Covenant of War (20 page)

David took cover behind a boulder. The pause in the fighting came at just the right time. His arm was weary from the sling, and he was
gasping for breath.
Lying around in the palace harem makes a man soft. Forgive me, Yahweh
.

He checked the valley’s east and west ends and saw his troops in their positions. The other two commanders should be rushing down the hillside at any moment to sweep across the ambush line and destroy the demoralized Philistine remnants. Eleazar had charged the platoon nearest the barley field and was finishing them off. All was going as planned.

Bless you for your covering and your strength in the day of war
.

David closed his eyes, felt the sea breeze stirring up. He caught the smell of sweat and gore swirling on the wind. It was getting hot. Dust scratched in his eyelids. He coughed. Thirsty. So thirsty. All he could think about was water. He opened his eyes and stared hard at the ridge across the valley.

The Philistines were scattered and disorderly across the valley floor, their perimeters had been broken by their foolish attempt to bring chariot horses into the hill country, troops were losing their discipline. This was the best possible time to hit them.

Where was the second assault?

Ittai saw another Hebrew running between the overturned chariots, almost upon him.

He swung his bow at the warrior, but too late — the warrior blocked it easily with his short sword. Before Ittai could move again, the Hebrew had cut down two more of Ittai’s troops. Ittai shouted warnings, but now his entire lead platoon was gone, along with the horses. He cursed and spat on the ground. The Hebrew darted away from the last corpse and charged Ittai again. Ittai was ready this time and held up his own sword to meet him.

The Hebrew feinted high. Ittai anticipated it and met him with a low block when the sword cut low. He twisted his shoulders away to absorb the force of the blow, trying to trip the Hebrew as he rushed past, but his opponent knew it was coming and pivoted at the last second.

Ittai caught the edge of the Hebrew’s armor with his sword and tripped him. As the man hit the ground Ittai was on him, trying
to choke him, screaming in his face, feeling the man’s hot breath. Sweat flowed into his eyes. They rolled and wrestled, then the Hebrew squirmed out of his grip and jumped up.

Ittai blocked a strike, tried kneeing him in the ribs. The man was too fast — he avoided it, and Ittai tried to toss him again, but the Hebrew stepped out of reach.

Ittai thought the next move would come low again, but the Hebrew’s fist smashed into his face and knocked him flat. He felt his nose break. Warm blood streamed down his lips into his mouth. The blow had aggravated the injury to his jaw, still painful from his fight with the other two Hebrews days before. His vision went blurry, his head numb.

The Hebrew was on top of him, the sword point at his neck. Ittai closed his eyes and prayed to Dagon that it would be quick.

He waited. Horses shrieked throughout the valley. Men yelled. Nothing came.

He opened his eyes and saw the Hebrew squinting at him through a sweaty brow. He was holding the tip against Ittai’s throat, muttering something in the Hebrew tongue. The two men glared at each other, breathing hard.

Then, to Ittai’s surprise, the Hebrew jumped up and ran in the direction of the next platoon.

Ittai sat forward, reached up to touch his broken nose, and coughed out some of the blood in his mouth. His anger raged.
Dagon, where are you? Give me vengeance!

A bug crawled on a gore-splattered rock between his legs. He watched in a daze as it struggled to make its way through the mess, getting stuck every few steps. He thought of helping it along. An arrow struck the chariot he was sitting near, rousing him.
Move!

He moved to a crouch and watched the next platoon being decimated by the Hebrew warrior, then flicked his eyes to the top of the ridge where the final wave of the ambush would soon cross.
Still nothing. He coughed again, wiped his face on his tunic. Sweat burned in the cut.

Ittai left the bow and quiver, slid the sword into his waistband, and decided to charge the archers shooting relentlessly at them. Assaulting through the ambush would be the only way he and any of his men would survive, and he had to do it before the final wave of Hebrew troops attacked.

