Day of War

by Cliff Graham

  “Many of you are not from the lands of our tribes. I understand that. You have served well and been rewarded well. You have nothing to complain about. You came of your own accord, and I have always dealt with you fairly.

  “Was it a mistake to go with King Achish? Perhaps. It very well may be that I have sinned against Yahweh, and this is his punishment to me. You are free to go if this is unacceptable to you.”

  Soldiers were gathering quickly now in front of David’s house. Word had passed through the streets that David had emerged, so the Judeans and other men of the tribes began to circle behind the group, unbeknownst to the foreigners. Benaiah watched his leader anxiously, desperate for the word given to him about their loved ones.

  David kept pacing, eyes never leaving the faces of his men. He held the sword in front, and he made everyone look at it as he passed. When he reached the end, he sheathed it behind his back. The sun emerged from behind a cloud and warmth flooded the area once more.

  “I am not here only to raid like barbarians. You should know that by now. I want to help our people escape their oppression. Those of you from distant lands are not aware of our history, so I will tell you. If anyone speaks before I am finished, I will kill you myself and mount your head.

  “Our people, the twelve tribes of Jacob, lived among the Egyptians for many years. Times were good. There was food, wealth, and our people grew to a great multitude. It looked as though we would stay there along the banks of the Nile.

  “But a king emerged in Egypt who feared what our people would do if they revolted, so he enslaved them. They labored and toiled under the whip for generations. They worked for other men. They served other men. They brought about the dreams of other men! In their minds was the lie that they were only worth slavery.

  “Our God, Yahweh, the one you hear me sing to, the one who is the only God, heard their cries. He called a man named Moses forward. He told Moses to go back to the people and tell them that it was time to reclaim the promise he had made to their ancestor Abraham, the promise that they would inhabit the lands we are in now. He performed many signs and wonders and crushed the Egyptians with his outstretched hand.

  “Moses led our people out of bondage in Egypt and delivered them into the wilderness and the desert. No longer were they slaves, although they still lived like it. A new way of life came to them, a wilderness existence of wandering, so that Yahweh could discipline them and show them that he wanted them to rely only upon him. He so desperately desired to be among them that he even had a tabernacle built so that he could inhabit their camp. It was a hard existence. Forty years they wandered, learning about Yahweh, and yet Yahweh provided for them.

  “Many in that generation were wicked, so Yahweh did not allow them to enter the land promised to them. Moses, like all men, did not follow Yahweh without fault. He made a terrible mistake and doubted Yahweh, so Yahweh told him that he would not enter the land either.

  “But a new leader had come, the man who had been a faithful servant to Moses. His name was Joshua, and he was a mighty warrior, a valiant man who had crept into the land of the enemy many years before and told the people of the wonders that awaited them if they served Yahweh.

  “Joshua led the people. He formed them all into an army. They crossed the Jordan, brothers, at full season when the water was highest, on dry land! You men of Gad know how hard that is. Try to move an entire nation more numerous than the sand across that river!

  “They attacked Jericho, assaulted Ai, and for years they waged war on these hills and in these forests. A new existence had come. A conquest existence!”

  Benaiah looked at the faces of the men. They were attentive. Many had never heard these things.

  David’s voice was rising, blood rushing to his head and turning him flush. Even Joab had turned away from watching the warriors and was listening.

  “Conquest! They were to take the blessing Yahweh had promised them! Would it come easy? No! Would they appreciate it if there was no hardship?

  “Now our land is being torn apart. If we do not act, we will lose the promise. Foreigners, you can come and go as you please, but we would be honored if you stayed with us. You have a home with your families in my court. Brothers, I have consulted Yahweh, God of our fathers, and he has promised me that if we pursue the Amalekites, he will deliver them into our hands.

  “As I live. As long as my line lives. As long as there is blood in the veins of an Israelite man, we will never be subjected again! You will never live as slaves again, serving other people’s dreams. We have been in the wilderness, brothers, and now it is time to conquer!

  “So here’s your choice. You can follow me, and we will destroy the Amalekites and take back what they stole from us. Or you can crawl out of here on your bellies like snakes and disappear back to where you came from, and you will have never seized the promise Yahweh has for us.”

  He stared at them hard. No man spoke.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Eliam felt a buzzing, as though millions of insects were crawling through his ears and out of his eyes. He realized that it was dark and sluggishly tried to sit up. The swimming in his head continued. Cool night air circulated around his face and revived him a bit, so he managed to clear enough fog away in his mind to recover his bearings.

  He cried out as his foot burst with pain, rudely reminding him of the wound. The iron arrowhead had taken a bit of leather from the sandal strap into his flesh with it, and it had already started to fester. Yellow pus leaked around the jagged edges of the wound. It smelled foul.

  It took him awhile to remember what he was doing and where he was. There had been a battle, and running, and water. It came together slowly. He remembered making it to the forest and climbing over the pass, but beyond that he could remember nothing else. He had obviously passed out between two boulders but did not know where exactly he was. Crickets and other night insects chirped all around him. A bug crawled out of his hair and down the back of his neck, and he smacked his hand on it sloppily. Then he remembered escaping.

