Day of War

by Cliff Graham

  Cities in this land, Karak knew, usually focused their defenses on the gates. Single combat between champions was decided in the shade of the watchtowers during sieges, and the city elders often conducted business or held court between the towers. Kings stood on them to watch for messengers returning with news of distant wars.

  Inside, the market would be near the entrance, crowded into narrow streets that allowed only three men to walk abreast. The market would maintain a festive atmosphere during the day, with caravans arriving and new wares being tested, wedding festivals being celebrated, and children chasing each other through the tight alleys and back passages overflowing with broken pottery shards and around the public oven and well.

  Dwellings would be further in, some crowding the narrow streets and others, those of the wealthiest classes, along the walls. The governors and rulers of the city would have their quarters near the back, furthest away from the gates and from the common people. Now the rulers would likely be gone, seeking glory in the north against the Hebrews, while their cities burned and their cattle were stolen.

  The moments passed and then it was time.

  Karak reached down to tighten the leather straps on his foot wear. The iron-studded shield was fastened to his arm, the captured iron sword at his side. He fingered the hilt. Glancing around at the officers, he stood, spoke aloud to his gods, and began to run.

  The Egyptian watched the chieftain leap over the lip of sand and followed. His spear was in his hand, he carried no shield, and he ran in long strides behind the Amalekite warrior. Behind, he heard the smattering of footsteps as scores of soldiers crawled out of their hiding places and followed their officers. They had shown poor noise discipline during the wait. The Egyptian worried that the town’s defenders might have heard them, but thus far there was no sign of activity.

  His great height made him stand out in the crowd of running men. Long legs carried him fast, and he forced himself to slow down and follow the chieftain. Better to let an arrow from a hidden tower guard strike Karak first. Ahead, in the black shade of the city entrance created by the moonlight, the shift change was taking place. The invaders were in the open now and could easily be spotted, which happened as soon as he thought it.

  A guard had stepped from the darkness to greet his replacement, then, seeing the rushing horde, cried out a warning. The two of them scurried to shut the gate. The Egyptian ran faster, pouring all of his strength into running. Since neither of the watchmen appeared to be an archer, the Egyptian set aside any concern about being first and sprinted ahead of the Amalekite chieftain. The gate was shutting, the two men shouting and working together. No one else from the city had come yet. He ran harder.

  When he was ten reeds away, he saw that he would not arrive in time and threw the great spear toward the entrance. It flew through the entrance of the gate and buried its head in the sand. The wooden doors stopped against the shaft, protruding through the opening. The watchmen shouted and pushed harder. The gates did not move. They kept pushing, unaware of what blocked them.

  The Egyptian reached the doors at last and lowered his shoulder, slamming into the opening and prying it wide enough to squeeze his torso through. He let out a terrible shout, grabbing the shaft of his spear and twisting until he finally burst through to the other side. He swung his spear toward a watchman, an old man, to his left, slamming him against the wall before his partner could react. The Egyptian did not wait; he swung the spear again, smashing the side of the other Philistine’s head with the iron tip.

  The Amalekite chieftain and his men burst through the gate behind him, forcing the doors completely open. Karak shouted, urging the men to move faster. The Egyptian wiped his brow with the hem of his tunic and ran down a street that angled away to his left.

  There were a few torches and lamps being lit in windows as he passed. A woman screamed. He stooped to grab a handful of sand to dry his palms and kept running. He wanted to reach the Hebrew quarter. He had seen it on a scout of the town, before offering his services to Amalek. He’d pretended to be a slave in order to wander the streets.

  To his amazement, he had discovered that the town, though Philistine, was owned and dominated by a Hebrew warlord whose men had been raiding trade routes. There was a storehouse in their quarter that would be a great prize.

  He followed the wall, hearing the sounds across the city of the Amalekites destroying everything they touched. Men on a raid were filled with lust and violence. There would be great chaos in Ziklag tonight.

