David Ascendant Read online

  Ittai felt his adversary’s grip release him.

  Ittai backed up to see what had happened.

  He had unknowingly shoved Lahmi right into the jagged limb of a large broken tree branch cut by Lahmi’s own blade. It jutted out from Lahmi’s chest, along with his pumping blood pooling on the ground below him.

  Ittai should not have been horrified, but he was. Even though this childhood friend had become a monster, even though Lahmi had sought to cut him down and assassinate Ittai’s messiah king, he still was shocked and horrified at his old friend’s fate.

  Lahmi’s rage cooled as his face turned pale and his breathing labored. Suddenly his look melted into one of familiarity—and regret.

  Ittai saw wetness in the impaled giant’s eye. He croaked out, “Ittai.”

  Suddenly, all the hatred and venom had been drained from this serpent’s fangs.

  “Ittai,” he gurgled again looking down at Ittai’s belt.

  Ittai looked and realized what he meant. Ittai had forgotten that he still had his dagger. Lahmi was asking for a quick death, an honorable death.

  Ittai pulled the dagger and snapped it up to Lahmi’s throat, ready to cut. Lahmi groaned with agony. Every movement of his body brought intense pain from his impaled wound.

  Lahmi looked pleadingly into Ittai’s eyes. Ittai tightened his grip. He gritted his teeth.

  But he could not do it.

  As much as it was his moral right to do so, Ittai felt that this last act between the two of them would seal a hatred he had sought to turn from all his life. He would not finish what Yahweh had started. He would let Yahweh’s judgment take its own course. “Vengeance is mine,” saith Yahweh.

  Ittai shook his head just slightly and wiped the tears that were starting down his own face. The dagger dropped at Lahmi’s feet.

  Ittai slowly, sadly, walked back over to draw the scimitar from the tree and return to the clearing.

  Lahmi gritted his teeth in agony and his knees buckled. His weight broke the branch impaling him, and he fell to the forest floor—where the dagger lay.

  In a last ditch burst of strength, Lahmi picked up the dagger.

  Ittai had his back to Lahmi. He did not see it coming.

  The sounds of battle in the clearing had covered Lahmi’s movements.

  Lahmi lunged at Ittai’s back.

  But he stopped with a last gasp as a sword penetrated his heart from behind, next to the broken limb.

  Ittai turned in surprise.

  Lahmi dropped to the ground to reveal a bloody, wounded Elhanan behind him.

  Elhanan had brought Ittai’s sword from the clearing. It was the sword forged from the sword metal of Goliath, the defeated foe of young David the Anointed One, the Chosen Seed, The Messiah King.

  Now it ended the life of the dead dragon’s wicked brother.

  Elhanan collapsed to the ground.

  If a man does not repent, Elohim will whet his sword;

  Behold, the wicked man conceives evil

  His mischief returns upon his own head,

  and on his own skull his violence descends.

  I will sing praise to the name of Yahweh, the Most High.

  The burning brush fires struck fear into the heart of the gargantuan Argaz. Memories of his immolation caused hesitation that little Jonathan noticed. Was this his chance?

  The fear brought a surge of energy into Argaz. He was a Rephaim warrior, and he had had enough of this pesky little Hebrew mosquito and his stings. He stampeded through a fire, singeing his feet and legs without concern.

  Jonathan had stopped his darting dodges from the giant’s clutches. His back was up against a wall of fire. He had one last shot.

  As Argaz descended upon him, Jonathan nocked his last arrow, aimed, and released.

  It hit his target, the giant’s grisly left eye.

  But it did not go in deep enough to reach the brain.

  And Argaz was pumped up.

  He did not slow down. He ripped the arrow out, pulling his left eye with it, and tossed it behind him.

  That was it. Jonathan was out of arrows and had nowhere to go.

  Argaz was upon him.

  He grabbed the little archer in his huge six-fingered hand.

  He began to squeeze. Would he pop him like a pus filled wound?

