Day of War Read online

  Benaiah raked his fingers through his beard, then pulled the collar of his tunic away from his neck, a nervous habit he had picked up and could not shake. After a count, he hoisted the boy onto his shoulders.

  “We are only an hour’s walk above the village if we cut straight down from here,” Jairas said. “It would be rougher going but a much shorter journey.”

  Benaiah nodded.

  Snow was falling steadily now, filling the barren spaces on the ground that the previous storm had missed. After a few moments of stumbling, they started to make good progress. Benaiah became hopeful that they would make it down from the pass before the storm settled in and made travel impossible.

  He had just begun to relax his breathing and find a rhythm in his steps when another lion attacked.

  The animal had been lying in wait in a small thicket on the slope. The hot roar blew across Benaiah’s face as the paws, with immense force, struck his head. He dropped Haratha and threw his arms in front of the lion’s jaws, his throat scratching out a cry and his legs giving way. The power was overwhelming. He could see nothing but golden fur, feel nothing but the lion’s crushing strength.

  Like the other lion, this one wrapped him up with its paws and was trying to bite his neck. Heat and steam from the lion’s breath covered him. The lion’s screams made him dizzy as he fought— although all he could do was roll his body to the side, away from Haratha. Benaiah felt like vomiting as the rancid breath closed around his face.

  They rolled several times down the mountainside, one of Benaiah’s arms pinned to his side by the lion’s weight and strength. Benaiah wrenched away from the jaws as they snapped for his neck. A fang caught his scalp and he felt hot, blinding pain.

  The ground gave way on one side, and he sensed that they were struggling on the edge of a drop-off of some kind, either a cliff or a pit. Something erupted in his strength, his right arm slipped out of the lion’s grip, and he shoved the creature as hard as he could while stabbing its eye with his thumb. It released its grip, slipped on the loose, icy rocks, and tumbled backward into a pit. The animal landed with a thump on the bottom.

  Benaiah wiped blood from his forehead where the claws had gashed him and staggered back up the slope. He had to find a weapon quickly. The lion might leap out of the pit at any moment and resume the attack. The wounds in his skin burned like coals; he was losing a lot of blood.

  The commotion had revived Haratha, who was now sitting up and insisting to Jairas that he could walk. The older man argued that the boy would further damage his body if he did not remain still.

  “No, take advantage of his strength,” Benaiah said to Jairas. “Let him walk with you back down the mountain. You need to get him back quickly, and it will take too long if you drag him. I will climb into the pit and get the lion.”

  “Don’t be a fool. It will tear you apart.”

  Benaiah ignored him and knelt by Haratha.

  “Let me stay with you,” said Haratha. He still looked dazed, the loss of blood turning his skin as pale as the snow around them. Benaiah had seen these erratic bursts of energy from wounded men before. He would become delirious soon.

  “Who is your father?” Benaiah asked.

  “Eleb.”

  “Haratha son of Eleb, you fought well today. You will return to your woman if you can manage to stay awake.”

  “I … have no woman. I am trying, though.”

  They all laughed and Benaiah clapped him on his good shoulder. He helped Haratha to his feet and the young man leaned against Jairas for support.

  Roars erupted from the pit behind them. They could hear thudding and crashing as smaller rocks cascaded. Benaiah considered going back down to the village with Jairas and Haratha. Losing a man to the jaws of a lion was the last thing David’s little army needed right now; every one of them would make a difference in the coming days.

  But the faces of the dead boy’s parents in the village appeared in Benaiah’s mind. The familiar pit in his gut gnawed at him, and he knew he had to make sure this lion would die. If it escaped, it would surely return to terrorize the village. They were relentless when they had developed a taste for man.

  He swore under his breath.

  “Get moving. I’ll catch up,” Benaiah said, sliding the back straps of his shield off. “You are certain?”

  “You need to get him back. His family will need him.” “Perhaps it will die down there. It has not come out. It might be trapped.”

  “It might escape, and it will not relent if it does. Just get him back to the village.”

