Scorpions Ascent

Scorpions Ascent is an action-packed young adult novel that blends Iron Age archaeology with the thrill of Indiana Jones adventure. Tzakhi dreads being apprenticed to the smelting fires of King Solomon’s mines, but when his father is kidnapped, he has the opportunity to rescue him and demonstrate that he already has a different set of skills. Tzakhi’s father Nachshon is steward over the mines of the Arava, and Tzakhi’s older half brothers serve the fires. Tzakhi loves working with the animals of the caravansary at Tamar and learning desert craft from Captain Avi-dan, commander of the Tamar fortress. Tzakhi visits Scorpions’ Ascent, where he’d seen his older brother Salmah draw in a pack of wolves with his flute. He, too, draws in the pack with his shofar—a song his mother sang of an epic journey and wolves. When his father is kidnapped for his metallurgical skill by Hadad, Tzakhi tracks the kidnappers. A Torah teacher known only as the Levite gives Tzakhi a sword and a blessing that the ancient hornet of Moses go before him. Tzakhi finds the raiders’ camp at the suspected Mt. Sinai. Can Tzakhi use desert craft and the lessons he learned from Avi-dan and the Levite to cut them down? Scorpions Ascent takes a thriller turn, showing readers how the imagination and faith of the young can carve out solutions.