When we last left Saul, he was watching as priests of God were getting killed on his orders and David was horrified to find that out sometime later.
Sometime after this incident, David heard the Philistines were assaulting a place called Keliah, and after God told him "you'll cave in their skulls left and right", David told his groupies to stow their fears and Keliah was saved by David's men.
Unfortunately, gratitude was in short supply with the Keliahites, so David had to move to a place called Horesh to avoid getting caught by Saul.
David soon had to haul tail again, cause Saul was that autistically persistent, but Johnathan and David managed a brief secret meeting where the former promised the latter that he knew David would one day take his dad's throne, and on that day, he'd be happy to step back and support him.
Tragically, he never got the chance to do that, but hey, thought that counts.
Eventually, Saul very nearly had David pinned down in the region of the Ziphites (who were spilling all they knew to Saul about exactly where to find David), but the Philistines showed up again, forcing Saul to call off the search while David found a better hidey-hole.
Unfortunately, Saul went right back to trying to hunt down David, and this time, David decided to be proactive. He snuck into Saul's own camp while Saul was sleeping after combing the deserts of En Gedi for David, and he cut off a piece of Saul's robe but made a point not to harm Saul.
However, as Dave made it back to his own camp, he felt pretty bad about cutting Saul's robe. True, he had not physically hurt Saul like he promised himself, but since one's robes often doubled as one blanket and destroying someone's clothes in a region where linen was expensive was considered a blood insult, Dave decided he needed to apologize, even if it meant putting his neck out for Saul's blade.
So he walked right into Saul's camp, woke Saul up, and held up the piece of the robe he cut off, both apologizing for doing so because it was a tasteless thing to do and swearing he still had no intentions on Saul's life, he just hoped his former boss would return the favor.
Saul had something of a conscience attack combined with utter surprise he had been so careless David got that close yet STILL refused to kill him, and Saul let David go without incident, but not before David promised Saul he would never take Saul's life or that of his family.
This was a temporary truce and both knew it, but David managed to relocate again by the time Saul broke it.
Not long after this incident, Samuel died of old age, and after everyone who knew him had a good cry over his loss, Saul's autism flared back up and he went back to hunting down David.
Ironically, this was yet again in the land of Ziphites, and yet again, David got preemptive and ganked Saul's spear and water bottle as proof he was able to tactical espionage action his way up to Saul and back without harming the guy. His buddy Abishai who tagged along urged him to plant Saul's spear in the man's skull, but David refused on the spot: He WOULD NOT be responsible for killing Saul, who had been anointed by God.
After David cleared away from Saul's camp a good bit, he called out to Saul's chief general and his former superior Abner, held up Saul's spear and water bottle and was all,
"I could've killed Saul, but all I did was take these to prove I very well might have done so but didn't. Still, security for Saul is pretty bad if you ask me."
Abner was all 0_0 at the security breach, and Saul acknowledged once again David had spared him and they both went on their way for a while until Saul's autistic obsessions flared up again.
The next part will address the beginning of the end for Saul, but I'd like to leave some closing notes.
Saul was explicitly spared two times when David could have killed him on the spot before Saul had a clue. David even felt bad enough about one of those times he admitted guilt for violating the spirit of not harming Saul if not the letter of doing so (by just cutting his robe). He even felt so bad for the first one he was willing to let Saul end him then and there if he wanted. The second time was a similar case of David having every chance to kill Saul but refusing to.
Saul had no reason to be trying to kill David at all that was worth anything before the eyes of God, while David could have made any number of excuses for doing that to Saul, but he refused to even try because David knew it would be wrong to be guilty of whatever crimes Saul intended towards him because he'd be a hypocrite for it.
IRL, it's really hard to not take a chance to lash out at one's enemy when you have a chance, and David got tempted twice but resisted because not only would it have proven he was no better, he would have broken faith with God, and like David, we should not be guilty of either, no matter who wants to do evil to us.
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