A Mighty Man's Pierced Heart

The Fuller Story of Benaiah and the Snowy Lion Pit

This fantastic picture was drawn by Jon Deviny, check him out on Twitter

“And what baleful designs does this new day have in store for me” Benaiah asked himself as he labored up from his belly to a knee in the dusty shadows of an orange crag.

As the tide of consciousness slowly rose over him, he brought a hand to the corner of his mouth and found half dried blood there—a reminder that he had just made war on the army of Moab the day prior. Upon reflection, he had judged that they were more skilled than the Philistines he’d been used to routing, but putting a cleft in a Moabite skull or two had sapped the courage of the whole.

Benaiah had been separated from the rest of his soldiery two days back and was forced to carve his own way through the army of Moab. It took him that day, that night, and most of the next day to rend a path to safety, but by nightfall of the second day he had single-handedly slain two ariels of Moab. Exhausted, he made camp in a nook at the base of the first crag he could find. After a night of hard-won, dreamless sleep, he found himself kneeling in the dust, trying to find his bearings before setting out to find his men.

“Hello, stranger” a sweet melodic voice sang into Benaiah’s burgeoning apperception. “I haven’t seen a man like you around here in a long, long time.”

Benaiah grasped for the hilt of his sword which hung sheathed at his side. “There are no men like me around here” he grunted as he stood to face the voice.

Benaiah started as he looked upon the form of a woman standing before him. His lips parted as if to continue speaking but the words were recalled with his quiet gasp. Her soft features, almond hair, olive complexion, and the longing gaze which emanated from her emerald green eyes were a most welcome sight to Benaiah, who had long grown accustomed to little more than the smashed faces of the men he’d vanquished.

The woman placed her hands on her hips, revealing an evergreen sheath dress painted onto her shapely figure under her dark purple cloak. “And just what kind of man are you?” her throaty voice asked. Before he could reply she added “you look like a valiant man, a doer of great deeds.”

Remembering himself, Benaiah blurted “I am Benaiah. A man of war; a member of the Haggibōrîm, what you might call ‘The Mighty Men’ of Yīsra’el, and I am commander of the King’s body guard. You have met no men like me in these parts, because this is the first that any of the Haggibōrîm have been in these parts, and there are none like us—neither in valor, nor in stature.”

“Then you are a valiant man, and just what my people need!” she exclaimed.

“I know not what you need, but I must rejoin my men.”

“Surely, if there are more mighty men in your company, then they can do without you for a short while longer. As you’ve said, we have none like you in these parts, but we are in desperate need of a man of valor.” She bit her lower lip and gave Benaiah a sultry look, “a man like you.”

Benaiah started again. “What is your name?” he asked taking some of the base out of his voice.

“I am called Thuebana. My people are caught under the thumb of a wicked man named Leoun. He is a tyrant who takes what he wants from my people and he’s set his insatiable eye on me and my sister. What for, we know not, only that he plans to take us before the Aihtifal of the Moon in two days hence.”

Thuebana stood silently as she watched her words seep into Benaiah, softening his countenance as he mulled them over.

After a time, Benaiah locked eyes with Thuebana and proclaimed “I will be your valiant man, Theubana. Your people will be free of this Leoun and you and your sister shall not be troubled by his machinations or this ceremony of the moon any longer.”

Thuebana lunged at Benaiah, throwing her arms around his neck and violently kissing his face.

“Enough, woman!” Benaiah grunted as he forced her off of him. “There’s time enough for that later. Now is the time for action. Take me to your tyrant so I might cut off both of his thumbs.”

The woman clasped Benaiah’s hand in hers and led him south from the mountains down towards the 'Ard Alhafar, the Land of Pits.

Despite his protests, Thuebana had convinced Benaiah to make some time for things other than action along their journey, including several stops at various brooks to quench their thirst and a few meager meals of hard-tac which Theubana stored in her waist pouch. She also found several opportunities to pepper his lips with kisses of gratitude—which took Benaiah longer to discontinue with each incursion.

After walking all morning and most of the early afternoon, the couple had finally reached the brink of a great pit. “We are here my rajul qawiun” Thuebana announced. “This is the lair of the Sorcerer Leoun.”

Benaiah peered over the verge of the pit. He saw many odd pieces of furniture, contraptions, glass flasks—but in the center of the pit was a table made of two thick wooden beams in the shape of a cross.

Thuebana pointed to a set of stairs carved into the side of the pit and said “you must go down and hide amongst his instruments, my love. Then, when Leoun comes to make the final preparations for the Aihtifal of the Moon, you can smite him unawares before he can cast any vile spells—”

“—I will not become a coward to vanquish a coward” Benaiah interjected. “I confront him and face him like a man and let Adoni do what seems good to him. But if He favors me today, then I will not permit this magician to live.”

“If you won’t follow my advice, at least take this” Theubana pulled a small vile out of her waist pouch. Inside was a translucent blue liquid “for you haven’t eaten more than a few crumbs of bread and you’ll need it to strengthen you.”

“Woman, I am of the Haggibōrîm, I need no deceptive tactics, I need no secret potions. I will face this tyrant as a man, I will cleft his skull with my sword and my own two hands and be done with it.”

“Please, Benaiah my love, drink this. It will ensure our victory” Thuebana pleaded.

Benaiah’s contrarian nature often set him against those who sought to persuade him, but his heart yearned for Thuebana and he longed to protect her, to provide for her, and to please her. Benaiah reluctantly took the vile and swilled it down.

