in front of me howled and then faded from sight. The female on my right dropped lifeless at my side. I whirled and found the alpha-male on my left also dead.

Instincts and training took over. I dropped and focused all my efforts on reloading one pistol from the holster spare, then scanning the area... Nothing...

"Sir? May I help you up?" A voice called out above me.

I called back, "Do you have me covered?"

"Uh, no sir. Those were our last three rounds."

I handed up my loaded pistol and heard the man whoop for joy when he saw the full reading. I looked at the status display on the other pistol, 0:0. Well, it had done its job. I ejected the spent clip and reloaded the second pistol, and then made one last scan of the area. Everything was quiet, and with the thick falling snow obscuring the carnage, the scene was almost peaceful. Insane, I thought. I turned and handed up my pack and second pistol and then scurried up the rocks.

As I stood at the entrance to the cave, I saw two militia laborers, a CL-2 and a CL-3, both holding a pistol out in a firing stance and scanning the area ahead. I nodded in approval that both men had set the pistols for single-shot exploding darts. As I finished my climb and stood between them, both men turned and saluted me sharply and handed me back my pistols. Both men were grinning broadly.

I saluted and grinned back. "Both of you, at ease and speak freely! Identify!"

"Yes sir! I'm private Class-3 Aasim. This is private Class-2 Omran. We're attached to the Jericho Green Mountain Boys, first battalion."

I nodded. "Survival training?"

"Yes sir!" Aasim and Omran both replied. They were also trying not to stare at my diamond insignia. The red, yellow and blue was informing them I was ten levels above Aasim's class, and the Security emblem showed I had direct command authority over them, equivalent to a CL-13 Priest.

"Same here!" I replied. "I'm Ilias, and these are my wives Abigail and Michal."

Aasim nodded. "Yes sir, Jericho's new Security station commander. I've heard of you, on the news sir, and your ride on the Asad..." He looked a little confused, glancing at Abby and Michal nervously, and then turning back to me. "The last I heard, you were about to ride to CL-13. Congratulations sir, on making it."

I nodded and turned to Omran. "How long have you been here?"