David
David is the hawk young Roland trains in Gilead in The Gunslinger, the bird Cort calls God's gunslinger, and the weapon Roland chooses for his early test of manhood.
David is a hawk of Gilead, trained and flown by the boy Roland over years of patient work, named for the David of the sling and the giant. The hawks of Gilead are working birds of the gunslingers' schooling, and Roland's teacher Cort calls the hawk "God's gunslinger": it takes its orders and feels nothing it is not made to feel. David matters most in the test of manhood, the single combat by which an apprentice claims a gunslinger's status and in which each boy chooses the weapon he trusts. Roland, at fourteen, chooses David.
How far into The Dark Tower have you read?
Set your place and this page rewrites itself to exactly that point. Nothing ahead of you will show.