  Shame washed over him. He had run away from the field when they needed him the most. Like a baby. Eliam groaned aloud, causing the crickets around him to cease, leaving him alone in the depressing silence. He could not even think of what his father would say.

  It had been going so well. He had faced the enemy, done his duty, hauled the water, and never stopped, even when the arrow hit him. Then he had run away without reason. Men were dying bravely, and he was running up the mountain away from them. There was no excuse. He had run like a coward because he was a coward.

  He desperately wanted to know what had happened in the fight. Had anyone survived? He gathered his strength and forced himself to his feet.

  No water.

  He had forgotten water. He had run from the field and not even bothered to steal water. So he was cowardly and stupid.

  Any day, his father would hear from someone that his son was a coward, and he would spend the rest of his life ashamed of his own son, a coward who wasn’t even smart enough to steal water as he fled like a woman.

  Eliam considered killing himself. He would end it right then and die, alone and cowardly. He felt the arrow tip in his foot. Proof of what should have been his bravery, a proud wound to show his grandchildren one day. What happened? Where had his courage gone? He didn’t even have the courage to kill himself. Then came tears and sobs, and he let himself weep for several moments while he massaged the wounded foot.

  After a while the crickets started chirping again. Despite the parching in his throat for water, he managed to start walking. There would be a village if he headed south. He would ask for a physician, and he would drink water, and he would hope that Yahweh would kill him as soon as possible.

  Picking his way through the woods, Eliam looked for someone or something to blame for his cowardice. His father had been a brave man. So had his brothers. What had gone wrong with him?

  He thought of Jonathan, charging so bravely and futilely into the Ph
ilistine ranks, desperate to show his soldiers one last display of courage before he died. Eliam was angry now. Angry at what? Who?

  David.

  He stopped walking.

  David was responsible for this. He was the one who’d brought so much suffering into the land. David was responsible for Jonathan’s death.

  Eliam cursed. And then he knew what he would do.

  The stars were brilliant that night—the most beautiful night in a long time. Despite the horrors of the day, a day of many sorrows that would haunt his thoughts as long as he lived, the night was a wondrous sight.

  Gareb crouched on a boulder and watched the fires of the Philistine army in the valley below. He was perched high on one of the peaks of the Gilboa mountains, so high that the wind was constant even when it was calm elsewhere. He loved the high ground and had gone to it in his despair.

  Even from high above, Gareb could hear the sounds of revelry and celebration from the Philistine camp. Their awful music wailed incessantly. He heard laughter and shouts and screaming women — women they must have captured before and brought along for the victory celebration. Which is well earned. We did not have a chance.

  Throbbing pain from the slashes on his back made him wince. Philistine blades had reached him. He cursed himself. Never expose the back. There was no excuse, not even losing sight of Jonathan. Not even watching him fall.

  He pulled his spear up from the ground and stared at the shaft, trying to make out the lettering in the vivid starlight: twenty. The number of men they had killed on that day so many years before at Michmash.

  He watched the stars move over the valley of the Philistines, wondering how Yahweh could allow such depravity and idolatry in their land and yet still give them such a beautiful night. The wind carried with it the scent of cedar and terebinth. Many of the Israelite women had put sprigs of saffron in the men’s garments before they left to war, to inspire them and remind them of home. Lot of good it did them. Made their bodies smell good over the next few days while the Philistines let their flesh rot in the hot sun. Saffron and rotting flesh. What a smell that would be.

  Gareb looked down the pass at the field of battle. He was too far to see the bodies in the darkness, but the patch of grass near the edge of the forest was plainly visible. He had watched the last of it take place in that patch of grass: Saul cornered by the archers, his armor bearer with him. It looked from a distance as if the king had impaled himself at the end. No glory to the enemy. Finally did something noble. Or perhaps he was too cowardly to take the blade while facing his enemy.

  The Philistines would cut off Saul’s head and display it, along with those of his sons. Jonathan’s head would be a fine prize.

  The thought disgusted him so much that he retched down the front of his clothing, the bile in his gut rising too fast to be stopped. He choked on it, smelled the sour scent of vomit and blood, and watched it stain dark against the wool. When his gut stopped heaving, he spat out the taste.

  He did not look at the other side of the field, just behind where the Israelite lines had broken at last. The hope of Israel had died in that spot. Gareb had seen Jonathan fall, and he wanted never to see the spot again. Yahweh had willed it, and that was that. It had taken an entire company to bring the warrior down. They wouldn’t have been able to do it if I had been with him, he thought. He cursed the prince for ordering him away from his side, cursed his rotting flesh to Sheol and so be it. Above all, he cursed Jonathan’s foolishness for remaining loyal to his father when he could have seized the throne and restored order.

  Gareb had followed Jonathan’s final orders; he had run from the field when the final line of Hebrew warriors broke, exactly as he’d been told to, and now he would live with that decision until Yahweh chose to kill him. He wanted that to happen before he had to drag himself into the camp of that cowardly man living among the Philistines. Perhaps he was cursed.