Benaiah awoke to a maelstrom of painful sensations. An acrid stench assaulted his nostrils. A whirring of machines bombarded his ears. In his arms and legs was the sensation of being stretched to their limits. And the light of the sun was completely blinding.

“Wah—what’s going on? What is this devilry?!” Benaiah screamed. As he squinted, his eyes began to adjust ever so slowly. Immediately above him was nothing but blinding grey sky. Down towards his feet he could make out a dark, semi-circle rim. He realized he was inside the pit,  strapped down to the cross-shaped table, no doubt.

That damned harlot, Benaiah screamed internally. I will slash her to bits when I get out of this!

“Calm down, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada” came a sinister voice from above the rim of the pit behind him. “Yes, I’m the one they call Leoun, and yes, Thuebana led you here under false pretenses. But you mustn’t mutter curses against her in your mind—yes, I see what’s in your mind, young warrior—I gave her no choice. I promised to release her and her sister from my service if she brought me a valiant man for my Aihtifal, and she more than delivered! Never did I envisage snaring a man of your caliber for my plan.”

“I will be free of this bondage and I will rend you in twain!” Benaiah screamed.

“I’m afraid not, for in a matter of minutes, you will not occupy that brawny physique any longer, for I have laid claim to it. Once my transmigration ceremony is complete, I shall assume your body and supplant your soul from within it.”

Benaiah craned his neck back as far as his predicament would allow. He could just barely make out the red-cloaked figure of Leoun standing on the rim behind him. Leoun raised both hands up in the air and began chanting. Just then the gray sky grew darker. A cold breeze picked up which rapidly grew frigid. An onyx funnel cloud formed above the pit and it began to snow down onto Benaiah, bespeckling his increasingly purple skin with ice crystals.

Benaiah looked on in horror as a blueish hued shape emerged out of Leoun’s chest and was being drawn into the funnel cloud above him like smoke caught up in a stiff breeze.

With all the strength Benaiah could muster he cried out “Adoni, give me strength!” and immediately he felt a surge of power course through his muscular arms. He flexed with all his might and tore through the ropes which held him fast, breaking portions of the table he was affixed to. In one swift movement Benaiah freed himself from his snare and had leapt to his feet.

“Nooooo!” the sorcerer screeched, letting his arms fall. “That’s not possible! I spellbound those cords myself!”

Leoun threw off his red cloak revealing his sinewy body clothed in nothing but a gray loincloth. He perched himself like a frog on the edge of the rim of the pit and hissed “if I can’t have your form for my own, I’ll shred it to smithereens!”

Then, to Benaiah’s great terror, Leoun sprouted golden hairs all over his naked body. His fingers became great hooked claws. Massive fangs grew out of his frothing mouth. And then suddenly, in a matter of moments, he was transmogrified into a great and terrible lion.

Benaiah scrambled for his sword in panic. It wasn’t on his hip where it belonged. Quickly he spotted it on an alter beside one of Leoun’s evil mechanisms. As he grabbed its hilt the lion sprung off the rim down at Benaiah. Benaiah aimed the tip of his blade in the direction of the lion and cried once more “Adoni!” Just before the lion came crashing down upon Benaiah a thunderbolt struck the tip of his sword with a flash and a *BOOM*.

“Benaiah! Benaiah, my comrade!”

Benaiah’s eyes snapped open to find two yellow eyes staring back at him. Suddenly remembering what he was in the midst of, he sprung to his feet with a scream, only to find that the lion remained collapsed on its side. The face of the lion was frozen in a murderous grimace but a tinge of fear remained in his lifeless eyes.

Partially obstructed by the big cat’s massive right leg, Beniah saw the steal pummel and leather wrapped grip of his gladius. He bent and pulled it from the chest of the transmogrified sorcerer and though it was slathered with dark blood, he could still see a slight white glow radiating off of it. He had cried to his God for help and he was indeed delivered.

“Benaiah! You old dog, up here!” cried the same booming voice that had roused him moments before.

The mighty man turned to see his own commander, Josheb-basshebeth, the Tahchemonite, looking down on him with a giant jovial smile.

“So, this is how you serve your king, then?” Josheb-basshebeth asked, full of mirth. “Eleazar, Shammah, Abishai, the twenty-nine other Haggibōrîm, and me are all out risking our necks for our God and our King, while you’re down there making snow angels with a big kitty?”

Benaiah burst into a deep and hearty pearl of laughter as he allowed a sense of relief to wash over him.

Josheb-basshebeth sent some of the king’s bodyguard to help Benaiah climb the stone steps back up and out of the pit. Once they had refreshed him with food and drink they began to press him for his tale. But no matter how fervently his men and his superiors squeezed, Benaiah wouldn’t give any details about the pit or how he came to be there. Though, it wasn’t the residual horror of the metamorphosis of the sorcerer that stayed his tongue. For Benaiah felt as if his own heart too had been pierced by a lightning infused gladius… wielded by Thuebana. He loathed her, yet longed for her. She was gone—along with any chances to exact vengeance or enthrall her.

When the Mighty Men finished their campaign, they sat down with the King and his scribes to recount their victories. When it came time to recount Benaiah’s clash with the Leoun, all that the Mighty Men knew to share was as follows:

“He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.”[1]

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[1] 2 Samuel 23:20