David Ascendant

by Brian Godawa

  David did not even have his own weapons with him. The events had absorbed his attention.

  He looked into the paladin’s eyes that showed through the cloak. He knew if the other was an enemy, he would have attacked already. But the warrior drew nothing. Instead he dropped his scarf. David saw a smile.

  Two zealous and ignorant soldiers raced up to the warrior, intending to defend their commander. The warrior used his staff with a swift, circling spin and knocked them both to the ground in three moves.

  David held out his hand to stop the others. He was safe.

  The warrior knelt before David. He had a royal sense about him. He declared, “I am Benaiah ben Jehoida of Kabzeel.” That explained his strange desert garb. Kabzeel was in the deep south of the Negeb desert. But it also made him a fellow Judahite with David. “I have heard much about the mighty David and his exploits. But I must say, you have not been careful enough with your security, allowing me to come within death’s grip of you — and armed to the teeth, I might add.”

  David was amused.

  Benaiah added, “I offer my obeisance to Yahweh’s anointed.”

  David was about to speak, but Benaiah kept going with a grin, “And may I add, I will not attack King Saul, because I have no time for rebels against Yahweh’s authority.”

  David smiled. So this Benaiah had also heard David’s grand speech in the cave as well, and was now repeating those words back as a vow.

  “Good,” said David. “You shall be the captain of my bodyguard.”

  Benaiah was dumbfounded. “But you do not know me, my lord. How can you trust me with such a responsibility?”

  “You already got through my defenses once,” replied David. “So I would not be able to stop you anyway.”

  Benaiah understood and grinned.

  David added, “Get to know the bodyguard. They are Cherethites and Pelethites.”

  “Cretans and Philistines?” said Benaiah. “So I am not the only stranger you employ. My lord has a taste for the questionable elements of society to be closest to him?”

  David said, “Mercenaries are without tribal conspiracy and pettiness.”

  Benaiah countered, “And they can be bought by enemies with a higher bid.”

  “I have to take whoever I can get,” said David. “Many of my men are outlaws and malcontents. Unfortunately, excellence in combat and excellence in character are rarely united in a warrior.”

  “It will be my goal to remedy that, my lord,” said Benaiah. “Accept this repentant outlaw’s fealty.”

  Benaiah bowed while still kneeling. David pulled him up and hugged him. He turned to the others. “I think it is time for some recreation.”

  A third of the men were allowed, in rotation, to hunt, swim in the nearest pond, or just take naps. No one had realized that Joab and Abishai had snuck off.

  Chapter 43

  The tigress-like Kiana bathed herself and left the temple to meet her next client beneath her Terebinth tree in the sacred grove of Asherah. When she arrived, she discovered the Hebrew warrior Abishai waiting for her. But he did not look amorous. He looked threatening. She turned to leave, but was blocked by the younger Joab. He grabbed her. She hissed and bared her fangs.

  Joab held tight.

  She got one hand loose and swiped her claws at his face, carving a big rip down his forehead and cheek.

  Abishai grabbed her from behind. She could not get loose from his iron grip.

  Joab placed his hand over her mouth to stifle her scream, and dragged his dagger deeply across her throat.

  She jerked and spasmed as her life left her body with the blood from her severed esophagus.

  Abishai let her down gently, almost as if she were still alive. He had a tear in his eye, but he was as resolute as his brother.

  Joab whispered, “We must speak of this to no one. David must never find out about our betrayal or we will lose everything we have worked for to support him. We cannot let him know.”

  “Would he not forgive us? We were innocent.”

  Joab snapped back, “We are not innocent. Our idolatry almost cost our leader his life. We would never be allowed our rank in his kingdom if he ever found out. If we intend to continue in our course, we must make a blood oath of silence right now.”

  He held up his dagger. Both their hands were dripping with Kiana’s blood. But now they cut their own palms and mixed it together with a mutual grasp.

  Joab said, “From this day forth and forever, we will never speak of this again, and we will never again go astray from our king and from our god.”

