David Ascendant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 7) (22 page)

Mikael shadowed Saul on his journey back toward Gibeah from the wilderness of Maon where he had been hunting David. The archangel suspected Dagon, Asherah, and Ba’alzebul would be there in full force. He plotted a strategy of how he might withstand them. Humans were so unaware of the spiritual warfare in heaven that often accompanied the fleshly warfare on earth.

Two hundred strong escorted Saul on horseback in his northward passage. Their route passed through the Hinnom Valley, called Gehinnom, on the southwestern outskirts of Jerusalem.

Gehinnom was the territory of Molech.

Mikael kept out of sight on his own steed, high on the ridge above the valley, shadowing Saul. He pulled ahead of the party to reconnoiter the road ahead. He saw several tophets below, some with bronze images of Molech, others without, but all with the burning remains of sacrificed children. Hideous black smoke and the stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils and made him nauseous. It struck him as an odd coincidence that they would happen upon such an extensive display of mass slaughter at a time where he could do nothing to address it. His duty was to watch over Saul.

Then Mikael suddenly realized that this atrocity was not happenstance. Human sacrifice empowered Molech. And Saul was within the very lair of the monstrous god of the underworld.

Saul was galloping into a trap.

Mikael raced ahead to the end of the valley where he knew a narrow pass opened up to a plain leading north toward Gibeah.

It was the perfect location for an ambush.

              • • • • •

The Maon forest stood a mile away from Nabal’s hilltop residence, on the outskirts of Carmel. David had been stewing all day over the response he had received from Nabal. Joab and Abishai had told him of the insulting rejection and accusation of extortion from the corpulent rich man.

David did not like to think of himself as a common outlaw fleecing the innocent.
How dare that fat slug make such accusations against God’s Chosen Seed. How dare he!

David did not seek the Lord in prayer or with the ephod. He knew Nabal was right in his accusations of extortion. But he did not want to have to humble himself before such a proud and unworthy ingrate. It would only justify Nabal’s selfish cruelty and abuse of privilege upon which he had built his entire estate.

David murmured to himself in a manner not unlike Saul’s mad rambling, “I have guarded all that this ungrateful swine owns, and nothing has been lost or taken by my men. And what do I receive for my kindness? He returns evil for good. No, this creature must be punished for his insolence. He is an enemy of Yahweh.”

David opened the curtain of his tent and shouted, “Benaiah!”

His captain was there in a moment. Benaiah could see David was ragged with bitterness and lack of sleep. His eyes were on fire.

“Prepare for an evening raid. Have four hundred men strap on their swords and suit up.”

Joab and Abishai were close by and had arrived as well. Benaiah, said curiously, “My lord?”

David spit out, “By God, I am going to kill every male of this greedy Nabal’s household by morning.”

Joab and Abishai had no qualms with any order of David’s. They were ready to obey.

Benaiah was not so hasty. “Are you sure of this, David?”

David looked at him with anger. “Are you now defying me as Nabal does?”

The accusation offended Benaiah. “I am not defying you, my lord. But I am questioning you. Have you inquired of Yahweh? What does he advise?”

“Benaiah,” said David with resolve, “prepare my horse and draw four hundred armed men to raid Nabal’s home.”

Benaiah sighed with resignation. “We will be ready by moonrise.”

David felt smugly confirmed, until Benaiah added, “Yahweh’s will be done.”

That aggravated David, but he knew he could not criticize or scold Benaiah without incriminating himself in the process. Instead, he pushed it out of his mind.
He
was Yahweh’s Chosen Seed. His concern was for the injustice his own men experienced at the whim of this impudent Nabal.

Yes, that was what he was concerned about.

Mikael knelt on the precipice and looked down one hundred feet below into the narrow gorge. Saul and his company of two hundred would have to squeeze through it before continuing their rapid journey north to Gibeah, in order to face the Philistine forces arraying against his capital city.

Saul’s forces were still minutes away from the gorge. Mikael had little time to figure out what ambush, if any, was planned by the despicable underworld deity Molech for the king of Israel.

He spotted it.

At the bottom of the canyon, a hundred feet inward, a cadre of twenty priests of Molech hid behind boulders, armed with bows and arrows.

It struck Mikael as odd. Priests of Molech instead of soldiers? A mere twenty? Molech was not the sharpest tool in the workshop, but this strategy seemed below even Molech’s stupidity.

Unless it was a diversion.

Just as he realized that, he heard the sound of running behind him. He turned in time to see Molech bearing down on him in a mad dash.

He tried to get up to face his adversary, but it was too late. The eight foot tall god hit him before Mikael could get his balance. He careened over the edge of the cliff.

Mikael was robust and agile. As he fell, he threw out his hands. He caught himself on a ledge a mere ten feet below.

He would not wait for the mole god to follow up his attack. Mikael used his muscular grip and sinewy legs to climb back up the ledge in seconds and bound back out onto the cliff top, ready for a fight.

But he was not ready for what he found before him.

Three gods stood beside Molech in battle position: Dagon with drawn sword, Asherah with javelin and shield, and Ba’alzebul with pummeling mace.

Four gods against a lone archangel.

He stood no chance.

              • • • • •

David stopped with his four hundred warriors at the foot of the hill upon which Nabal’s home rested. They were ready to ascend the mount and reap vengeance on Nabal.

A servant of the rich man’s wife approached them. He begged David’s indulgence to allow his master’s wife an audience.

She came down the road on a donkey, followed by another servant in an onager-drawn wagon carrying cargo. She stopped and dismounted the donkey to approach David. He sat waiting atop his steed next to Benaiah, Joab, and Abishai.

Joab nodded to David. She was the wife.