  Never leave your master in the day of war. It was the armor bearer’s first rule, and he had broken it. Although Jonathan himself had ordered him away, Gareb’s heart was heavy with guilt. Many men had with honor died on the field. He should have been one of them, and now Yahweh was punishing him by making him go to David with all the other failures of Israel.

  He threw down the spear and watched it clatter across the rocks. The army, what remained of it, would be leaderless. Philistia would subjugate the northern tribes, and eventually the southern tribes would fall in line. Most of the royal line was now dead. The only men worthy of inheriting the throne lay slaughtered in the fields below him. Unified Israel had lasted for the lifetime of only one king. It was an embarrassment to the world. The Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians—all of them would mock and scorn the pitiful band of tribesmen who had briefly tasted freedom after years of chaos.

  Only he can stop this … Yahweh is with him.

  Gareb shook his head to forget Jonathan’s words and drank in the windy night around him, enjoying the brilliance of the stars over his head for a while longer. He would grieve for the men tomorrow. There was no time for it now. He had to go find the man who brought this upon them all, and he would do it for Jonathan. He would hate it, but he would do it.

  He crawled off the boulder and headed south.

  Abner, Saul’s general, sat on the same ridge.

  He fingered a deep cut on the side of his leg, felt the warm blood as it seeped through the wool bandage he had tied around it. The pain had stopped earlier, but the bleeding would not let up. Until it did, he was forced to sit against the tree and wait. He was good at waiting.

  When the Philistine archers and charioteers from the valley had found the gentle, unguarded slope that allowed them to attack Israel’s army from behind, ending the battle, Abner had slipped away in the confusion. By the time he’d reached the hilltop the battle was over. His army was gone.

  His relative Saul was no more. He would need to see to organizing the remnant of the army. When all the generals but himself were dead, he had left the field, as was customary, since it would be up to him to restore order. There were undoubtedly only a few hundred fighters left, but whatever was out there would gather, and he would find them.

  Ish-bosheth, the remaining son of Saul, was weak and easily swayed. Abner knew he would need to stiffen him up for the throne. Philistia may have won the day, but the kingdom of Israel would remain as long as Abner had something to do with it.

  Abner checked his bleeding again, and thought about David.

  He had been there the day the young man killed the giant, had been present in the war councils during reports of his victories. He even respected him. He knew David would come for the throne at any time. That was why he had been serving the Philistines. He would be their vassal. Abner nodded. If he took the throne, David would make a worthy king. But the tribe of Saul, Abner’s own tribe of Benjamites, needed to retain the throne. As the smallest tribe, they had the best chance of unifying the people. David was a man of Judah, and Judah was too large and powerful. The northern tribes would never submit to David without another long and bloody civil war.

  Abner was getting older. Intrigue and political maneuvering seemed inconsequential to him now. But he would do this final service. He would reorganize the army and retreat with it into the hill country, and once they were strong again, he would hit the invaders harder.

  If the usurper from Judah interfered, he would hit him as well.

  Part Four

  TWENTY-THREE

  Benaiah watched the dust rising in front of him, disturbed by the feet of hundreds of men. There was no talking, no noise except the pounding of sandals on the ground. Not the usual laughter. Officers did not even shout orders. David had ordered silence and speed.

  Benaiah was at the front of a column formation three men wide. There were twenty soldiers in the bodyguard, assembled in haste and told that they were to follow the chief wherever he went. Benaiah had had no time to organize them yet. Officers had recommended these men based on their service
so far, but he would need to conduct a better investigation of each man when they were finished. A foreign king would pay handsomely for an assassination attempt from the inner circle.

  David trotted next to him, eyes focused on the road ahead, the great sword strapped to his back. Benaiah watched it rise and fall with his stride, and the effect was calming. It distracted him from thinking about his wife’s hair, and how it was probably slipping out from under her shawl in the way he loved. And then the image distorted into smoke and darkness and terror, and rough men were grabbing her, tearing at her. He saw himself leaning against the blade, trying to kill himself. He would have done it, if not for Keth.

  When David had spoken to them outside the house, the men had responded. Benaiah had never seen David so determined, and his determination had made the men eager to give chase. A few still whispered threats under their breath, so the Three were tasked with keeping an eye on them.

  Outside the city, they had passed through a corridor of valleys that led to the south. There were occasional forests and hills, and they used these to screen their movement from spies. It was land they knew well, having passed through it many times en route to raids. The sun was directly overhead — noonday. There was more than enough light for an assault if they caught up with the Amalekites soon.

  He flexed his arms to keep the blood steady. They traveled light, only a ration of water and a bag of food apiece. They would eat what they captured when they captured it.

  Benaiah stepped closer to David. “Did those tracks farther back look fresh to you?”

  David nodded without looking at him. “They did. They are lazy and sluggish, and they think all of us are still in the north. They have no reason to hurry. They might only be hours ahead.”