JOURNEY TO THE DEAD SEA

At dawn, the people of Jericho were awake, and Moses gathered everybody around and put to them that they needed to journey south to the promised land. Ber questioned his decision, stating that the vile spawn of Sodom would be waiting to incarcerate them yet again.

Moses didn't want to come across as mad and tell them that some strange primal voice spoke to him in a dream - but he announced that he had a feeling that in the promised land, the land beyond the dead sea is where Jericho's destiny laid.

Ber reassured the uproar and as spokesman, said they should trust their former leaders judgement. By the zenith of a raging relentless sun, the people pressed forward, forever nearing the dead sea.

Through mountain pass and down into the desert sands, they travelled for three days until Moses pointed towards the dead sea. A vast spanse of water that stretched far to the east and far to the west and only just in the far yonder, you could see land across on the opposite side.

Animals were on the coast, horses and bison and massive hippopotamus. The people rested and Ber approached Moses who looked far out to the yonder the promised land.

He asked how they would cross the water. There was no wood nor material to build a raft the size they needed to travel across. Moses placed a hand over the latters shoulder and smiled at him. A knowing smile...and a hopeful one...at sunrise, the dawn of the fourth day, they would cross this water...somehow...

The people of Jericho were watched as the afternoon wore on. A scout member of the vile lizard-men of Sodom aspied them and went back to the city on his brontothere ride and held audience with the lizard-emperor himself.

The spy reported that the former slaves were again near to the city and he was with them

Moses.

The lizard-king closed his green slimy fists and narrowed his yellow reptile eyes. Revenge. No one dared to escape Ishtar and live. Moses had to die and then his flesh would be used to feed the slaves they captured, and his skull would be crushed in front of them. Ishtar had been angered and needed to be appeased and the death of Moses would seal the Volcano's appeasement.

The high priests were happy. And a slave was brought up from the dungeon and gutted where he stood and the vile brethan of Sodom fed on the raw human flesh. The Emperor held up his blood dripping talons to his mouth of razor sharp teeth and up the fresh tasty gore.

The next time he would eat...would be Moses...

On the coast of the dead sea, Moses instructed his people to set up camp. Questions started to come to the forefront about how they were going to cross the sea. Moses didn't know how to answer them. All this was pretty much a gamble of believing the strange primal voice in the dream.

As dusk set in, there was a cool breeze that came in from the water. The camp fire raged, and tasked as much to keep dangerous predators at bay, as well as cooking antelope and fawnhog they had speared that evening and the stakes roasted in the flames.

As the evening wore on, something happened. Moses laid back flat upon a blanket of fur and stared up to the stars. A streak of golden light flashed across the night sky, then another and then another. He sat up as Ber approached with his mate Freda, both pointed to the heavens.

There was a rumbling of thunder in the distance, but it was vibrating the ground so it wasn't a thunder of the sky.

And as the night wore on further, Moses, Ber, Freda and everybody didn't sleep. The nights sky had turned red and a unearthly prevailing wind at picked up.

Moses didn't understand what was happening...

...but something was happening...