  Jairas looked at him a moment longer, then nodded.

  Benaiah watched them disappear down the slope into the forest. He felt the sudden urge to say something else. He shouted toward them as the wind picked up.

  “I have a woman. Tell her …” But they kept walking without turning. He assumed they could not hear him over the noise of the storm. He let it go.

  The clouds swirled and increased, grappling along the ridges above and tossing more and more snow onto the slopes. The weather in this high country was unnerving. And it was getting colder. He had heard of men dying from the sleep brought by cold weather.

  Relief, he thought. The best way to go. Slip softly into Sheol, the faces gone at last, the pain dulled by the cold darkness.

  More roars came from the pit, more pebbles scraped loose. He expected to see the black-maned monster tear out of the hole and race toward him. He clenched his teeth.

  His death would not come from sleep.

  Benaiah picked up his spear and walked to where an old tree was lying on its side, roots hardened by age jutting into the air. Finding a good root with a sharp end and a twist in the center to grip, Benaiah pulled down with all of his weight and broke it away from the tree. In the old days, roots such as this one were among the only weapons his people could muster. It would work well against the creature.

  Benaiah checked the dagger on his belt, then discovered with dismay that his water pouch had been torn apart by the lion’s claws. It had protected the flesh on his side, but now he was left with nothing to drink. He scooped up a handful of snow and tried to quench his thirst with it.

  He reached the edge of the pit and peered down. It was a hunting pit, clearly dug many years before, probably by ancient hunters who had enlarged a natural cave in the hillside. Eight or nine cubits across, about the same depth. Normally hunting pits would be covered with brushwood and approaches dug so that a group of hunters could drive the lion toward a narrow cleft where the pit’s covering would give way, trapping the animal. The hunters would then rain arrows on it until the animal died.

  But Benaiah had none of those luxuries.

  He could see the lion pacing in the corner, occasionally crossing a patch of snow that had drifted in. It huffed air in great plumes of breath, roaring and gasping in the low-pitched rumble that could be heard for an entire day’s walk away. Especially at night, he remembered, when the still desert breeze brought the sound through the Nile reeds.

  Benaiah tossed the root into the pit below. The lion snarled and drew back into the darkness, waiting for him. He would leap from the edge, land with the spear raised, and pin the lion as fast as possible. Once the spearhead was buried to the heart, he would grab the root and stab its neck. Then the people in the village would never perish in its jaws again.

  Benaiah himself might be the lion’s last kill.

  He closed his eyes, pushing the thought from his mind, feeling the prickle of snow on his face. His hands clenched and unclenched. The last of the gray twilight faded. The beast roared, and Benaiah felt it watching him, waiting for him, amber eyes boring into him and craving the taste of his flesh.

  This had to be done.

  He nodded.

  He would be free. She would be free of him.

  Benaiah shook his head, trying to focus on the lion and how he would kill it, on what type of maneuver might, against all odds, keep him alive, but the black depths of the pit reminded him o
f a room he’d known, of the day of sorrow. That day came back to him — the day all was lost.

  There was darkness, endless darkness, and screaming, and the smell of blood. Blood covering the doorway, blood in the room, bits of hair across the stone floor. He heard the sound of families throughout the town wailing and moaning in grief, the smell of smoke drifting, cries to Yahweh. A raid. How could he have allowed this?

  Benaiah looked for Sherizah, called for her. There she was, his wife, in the corner, her hands over her eyes, her cries filled with anguish. He shook her. What happened? What happened? She shook uncontrollably. Blood was everywhere, the room cold and dark.

  Where are they? Where are they? he’d yelled at her.

  Gone. Killed. They are gone …

  And he was away. He was away …

  Benaiah blinked.

  He was above the pit, in the snow, with the lion.

  The wet on the edge of his eyes stung in the cold. He wiped them quickly. The black pit gaped in front of him. He felt its darkness in his bones. He squeezed his fists and felt his hands shaking again. He pulled absently at his collar with his thumb.

  There was something the chief always said.

  Cover me in the day of war.

  He shook his head.

