David Ascendant

by Brian Godawa

  He only had one chance to hit the lion’s skull and stun it. Then he would have to jump it and plunge his dagger into its brain. If he missed his target, the monster would probably rush him and cut him to pieces. He was only thirty feet from the predator. He had practiced at greater distances.

  The lion stayed in its position, guarding its prize. Its large mane and beard spread out with regal display. Bears were bulky brutes, wolves were self-protective and stayed in packs. But lions were vicious and cunning. They seemed to have a sense of vindictive hatred for humans in Judah, probably because so few of them were left since the advance of Israelite settlement.

  David slung the straps back and forth to build up momentum and keep the lion from reacting to sudden movement. Then he increased the spin and swung the sling in an arc over his head.

  The lion stood with a predatory glare. It was large. It could look David straight in the eyes, standing up. It crouched, ready to leap.

  David released.

  But he was off his mark. Terribly off. The stone did not even hit the monster at all. It grazed past its mane and onto the ground far behind it.

  He had missed. It was an easy target, and he had missed.

  He had no time to even consider frustration. The lion bounded toward him, ready to rip open its new victim with jaws of iron.

  David reached down and grabbed the staff. He raised it up just as the lion pounced. The staff jammed spear-like into the roaring gullet of the unsuspecting carnivore. It lodged deep in the animal’s throat. The lion became disoriented and choking. It tried to paw the large stick out of its mouth.

  David rolled backward on the ground from the force of the encounter. He used the lion’s moment of confusion to draw his dagger and jump onto the back of the monster. He grabbed its mane and held on. The creature circled wildly around, trying to loose itself.

  It was too much for the lion. David reached around with one hand in the mane and the other gripping his dagger. He jammed the blade into the eye of the beast. It roared in pain.

  David thrust again, this time finding the ear and going deep into the brain.

  The creature shuddered from the lethal blow. It took a few more moments before the gigantic feline fell to the ground in seizures.

  David stayed on the back, gripping it tightly until he was sure the thing was finally, truly dead.

  He pushed himself off the lion and wiped the blade on the fur of the corpse.

  He smiled victoriously. He had killed the King of Beasts. It reminded him of the mighty Judge of Israel, Samson, who killed lions with his bare hands. Looking up, he murmured a prayer, “Praise Yahweh, who saves me from the mouth of the lion.”

  His blood ran hot. He felt filled with the glory of strength and victory. Then he remembered what else had been surging through his veins earlier.

  “Miriam,” he gasped.

  He ran back to the rocks where he had told her to stay.

  She was not there.

  He looked around in a panic. Was there another lion? Had another beast carried her away?

  His eyes caught the form of Miriam running down the hillside on her way back to the village.

  The rush of energy in his body from his death-defying encounter began to fade, followed by a flush of realization in his soul. A sudden flood of conviction came over David.

  He fell to the ground on his knees and wept. He had come so close to violating Yahweh’s law. He was angry with himself, with his passionate excess. He felt the weight of contradiction that one moment he would be singing praises to Yahweh and exulting in the glories of heaven, and the next moment, he would feel himself a slave of his fleshly desire for the female sex. He was like Samson in more than just his gibborim ways. Samson had been Yahweh’s deliverer of Israel not long ago, yet he had been undone by his weakness for women.

  “I am a hypocrite, my Lord,” he cried, “I am unworthy of you. I am a slave of my flesh while I proclaim my devotion of the spirit. Please forgive me, Yahweh. Give me the strength to honor you in my deeds, not merely my lips.”

  That last word brought to mind what his lips had just recently been doing with illicit intent. He muttered a change of phrase, “Not merely my words.”

  A voice interrupted his repentance. “David!”

  David looked up. It was Elihu, his next older brother.

  “Every time I come to get you, you are crying. Just because you are the baby of the family does not mean you should be crying all the time. It is not befitting of manliness.”

  David said nothing. Elihu would always misunderstand him. Elihu was an idiot.

  Elihu continued, “Get down to the village, will you? Father has called us all before the Seer.”