He was unsure why he was still alive. The Hebrew god was pouring out his wrath on the invaders from the coast.

Ittai willed the amulet against his chest to do something as he charged toward the grove from which the Hebrew archers were raining violent terror on his men.

David was outraged that the third assault still had not come.

His throat burned with dust and he ached for water. Eleazar had destroyed the rear platoon and was attacking the next, but David knew that he could not keep up such an attack unless the next wave of troops came down.

Angry, David ran back across the field to show his officers on the ridge to attack
right now
. He whirled the sling once, measured again, measured a third time, released it. It glanced a fleeing Philistine harmlessly on the side of his helmet.

David arrived back at the sandy bank and darted across the streambed. Dead Philistines lay in the sand where Eleazar had killed them. The valley went quiet before David reached the top of the bank. He crawled to the lip and checked the ridge.
Still no assault!

The valley had grown quiet because his archers had run out of arrows.

The Philistines, seeing this, had mustered several squads to charge the trees, knowing their only chance to escape the ambush
was to assault through it. Philistine officers had regained control of their troops and were directing a counterattack.

David shouted in frustration as he stared at the ridge above him.

Decide! No hesitation!

He turned and sprinted down the creek toward the gap where one of the two first assaults had taken its position. He kicked sand up his legs as he ran. His feet slid around in the sandals. He kicked them off. Always preferred barefoot. Need the armorers to
— focus!

He reached the gap where his men were supposed to be lined up. Instead, they were fleeing back up the slope they had come from.

“Stop! Get back down here!” he yelled, more furious than he had ever been.

One of the section leaders looked over his shoulder at him and stopped. He pointed west toward the gap. David followed his gesture.

The next Philistine battalion was already coming, and another behind it.

Eleazar killed one more man before he knew the time had come to escape. There were too many. The planned third assault had never come, and the Benjamite archers were trapped in the woods with the Philistines about to run through them.

Eleazar ran back the way he had come, stabbing wounded men who still lived as he went to ensure they would not fight again. He headed for the sandy bank and heard the rustling noise of Philistine arrows as they flew toward him. He knelt behind an overturned chariot, waited for the thumping of the arrows striking the carrier to cease, then continued running.

He searched for David but did not see him.
Must have gone to rally the fleeing troops
. They would need to escape the valley before
it became a slaughter field. He stamped his feet in frustration as he ran.
We had them!
Where was the third assault? Why had Yahweh stopped him from killing that Philistine commander?

He smelled smoke. Turning, he saw a Philistine with a lit torch running across the valley toward the barley field. Eleazar looked away and kept running, but he could not prevent himself from looking again, and then finally stopping. The enemy troops behind him were finally in an assault formation and coming his direction. He glanced at them, then back at the soldier.

The drought had killed most of the crop anyway. It wasn’t worth his life to stop it, was it?

Eleazar looked at the barley field, then the soldier, then the platoon chasing him, then back to the field. He could not see David anywhere.

Ittai burst into the cover of trees expecting to be struck by an arrow at any time. None came. Instead, he saw most of the Hebrew archers scrambling to flee the woods. The few who still wished to fight were out of arrows, for now they came toward him with sickle swords.

Now Ittai made these archers a target for his rage. He slit the belly of the first archer, spun and killed the next. He knelt as another swung his bow. Ittai caught the beam of the bow, jerked it out of the man’s hand, and rammed it against his nose.

But as he bled profusely from the blow, the third Hebrew did a strange thing. He grasped frantically at Ittai’s waist, as though searching for something. Ittai kicked him away, but the wild-animal look on the man’s face made him pause.

What was he looking for? The man’s lips were frothing with spittle, his eyes crazed with lust for something.

Water.

The Hebrews were not charging them just to kill them. They were trying to get their water.

Ittai shouted to whoever could hear him, “If you get hit, slash your water pouches! They are dying of thirst! Don’t let them take your water!” He stabbed the Hebrew archer in the belly before moving on.

