TWO

As soon as Benaiah hit the ground, the lion leaped from the shadows. The creature’s hot, rancid breath, like that of the first lion, had the stench of decay. Before Benaiah could fully raise his spear, he saw a flash of bloody fur in the dusk and the lion was on him, swatting his spear aside.

They rolled over together. The spear out of reach, Benaiah pulled his dagger and plunged it into the beast’s flank. The blade skipped off a rib. The jaws snapped at Benaiah’s head again and again. He forced his fist into the open jaws and shoved his arm down the throat, trying to prevent the fangs from piercing his skull. The lion tried to roar again, its voice now muffled by the arm down its throat, and raked its claws painfully against Benaiah’s side, crushing him beneath its weight. The paws pinned his dagger hand against his body.

Benaiah searched frantically for the spear nearby, needing it if he was to have any chance. One of his shoulders was buried in the lion’s throat, the other pinned to his side. The fangs buried in his shoulder hurt so badly that Benaiah fought to remain conscious.

Something caught his sight in the snow.

The root, only a handbreadth out of reach.

The paw pinning down Benaiah’s weapon arm released for just a moment, and he used it to stab his dagger into the side of the lion’s face. It roared, sending specks of saliva into his eyes and ears.

Benaiah pulled free and scampered backward until he reached the wall of the pit, gasping for breath, his arm bloody and burning. The lion was pawing at the dagger sticking out of the side of its face. Its jaw hung limp. When the animal roared and snarled, it sounded almost sloppy. The blade must have severed some of the muscles in its jaw.

Despite the searing pain of the claw wounds, Benaiah leaped forward, knowing the animal would outlast him if he did not mortally wound it fast. He snatched up the root, shouted, and rammed it into the lion just behind the shoulder, near its heart.

The root pierced the rough hide and entered the soft interior flesh. The lion convulsed and shrieked with fury, twisting away and jerking the shaft from Benaiah’s grip, flinging blood into Benaiah’s eyes from the wound.

He staggered backward and wiped his brow. When he could see again, he noticed the lion in the corner of the pit. The root thumped back and forth as the lion darted around trying to dislodge it. Benaiah looked for the spear but could not find it in the swirl of dirt, snow, and blood.

He rushed toward the lion again, grabbing the root and hanging onto it to prevent it from snapping as the lion thrashed around. The gouts of blood pumping out of the wound told Benaiah that he had struck near the heart, but not near enough. The animal was not dying. If anything, its roaring and thrashing increased.

The shaft of the root, slick with blood, slid through Benaiah’s hands. He tried to grip it harder. A rotten stench rushed across his nostrils. The root had penetrated the bowels of the animal.

The lion curled into a ball and then rolled violently sideways, catching Benaiah off guard and knocking him over. He lost his grip on the root; his head thudded against the rocks. He saw a bright shock of light. Fighting past the throbbing in his head, he reached out into the snow for something to fight back with. Why wasn’t it dying? Claws, pain, burning. Where was the spear?

There was a huge roar, and the lion pinned him again. He gagged at the rotten breath. He arched his back in panic—and felt something beneath him.

The spear.

Screaming with his last burst of panic-stricken energy, he lurched to the side and shoved the lion away from him. His arm came free enough to reach the spear and swing it around, hoping to drive its head into the lion’s throat.

Too late he realized that he had shoved the wrong end forward, and the dull end cap of the spear thudded harmlessly against the golden hide. Before he could turn it and try again, claws raked the side of his head, pounding him so hard that he almost blacked out. He felt numb, as though the cuts from the claws were so brutal that they had bypassed all pain.

A short flap of skin from his torn scalp now hung over his left eye. He pushed it out of the way, but it kept falling back, blocking his view. As the lion reared for another strike, Benaiah rolled out of its path and stumbled toward the wall of the pit.

With his clear eye, he saw a branch sticking out from the wall of the pit overhead. He jumped for it. He missed it on the first try and fell to his knees. The lion roared. He could hear it crawling toward him. Its wounds were finally taking a toll, or it would have leaped.

Benaiah jumped again and managed to wedge his hand between the branch and the frozen mud of the pit wall. Just as the lion’s paw swiped at his leg, he pulled himself up out of reach. The beast snarled at him but was apparently too wounded to leap.

Benaiah panted. His breath curled out in icy tendrils against the darkness of the pit. The rumbling growl of the lion came from below him, and even though he was only a few cubits above the monster, he could barely make it out in the dark, with only the large puffs of frozen breath drifting upward as it roared indicating its location. Benaiah’s arm shook from the strain of holding him in place on the branch.