  “Samuel?” said David.

  “Yes. Who else would it be, Eliab, the Seer?” Eliab was their eldest sibling. They often joked about how self-important Eliab considered himself, as the first born. He acted like he was a prince.

  Elihu concluded, “It is very important. Samuel has sacrificed a heifer and has consecrated our entire family. Now he is asking to see you.”

  “Me?” said David, confused.

  Elihu said, “Stop repeating what I am saying and go now!”

  David ran.

  Chapter 16

  3 Weeks Earlier

  King Agag of Amalek was a giant who stood about eight feet tall, with sinewy musculature and angular facial features. He was bald and wore an antler headdress as his crown. His ears had been artificially cut into pointed wolf-like shape and his body was pierced all over with rings, bars and bones. In battle, he wore the traditional war paint of the Amalekites: white with black accents of lightning bolts and jagged edges. But he did not wear war paint at this moment, because he was not at war. He was in captivity in the Israelite city of Gilgal by the river Jordan.

  King Saul stood opposite him staring at his sworn enemy, now held in chains in the prison outside the royal palace. They were alone. He noticed a restlessness and a slight tremor in the arms and head of his captive, accompanied by a perpetual grin that looked more painful than humorous and resulted in occasional blurts of maniacal laughter. These Amalekites were not merely evil, they were stricken with a madness because of their diet of human flesh. They were cannibals. They were also very hard to kill. They engaged in dark rituals and howled when they fought because they were known to be possessed by the siyyim and iyyim, howling desert demons. They worshipped the satyr goat god Azazel and the goddess Lilith, connected with their Edomite and Seirim past.

  Saul was king of Israel and Yahweh had commanded him to wipe out the Amalekites. They were considered herem, one of several specific clans and nations that Yahweh devoted to complete destruction. Every man, woman and child were to be put to the sword. Even the animals were not to be held alive for spoil.

  As far as Saul knew, this was because the Amalekites were the first to attack the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness when they first left Egypt’s slavery in the Exodus. Joshua had fought them valiantly and rose in esteem and rank to eventually become the general of the forces of Moses the Deliverer. The Amalekites were a nomadic desert tribe who rode camels. Saul vaguely remembered there being a phrase about Yahweh promising to blot out the descendants of Amalek. He had no doubt the presence of Rephaim giants in their midst was reason as well.

  Saul had recently returned from his herem campaign against the Amalekites all the way from the Desert of Shur near Egypt to the reaches of Havilah in the Negeb. He had blotted them out, just as Yahweh commanded; every man, woman and child. And he had built a monument to his victory in the nearby city of Carmel.

  There were a few roaming bands of Amalek in Philistia, but he left those alone rather than stir up the Philistines, with whom he had already had too much trouble. He also let the people spare the best unblemished oxen and sheep alive for sacrifice at Gilgal. And he had spared King Agag because he found him fascinating. Saul had a morbid curiosity of the dark side of reality that he kept hidden from the likes of the holy seer Samuel. He fe
lt strangely drawn to the forbidden.

  “What is it like to eat human flesh?” asked Saul.

  Agag answered, “When you execute me, you can find out for yourself by eating mine.”

  It repulsed Saul. He would never do such a thing.

  “Why do you do it? Why do you not just eat animals?”

  “Because when we consume our enemies, we absorb their life force into ourselves. We become stronger.” Agag punctuated his sentence with a snide burst of laughter that reminded Saul of a hyena.

  These monsters must be mad, Saul thought, to consider their deteriorating muscle control a sign of strength.

  Saul was near sixty years of age, but he still felt vigorous and healthy, like he could live another sixty.

  “How far back can you trace your Rephaim heritage?”

  “To King Arba, father of the mighty Anak. How far back can you trace yours?”

  “I am not a Rapha,” said Saul.

  “You are much taller than your fellow Israelites.”

  Saul became annoyed. He was unusually tall, but that didn’t mean he had Nephilim blood. For one thing, he lacked the extra fingers and toes that his bound adversary clearly had. Though he had heard not all descendants of the Nephilim had such extra digits.

