The Dardanian’s sword was lying beside him, and Philip picked it up. There were still three men left, and a sword was better than a piece of wood.
“My husband will hate me,” the woman said, with a kind of astonished quietness. She had stopped sobbing, as if her grief had stunned her into calm. “He will never look at me again.”
“Unless he is a fool, he will be glad enough that you are simply alive and will keep his peace.”
“Do you really think so?” She looked up at Philip with touchingly obvious gratitude.
“Yes.”
Again, Philip signed for quiet. He heard someone approaching.
“Bakelas—Bakelas, come along. You have had her to yourself long enough. It is time to share.”
The blanket over the door was swept aside and a man stepped into the hut. For an instant he just stood there, his arm still raised to hold the blanket. Perhaps at first he didn’t even see that anything was wrong.
Philip had waited beside the doorframe. He took a step forward and, with savage force, drove his sword up so that its point caught the man just under the rib cage, burying itself almost to the hilt. The man opened his mouth, as if he meant to cry out, but all that came from his lips was a thin spray of blood. He was dead even before his knees struck the earthen floor.
“That’s two,” Philip murmured. He yanked the sword loose and wiped the blade clean on the Dardanian’s tunic. Suddenly the air in the hut was rank with the smell of death. He turned to the woman.
“You will wait here,” he said. His voice and his heart both seemed to have turned to ice. “You will make no sound. I must attend to the two who remain—if I do not kill them they shall surely kill me, and then they will remember you. If you wish to live, you will not leave these walls.”
He did not wait for her to answer, since at that moment she hardly even existed for him. He simply left her there.
Outside, Philip drew a deep breath of the cold night air and, for just a moment, thought he was about to faint. He had just killed two men in the space of a few minutes. He had never killed anyone before—somehow Zolfi didn’t seem to count. And now …
He forced himself to stop thinking about it. He was not at liberty to indulge such weakness.
There were still two more left.
They were sitting before the fire, one on either side. They were drinking beer from a pair of small jars, talking in low, sullen voices. They heard nothing, they saw nothing. They did not even glance up. It was almost too easy.
Philip stepped up behind one of them, raised his sword, and brought it slashing down upon the man’s neck. There was a grunt and a thick, sudden welling of blood, and then the man collapsed over on his side. He lay on the ground, his legs twitching violently, but he was dead. It seemed possible he did not even live to feel the stroke that killed him.
The second Dardanian, seeing what had happened, scrambled backward, in his haste to get away almost pitching over on his back. His eyes were wide with terror. Philip experienced a spasm of disgust, as if at the first scent of a decaying corpse.
“Stand up,” he commanded. “Stand up. Take your sword in your hand and defend yourself. I have grown weary of slaughtering Dardanians as if they were sheep.”
The man never took his eyes from the point of Philip’s weapon. At first he seemed too stunned to move, and then suddenly he pushed himself up. He didn’t appear to know what to do next.
“Draw your sword—or would you prefer that I simply killed you?”
The words had the desired effect, for the man flinched, just as if he had been struck in the face, and then he showed his teeth in something halfway between a grin and a snarl.
At last, and without hurry, he drew the sword from his belt.
“You arrogant little boy,” the Dardanian said, in a coarse whisper that was full of contempt. “Do you imagine I am afraid of a Macedonian baby, simply because he finds he is not afraid to kill from behind?”
“I won’t kill you from behind.”
“No.” He laughed as if he were only just seeing the joke. “No, you won’t.”
The man was perhaps a span taller, and perhaps ten years older. His bare arms were knotted with muscle. His hair and beard were a tarnished yellow, which somehow only increased the general impression of self-sufficient cruelty. How many had he killed, face-to-face, in single combat? He had the look of one who lives only to fight.
All at once he made a lunge, not a serious attack so much as a probe. Philip caught the point of his sword with his blade and parried the thrust aside. The man retreated a step or two.
“Very well—then someone has at least taught you the elements.” The Dardanian grinned all over again. “The dogs will still have made a meal of you before you are a quarter of an hour older.”
They circled one another, the light from the fire glinting off their weapons. It was almost as formal as the courtship dance of a pair of birds.
And then Philip lunged. A sudden rush, the sound of iron against iron, and then retreat. The Dardanian pressed the attack, and Philip could hardly get away in time.
And then again. And again.