  Benaiah breathed a few more times, enjoying the snow and the rage of the storm gripping the pass above him. Then he leaped over the side.

  TWO

  As soon as Benaiah hit the ground, the lion leaped from the shadows. The creature’s hot, rancid breath, like that of the first lion, had the stench of decay. Before Benaiah could fully raise his spear, he saw a flash of bloody fur in the dusk and the lion was on him, swatting his spear aside.

  They rolled over together. The spear out of reach, Benaiah pulled his dagger and plunged it into the beast’s flank. The blade skipped off a rib. The jaws snapped at Benaiah’s head again and again. He forced his fist into the open jaws and shoved his arm down the throat, trying to prevent the fangs from piercing his skull. The lion tried to roar again, its voice now muffled by the arm down its throat, and raked its claws painfully against Benaiah’s side, crushing him beneath its weight. The paws pinned his dagger hand against his body.

  Benaiah searched frantically for the spear nearby, needing it if he was to have any chance. One of his shoulders was buried in the lion’s throat, the other pinned to his side. The fangs buried in his shoulder hurt so badly that Benaiah fought to remain conscious.

  Something caught his sight in the snow.

  The root, only a handbreadth out of reach.

  The paw pinning down Benaiah’s weapon arm released for just a moment, and he used it to stab his dagger into the side of the lion’s face. It roared, sending specks of saliva into his eyes and ears.

  Benaiah pulled free and scampered backward until he reached the wall of the pit, gasping for breath, his arm bloody and burning. The lion was pawing at the dagger sticking out of the side of its face. Its jaw hung limp. When the animal roared and snarled, it sounded almost sloppy. The blade must have severed some of the muscles in its jaw.

  Despite the searing pain of the claw wounds, Benaiah leaped forward, knowing the animal would outlast him if he did not mortally wound it fast. He snatched up the root, shouted, and rammed it into the lion just behind the shoulder, near its heart.

  The root pierced the rough hide and entered the soft interior flesh. The lion convulsed and shrieked with fury, twisting away and jerking the shaft from Benaiah’s grip, flinging blood into Benaiah’s eyes from the wound.

  He staggered backward and wiped his brow. When he could see again, he noticed the lion in the corner of the pit. The root thumped back and forth as the lion darted around trying to dislodge it. Benaiah looked for the spear but could not find it in the swirl of dirt, snow, and blood.

  He rushed toward the lion again, grabbing the root and hanging onto it to prevent it from snapping as the lion thrashed around. The gouts of blood pumping out of the wound told Benaiah that he had struck near the heart, but not near enough. The animal was not dying. If anything, its roaring and thrashing increased.

  The shaft of the root, slick with blood, slid through Benaiah’s hands. He tried to grip it harder. A rotten stench rushed across his nostrils. The root had penetrated the bowels of the animal.

  The lion curled into a ball and then rolled violently sideways, catching Benaiah off guard and knocking him over. He lost his grip on the root; his head thudded against the rocks. He saw a bright shock of light. Fighting past the throbbing in his head, he reached out into the snow for something to fight back with. Why wasn’t it dying? Claws, pain, burning. Where was the spear?

  There was a huge roar, and the lion pinned him again. He gagged at the rotten breath. He arched his back in panic—and felt something beneath him.

  The spear.

  Screaming with his last burst of panic-stricken energy, he lurched to the side and shoved the lion away from him. His arm came free enough to reach the spear and swing it around, hoping to drive its head into the lion’s throat.

  Too late he realized that he had shoved the wrong end forward, and the dull end cap of the spear thudded harmlessly against the golden hide. Before he could turn it and try again, claws raked the side of his head, pounding him so hard that he almost blacked out. He felt numb, as though the cuts from the claws were so brutal that they had bypassed all pain.

  A short flap of skin from his torn scalp now hung over his left eye. He pushed it out of the way, but it kept falling back, blocking his view. As the lion reared for another strike, Benaiah rolled out of its path and stumbled toward the wall of the pit.