He had to deal with the skin hanging over his eye, which was swelling so quickly that soon he would be unable to see out of it. The lion might be in its death throes, but it would live long enough to kill him if he didn’t kill it first. A thought occurred to him: simply hang onto the branch until the lion bled out. But the growling below him continued. How was this possible? The spear must have ripped the lion’s insides to pieces. The resiliency of predators amazed him — and how they defied the call of death to exact revenge on their hunter.

Benaiah was suddenly very cold. The snowflakes stung his open wounds.

He saw his wife’s face in the darkness. She was holding out a pouch of water to him, and he reached for it … for her.

He shook his head; he was going delirious with pain.

Benaiah fished in his belt for his second flint dagger, a smaller one that he only used for skinning game.

It was still there.

Pulling the blade out with his damaged arm while he held on to the root with the good one, he dug the point into the skin above his eye and sliced a small part of the flap away from his scalp. His head was still numb from the paw strike and he barely felt it, but the fresh wash of blood pouring down his face was a nuisance.

The lion roared again, but this time, he thought with soaring hope, it sounded weaker. He had to move now and finish it before he became too weak.

Benaiah let go of the root and collapsed onto the snow. The lion charged. Benaiah snatched up the spear with the correct side forward this time, and as the beast opened its jaws wide to bite, Benaiah aimed the spearhead into the black opening and held on for his life.

The spear slid down the lion’s throat and penetrated deep into its bowels, all the way up to Benaiah’s fist. His arm entered the throat again, but the jaws no longer snapped. He heard a dull rumble from deep inside the creature’s throat. The bloody shaft started to slide in his hand. He tried to keep his hand clenched but his strength was running out. The paws swatted at him, but with little force. The animal was finally dying.

Slowly, when it seemed like the entire pit would fill with blood, the roars became weaker and the thrashing softened. The lion struggled a bit longer and then coughed out a pink mist and lay still.

Benaiah let his head fall onto the patch of ice next to the lion. He listened to the cold wind whistling across the mouth of the pit. He wondered vaguely how much blood he had lost. He packed lumps of snow into the wounds on his head and arm to stop the bleeding. He shivered. The great body of the lion was still steaming, so he leaned against it for warmth.

The cold weather, exhaustion from the struggle, loss of blood, and heat from the carcass made sleep nearly irresistible. He slapped his face to wake himself up. He had to keep moving so that he wouldn’t fall asleep and freeze to death.

Benaiah sat up and tried to focus on the icy ground around him. It was almost completely dark now; only moments of light remained. The lion was still leaking blood onto the snow. Benaiah’s spear was buried in the carcass and the dagger protruded from its mouth.

When enough strength had returned that he knew he could climb, Benaiah crawled toward the dead lion and knelt on its head while he tugged at his weapons. The dagger came out easily, but the spear needed several hard pulls before it finally came loose. He left the root buried in the carcass.

Benaiah tossed the weapons out of the pit onto the hillside above and studied his predicament. Snow still drifted in twenty cubits above. He searched up and down the wall for a route to scale on the ice and loose rock. The hunters who had dug the ancient trap had done their work well; he could not easily spot a way out. Small drifts of snow were accumulating on every surface of the wall, and it was getting colder.

He spat blood to clear the coppery taste from his mouth. He stepped up to the wall and began to climb, one carefully chosen handhold or foothold at a time, slipping backward every time he gained traction. Progress was slow, but eventually he pulled himself over the lip of the pit and lay on his side.

It was now dark. The moon occasionally peeked between the storm clouds. The snow had stopped falling but the wind was picking up, pushing another storm up through the valley and causing bits of ice to sting his exposed flesh. His mind was in a fog. His sweaty tunic clung to his back, causing him to shiver. He needed to get out of the mountains fast.

Still, he took the time first to bind his open wounds. He pulled strips of linen from his pouch and wrapped them tight. Then he wrapped his cloak back around his shoulders, wincing, strapped the shield onto his back, and picked up his weapons. He knotted together the two ends of the broken string on his bow and slung the weapon over his shoulder.

He worked his way to the route that would take him straight down the slope. He ran his finger along the jagged edge of the cuts on his head and arm, wearily grateful that he had not been eviscerated by the claws.

Around him the landscape had become a sea of white powder and black ice-covered rock. His fingers were numb. He slipped and fell every few steps, yelling in agony as hidden branches and jagged rocks disguised in the snow stabbed him.

Benaiah came across the tracks in the snow where Jairas and Haratha had left the main path. He could make out a forest far below where he remembered seeing the creek that led back to the village. He hoped he would run into the other two before long, so that he would not have to navigate unfamiliar terrain in his weakened condition. He focused on one step at a time, trying to keep his mind as clear as possible through the cold and the pain, sensing that the storm was getting worse.