  Abishai added, “May Yahweh cut our throats and leave us in Sheol if either of us ever again strays from the purity of devotion to our king or engage in any behavior that would endanger him. I devote my life to the House of David.”

  Joab repeated it, “I devote my life to the House of David.” Then he added, “I pledge my life to destroy any and all enemies of David and his throne.”

  Abishai repeated, “I pledge my life to destroy any and all enemies of David and his throne.”

  Both of them knew that their guilt would haunt them for the rest of their lives. But they willingly accepted the burden as the consequences of their actions, and the price of their loyalty.

  Chapter 44

  The giants Lahmi and Runihura crept up to the first home on the outskirts of Bethlehem in the dark of evening. They had already killed a few residents out for a stroll. But they were intent upon their target.

  They crashed in the door of the home and caught a family unawares at their dinner table.

  Runihura grabbed an eight year old child and engulfed her head in his hand ready to twist it off if they were met with resistance.

  Lahmi demanded, “Where is the house of Jesse?”

  The father blurted out, “At the end of the lane on the right.”

  “That was easy enough,” said Runihura. Then they murdered everyone before moving on to Jesse’s home.

  When they arrived at the home at the end of the lane, they discovered everyone gone. The entire household stood empty, as if they had disappeared. Lahmi growled with anger and smashed the house to pieces. He kicked his way out of a wall. The two giants proceeded to the next house, to find out where the family of Jesse had gone. There were a few hundred families in this little town and they would not stop killing them until they found out where their targets had gone.

  On second thought, they would not stop killing them until every last person in the town was dead.

  Some citizens had heard the commotion, and upon seeing the terror, had escaped into the night with their families. Others were less fortunate. Lahmi and Runihura crushed them and cut them to pieces in their fruitless quest to find where the family of Jesse had gone. No one knew where they had gone. The family had been secreted away in the night without a word to any of the neighbors.

  By the time the two giants reached the far side of the town in their pillaging, they were filled with rage that their plans were blocked by these senseless little Hebrews.

  They heard their names called and they looked up. Ishbi and Saph stood at the end of town, obviously bearing news.

  Ishbi said, “We know where David is. But we will need your help. He has an army of gibborim surrounding him.”

  Lahmi’s face and hands were full of Israelite blood. His eyes were enflamed. Of course he wanted to kill David. But even more, he wanted to torture David’s entire family for what he did to Goliath. And he wanted to roll their heads at David’s feet before he raped and executed the Chosen Seed.

  But it did not look like he was going to get his full revenge yet.

  “First, help me finish what I started here.”

  • • • • •

  The four Rephaim slaughtered every inhabitant and destroyed every home of Bethlehem. They then headed for the cave of Adullam, twelve miles west in the mountain pass.

  They did not take Argaz with them. His fifteen foot stature was an impenetrable wall of power on the battlefiel
d, but he proved too clumsy and noisy for covert operations. He could not walk without making the ground shake beneath his feet and he could barely hide behind a boulder. The Hebrew gibborim that guarded David were no doubt ferocious in their fighting skills, but they were not yet organized. They were still few enough for the four Sons of Rapha to take them on their own. They would continue to save Argaz as a secret weapon for the right battle.

  When they approached within a thousand yards of the cave, they could not detect any sounds of soldiers camping. There were no fires.

  “We are late again,” said Ishbi. “They have gone.”

  They entered the cave, and saw that Ishbi was right. The camp was cold. There were no hints of where they might have gone. Lahmi pounded the rock wall in anger. His howl could be heard for miles.

  Ishbi scolded him, “Restrain yourself, fool, or we will never get near them. What have I told you about your temper? If you do not harness it, it will harness you in the hands of your enemy.”

  Lahmi frowned, but he knew Ishbi was right. He had to master his emotions to maximize his fighting skill. Killing simple soldiers was easy. He could do that with his eyes closed. It was the Israelite gibborim that would prove most difficult.