  With his clear eye, he saw a branch sticking out from the wall of the pit overhead. He jumped for it. He missed it on the first try and fell to his knees. The lion roared. He could hear it crawling toward him. Its wounds were finally taking a toll, or it would have leaped.

  Benaiah jumped again and managed to wedge his hand between the branch and the frozen mud of the pit wall. Just as the lion’s paw swiped at his leg, he pulled himself up out of reach. The beast snarled at him but was apparently too wounded to leap.

  Benaiah panted. His breath curled out in icy tendrils against the darkness of the pit. The rumbling growl of the lion came from below him, and even though he was only a few cubits above the monster, he could barely make it out in the dark, with only the large puffs of frozen breath drifting upward as it roared indicating its location. Benaiah’s arm shook from the strain of holding him in place on the branch.

  He had to deal with the skin hanging over his eye, which was swelling so quickly that soon he would be unable to see out of it. The lion might be in its death throes, but it would live long enough to kill him if he didn’t kill it first. A thought occurred to him: simply hang onto the branch until the lion bled out. But the growling below him continued. How was this possible? The spear must have ripped the lion’s insides to pieces. The resiliency of predators amazed him — and how they defied the call of death to exact revenge on their hunter.

  Benaiah was suddenly very cold. The snowflakes stung his open wounds.

  He saw his wife’s face in the darkness. She was holding out a pouch of water to him, and he reached for it … for her.

  He shook his head; he was going delirious with pain.

  Benaiah fished in his belt for his second flint dagger, a smaller one that he only used for skinning game.

  It was still there.

  Pulling the blade out with his damaged arm while he held on to the root with the good one, he dug the point into the skin above his eye and sliced a small part of the flap away from his scalp. His head was still numb from the paw strike and he barely felt it, but the fresh wash of blood pouring down his face was a nuisance.

  The lion roared again, but this time, he thought with soaring hope, it sounded weaker. He had to move now and finish it before he became too weak.

  Benaiah let go of the root and collapsed onto the snow. The lion charged. Benaiah snatched up the spear wit
h the correct side forward this time, and as the beast opened its jaws wide to bite, Benaiah aimed the spearhead into the black opening and held on for his life.

  The spear slid down the lion’s throat and penetrated deep into its bowels, all the way up to Benaiah’s fist. His arm entered the throat again, but the jaws no longer snapped. He heard a dull rumble from deep inside the creature’s throat. The bloody shaft started to slide in his hand. He tried to keep his hand clenched but his strength was running out. The paws swatted at him, but with little force. The animal was finally dying.

  Slowly, when it seemed like the entire pit would fill with blood, the roars became weaker and the thrashing softened. The lion struggled a bit longer and then coughed out a pink mist and lay still.

  Benaiah let his head fall onto the patch of ice next to the lion. He listened to the cold wind whistling across the mouth of the pit. He wondered vaguely how much blood he had lost. He packed lumps of snow into the wounds on his head and arm to stop the bleeding. He shivered. The great body of the lion was still steaming, so he leaned against it for warmth.

  The cold weather, exhaustion from the struggle, loss of blood, and heat from the carcass made sleep nearly irresistible. He slapped his face to wake himself up. He had to keep moving so that he wouldn’t fall asleep and freeze to death.

  Benaiah sat up and tried to focus on the icy ground around him. It was almost completely dark now; only moments of light remained. The lion was still leaking blood onto the snow. Benaiah’s spear was buried in the carcass and the dagger protruded from its mouth.

  When enough strength had returned that he knew he could climb, Benaiah crawled toward the dead lion and knelt on its head while he tugged at his weapons. The dagger came out easily, but the spear needed several hard pulls before it finally came loose. He left the root buried in the carcass.

  Benaiah tossed the weapons out of the pit onto the hillside above and studied his predicament. Snow still drifted in twenty cubits above. He searched up and down the wall for a route to scale on the ice and loose rock. The hunters who had dug the ancient trap had done their work well; he could not easily spot a way out. Small drifts of snow were accumulating on every surface of the wall, and it was getting colder.