  Karak urged his men forward through the darkened streets. They were setting fire to the buildings and shops of the market and breaking into homes. He ordered the men to douse the flames; it was not time yet. He bellowed at a man who had already seized a woman and was tearing off her clothes. “Not yet! Wait until the city is in hand!”

  The soldier cursed and threw her down.

  He had ordered the men before they set off to capture the city first, then plunder. The chieftain knew what happened to a man when he was raiding, but they needed to keep running. It would be impossible to control eventually, so he had to control it while he could. There might be more soldiers present to defend the city further in.

  The two companies of men under his immediate command split, shouting and running. He looked around for the Egyptian, did not see him, and kept running. He had tried to tell the man to secure the northern part of the city — hopefully he had understood. Karak stayed a little behind the main assault force, the better to control it. Several men ran with him, waiting for instructions. He felt his sweat stinging his eyes.

  They pressed on, street after street, clubbing every man they saw. Some tried to surrender, and they struck them as well. His orders had been clear: There was to be no killing if possible, because much of the bounty would be the high prices brought in the slave markets of the south.

  Children who had awakened during the commotion ran outside. His men hit them with the shafts of spears and kept running, trying to penetrate deep into the city, trying to reach the far side before sweeping back through again. As each block was taken, he left behind a group of men to guard it until they returned.

  One Philistine took command of a group of others and holed up in a stone building used as a meeting hall. They blockaded the doorway from inside, then threw stones and fired arrows from the roof. But they were untrained, and their efforts were futile. The chieftain simply sent men around to scale the back of the building.

  There were screams. The fighters on the roof had thrown a vat of oil over the side and lit it on fire. It burst into flames as it hit the ground. His men ducked out of the way, and remarkably, miraculously, none had been touched by the fire. He shouted orders. Men moved.

  After a few moments, more heads appeared on the roof — his own men. An officer reached over the side, pounded his fist, and shouted the signal. The chieftain bellowed another order, and the men kept running. They had to move, had to move quickly, and he urged them on with shouting and threats and curses. Flames were everywhere on the buildings now, and he cursed at his men for setting more fires. He had wanted to clear the buildings of plunder before setting fire to them, but once the tide had begun, he could not stop it, only direct it. They kept rushing forward.

  Men began ignoring his orders. They pulled women out of homes, screaming, tearing at their clothing, and assaulting them in the open of the street while their children howled. He raged at them to keep moving, but he needed to stay with the main assault, and so he left them behind.

  The tide struck the far wall at last, near the stone houses of the city rulers and elders. There was no more resistance. After sending a squad into the city governor’s home, he turned the flow of men toward the northern part of the city, where the Egyptian had presumably gone. He would search for the man along the wall, as agreed—if the mercenary had even understood what he was being told.

  They kept running. He had fewer and fewer men around him as each block passed, and he was forced to post a rear guard in c
ase a counterattack emerged from the shadows. But there were no opposing fighters, hardly any men anywhere, and those they found, they easily captured. The wave of his soldiers pressed hard down the dark streets and alleys of the Philistine city. He felt his sweat and blood racing, and despite the stress of controlling his men, he could not contain a shout of pleasure.

  The Egyptian listened to the growing storm of rage in the distance; they were still a good distance away. An occasional Philistine man had emerged from a dwelling as he’d passed, but he’d raced past them. Women shrieked from windows but he ignored them. He needed to reach the Hebrew quarter.

  And there it was at last, a separate area of buildings, storehouses, and tents along the northern wall of the city. He recognized the multicolored shawls and caravan covers as Hebrew, the garments and clothes required by their bizarre god who claimed to be the only one. He’d never understood such a concept: Why would a man choose to follow only one god when there were so many other areas of life where he required the gods’ services?

  Women looked out from the openings of their homes. It was inexplicable that no men would have been left behind to protect them, especially while they lived among enemies. As he ran past them, he heard more shrieks and screams.

