Covenant of War (5 page)

No one must know.

He staggered toward the tent opening. From inside came the gentle glow of a lamp. The woman would be in there, waiting. Other men would come after him. Soldiers always did after battles; wives could not meet the needs that these women could.

He tried to say something to stop himself, to at least think something, but there was only heartache, and the sound of men laughing as the animal roasted, and the smell of the oil.

Four Years Later

The snake warmed itself in the sunlight, basking in the heat of the stones next to the watering hole. It slithered out each day at the same time, always regular in its habits, always sensing a new lair that would provide the best chance of surprising a desert mouse or one of the larger animals that were frequently herded near the water.

It glided through the cool shadows and hot gaps in the stones. Reaching a clearing, it raised its head and froze. Sensing something new, it flicked its tongue rapidly. It retreated back into the rocks to wait.

A boy was standing next to the pool. He was short for his age, with a dusty tunic and sleeping garment of dull cloth wrapped around his torso. A small flint dagger hung on a belt around his waist, and a sling was tucked into the belt behind his back. A leather water pouch was draped over his shoulders. He held a gnarled, splintered wooden staff that had been passed down to him from an older brother. He leaned on the staff casually, his mind wandering.

On this day the flies were swarming. The heat of midday allowed clouds of them to thicken along the bank and cover the mud along the water’s edge. With the south still in the grip of drought, the muddy water hole was the only water source for livestock within a two day’s walk, and with each passing month of drought it seemed the number of flies increased tenfold. Normally sheep were not watered in the heat of the day — they were herded into the shadow of a tree canopy or overhanging cliff. But the boy preferred coming at this time because he knew he would be alone, with no one to harass him.

It was the time of year when many shepherds led their flocks out of the rough terrain of the desert mountains into this basin for this pool’s water. The flies were the only real trouble for the shepherds under normal circumstances, far as it was from the contested areas of the kingdom. The flies were annoying to the boy, but they were less annoying than listening to his mother lecture him about how poorly he did in everything. He did not spend much time with his father; as the youngest, he was shooed away often.

This season had been especially tough. While the war between the northern and southern tribes had strung out for years, here on the northern frontier people were mostly concerned with which ruler would be able to help prevent raids and encroachment from the Philistines or other foreigners or bandit warlords. The elders had a difficult time deciding who to support. Some said Ishbosheth and his general Abner were the future of their land; others claimed it was David, the king in the south.

The boy knew the argument for David well because his father had influenced many in the community not to oppose him outright. True, David was from Judah, and their size and power were intimidating, but at least they were Hebrews, and if David was the best chance at preventing rape and pillage from unclean outsiders, making him king might be the will of Yahweh.

Yet those meetings of the elders were endless and usually went nowhere. They preferred to sit in the shade of their gates and eat figs and dates and wait for events to unfold. The centuries had turned his people into survivors, not blindly stepping out for any one side until they were certain the other would not rise up. The boy’s brothers told him that they had been a proud race once. That Yahweh had singled them out as his people and that this land was theirs, but that they had turned their backs on their loving God and his ways, only to suffer great punishment for their rebellion.

They were divided, they bickered, they turned and ran from fights. The men were soft and the women resented them for it, afraid that their rolls of fat and docile attitudes would not stop a lustful, battle-mad Philistine soldier. Their enemies mocked them. Perhaps it was time to bring the sword back into their land, his father argued, and the sword most worthy of it was David’s.

David’s actions and his motives were shadowy. No one ever seemed to know where he fully stood. They had heard terrifying rumors about his alliances with Philistines, but here and there they had also heard about inexplicably courageous acts for the sake of his kinsmen.

The boy’s father made it a point to tell his family about political events, even the girls. He wanted them to know about their lands, but he was careful to remind his daughters that their opinion only really mattered if their future husbands asked for it.

When news came that Abner was going to turn over the northern kingdom to David after four long years of tribal war, his father had been thrilled and had rushed into the family home to tell them. At last, it was time for unification!

