Day of War Read Online Free

was the largest lion Benaiah had ever seen.
    One of the dogs noticed them and turned. The lion snarled and swung a paw, knocking it senseless. The other dogs howled and nipped at its hindquarters. Though heavily outmatched, they were bravely staying with it.
    Benaiah yanked an arrow from the quiver. They closed to within fifty cubits of the lion, watching it strike another dog with its paw, killing it instantly. Steam rushed from its mouth as it roared again.
    Benaiah saw Haratha halt in terror.
    “Keep moving! We have to get closer!” Benaiah called.
    Haratha bobbled his sling, dropping the copper pellet. He glanced up at the lion, his eyes wide with fright.
    The lion lowered its head and flattened its ears, signaling a charge. It roared again.
    Within arrow range now, Benaiah lifted his bow up and pulled the notched end of the arrow to his mouth. The motion was so familiar that he had the lion within his sights instantly.
    The lion struck the last of the dogs down, then sprang from its crouch toward the terrified Haratha. Benaiah’s foot slipped on the snow and he lost his target. He yelled again for Haratha to release while he struggled to stand again.
    Before the creature reached him, Haratha managed to launch a copper pellet that miraculously hit the charging animal in the head. A spurt of red mist erupted from the lion’s face. It snarled and paused briefly to paw at its head where the pellet had struck it in or near the eye. By that time Benaiah had regained his balance and sent an arrow into its hide.
    The lion winced at the arrow but leaped again, struck Haratha, and tumbled with him across the slope. The lion slashed and snarled, but abandoned Haratha and sprang up the slope toward Benaiah.
    Benaiah felt his muscles tense. The animal moved faster than he’d thought it could on the snow, but he was ready. The arrow he sent would have caught the creature in the throat if it hadn’t slipped on an icy rock and stumbled.
    That was all he had time to do before, with a flash of golden fur and the hot stench of rotting flesh from the animal’s jaws, he felt the animal’s crushing weight and infinite strength, and then he was rolling, smashed against the frozen ground, his face grinding against the icy pebbles as the monster roared in his ear.
    Benaiah managed to stop by shoving his hand into a snow bank and digging his fingers all the way to the ground. He winced, waiting for the next strike, but the lion had turned away from him, lowering its head and flattening its ears. Then it charged back toward Haratha—but Jairas had stepped between them, sword in hand.
    Benaiah regained his footing and rushed forward, searching for his fallen spear in the snow since another shot with an arrow would risk hitting one of the others. Benaiah shouted for Jairas to stab instead of swing, but in his panic to save Haratha, Jairas could not hear him and hacked away harmlessly at the animal’s neck. The lion ignored his blows, attacking instead the one who’d ruined its eye.
    Haratha screamed, the lion roared, and just as Benaiah reached the spear, the lion’s claws sank into Haratha’s thighs and it threw itself on top of him. Benaiah snatched the spear out of the snow and lunged toward the fight.
    The lion had stretched its jaws wide enough that it looked as if it was about to swallow Haratha’s head. A hard bite with those fangs would burst through the boy’s skull, killing him instantly.
    Benaiah shifted his grip and aimed the spear thrust at the lion’s head instead of its flank. The spearhead impaled the muscles on the lion’s jaws as it bit Haratha. The fangs slashed into Haratha’s scalp, spraying a wave of blood onto the snow, but the bite from its wounded jaw lacked enough force to penetrate.
    Snarling and shrieking, the lion twisted away and released the boy. Benaiah snatched Haratha by the collar and jerked him backward, away from the lion.
    Roaring, the animal pawed at the shaft of the spear lodged firmly in its