  Then Argaz became dizzy.

  He held Jonathan up to his good eye. He wanted to see this bothersome creature before biting off its head. Who was this gnat that could have inflicted so much damage upon the mighty Argaz?

  He was nothing. He was a gasping little mouse that could barely survive the tight hold of the giant’s grip.

  Then Argaz stopped. His thoughts went foggy. Everything swirled and blurred.

  Jonathan grinned through crushing pain.

  He had done it.

  His pestering little pin pricks had all been carefully aimed at precise points of Argaz’s grotesque anatomy. The giant’s naked musculature made easy target for Jonathan’s aim. Know your enemy inside and out, Ittai had told him years ago. So Jonathan had learned where all the vital organs in the body were. He had targeted those spots with his expert precision. He had so punctured the Rapha’s lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, and abdomen that the accumulative effect had finally taken its toll. Argaz’s life had bled out of his vital organs.

  Argaz dropped Jonathan. His good eye rolled up in his head, and he fell dead on his face, right into the flames. The stench of the giant’s burning flesh was both ironic and sweet in the nostrils of his conqueror, the mighty, tiny Jonathan the Mouse.

  Yahweh finally finished the judgment of fire he had begun on the monster all those years ago.

  He has bent and readied his bow;

  he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,

  making his arrows fiery shafts.

  The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;

  he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.

  Mankind will say,

  “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;

  surely there is an Elohim who judges on earth.”

  This was no time to rest in my victory, thought Jonathan. He quickly pulled one of the whole arrows from Argaz’s scarred lower back and nocked it on his bowstring, aiming at Runihura who was being pushed backward by Benaiah’s handling of his staff.

  He released and the arrow hit the Egyptian right in the neck. It was not a kill shot, but it was enough of a wound to make Runihura drop his guard at the sharpness of pain.

  Benaiah saw the opportunity and spun his own staff around the Egyptian’s javelin, disarming him.

  He then knocked the giant to the ground with a series of rapid hits.

  He grabbed Runihura’s own javelin and thrust it into the fallen giant’s heart. Runihura grunted with surprise and pain as he died beneath his own spear.

  Benaiah glared over at Jonathan, a good twenty feet away and shouted, “I had him! I did not need your help!”

  Jonathan shrugged sorry.

  The fires had grown out of control. The entire clearing was surrounded by engulfing flames. Ittai could not get back to his comrades through the circle of fire, so he carried the body of Elhanan with him out to the valley.

  The other warriors in the clearing panicked. Would Yahweh allow them to die in the fires of judgment? Jonathan and Benaiah looked for a way out through the wall of fire, but there was none.

  Their victories were in vain.

  But they had failed to look overhead, where large storm clouds had gathered.

  Thunder drew their attention above and it started to rain. Sheets of it, poured down upon them with lifesaving hope. The true God of storm, Yahweh, had come upon a swift cloud to Philistia, and he opened the floodgates of heaven with his voice of seven thunders.

  Ishbi was still in combat with Abishai when he realized that he alone was left, that David was gone, and that the rain was dousing the fires around him.

  So he turned around and ran through the smoldering brush,
back toward the valley.

  Back toward David.

  • • • • •

  David looked out upon the carnage drenched in the falling rain. The fighting armies were gone. All that was left were the dead. Corpses of Philistines, Rephaim, and Israelites heaped upon one another carpeted the valley.

  David faltered. Benaiah and Mikael held him up. A few Israelite soldiers had been picking through the bodies, killing any survivors with thrusts of sword and spear.

  One of them bowed before David and said, “My lord the Philistine forces were decimated. They split apart and ran away, into the north and west. They are being chased down by Joab as we speak.”

  “We must catch them,” said David. “I must lead my forces.”

  “Joab will do just fine,” said Benaiah, now beside him. “My lord the king should return to Jerusalem.”

  “But I am their king.”