  Agag pushed further. “Have you not wondered why you stand out from them? Why you are so – superior?”

  Saul did feel alienated from his fellow Israelites in more ways than one. But he was not going to admit that to this cursed one. He changed the subject.

  “Yet, here you stand, the mighty superior Agag, chained in captivity by your inferiors.”

  Agag’s perpetual toothy grin seemed a constant mockery to him. He wanted to wipe that smile off his face with a sword.

  Saul added, “Samuel the Seer told me that the king of Israel will exterminate the last of the giants in the land. He calls you and your minions the Seed of the Serpent.”

  Agag responded, “The Ob of Endor told me that you have been a naughty king, that your kingdom shall not continue, and that your god has sought out another prince after his own heart. She calls you the Seed of None.”

  Saul’s face went pale. Those words hit him like a dagger to the heart —the exact words that Samuel used, another prince “after his own heart.” He knew Obs were slithery sorceresses and necromancers. But who was this Ob of Endor and how did she know that secret?

  Saul had recently beaten the Philistines at Michmash. He had been told by Samuel to wait at Gilgal for his arrival and they would sacrifice to Yahweh. But Samuel had been delayed. Saul worried that the Philistines might attack again before he could entreat the Lord, so he had gone ahead and sacrificed without Samuel. When Samuel finally arrived, he was angry with Saul. He cursed the king saying that because he had not kept the command of Yahweh, his kingdom would not continue. Then he had said, “Yahweh has sought out a man after his own heart, and Yahweh has commanded him to be prince over his people.”

  Saul had no idea who this prince was and Samuel would not say. It seemed to Saul that it might have been a rash comment blurted out of anger without any real significance, especially since things went on as normal.

  Saul’s son Jonathan went on to personally secure the surrender of a Philistine garrison on his own. Saul commanded the soldiers to abstain from eating honey. But when he discovered Jonathan had disobeyed the order, he tempered his own rash command and forgave Jonathan. Surely Yahweh was as forgiving as well.

  But Samuel’s words had shaken Saul to his very soul. He had tried to be a man after God’s heart. He had questioned his calling because he thought his father’s house was too humble of position in Israel. He had fought against the Philistines without concern for his own survival. He avoided drawing attention to his kingship so that Israelites would not elevate him too highly. What more could Yahweh ask for?

  Agag interrupted his thoughts, “You do not look well, King Saul. Was it something I said?”

  That grin. That malicious annoying grin. Followed by another laughing cackle that stung Saul like a scorpion. Maybe strangling this savage would be better than cutting his throat.

  A royal herald interrupted Saul from behind. “My lord, the Seer has arrived. He requests an audience.”

  “Send him in.”

  When Samuel entered, he glared with a surprised look of shock at Agag. Samuel was now an old man in his eighties. He had white hair, a straggly beard and an unkempt appearance. He no longer cared for the things of this world and tended to act as if he could not wait to leave it all. It led to him having a rather ornery disposition.

  His glare turned back to Saul. “I cried out all night before Yahweh on your behalf.”

  Saul felt like a child being scolded for something he did not know he did wrong. He often felt this way with Samuel, as if he could be slapped at any moment. He tried to be positive.

  “Blessed be you to Yahweh, Samuel. I have obeyed the commandment of Yahweh.”

  Samuel did not change his glaring look. “Then what is the bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen that rings in my ears?”

  Saul knew he was referring to the enemy spoils. He scrambled to explain. “The people saved the best of the animals of the Amalekites to sacrifice them unto Yahweh. But the rest I destroyed immediately, just as Yahweh commanded…”

  “Stop!” yelled Samuel. “I will tell you what Yahweh told me last night.”

  Saul gulped. He was in trouble again. He seemed to always be in trouble with Yahweh.

  Samuel spoke like a chastising father. “You thought so lowly of yourself. But Yahweh anointed you to be king over all the tribes of Israel. And he gave you a command. A simple command: to devote all the Amalekites and their belongings to destruction.”