  Chapter 45

  David had removed his family from Bethlehem secretly in the night, mere days before the Rephaim had arrived. He knew they were in jeopardy from his enemies, be they Saul’s forces or the Philistine assassins. So he and his band of warriors had taken the family seventy-five miles south-east, around the shores of the Dead Sea and into the land of Moab. The Moabites were still adversaries of both Saul and the Philistines, so the family of Jesse would surely not be followed into enemy territory.

  David had gone to Moab across the Jordan and had appealed to its king through the ancient custom of providing sanctuary for the enemies of your adversaries. Since David was himself an adversary of both Saul and the Philistines, then he was a de-facto ally of Moab. David also claimed his Moabite ancestry through his great grandmother, Ruth, the wife of Boaz. David painted himself as a hybrid of both Israelite and Moabite lineage.

  During the journey, David had gathered several hundred more followers and a few prophets, including Gad the Seer and other warriors who supported his anointed claim to the throne.

  David formed his mightiest gibborim warriors into special units he called his “Three” and his “Thirty.” The Three were his three chiefs over all the regular armed forces; Jashobeam, Eleazar and Shammah. The Thirty were his supreme army council, veterans responsible for the organization and management of internal army regulations. They commanded the militia reserves with a readiness for quick and mobile engagements. Each of these men was chosen based upon personal feats of courage or faith.

  Abishai was chief of the Thirty, which made Joab envious. Joab was the younger of the two brothers, but they both knew he was more ruthless and the stronger leader. He felt that the scar that traversed his forehead to his cheek was responsible for Joab’s lack of advancement. Such a visible scar on a warrior in so vulnerable a location as the face, even if the wound did not hamper him, was nevertheless a visual sign of a failure in battle. How could such lesser warriors rise in status? He and Abishai had lied about the true origin of the scar because of their blood oath. They had said they were jumped by a band of twenty Philistine outlaws during a hunt for game. Could any gibborim have gotten away with a lesser wound? In truth, the scar was a sign of Joab’s failure, his moral failure with a qedesha of Asherah, and how that failure compromised the life of the Chosen Seed of Yahweh. Joab quietly accepted that his lesser status than his brother was a punishment for his weakness of flesh, one that he would carry with him to the grave.

  Benaiah remained the Captain of David’s bodyguard. While they were in the land of Moab, he was particularly unsettled being surrounded by these idol worshippers of Chemosh, the sun god. David’s carefree spirit and reckless choices gave Benaiah sleepless nights. David seemed to act as if he was indestructible, that he could not be killed. He too readily trusted those in his company.

  David’s latest reckless choice was to accept the new allies who had pledged themselves to the death for David. They were warriors of Moab.

  But they were not normal warriors. They were specially gifted ones called “Ariels.” They were the Lion Men of Moab.

  They were called this because though they had the bodies of men, their faces resembled lions, with snout and mane and sharp feline fangs. They had incredible strength and could fight with the ferocity of the king of beasts. Benaiah thought they were unholy hybrids, like those of the Watcher legends. It had been told that before the Flood, the gods had violated Yahweh’s created order of separation by creating hybrid soldiers of both man and beast. They had the bodies of men, but the heads of hawks and jackals and other predator animals. They were used by the gods to wreak death and destruction upon the land. Benaiah feared this was a recurrence of such monstrosities. He believed David should stay far away from them.

  David felt that Yahweh could redeem anyone that had human blood in their veins, because they still carried Yahweh’s image, distorted though it may be.

  The eleven Lion Men Ariels stood out of earshot at the ready, waiting for a command from David. They stood like statues, their powerful arms and legs still, their long hair flowing in the breeze. Their feline faces looked straight ahead without emotion.

  The ever vigilant brothers, Joab and Abishai, moved closer to David and his skeptical bodyguard, to overhear their debate.

  Benaiah whispered in anger to David, “You cannot do this, David. You cannot trust them. They are Moabites, for heaven’s sake!”

