Free Covenant of War by Cliff Graham

leather greaves covered up most of his arms, scars were visible there as well.
    Benaiah did not revel in such notoriety. He had a quiet manner, and although he was not averse to laughing hard when the occasion merited it, he preferred to keep to himself and his closest friends. He knew people trod cautiously around him, and while he did not wish to be avoided out of fear, he had to admit he liked the peace of being left alone. There were only a handful of people he felt comfortable around — the warriors he lived and fought with, including the man walking next to him.
    Keth, or Uriah, as he had come to be known since David had bestowed the name, was a mercenary from the Hittite lands of the north. He had come to their camp seven years previously, just in time for them to discover that their town had been raided and destroyed by Amalekite soldiers.
    Keth had proven himself during the resulting battle to reclaim their families from the raiders, working furiously to keep their brittle weapons replaced and their water resupplied. In a successful new strategy, they had designated special armorers to run new weapons to the lines as warriors lost them or they shattered. It had demonstrated to David that he had commanders who could think on their feet, and Keth was foremost among them.
    Hittites knew how to forge iron, and Keth had been appointed to lead the new company of armorers. David’s goal was for all of his weapons to be produced in his own ranks, using the new iron-forging methods. David no longer wanted to rely upon the weapons captured from Philistines, and with Keth’s help, most of his troops now had the coveted weapons.
    David had given his bodyguard and chief armorer this mission: to meet secretly in the eastern and northern lands with tribal elders to see where they stood. The nomadic groups were a mixture of the tribes of Manasseh, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali. Despite theancient allegiances, times were different than when the land had first been settled. Many clans were breaking off and living in the best manner they could, away from the wars in the heart of the country.
    These missions had occurred often since the beginning of the tribal war. The information provided by these tribes was almost as reliable as the Issachar tribal scouts in David’s army. Any shifting of political alliances or invasions of their lands would first be known by the nomadic warlords on the frontier. Benaiah believed that was a legitimate reason for meeting with them, but he also suspected that David simply liked them. He had been one of them, after all.
    It was important to send envoys to the tribal warlords to offer them payment for military commitments and service. It would benefit them all in the long view, since the land they would be conscripted to defend would be given to them as payment for their efforts, and any man fighting on his own land is a fearsome opponent.
    Benaiah and Keth had set out on this mission after Abner had arrived to inform David that he was turning over the northern army. The tribal war was finally over. Benaiah thought it would finally give him time to devote to his wife, Sherizah, as he had been promising. There was talk of a unity banquet to heal old wounds. He imagined that he could be with Sherizah there.
    But it was not to be. David had pulled him and Keth aside and dispatched them to the northern borderlands with the news. The warlords would be needed to keep Abner honest about his commitment. And so once more, Benaiah had held his wife close their last night together, whispered more hollow promises that this would be the last time he would need to leave for a long while, and slipped out into the darkness.
    As they approached the ragged goatskin-tent camp, Benaiah’s eyes flicked back and forth continuously. This was the last desertwarlord they would visit on this mission. Benaiah and Keth were alone, demonstrating the purity of their intent, assuming that any treachery that might befall them would