Inspired by his actions and words, his men charged faster behind him. Ittai yelled them forward to kill more Hebrews. The remaining archers fled up the hill away from them.

It was obvious to Ittai now that the third ambush he had expected was not coming. Either the Hebrew commanders had lost their nerve or they had already thrown everything they had at the Philistines in desperation.

Yet David himself would not have led a suicide mission. They might not have had time to organize, but surely he had thousands of soldiers in his command. Was the drought so bad? Were more Hebrews out of commission than the Philistine rulers had thought? Where was Keth of the Hittites?

Ittai leaned against a tree to catch his breath and steady his nerves. Daylight filtered down above him. He watched the dust kicked up by the fleeing Hebrews and his pursuing men. Dust covered every leaf, every blade of grass.

There was a renewed sound of commotion behind him back in the valley. Squinting and searching through the gaps in the trees, he saw two things. The first was the Hebrew warrior who had spared him emerging on the slope to his left in a full sprint, and the second was one of his troops from another company carrying a torch in the direction of the barley field on the other side of the valley.

Ittai realized what was happening and laughed. If the man with the torch reached the field and set it ablaze, there would be serious harm done to the farmers of the region. What little remained
of the crop during this drought would be destroyed. A last spite to the Hebrews.

The Hebrew charged toward the barley field, holding his sword out in front of him, his tunic and armor drenched with sweat and covered in blood. Ittai wanted to race after the Hebrew and slaughter him, but he needed to rally his men.

His nose ached, his jaw throbbed. Blood was all over his face and neck.

How far away were his Sword troops?

And where was the Hebrew king?

Farther up the valley from where David and Eleazar had begun the attack, at the point where the road from Bethlehem met with the Rephaim, Benaiah elbowed his way through a bush before pausing against a tree trunk. He waited briefly, then pulled his head just high enough to see through the forest.

It was now midmorning and the sun already raged overhead. Patches of sunlight were visible down the mountainside from his position. The valley opened into grasslands, crisp and brown from the drought, with a road cut by parallel ox-cart ruts long since dried out.

The trees blocked most of his view, but he could make out glinting Philistine armor as the column of troops marched along the road. It looked extremely hot on the road. The troops would be suffering under their metal armor. A possible advantage.

Benaiah let himself slide backward until he was even with Keth.

“They’re on the road. Just like David said.”

“Any chariots?”

“No, looks like the garrison commander in Bethlehem has more brains than the kings from Gath. Light weapons. Mobile. Javelin throwers. Looks like more Sword of Dagon troops. It will be tough.”

“We have the best warriors in the army with us.”

“We’re also outnumbered. Vastly.”

“David said Yahweh promised victory.”

Benaiah nodded absently. Sweat dripped from his brow. He raised the edge of his tunic and wiped his forehead. He saw the scattered figures of the Thirty behind him. It was their task to be the first into a fight and the last to leave, and they met this responsibility with pride. But he had to wonder if this was going to be too much for even them.

Josheb crawled up beside him.

“Two hundred,” Benaiah said.

“Less than we thought, at least. But we still can’t let them meet up with the others.”

“Agreed.”

“Do you think they are as good as we have heard?”

“If they fight like the two that found us in the hideaway, yes.”

“I thought you said there were three.”

“There were. I killed one quickly.”

“Then they aren’t that great.”

“I jumped from above and landed on his neck. He wasn’t expecting me.”

Josheb nodded, then took a short drink from his nearly empty water pouch. He swished the liquid around in his mouth, savoring it, before swallowing with a pained expression.

“Terrible last drink for a man to have. Warm and smelly.”

“They’re carrying water,” Benaiah said.

“Bethlehem has wells that are still full,” said Keth.

“And that’s the only place in the land. They know about the drought just a half day’s walk from the town. Anyone who doesn’t
want to die of thirst has to walk a day to reach Bethlehem. It’s why they fortified the town. They know how valuable it is to us.”

