Day of War (3 page)

The lion lowered its head and flattened its ears, signaling a charge. It roared again.

Within arrow range now, Benaiah lifted his bow up and pulled the notched end of the arrow to his mouth. The motion was so familiar that he had the lion within his sights instantly.

The lion struck the last of the dogs down, then sprang from its crouch toward the terrified Haratha. Benaiah’s foot slipped on the snow and he lost his target. He yelled again for Haratha to release while he struggled to stand again.

Before the creature reached him, Haratha managed to launch a copper pellet that miraculously hit the charging animal in the head. A spurt of red mist erupted from the lion’s face. It snarled and paused briefly to paw at its head where the pellet had struck it in or near the eye. By that time Benaiah had regained his balance and sent an arrow into its hide.

The lion winced at the arrow but leaped again, struck Haratha, and tumbled with him across the slope. The lion slashed and snarled, but abandoned Haratha and sprang up the slope toward Benaiah.

Benaiah felt his muscles tense. The animal moved faster than he’d thought it could on the snow, but he was ready. The arrow he sent would have caught the creature in the throat if it hadn’t slipped on an icy rock and stumbled.

That was all he had time to do before, with a flash of golden fur and the hot stench of rotting flesh from the animal’s jaws, he felt the animal’s crushing weight and infinite strength, and then he was rolling, smashed against the frozen ground, his face grinding against the icy pebbles as the monster roared in his ear.

Benaiah managed to stop by shoving his hand into a snow bank and digging his fingers all the way to the ground. He winced, waiting for the next strike, but the lion had turned away from him, lowering its head and flattening its ears. Then it charged back toward Haratha—but Jairas had stepped between them, sword in hand.

Benaiah regained his footing and rushed forward, searching for his fallen spear in the snow since another shot with an arrow would risk hitting one of the others. Benaiah shouted for Jairas to stab instead of swing, but in his panic to save Haratha, Jairas could not hear him and hacked away harmlessly at the animal’s neck. The lion ignored his blows, attacking instead the one who’d ruined its eye.

Haratha screamed, the lion roared, and just as Benaiah reached the spear, the lion’s claws sank into Haratha’s thighs and it threw itself on top of him. Benaiah snatched the spear out of the snow and lunged toward the fight.

The lion had stretched its jaws wide enough that it looked as if it was about to swallow Haratha’s head. A hard bite with those fangs would burst through the boy’s skull, killing him instantly.

Benaiah shifted his grip and aimed the spear thrust at the lion’s head instead of its flank. The spearhead impaled the muscles on the lion’s jaws as it bit Haratha. The fangs slashed into Haratha’s scalp, spraying a wave of blood onto the snow, but the bite from its wounded jaw lacked enough force to penetrate.

Snarling and shrieking, the lion twisted away and released the boy. Benaiah snatched Haratha by the collar and jerked him backward, away from the lion.

Roaring, the animal pawed at the shaft of the spear lodged firmly in its jaw. Benaiah shrugged the shield straps off his back in order to move better and dove for the spear handle, landing on top of it, ripping it back out of the lion’s face.

Jairas appeared again, still trying to hack at the animal’s hide. This time his aim went true, and he slid the tip of the sword into the lion’s flank. Benaiah hauled the spear up and shoved it into the bloody fur. It stopped against bone. He pulled it back and shoved it again, this time finding the soft underbelly in front of the rear leg.

The lion spun in a circle, knocking Jairas over and pulling Benaiah back to the ground. Benaiah clung to the shaft as the lion tried
to run away. The spearhead was now lodged in the rib cage — a killing blow, if Benaiah could hold on long enough.

The lion turned and lashed out with its paw once more. Benaiah dodged it, yelling curses and pushing the spear as hard as he could. Every muscle in his arms burned with exhaustion.

The animal snarled and slipped onto its side. It tried to stand again but couldn’t. A leg kicked several times as a spurt of dark blood erupted from the spear wound in its flank. It lashed at them again, weaker. It coughed blood from its lungs, along with the coppery smell of rotting flesh and blood. With a final swipe of its paw, it bit at the rocks and the earth before lying still.

Benaiah let his face fall into the snow and released the spear shaft. The ice felt good against his eyelids. His face started to go numb against the snow, and he wished he could make that numbness permeate the rest of his body.

