Covenant of War by Cliff Graham Page B

only way to prevent men from abandoning an attack on a town in order to rape captives was to get it out of the way early. Depending on how long these two stayed alive, most of a regiment could take their turn and be satiated. After every platoon of soldiers had raped them, the women were given a rest so that they didn’t pass out from shock or, worse, die. Then they’d have to find more, and he had other things to worry about.
    They looked at him now. Empty expressions. All tears had been cried.
    Ittai was nearly thirty-five and had strong, broad shoulders from years of drawing the long bow. His beard was short and neatly trimmed, an indication of his willingness to adopt the methods of other nations when it came to keeping himself fit for war. He wore a full set of armor custom forged to his body by the best smith in the land. His eyes searched the surrounding countryside constantly. His only physical flaw was the fragment of his ear that had been removed by a poorly aimed Ammonite war axe.
    He was standing at the entrance of the valley the Hebrews referred to as
Elah
, a wide field leading into the hill country, traversed by a trade road following a dry creek bed. The army encamped here wasvast. Not the largest force he had seen, but much larger than the typical hastily mustered gathering of battalions that usually preceded invasions into Hebrew lands. The garrisons at the seaports had been notified. Regional kings were sending what they could in the way of military support with promises of even more once it had been proven that the Hebrew vassal David was trying to break his yoke.
    Ittai hated rumors, especially when they came from his commanders. The troops knew nothing; they were here because they were paid well and would be able to use that money on whores and wine when they returned home. Their loyalty to Philistine kings was bought.
    They did, however, hate the Hebrews. They hated them as only men who had been instructed from an early age could hate. For generations, Ittai’s people had been told the stories of the filthy Hebrew tribes and their warlike god Yahweh who destroyed his enemies. There was a firm belief among many that this god was simply a magic trick. The Hebrews were known to have sorcerers, old men who carried staffs and wore tattered garments, wandering the countryside proclaiming curses and warnings. There were legends of great champions who ripped apart creatures with their bare hands and killed his countrymen by the thousand with devious tricks. Dagon, he knew, was a pure god, one who commanded strict obedience and was ruthless with his enemies, not content to let his deeds be done by old wizards.
    Ittai had joined the Philistine forces when he came of age following his swim in the Great Sea. The swim was required of all youths who aspired to command troops one day. They were dropped far away from shore in the tossing, vicious waves of a storm and told not to come back to land until the sun rose and set a complete cycle.
    He was only fifteen years old when he was tested, but he remembered it now as he watched the thunderheads over the westernhorizon gathering. The lightning had relentlessly shattered the air around him, causing his scalp to flood with heat as the storm gods threw their worst at him. He swallowed more of the grimy dark sea than he could fathom and wretched repeatedly, slipping beneath the surface countless times, only to sense Dagon and his scaly hide shoving him back to the surface. More than once Ittai was convinced that he saw the bearded face of the half-man, half-fish monster he worshiped staring at him from the deep.
    The storm had calmed the following morning, but then the thirst came. Salt filled his eyelids and nostrils; his mouth burned with the desire to take deep gulps of the water all around him. But he remembered what his father had told him during preparations. The sea was foul — it was to be tamed, not drunk. “The body dies after drinking the sea!” his father