“How well do you think they are coordinated with the force coming up from the plains?” asked Josheb.

“They can’t be. None of the movements we have seen the past few days tell me that they are taking our threat seriously. They’re acting like they just want to snatch as much land for themselves as possible. It’s a risk to draw troops from an important garrison like Bethlehem.”

“Unless they have reason to believe we are not prepared to do anything about it.”

Benaiah cursed, then looked back at the other members of the Thirty scattered in the trees. He saw Gareb a short distance away watching him. He lowered his voice. “When we are done here, I will find the jackal who is spying on us.”

“How can we be surprised when so many members of David’s inner circle are foreigners?” Keth asked.

“You’re a foreigner,” said Josheb.

“No, I have a Hebrew name now. That clears me of all suspicion.”

“I’m still keeping an eye on you.”

Benaiah picked up a twig and chewed on the end of it, ignoring the jokes. “Might be a woman from the harem. He is susceptible to them.”

“We’re wasting time,” Josheb said. The other two nodded.

Josheb sketched on the dirt. “Standard ambush. I will go first. They will expect a trap, then you two go next to make them think you are it. They are used to a handful of men at a time coming just close enough to kill an officer or two and then retreating into the woods. They also know that our army is concentrated on the Rephaim right now. When they believe you are all there is and have their backs turned, the rest of the Thirty can hit them. ‘The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name,’ as Moses once sang.”

“We are with you,” Keth said.

“If you fall, Benaiah, I am picking your wife’s new husband. I’ll give her to Shammah.”

“Yours is nothing but trouble. I’ll give her to Shammah as well.”

“Shammah wouldn’t know what to do with all of those women. Probably turn himself into a eunuch.”

They hugged once more. Then Josheb crawled up and over the stump and disappeared. Benaiah made eye contact with three of the subordinate leaders and motioned them forward. He whispered the plan of attack to them and made them repeat it. Then they eased their way back to their squads.

Now they waited.

Josheb picked out the first officer standing at the edge of the road. He was pausing to squeeze a few drops of water out of a pouch and growling orders at his armor bearer. The column of Philistines was marching five abreast, more disciplined and orderly than the mass of troops they had seen staggering through the Rephaim over the ridges behind them.

Every man was outfitted with light armor of leather and iron pieces and carried short swords for tight skirmishing in the thick brush crowding the mountain slopes. They also carried javelins should they be forced to fight through an ambush. They were stopping for a rest after pressing hard throughout the day, but none of the soldiers ever fully relaxed his guard.

They have skilled commanders. Yahweh, go before us. We need your armies
.

He raised his war bow and aimed at the officer’s head.

Benaiah reached out his hand to Keth, who took it. They clasped wrists and spoke blessings on each other’s families. Keth prayed to Yahweh for the sake of Benaiah’s family in his native Hittite. Benaiah returned the blessing by asking Yahweh to bless the womb of Keth’s new wife, who still had not conceived. It was their private ritual, shared before every battle.

When they were finished, they waited for the sound of the first man to die.

From a short distance away, Gareb watched Benaiah and Keth go through their battle ritual and wished he had his own comrade to share such a moment with. Eliam was more of a son to him than a comrade. They had suffered much together, but he always felt as though he were teaching the young man. What he wanted was someone to bleed with as an equal, like he had with Jonathan.

He wiped his face. He looked around at the other men to see if any were drinking too much of their water out of nerves, then reminded himself that they were the elite warriors and he did not have to watch over them like a father.

There were insects flitting around his face. Gareb ignored them, even as they hummed into his ear and landed in his eyes. No sudden movements, nothing to break discipline. A fly crept into the corner of his mouth and worked its way up his face. Hazy sunlight trickled into his senses from the canopy above. It was hot. Very, very hot. He hated bugs.

He was suddenly afraid. He hated being afraid.