He took several deep breaths, then stood and walked to the lion’s head. He prodded the remaining eye with his foot to ensure that it was dead. No response. Benaiah had once walked away from a kill only to be attacked from behind. He believed that these creatures were capable of hate. Satisfied that this one was dead, he looked around for his companions.

Jairas was fumbling with a water pouch next to the still form of Haratha, trying to work the frantic energy out of his hands. Benaiah knelt next to them and put his finger on the boy’s neck. Haratha’s eyes blinked open when Benaiah touched him.

Haratha’s scalp was ripped into divots from the fangs, and blood poured from the tears in his thigh. His chest was sliced into ribbons of skin, exposing the bones of the rib cage. The dull, white gleam of his exposed skull was slowly becoming soaked with blood. Haratha clenched his jaw stoically.

“You come from hard Judah stock,” Benaiah encouraged him.

Haratha smiled weakly.

“I will carry him,” Benaiah said to Jairas, pulling out strips of cloth to bind the wound. “You carry my weapons. We only have an hour or so before he bleeds out.”

Benaiah pulled a vial of olive oil from his pouch and poured it into Haratha’s cuts while the icy wind bit at them. He emptied salt into the cuts as well, causing Haratha to swoon from pain and shock. Benaiah slapped his face.

Jairas held Haratha down while Benaiah wrapped the largest wounds with bandage cloth. He tightened a knot with a stick to cease the flow of blood, which was spurting gently onto the snow and forming a scarlet pool. Finally Benaiah sat back, exhausted, and watched Haratha’s blood fill the snow. He felt the cold numbing his mind and slowing his thoughts.

“You have wounds as well,” Jairas said.

Benaiah examined his arm, then felt his shoulders. “Not deep. I will wash them out. But not now. The boy will die if we don’t hurry.”

“Your bow and arrows?” Jairas said, nodding to a spot nearby. The bow’s string had snapped when the lion pounced, along with the shafts of all of the arrows in the quiver.

Benaiah cursed. The bow was among the prizes of his weaponry, brilliantly made from something called bamboo wood by a master craftsman from lands far to the east. It had cost him a tremendous amount of gold and considerable haggling with the wily merchant. His fellow warriors, especially the archers, could barely disguise their envy. He was relieved that the bow itself had not broken, but it would take him awhile to string it properly again, and he certainly did not want to do it in cold weather.

Benaiah raked his fingers through his beard, then pulled the collar of his tunic away from his neck, a nervous habit he had picked up and could not shake. After a count, he hoisted the boy onto his shoulders.

“We are only an hour’s walk above the village if we cut straight down from here,” Jairas said. “It would be rougher going but a much shorter journey.”

Benaiah nodded.

Snow was falling steadily now, filling the barren spaces on the ground that the previous storm had missed. After a few moments of stumbling, they started to make good progress. Benaiah became hopeful that they would make it down from the pass before the storm settled in and made travel impossible.

He had just begun to relax his breathing and find a rhythm in his steps when another lion attacked.

The animal had been lying in wait in a small thicket on the slope. The hot roar blew across Benaiah’s face as the paws, with immense force, struck his head. He dropped Haratha and threw his arms in front of the lion’s jaws, his throat scratching out a cry and his legs giving way. The power was overwhelming. He could see nothing but golden fur, feel nothing but the lion’s crushing strength.

Like the other lion, this one wrapped him up with its paws and was trying to bite his neck. Heat and steam from the lion’s breath covered him. The lion’s screams made him dizzy as he fought— although all he could do was roll his body to the side, away from Haratha. Benaiah felt like vomiting as the rancid breath closed around his face.

They rolled several times down the mountainside, one of Benaiah’s arms pinned to his side by the lion’s weight and strength. Benaiah wrenched away from the jaws as they snapped for his neck. A fang caught his scalp and he felt hot, blinding pain.

The ground gave way on one side, and he sensed that they were struggling on the edge of a drop-off of some kind, either a cliff or a pit. Something erupted in his strength, his right arm slipped out of the lion’s grip, and he shoved the creature as hard as he could while stabbing its eye with his thumb. It released its grip, slipped on
the loose, icy rocks, and tumbled backward into a pit. The animal landed with a thump on the bottom.