The news had ignited the debate anew in his village. Would David remain under the thumb of the Philistines? Would he be able to broker peace within the tribes? Would he take blood vengeance against those who had been loyal to Saul’s son Ishbosheth?

Such intrigues were above and beyond the boy, though. It was his fate to languish in the heat and misery of muddy sheep pools. Part of him thought he would never have to encounter the war. That was the business of warriors and kings, and he was neither.

The boy swatted at a fly. What did he care? All he knew was that the day was very hot. Flies crowded around his ears, trying to force their way in. The sheep, twenty-five of them, the prize of his father’s flock he was told, mewed and bawled in misery as they picked their way toward the water. The flies were relentless. The boy rubbed his face. He shouted at the sheep to keep moving, swatting the hind leg of the nearest with the tip of his staff. The sheep bleated at him. Irritated, he swatted it once more.

He was getting tired of the heat and the sheep and the flies — and the endless arguments about which king would be better. Something would need to change soon. The boy leaned his staff against a sycamore and sprawled in the tree’s shade. His legs ached. He rubbed them a few times.

The pool was several cubits deep at its center and fed by a trickle of water from a spring deep in the mountain canyons. Two cliffs surrounded it, casting shadows over the muddy water most hours of the day. Since millennia before the young shepherd was born, it had served as a crossroads for the nomadic wanderers in the great deserts of the east. As the only strategic water point in the region to support the livestock of an army, it had been contested in ages gone by. But now, the pool sat in silent peace at the base of the cliffs, the only sound usually being the trickle of water down the stones and into the basin.

Nearby, just out of sight, was the village of Detheren. A day’s walk beyond that, near the sea, was Dor and its fortress. The same mountain spring that fed this desert pool also rolled through the ravines into those towns and filled their pools.

He froze. Very close to him, only cubits away, a cobra raised its head.

The snake held still for a moment, tongue slipping in and out of its mouth. Dust rose. The sound of bleating grew louder. The serpent bobbed its head slightly.

The boy rolled away instantly. The snake lashed out for him, missing. The boy dropped a stone in his sling and snapped it around once before releasing.

The snake’s head burst open in a spray of crimson, showering the dull rocks nearby with a coating of bright blood. The body coiled and snapped. It thrashed in circles, spraying blood from the stump where its head had been. The sheep bawled, scampering over one another to flee.

The shepherd boy, who had seen the deadly thing lying still in the sand, held it up on the end of his staff. He looked closely at the crushed head. Amber liquid draining from the head mingled with the blood coursing out. It was the poison that had felled so many of his father’s sheep. It would have felled him this day had he not seen the scaly hide.

He tossed it aside in disgust, shaken. Serpents were cursed and unclean. The lazy afternoon heat had made him careless and he had nearly paid with his life. He looked over the herd. The sheep were still bleating and jostling one another with great anxiety, but they did not appear to be on the verge of scattering. He was grateful. This day had been eventful enough without having to chase them all back into the corner of the cliff.

The sheep calming down, the sun warming the rocks, and the haze of the pool conspired to make him drowsy again, and before long his eyes began to droop and his shoulders sagged. The staff propped in the crook of his arm slid down and he dropped his sling.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he started violently.

“What have you seen since you have been here?”

The boy looked up, trembling. A large man stood over him.

“N – nothing.”

His lips parted to speak again but no words came out. He felt foolish and scared.

The large man’s face was dirty and calloused, with a short, well-trimmed beard. He had a noble demeanor, as one who had been under authority and who held it now. He was a warrior, judging by the weapons he carried.

What caught the boy’s attention even more than the warrior’s size and weapons was the tangled mess of scars that covered his neck and top of his head, visible even through thick black hair. There were also scars on the warrior’s arm above the leather greaves — vicious, disfiguring scars, like what a desert demon would have — raised, jagged mounds of light flesh on dark flesh.

