Battle Speeches

Ouch. Its getting to that time. 100,000 words later, in the second last scene of my book, and its time to rewrite THAT battle speech.

I hate them. They're so over done, but oh-so-necessary. Here's my fourth attempt at a second re-write (if that makes sense).

[Joshua at the 2nd Battle of Ai]

‘Every man must face his darkest fears. But fear cannot be seen or touched. It has no sword or spear, no face or name. Its within us. How do we conquer ourselves? Courage. Have the courage to believe, or go back to slavery.’

‘We’ll never be slaves again,’ shouted Amminadab from amongst the ranks, ‘we’re sons of Abraham.’

‘Are we?’ Joshua replied, ‘Who is a child of Abraham?’

By the stunned expressions on every Hebrew, clearly no one had ever asked that question.

‘Is it a birthright? Then your fathers would be here today. Achan would be here today. But who is here?’ Joshua pointed towards Rahab, who seemed embarrassed to be singled out.

‘Who is here, I ask you? You who have believed. Believe again. In victory or defeat, through heartache and loss, believe. In life or death, believe. And if like Joseph, you die in faith and send your bones into the promised land, then you may call yourselves sons of Abraham.’

Rahab's story

“Many centuries ago, God made a covenant with our forefather Abraham,” Salman began. “He promised this land to all his descendants.”

“He takes his time,” replied Rahab.

“It gets worse - believe me,” Salman continued. “Abraham's wife Sarah was too old to have children, so he tried to fix the problem himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he slept with Sarah's handmaiden.”

“Ha! Big mistake,” laughed Rahab.

“Yes, a very big mistake. He had a son called Ishmael, whom he loved dearly but Sarah never really accepted.”

“Was he the first slave?” asked Rahab.

“No, that was much later,” Salman replied.

Their eyes connected briefly over the candle on the table, but Salman didn't look away this time. There was so much he wanted to know about her.

“So what's your story?” he asked.

“Nothing special.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Really?”'

“Yes, really,” Salman wasn't going to let her get off that easy.

“My family disowned me. No one will marry me, at least none that I trust. I was defiled as a young girl.”

“Who? Was he the one who came looking for us, the one who hit you?” Salman asked.

“Yes. But there's more,” Rahab replied. “When crops fail or enemies attack, the King sacrifices newborns on the wall.

“I’ve heard about this,” said Salman, “it’s disgusting.”

Rahab nodded. “I only held him while they cut the cord, then they took him away.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Salman sensed Rahab felt awkward as she rushed the first batch of unleavened bread into the oven. He wanted to change the subject immediately. Thankfully, Rahab beat him to it.