Benaiah wiped blood from his forehead where the claws had gashed him and staggered back up the slope. He had to find a weapon quickly. The lion might leap out of the pit at any moment and resume the attack. The wounds in his skin burned like coals; he was losing a lot of blood.

The commotion had revived Haratha, who was now sitting up and insisting to Jairas that he could walk. The older man argued that the boy would further damage his body if he did not remain still.

“No, take advantage of his strength,” Benaiah said to Jairas. “Let him walk with you back down the mountain. You need to get him back quickly, and it will take too long if you drag him. I will climb into the pit and get the lion.”

“Don’t be a fool. It will tear you apart.”

Benaiah ignored him and knelt by Haratha.

“Let me stay with you,” said Haratha. He still looked dazed, the loss of blood turning his skin as pale as the snow around them. Benaiah had seen these erratic bursts of energy from wounded men before. He would become delirious soon.

“Who is your father?” Benaiah asked.

“Eleb.”

“Haratha son of Eleb, you fought well today. You will return to your woman if you can manage to stay awake.”

“I … have no woman. I am trying, though.”

They all laughed and Benaiah clapped him on his good shoulder. He helped Haratha to his feet and the young man leaned against Jairas for support.

Roars erupted from the pit behind them. They could hear thudding and crashing as smaller rocks cascaded. Benaiah considered going back down to the village with Jairas and Haratha. Losing a man to the jaws of a lion was the last thing David’s little army
needed right now; every one of them would make a difference in the coming days.

But the faces of the dead boy’s parents in the village appeared in Benaiah’s mind. The familiar pit in his gut gnawed at him, and he knew he had to make sure this lion would die. If it escaped, it would surely return to terrorize the village. They were relentless when they had developed a taste for man.

He swore under his breath.

“Get moving. I’ll catch up,” Benaiah said, sliding the back straps of his shield off. “You are certain?”

“You need to get him back. His family will need him.” “Perhaps it will die down there. It has not come out. It might be trapped.”

“It might escape, and it will not relent if it does. Just get him back to the village.”

Jairas looked at him a moment longer, then nodded.

Benaiah watched them disappear down the slope into the forest. He felt the sudden urge to say something else. He shouted toward them as the wind picked up.

“I have a woman. Tell her …” But they kept walking without turning. He assumed they could not hear him over the noise of the storm. He let it go.

The clouds swirled and increased, grappling along the ridges above and tossing more and more snow onto the slopes. The weather in this high country was unnerving. And it was getting colder. He had heard of men dying from the sleep brought by cold weather.

Relief, he thought. The best way to go. Slip softly into Sheol, the faces gone at last, the pain dulled by the cold darkness.

More roars came from the pit, more pebbles scraped loose. He expected to see the black-maned monster tear out of the hole and race toward him. He clenched his teeth.

His death would not come from sleep.

Benaiah picked up his spear and walked to where an old tree was lying on its side, roots hardened by age jutting into the air. Finding a good root with a sharp end and a twist in the center to grip, Benaiah pulled down with all of his weight and broke it away from the tree. In the old days, roots such as this one were among the only weapons his people could muster. It would work well against the creature.

Benaiah checked the dagger on his belt, then discovered with dismay that his water pouch had been torn apart by the lion’s claws. It had protected the flesh on his side, but now he was left with nothing to drink. He scooped up a handful of snow and tried to quench his thirst with it.

He reached the edge of the pit and peered down. It was a hunting pit, clearly dug many years before, probably by ancient hunters who had enlarged a natural cave in the hillside. Eight or nine cubits across, about the same depth. Normally hunting pits would be covered with brushwood and approaches dug so that a group of hunters could drive the lion toward a narrow cleft where the pit’s covering would give way, trapping the animal. The hunters would then rain arrows on it until the animal died.

But Benaiah had none of those luxuries.

He could see the lion pacing in the corner, occasionally crossing a patch of snow that had drifted in. It huffed air in great plumes of breath, roaring and gasping in the low-pitched rumble that could be heard for an entire day’s walk away. Especially at night, he remembered, when the still desert breeze brought the sound through the Nile reeds.