"I can’t fall into enemy hands, no matter the cost,” the king advised his personal bodyguard as they made their way down the stone steps of the castle toward the main doors. “Kill me if you have to, but don’t let them get my body.”

“As you wish.”

“Open the doors!” the king bellowed to the two soldiers standing on either side of the massive wooden doors. “Let me see what forces that clown of a king has sent me!”

With a great, ominous creaking noise, the men rolled the doors back. The king swallowed hard and he felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of the armed forces facing him. There were so many soldiers bearing all sorts of powerful weapons that it was impossible to even see the ground they stood on.

“For the king!”

The general on the enemy’s side lifted his spear into the air and thousands of voices began a menacing chant as they banged their spears against their shields.

“Advance!”

Like a wave of doom, the army began marching methodically towards the castle.

“Archers!”

The king’s general signaled for their archers to shoot their arrows.

The air became thick with hundreds upon hundreds of arrows whistling through the air, falling upon the advancing troops with deadly accuracy.

“There is hope yet!” the king whispered to his bodyguard. “Now take out your sword and follow me into battle! Come!”

The castle walls shook as the two formidable armies clashed against each other in a chaos of swinging swords, spiked clubs, and barbed arrows. Bravely the king’s men fought, but for every enemy soldier they cut down, another was quick to take his place.

“Back to the castle!” the general screamed. “Fall back to the castle!”

“No! No retrea—”

The king’s words died in his throat as a spear cut through the air and his general fell.

He retreated behind the castle walls together with the remnants of his shattered army.

***

“So what are our options?”

The king stood over a table that had a map spread out across it. His bodyguard stood at his side and tried to map out an escape route over the sound of the front doors being hammered with battering rams.

“Your face is recognized all over the kingdom.” The bodyguard shook his head. “There is nowhere you can hide, even if we managed to smuggle you out of this castle. They will never stop hunting you down.”

“There is one place, Your Majesty.”

A young soldier stepped forward on a wounded leg.

“If you travel south past the river beyond the forest, you will come upon a Jewish city. It is said that there is no violence in those lands and they live secluded from the rest of society. Perhaps you will be safe hiding there.”

“If he is telling the truth then that’s our best chance,” the bodyguard told the king. “Come, Your Highness.”

A horse was procured for the king and his bodyguard and they fled through a secret passageway that traveled underneath a moat beside the palace.

As they galloped at breakneck speed towards the safety of the forest they heard the palace doors splintering open and panicked screams. They did not look back.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 762)