  David countered, “They are faithful converts to the tribe of Gad for many years now.”

  “That is only because Joshua conquered them generations ago. Do you not think they harbor a vengeful desire to get even one day?”

  “They have proven themselves true by the word of their elders. Benaiah, you should have more faith.”

  “And you, my lord, should have more doubt.”

  David said, “Do you think Joshua should have had more doubt when he allowed Caleb to lead his forces? Caleb was a Kenizzite, which was a pagan tribe after all. He was a convert not unlike these warriors. And he proved the greatest of all warriors in the Conquest of our Promised Land.”

  Benaiah glanced back at the stout-faced Lion Men. “Caleb was not an unholy chimera. I do not trust them.”

  David said, “They are part animal and part human, it is true. But are not humans also animals? Are we not often more vile and wicked than animals in our behavior? Which is the more worthy of mistrust, their animal or their human nature? And if they are part human, then they are part Yahweh’s image, and can be redeemed.”

  Benaiah knew he was not going to get anywhere with him. David had made up his mind. Benaiah vented his final frustration, “There is something not right. I can feel it.”

  David smiled. “There goes your animal intuition again. Should I trust you, my Benaiah?” He was teasing him, but the point was made.

  David turned to the waiting warriors. “Lion Men of Moab, welcome to my fighting force. I have accepted your fealty and you may join my ranks and follow my rule. I pray you prove yourself worthy of Yahweh’s kingdom.”

  The Lion Men did not smile or display any emotion. They merely roared in unison. It sent shivers down Benaiah’s spine. He would keep his eye on these beasts.

  David added, “But if any of you dare break ranks or prove treacherous and seek my harm in any way, I pray for your souls, because you will have Benaiah to contend with.” He pointed at Benaiah with a smile and a wink.

  “And me as well,” said the voice of a small man. He stepped out of the ranks to draw attention.

  Benaiah stared at the little man with surprise. He was perhaps the shortest warrior Benaiah had ever seen, at just under five feet tall. The incongruity made Benaiah smile.

  David, however sighed. He knew who it was.

  The young m
an was very small, but he had an ego the size of an elephant. He announced, “I am Jonathan son of Shimei!” He raised an archer’s bow in his hand. “And this bow will protect my lord against all enemies!” Some of the men chuckled at the preposterous claim of the little man. He was too young-looking, too slender and simply too small for battle.

  A heckler blurted out the sound of a mouse, “Squeak, squeak!” Laughs peppered the crowd.

  “Hold your tongues” yelled David. The men quieted down.

  David pulled Jonathan aside. He was the son of David’s brother, Shimei.

  “Nephew, when did you join us?” he scolded.

  “At Hebron,” said Jonathan. “Father has released me. Do not withhold from me the opportunity to fight for Yahweh, uncle.”

  “You are too young and too slight, Jonathan.”

  Jonathan complained, “You took down the mighty Goliath with one stone when younger than my age, and just as slight.”

  “That was different.”

  “I can take out both eyes of a giant at a hundred yards with my bow.”

  David sighed. Jonathan was indeed an excellent marksman. But a good aim was not all that was necessary for being a warrior. On the other hand, David needed all the help he could get. Jonathan had been released from his father and could make his own choices now.

  David said to him, “You can stay. But only on the condition that you make no more bold pronouncements. It’s embarrassing, Jonathan.”

  “Agreed,” said Jonathan.

  David added, “And you stay in the archer ranks.”

  Jonathan begrudgingly repeated it, “And I stay in the archer ranks.”

  David tussled the hair of his little nephew. Jonathan hated when he did that.

  David turned to the soldiers. “Tomorrow, we head back to the wilderness territories to continue playing hide and seek with the King of Israel!”

  • • • • •

  There was another in David’s ranks who did not trust the Lion Men, the swordsman, Sibbecai. He decided not to announce his agreement with Benaiah. He would rather be a silent ally, someone to watch the bodyguard’s back.