David found her presence arresting. Even though cloaked in a nightly robe, he could see her flaming red hair in the moonlight and her piercing blue eyes when she stood before him.

David wondered why Joab did not tell him of this vision of beauty that now knelt before him in humility. Probably because he knew it would cloud David’s thinking with curiosity. She had already begun to cloud his mind.

He got down off his horse to stand before her. She fell at his feet in the dirt. “My lord,” she said, “allow me to speak.”

“Please do,” he said, as if in a trance. It was strange how the woman’s beauty completely arrested David’s emotional faculties. He instantly forgot all the wrath that had driven him to this very spot. Her beauty affected his fury as his music had affected Saul’s madness.

She looked up at him. “Place upon me alone the guilt of my husband Nabal and his folly. He is a worthless man. And as Yahweh lives, let all those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. You are free from bloodguilt should you choose to slay him. By my word, I believe this with all my soul. But I beg of you, please forgive the trespass of your servant. I have brought you a guilt offering.”

She spoke with such breathless speed that David could not get a response in edgewise.

“On my wagon are two hundred loaves of bread, skins of wine, prepared sheep, with parched grain and clusters of raisins, as well as cakes of figs. Please give them to your men to eat and drink. For you are Yahweh’s Chosen One. You fight Yahweh’s battles and there is no evil in you. You are in the care of Yahweh. And when Yahweh has done to you my lord, according to all the good he has spoken concerning you, and when he has appointed you prince over Israel, may my lord suffer no pangs of guilt or cause of grief for having shed any blood without cause. And please, I beg of you, when Yahweh has dealt well with you, please remember your servant, and have mercy upon me.”

She suddenly stopped her string of words. She noticed that he was chuckling with amusement.

David got out, “You are quite the talker, but you have not yet told me your name.”

“My lord, I apologize,” she said. “I am Abigail, wife of Nabal of Maon. I am your servant.”

“Well, Abigail. You both amuse me and amaze me.”

Now, in the moonlight, he noticed that she had a black eye and a welt on her cheek. He decided to wait to address that.

“How do you know of me? I pray not through the agency of spies.”

“Oh no, good sir. I have learned from the visitation of Samuel the Seer to this city.”

“I thank Yahweh he tilled the soil for my reception.”

“It was truly saddening news to hear he had died within this last moon.”

David froze in shock. “Samuel is dead?”

“You have not heard? They buried him in Ramah. I am truly sorry to bear the news to you, my lord.”

A shroud of sadness fell over David. “I have been roaming the wilderness for too long. I am only too grateful to have heard it from such a pleasant and graceful soul as yourself.”

“No, my lord. I am not as worthy as I appear to you.”

“Did Nabal send you?”

“No. I came of my own accord. He is not aware of my actions.”

David said, “What will he do when he becomes aware?”

She knew he was referring to her wounds.

“It is not my lord’s concern.”

David sighed and looked at her thoughtfully. It was hard not to stare, she was such a stunning visage of glory. It was a shame that such a worthless man as Nabal would abuse such a precious gift as this woman before him. She was a vessel of grace.

He said to her, “Blessed be Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel who sent you this day to me. And blessed be you, who have kept me from the bloodguilt of my own hands. Had you not run to me with your humility, truly by morning, there would not be left one male alive in all of Nabal’s household.”

Abigail began to weep. She alone could see that David’s eyes had also teared up. For that single moment, they shared a lifetime of regret. Regret that Yahweh had not brought them together until it was too late for either of them to be together. Regret that he could not free her from her slavery. It was a moment that they would share only with each other, and could never speak of again.

David said, “I receive from you your gift. Go in peace to your house. I have heard your plea and I have granted your petition.”

“My lord!” she exclaimed and began to kiss his feet. He pulled away from her, bent down, and out of earshot of his men, he whispered, “It is I who should be kissing your feet, for Yahweh has spoken to me through you when I would not listen to him in any other way. Go, my sister. Return to your husband and know that I will pray that he will be broken and repent of his mistreatment of such an excellent wife that he does not deserve.”

She could not look at him. It hurt her more than Nabal’s punch. She could only rush back to her donkey and run back up the hill to her prison of suffering.

When Abigail returned to her home, she entered the dining hall to find Nabal knocked out drunk at a table filled with the feast that David and his men should have been eating. She walked past him and went to her bedchamber to weep the night away.

The next morning, she entered the dining hall to find Nabal awakening from his previous night’s stupor. His mouth and clothes were covered in his own vomit. He could not raise his fat body from the floor.

“Help me up, wench!” He spit out.

Abigail helped him up, gagging herself from the stench of his sweat and vomit. Maybe she should end it all. What else could she see in her future but more of this same misery, only worse? Her encounter with David mocked her heart with the manly leader she could not have.

She no longer cared what Nabal did to her. She said, “I met David and his men at the foot of the hill last night. He is not a rogue as you claim.”

Nabal grumbled, “Well he is no ‘chosen one’ as that dead seer called him.” Then Nabal grew suspicious. “What was he doing at the foot of the hill?”

“He was approaching our home with four hundred men to slaughter you and all the males of your household. But I bribed him with a guilt offering for your offense.”

Nabal’s eyes went wide with shock. “Four hundred men? He was going to kill us all?”

“Not us all. Just you and the men of the household.”

Nabal gasped. He stumbled and fell backward on a cushion. His left hand trembled from some physical malady. He could not speak. He could only gasp for air.

Abigail looked at him and thought he looked like he had turned to stone. In that instant, she knew that Yahweh was finally judging this evil man.

He didn’t die. He just became like stone, staring up at the sky, breathing shallowly. His servants placed him on his bed and prayed for a hasty death.