  “Exactly,” said Benaiah. “And that is why you should no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”

  David looked at him as if he had been insulted. But Benaiah held firm. Mikael nodded in agreement. David knew his chief bodyguard was right. He was getting too old, and the assassins had come too close. If he kept going out to war, he would only give his enemies more opportunities to finally achieve their vile serpentine goal of extinguishing the Chosen Seed.

  David pulled away from Benaiah like a child unwilling to accept what he was told. He trod through the muck and the flesh. Small rivers of blood and water formed swirling reddish pools of death everywhere.

  David stepped over bodies, looking all around him at the horrifying results of war. Of course, he had done what he had to do. Yahweh himself had led him to wipe out the Philistines and their Rephaim, and devote to destruction the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. In the heat of battle, there was no time to philosophize or contemplate the eternal meaning of it all.

  But now, in this graveyard of slaughter, as the pouring rain drenched the sea of slain in its heavenly baptism of silent cleansing, he came face to face with the tragedy of his own being. He had become a man of much bloodshed. It had changed him, and he would never be the same. He could never go back. He knew in that moment that his kingdom would never see the shalom of Yahweh over the land. It would take another king, one of his sons, to build a kingdom of peace upon this kingdom of blood.

  He saw a contingent of Rephaim dead strewn about. Their large carcasses were intertwined with the bodies of hairy opponents: Lion Men of Moab. It was a mass butchery.

  The accompanying soldier muttered, “The Lion Men fought well. The last of the Rephaim were annihilated. They are no more.”

  They are no more, thought David. At what price? He reached down and pulled some hair out of the face of one of the Lion Men. He squeezed his eyes tight with the pain of recognition. It was Ezer, their chief. He had been one of those who rescued David from his own countrymen when they attempted assassination. Rain pelted his silent, peaceful sleep, the sleep of the dead.

  David stood back up. The piles and piles of bodies seemed to go on forever. He could not see the end of them through the pouring rain. He could not see where the death would end and new life could begin.

  Save me, O Elohim!

  For the waters have come up to my neck.

  I sink in deep mire,

  where there is no foothold;

  I have come into deep waters,

  and the flood sweeps over me.

  I am weary with my crying out;

  my throat is parched.

  My eyes grow dim

  with waiting for my Elohim.

  More in number than the hairs of my head

  are those who hate me without cause;

  mighty are those who would destroy me,

  Let heaven and earth praise him,

  the seas and everything that moves in them.

  For Elohim will save Zion

  and build up the cities of Judah,

  and people shall dwell there and possess it;

  the seed of his servants shall inherit it,

  and those who love his name shall dwell in it.

  “DAVID!” The voice of Benaiah brought him out of his rumination.

  He looked up to see a figure running at him full tilt from out of the forest with scimitar raised over his head. In the rain, David could not see who it was.

  He only saw it was a giant.

  Benaiah and Mikael were too far away to protect him.

  David had lain his sword down by Ezer and forgot to pick it up.

  Twenty feet, and the giant would be upon him.

  Ishbi had silently run through the forest knowing stealth was his last chance. As he broke the clearing, he saw the two warriors to his right and the single man in royal robe among the bodies. The voices in his head screamed “MESSIAH! MESSIAH!”

  He sprinted with all his might and raised his scimitar to cleave his victim in two. His demonic spirits circled him like a hurricane of furious hate.

  But suddenly, something wrapped around his neck from behind.

  A flexible metal blade.

  As Ishbi made his final launch at David, the wrath of Rahab yanked backward. Ishbi’s body lurched forward, but his head launched backward, sliced from his body by the heavenly sword. The sound of supernatural howling filled the air as Ishbi’s headless corpse landed in the muck with a splash. It slid forward to a stop just feet from David.

  He looked up to see a panting Abishai drop the whip sword and then kneel in the mud catching his breath.

  Mikael was by David’s side in a flash. Benaiah helped Abishai up and found their way to the king.