  When scouting the town the previous winter, the Egyptian had seen a large building along the wall. It looked like a row of shops from the front, but the size of it aroused his curiosity. He’d had to leave after only a day; even though he’d worn the garments of a slave laborer, his size always aroused suspicion. But in that time he had seen men coming and going from the building, passing a sentry in the doorway each time they entered.

  The Egyptian came around a corner and saw the building ahead. He pulled at the handle, but it was locked. He lowered his shoulder and crashed through the doorway, breaking the hinge.

  He was astonished. It was an immense storeroom of gold, jewels, and precious metals. It was hard to see much in the dark, but the room was so full of treasure that its contents gleamed and sparkled in the splash of moonlight seeping through the doorway. It was everything he’d suspected it would be. Mounds of loot gathered from hundreds of caravans were heaped in every corner, as though a great king of Egypt had been buried in his throne room full of gold. There were fine cloths, woven garments, precious stones and metals, and countless other luxuries like those he had coveted in the palaces of the pharaoh.

  Whoever this warlord was, he had done well for himself.

  The Egyptian saw another doorway in the corner at the far end of the moonlight coming from outside. He could only make out some of the items inside: a rack of weapons, a stack of greaves, other pieces of armor. He assumed the room was full of them. He pulled a sword off the rack and tilted it so he could examine the craftsmanship.

  Iron.

  The Egyptian replaced the sword. He stared, thinking. Most interesting. Hebrews with iron weapons. Were they forging them or capturing and hoarding them?

  He smiled, wiped his face, held his spear across his shoulders, and walked back outside. He had found the storehouse first. Claimed it. Any man who disputed this would be dealt with.

  Moving it all was impossible, of course. He would carry the best of it and be content to return later when the pharaoh’s armies invaded. They would sweep through Amalekite lands, capturing any treasure that had found its way into their filthy tents, and then push into Hebrew country. There would be more storehouses like this one. Pharaoh would reward him with lakhs of gold for his spying, more than could be pulled by a hundred oxen.

  He stood silently and looked at the moon, large in the sky. Nearby was the sound of crying and whispers, and he nodded. They would cry louder when the barbarians arrived, as they would soon. The rape of the city had already begun. It was most inappropriate, most unbecoming a man of the River Kingdom. Cold night air basked him. He listened and waited.

  TEN

  In better days, before the darkness:

  She holds the child and looks at me. The baby girl stirs in her arms. Another daughter? But there must be sons. Two daughters? I need sons! Her hair is tied up. I love it that way. Perspiration on her face. She smiles at me, confused.

  “Are you not pleased, lord?”

  “I am pleased.”

  Am I? Daughters bring dowry. I will need dowry if I have no sons to work the land. I will fight wars for money the rest of my life. Daughters guiding oxen? They could not lift a yoke. She is still smiling at me. Better look at her. My hand on her head. Such soft hair.

  Sherizah says, “Forgive me, lord. I know we need sons.”

  Her eyes watch me. She is beginning to cry again. I never like it when she cries. So very tired after a long night of waiting. She cries. She pulls the bundle close. I am not upset, am I?

  “It is not your fault, Sherizah.”

  She lets out a long breath. Looks away. Tears are staining the front of her shawl. Of course I love the girls. There will be more. Sons will come eventually.

  Benaiah gazed at the inside of the tent as it shook with the morning wind. It was still dark out. Something had awakened him. Unable to get to sleep again, his wounds aching, he had lain helplessly while the nightmares found him in the dark, even awake.

  Benaiah heard someone clanking cookware nearby. Time to move.

  The cold air bit at his skin while he stood and pulled a winter tunic over his head. The wind picked up again and violently whipped the campaign tent. He was grateful for the tent; normally they did not have them because they weighed too much and were too cumbersome for the lightning pace of David’s army. They moved in and out of a town before anyone knew what happened. Like a lightning strike. That had been Josheb’s description, and Benaiah liked it.