Next to the large, scarred warrior was a foreigner — the boy could tell by the man’s dress and skin tone, much lighter than Hebrews’. His long hair was braided. Both had similar armor and weaponry, but the foreigner also carried a bow. They appeared to have been out on the frontier for a long time. Their fierce eyes made him lower his.

“Where are your brothers?” the first man said.

“The younger work for my father. The elder are away. War,” was all the boy could reply.

“What tribe is your father?”

Now the boy was worried. If these men were from the south and the lands of Judah, he was in great danger of losing his father’s flock, even though his family was sympathetic to David. Hebrews had been fighting for generations amongst themselves, sometimes treating fellow tribes worse than even the Philistines.

The foreign warrior must have sensed that the boy was afraid of the question, so he said, “That was good aim on that cobra. You sling like you’ve done it more than your years.”

“My brothers fight with the Lion of Judah,” the boy said. “They sling for his army. They taught me well.” He was suddenly afraid that he had given away too much in his outburst of pride.

The scarred one lowered his head. “Their names?”

“Shethra and Bothra, sons of Banaa. My grandfather has disowned them, but my father is proud.

“Makes sense. You come by your lazy ways naturally. They sleep all the time like you do.”

“You weren’t laughing when they saved you at the boundary,” said the foreigner.

The scarred man frowned. “Well, everyone hits something once in a while,” he said, then winked at the shepherd boy.

These were the Lion’s men?
Men who fought with his two oldest brothers? Shethra and Bothra were the only ones he did not know well, for they had left his father’s home when he was young because they were deeply in debt. They found the man David in a cave, and he gave them a place in his army. Only in recent years had he seen them, since their lord allowed only brief liberty from his armies, but in the time the boy had had with them, they’d told him stories of slaughtering Amalekites and battling Philistines, and he listened wide-eyed to them, taking their instructions with the sling as though it was the Law of Yahweh.

The boy wanted to ask these men many questions. Questions about the war against the north, about his brothers — but most of all, he wanted to hear about the Lion himself. His legend had grown. The Lion and his Mighty Men. The Three and their slain thousands, Benaiah and his battles with beasts, captures of hidden fortresses and witches. He suddenly wanted to hear all of it. These were
David’s
men! How the other boys would be jealous of him when they heard who he’d seen this day!

“It’s not all that, boy,” said the one with the scars, as though reading his thoughts. The boy could not hold back his words.

“Is it true that Benaiah son of Jehoiada fought fifty lions in a pit with only his hands? Did he kill an army of Egyptian giants and was given ten women as a prize?”

The foreign warrior smiled broadly. “You want to answer that one? Seems it is up to fifty.”

The scarred one scowled. The foreigner chuckled again.

Unable to stop himself, the shepherd boy asked, “Does the Lion of Judah really call down fire from Yahweh upon his enemies?”

“Haven’t seen that yet, but I’m sure he could do it. Probably with a song,” said the scarred one. “Did you see any Philistines recently? Any other foreign filth wandering around?”

The boy nodded. “A troop of thirty-four yesterday. Light weapons. They were heading in the direction of the coast, across those hills.”

“You have a trained eye.”

“Like I said, my brothers.”

“We should keep moving. I will tell your brothers when I see them that their little cub slings like a man now.” The foreigner winked at the boy and started to leave.

The scarred one nodded. He grabbed the boy by the chin and tugged him playfully.

“Keep up your slinging and grow your beard. You can have a place among the Mighty Men one day with those skills. Might even put you in the bodyguard.”

As the two of them walked away, the boy called out, “I will! Mention me to Benaiah!”

The scarred one said over his shoulder, “It was only two lions. One was in the pit. But that was enough, trust me.”

He watched them disappear around a bend. He reluctantly went back to the tedium of watching the sheep, ecstatic over his encounter with them. No one would believe him — none of his friends, none of the girls he wanted to impress. His thoughts drifted to the scarred warrior, and he wondered what had caused those scars.

And he finally realized who it had been.