  The body of Ishbi ben Ob quivered and jerked with the final spasms of death. Blood poured from the lacerated headless neck and mixed with the mud and rain.

  It was a sacred moment of silence for them all.

  But then…

  “Abishai,” said David. “Your brother Joab will no doubt be very jealous of this mighty deed. I do not know if that one can ever be topped.”

  Abishai replied, “You can be sure my lord that he will never hear the end of it.”

  They smiled. They had to find some hope, some life in the midst of all this death.

  Ittai and Jonathan came from the woods and joined them.

  They each threw a giant’s head at the feet of David.

  David said with curiosity, “And who vanquished that colossus?” He figured the large charred black skull was that of Argaz.

  “I did, my lord,” said Jonathan.

  David looked at him with surprise.

  Ittai added, “And he helped take down Runihura as well.”

  Benaiah snapped, “I already had him. He butted in, is what he did.”

  David smiled, reached over and tussled Jonathan’s hair as one would a younger brother. Jonathan hated it when he did that.

  David said, “I do believe my little nephew here may have outdone us all, my legend included.” The men all chuckled.

  Jonathan demurred, “No, my king. Your youthful defeat of Goliath was much more.”

  “The Serpent’s head,” added Ittai. “We merely finished off the tail.”

  “A thrashing powerful tail at that,” said David.

  Abishai whispered to Jonathan, “The chronicles of Israel will probably not record the details of your victory because you are not the king. But we will never forget.”

  David added, “Jonathan, I was wrong. You have proven yourself a mighty gibborim, a giant slayer.” He looked at the others like a father would his children and concluded, “And I think you finally warrant the end of the nickname Mouse. Do you not agree, warriors?”

  They smiled and nodded.

  Ittai said, “I think we should call him Hawk from now on.” The others agreed and Jonathan the Hawk grinned from ear to ear.

  The men suddenly noticed Mikael looking up onto the ridge above them. The rain was starting to clear, but all they could see were six paladin warriors on horses staring down a
t them like solemn harbingers of death.

  Benaiah and the others drew their weapons.

  “Philistine scouts? Assassins?” wondered Ittai aloud.

  “Neither,” said Mikael. “They are my comrades. Late as usual.”

  Benaiah looked at Mikael. “We could have used their help.”

  Mikael said with a knowing smile, “They were helping us.”

  “How?” said Benaiah.

  “You would not believe me if I told you,” grinned Mikael.

  Chapter 85

  The sounds of festive music filled the streets of Jerusalem. Shouts of joy mixed with timbrel, lyre and horns. A parade of women led a procession through the city with dancing streamers that flowed around them like billows of smoky trails.

  Trumpets announced a military parade of triumph. The ark had entered the City of David.

  Behind the ark, at the end of the procession, pairs of oxen dragged statues of gods captured from the Philistines. Images of Dagon, Ba’alzebul, and Asherah ground their faces in the dust before being cast from the heights into the valley below where they were pulverized to pieces.

  After the slaughter of the Philistines at the Valley of the Rephaim, David chased the enemy all the way from Gibeon to Gezer. He then performed a mopping up operation in taking Gath and her surrounding cities. After all the generations of warfare with the Philistines, David, the messiah king of Israel, had finally vanquished the Philistines and eliminated the last of the giants of the land.

  David thought to bring the ark out of hiding and into Jerusalem. But when he sent a team of men to retrieve the ark with a cart and oxen, a terrible incident occurred that shook David to the core of his soul. The cart had been traveling on the road for some time when it hit a bumpy location and the ark began to fall. When one of the men reached out to stop it, he was struck dead by Yahweh at that very spot.

  At first David was angry with Yahweh. Why would he do such a thing? Why would he smite someone who was trying to protect his own covenantal monument?

  But then he became full of fear when the prophet Nathan told him that Yahweh’s holiness was completely disregarded and David should be glad Yahweh did not smite him as well.