  His wounds had solidified, turning into something like slabs of limestone knitted into his scalp and arm, and they roared with such pain that he had to sit down again. After stretching his arms out again, Benaiah finished dressing and gathered his weapons next to him: spear, sword, shield, his prized bow, and a lance swiped from a Philistine rack the night before.

  He held the spear shaft and felt the balance. The spear was a thrusting and swinging weapon, thrown only when it was unavoidable. The lance was the throwing weapon. He picked up the lance and held it over his shoulder as if he was about to toss it. His shoulder and arm were stiff; he would not be able to put much force into it.

  There was another weapon to go into the bundle, and he relished sliding it from the satchel that covered it, running his fingers along the shaft. He had found this root growing with the rock sunken into it. No one could explain how it had happened. But it worked—a perfect war club. He held it lightly against his forehead, feeling the cold knob of rock.

  He knew all of the weapons. Few men in this herding and farming culture knew weapons well; even fewer knew more than one. Benaiah knew every weapon—but this, the simplest one, was his favorite.

  The others were iron, a benefit of having lived among Philistines. The men of Israel gathered at that moment with Saul in the Jezreel Valley had such weapons, stolen from captured enemies, but they did not know how to maintain them and had no instruments to sharpen them with. Some had figured how to grind the blade on stone. It was slow, and frequently chipped the edge. David’s men were encouraged to keep their weapons in top condition, though it was becoming more tedious using the Philistine smiths to forge their weapons.

  He straightened the weapons on the ground, then after grunting in pain a few more times, decided to go for a walk to loosen up. His wounds felt better once he was moving. Outside the flap of the tent, a cold blast of wind sucked the air out of his lungs, choking him. He hated this weather. Spring near the mountains was never one season or the other: cold one day and hot the next.

  He heard Josheb shout, “Good morning, brother! Glad to see you awoke from your fainting. There is someone here you must meet.”

  Josheb was draped in wool blankets and beaming with his usual good cheer. Next to him stood a man with a cropped beard and fierce eyes. He
looked to be in his thirtieth year—as Benaiah was— with a thin scar stretched across his forehead. He was larger than Josheb; he looked at Benaiah from the same eye level. He wore his hair long and had tied it in places, with the locks hanging off his shoulders. His ornate cloak signified that he was a man of wealth. He did not look like a Hebrew. His skin was too light. He was from the north.

  “Benaiah son of Jehoiada, this is Keth of the Hittites.”

  The man nodded and Benaiah did the same. Hittite lands were in the north of the kingdom. In ages past they had been an enemy to the Hebrews, but some scattered tribes had begun to follow the Israelite religion. David accepted such men. Benaiah gave Josheb a questioning look.

  “Keth joined us a few days ago,” Josheb said. “He’s a brave fighter, renowned along the northern frontier as a killer of Philistines, so we’re hiding his identity in the camp. He is even learning our tongue. I told him that we would circumcise him tomorrow, and that Shammah would do the honors.” Josheb laughed at his own joke. Keth seemed to miss the reference, and Benaiah smiled in spite of himself.

  Then Josheb shifted somewhat, as though he were trying to keep his next sentence from being overheard. “And Hittites are good with iron, so he has made fast friends with our leader.”

  “I have heard about you from your fellow warriors, son of Jehoiada. It is my pleasure to meet you,” said Keth, holding out his arm. Benaiah grasped it and slapped him on the shoulder, then winced when the man did the same. Keth pulled his hand back apologetically.

  Josheb chuckled. “Forgive Benaiah; he was butchered by a band of savage rodents a few days ago.”

  “Lions. And I won.”

  “Winning entails receiving no wounds and hanging their tongues around your neck as a prize.”

  The three men walked together through the gloom, picking their way around sleeping men and those just now arising. Benaiah looked across the camp to the Philistine position and saw no one up there yet. The wind must be keeping them inside their tents, he thought, then grinned. David never let weather deter him. Everyone in David’s army would be up and moving quickly, despite having, as yet, no specific orders. One can never move fast enough, David always said.