  “But I obeyed the voice of Yahweh. I went on his mission and I devoted the Amalekites to destruction just as you said, and I brought their King before you. It was the people who spared the sheep and oxen from the ban to bring here to sacrifice before Yahweh.”

  King Agag chuckled at Saul’s blame shifting. Samuel did not dignify the pagan with a look. He fumed.

  “Does Yahweh have as much satisfaction in burnt offerings and sacrifice as he does in those obeying his voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice. Your rebellion is as the sin of divination. Your presumption is as idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, he has also rejected you from being king.”

  Agag cackled again. Samuel ignored the despicable Amalekite.

  Saul fell to his knees and cried out, “I have sinned. I have disobeyed the voice of Yahweh and followed the voice of the people. Please forgive my sin and return with me that I may bow before Yahweh.”

  Samuel snorted. This was just like Saul. He was a manipulator. He turned his religious displays on and off with such insincerity it repulsed Samuel. The time for patience was over.

  “I will not return with you. Yahweh has rejected you from being king over Israel.”

  He turned to leave. Saul grabbed Samuel’s cloak so tightly, the hem ripped. “Please, Samuel, please. Return with me, I beg of you.”

  Samuel looked at his torn hem, then back to Saul. “Yahweh has torn your kingdom from you and has given it to another.”

  Saul broke down weeping in pathetic tears. “I am sorry. Please restore me before the elders!”

  Samuel knelt down by Saul. “You have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh. He will not change his mind. But I will do what you should have done.”

  He grabbed Saul’s sword from his scabbard and walked over to Agag. Agag became uneasy. His mouth dried up. He angled for mercy. “Surely, glorious Seer, the bitterness of death is passed. I will gladly bow before this Yahweh and serve him as subject.”

  Samuel said, “Your sword has made women childless. So your mother shall be childless forever.”

  He raised the sword and brought it down upon Agag’s collar bone. It cut deep, severing his shoulder. Agag screamed in pain as blood spurted everywhere.

  Agag managed to get out one last sentence, �
��Damn your god and king, Seer!”

  “No,” replied Samuel with a hushed tone. “Damn your gods and seed.” And he swung again. The blade severed the giant’s head from his body. It fell to the floor and rolled near the feet of Saul who gasped in horror at the ghastly eyes staring into his soul.

  Samuel hacked and hacked at Agag’s body until it was cut to pieces and he was drenched in the blood of the dead giant.

  Finally, he stopped, breathing heavily from the exertion. He turned to the startled king, still kneeling on the floor stunned. He threw the sword clanging onto the floor by Saul.

  “That is what you should have done.”

  Saul was speechless.

  Samuel said, “I am going to Ramah. Our paths shall never cross again — this side of Sheol.”

  Samuel left.

  Chapter 17

  David hurried down the hill to get back to the village. Bethlehem was an insignificant town on the edge of the desert of Judah five miles south of Jerusalem. There were only a few hundred residents. Though it was the burial place of Rachel, the patriarch Jacob’s wife, it never rose to prominence. David’s father Jesse was not a wealthy man and had no status to be known for. He had eight sons, and David was the youngest and often neglected.

  When he arrived at the high place altar in the middle of the square, he stopped to see the townspeople gathered with the elders. Upon the altar, a heifer had been sacrificed and was burning. Elihu had stayed watching the sheep while David came down to the town. David’s six other brothers lined up with his father at the foot of the altar.

  Samuel the Seer stood before the family. Everyone stared at David, waiting for him.

  Samuel felt like an ominous presence to David and the rest of the village. It seemed that whenever he came around, it was because Yahweh had some kind of chastisement for the people. They wanted to avoid incurring the prophet’s displeasure or Yahweh’s rebuke. Worse yet, they didn’t want their town to be of such significance that God’s holy Seer would take interest in it. That could bring some political prominence that would only end in trouble to these peaceful people. They just wished to stay out of the concern of authorities.