The Boy Warrior - Season 1 - Episode 9

4 years ago

The Boy Warrior - Season 1 - Episode 9

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But they continued marching until the stone wall was just up ahead. Beyond the stone wall, the men of Israel waited. They crossed the wall, and somehow they all joined the ranks. Jonathan marched beside him, while all around them the guards melted into their places. Abner was swallowed up by the men.

They heard his voice from up front a moment later.

“Men, forward!”
As if controlled by one mind, the army began marching down the decline of the mountain. The sun was now a pale orange, dimming even more as it began to be swallowed up in the west. Being in the midst of the thunder now, the sound was unbelievable.Left-right left-right left-right. Boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom.

All around David were men much older and taller than he was, their armour clinking as they marched. It seemed like a lifetime before the chief shouted, “Men, halt!” The orders were repeated by the army captains several times before the men stopped marching.
“Make way for your champion!” came the bellow of the commander from near the valley floor. Shouts of “Make way!” were repeated by the captains.

In three crisp movements, punctuated by the clinking of metal on metal, the men in front of them took a step away to either side, turned sideways to face each other and held their shields in front of them, leaving a path through their middle that stretched down, down, down.
Jonathan held his arm lightly.
“Come on, my man,” he said. “This is our call.”

Jonathan proceeded through the lines of men until he reached the gap, and David followed right behind him, drawing his trusty shepherd’s bag tighter over his shoulder.

They passed men who stood behind their shields like they were carved out of stone, ranks upon ranks upon ranks. It was now that David truly appreciated how many a thousand men were. He could literally feel their eyes on his back, watching Israel’s contender, a mere boy compared with the rest of them. His brothers would be among the men too, watching as their brother walked steadily to meet what would probably be his death. . .

David shook his head. No, he couldn’t think about that, not now.

They finally cleared the army, and Abner followed them right down to the valley floor. Across the valley were the Philistine army, arrayed in ranks behind their standard bearers. All of them stood still. Waiting.

That was when Jonathan let out a sound of surprise.
“By the name of Jehovah, David, we forgot. No one gave you a sword belt. Here, you can have mine,” he said, making to undo his. But David stopped him. He patted his bag.
“I have my weapons right here.”
Jonathan looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything. The sand on which they stood was thick and bleached white, like as not by the torrents that flowed through the Valley of Elah during the rainy season.

There were stones here. Smooth, round, shiny ones, just as David liked them. He bent down and picked up a handful of them and put them in his bag.

Abner raised his hand for them to stop, and they did. Across the valley, the Philistine army waited, their banners flapping in the wind.
“We have our champion, Philistia,” Abner shouted, his voice loud, carrying so well across the flat land that David had to wonder how he hadn’t lost the use of it already. “Where is yours?”

Just as Abner asked the question, the ground shook. And that was when they saw it. Goliath’s head, chest and shoulders, all looming above the helmets of the Philistines. He ran right through their battle line as he had done earlier that day, until he was at the front of the army with his shield-bearer before him.

Goliath’s huge head moved from side to side as he looked from Jonathan to Abner on either side of him. Wondering which was his contender. The two warriors turned around and walked back to the Israelite battle line. The huge Philistine looked from them to David who stood just a few metres across from him, and just then did it seem to sink in.

Goliath had on a helmet like the half-helm the Israelite soldiers wore, the type that covered their foreheads and the sides of their faces. The only difference was that Goliath’s helmet had a strip of metal that led from the rim of his helmet to cover his nose. That and the little fact that his helmet would probably qualify as a greathelm on a regular man’s head.

His helmet left his mouth and eyes visible, and his upper lip curled back into a sneer as he looked at his contender with his bag across his shoulder and his sling in his hand.
“Am I a dog, so that you are coming against me with sticks?” he roared, stamping his feet and shaking the earth. He let out a string of unspeakble curses punctuated by strange names David assumed were names of Philistine gods.