Chapter 14 which focuses on the famous siege and the first battle of Gamla was released yesterday. It’s a chapter I didn’t even dare to write in my first draft, but felt I needed to wait with until I’m “more used to writing.” I just left it open with a summary of what will happen, and wrote it when I did the first edit.
It’s a very action-packed chapter with surprising plot twists that I can’t reveal too much about.
When I visited Gamla I really tried to envision where all the different characters would be when each scene occurs. The photo of the title is of the ruins of Gamla, with the wall still intact. As you get closer, you can clearly see the place where the Romans broke through with their battering ram, just below the synagogue.
Israel is nowadays using the nature reserve of Gamla for reintroducing vultures to nature. As their population has been in decline, efforts are being made to preserve them, and enabling those brought up in captivity to be reintroduced into nature. The natural streams of air between the ravines around Gamla are ideal for them, and I can only imagine what it must have been like for the Jewish warriors and the Roman soldiers seeing these mighty vultures hovering above, waiting to see how many dead bodies they will get to feast on.
There is also a lengthy antisemitic rant made by one of my villains. I surfed a number of horrible antisemitic conspiracy-theory websites for that research, so I learned a lot about how evil and horrible I am… If you read that rant and find yourself partly agreeing with him… take a good look in the mirror.
Tuvia Pollack - writer 