“I will kill you, little boy,” the Dardanian taunted, his voice lilting with mockery. “I will put your head in a leather bag and take it home to Lord Pleuratos.”
Philip stepped back, letting the point of his sword drop a little. He was afraid, yes, and he hoped he looked it.
The Dardanian took the bait. A quick shuffle, and he rushed in for the kill. He was slashing with his weapon now—each time the blade coming a little closer. Philip seemed about to be overpowered.
And then, even as he turned the Dardanian’s blade away so that he could almost feel the cold iron against his face, he dodged a little to one side, twisted out of the way, and let the other man step into the space he made.
It was a trap—only at the very last did the Dardanian realize that he had allowed himself to come too close. Suddenly Philip crouched and threw his weight against him, striking him just under the ribs with his shoulder.
As the Dardanian toppled backward, Philip swung his weapon in a low, narrow arc. The point buried itself in the man’s arm, just above the elbow, and a heavy black line of blood appeared at once.
It was over. The Dardanian’s sword dropped from his hand. Philip swung again, and the flat of his sword caught the man on the face. The blow could have done no real harm, but the Dardanian fell to his knees with a scream of surprise and pain.
“I will not kill you from behind.”
Philip stepped forward, ready to finish him …
“Stop!”
Astonished at the sound, he looked about him. Slowly, out of the darkness, came perhaps as many as thirty or forty men—in the flickering light from the cooking fire, their faces looked grim, almost demonic. One of them he recognized as the village elder.
Philip waited, his sword still raised to take the Dardanian’s life. The elder bowed to him.
“Stay your hand, Lord. Leave him to us.”
9
Death from the sword of an enemy would have been a blessing. But that a man, any man, should die thus …
When the Dardanian saw what was to happen, he began to scream—and that scream, before they choked it off, was like no human sound. Philip could only crouch on the ground and watch, too frightened to move, too awed even to look away.
The villagers tore him apart. With sharpened stones, with their bare hands, they simply ripped him to pieces, the way starving men might attack a joint of roasted meat, their frenzy not subsiding until there was nothing left except a few cracked and ragged bones.
And when it was over, and the smell of blood hung in the air like a pall, someone held a cup of beer to Philip’s lips and made him drink.
“Do not judge us, Lord,” the village elder said. “Until you yourself have lived under the yoke of the Dardanians, do not judge what we have done. Now come to my hut and sleep.”
In the morning he found Alastor tethered outside
. There was no trace of the Dardanians.
“We cut the throats of their horses and buried them all, men and animals, in a place no one will ever look for them. You have never been here, Lord—those men have never been here. The Dardanians would crucify us, down to the sucking babes, if ever they guessed what has happened here.”
“They will never hear of it from my lips. I will never speak of it, or of this place, to any living man.”
“We know this, Lord.” And the look in his eyes said, Were it not so, you would now be buried with them.
Philip tried to control a shiver of dread he felt as he took the elder’s hand in his own.
“Go in peace, Lord, for you have brought us the blessing of revenge.”
Philip mounted his horse and rode south. He did not even turn to look back.
* * *
Early in the afternoon of the next day, Philip reached the Vatokhori Pass and entered the Kingdom of Lynkos.
Menelaos, king of the Lynkestians, tended to ignore the king in Pella, but at least he was a Macedonian. Philip no longer felt himself at the mercy of strangers.
He camped on the flatlands and, for the first time since parting from Bardylis, dared to indulge in the luxury of a fire. He knew he was no safer for having crossed a border, but in two days there had been no signs of pursuit. He seemed to have this mountain wilderness to himself.
Nevertheless, he slept with his sword drawn.
The next day found him on a wooded plateau within an hour’s ride of King Menelaos’s stronghold at Pisoderi. The trail would cross some pleasant little meadow, bathed in light, and the next moment the trees closed around one like a cloak. An hour past midday Philip heard the distant whine of hunting horns.
Alastor first sensed the presence of danger. With a low, nervous whinny, the stallion halted in the middle of a narrow clearing. Philip leaned forward to stroke its neck.
“What is in your nostrils, you black demon?” he whispered. “What would you tell me if you had a man’s voice?”
But in that tense, watchful moment there was nothing, only the silence of something waiting to happen.
And then, in almost the next instant, he heard it. He knew what it was even as the forest hid it, even as it thrashed through the undergrowth in its panicked flight. He drew his sword, swung a leg over Alastor’s back, and dropped to the ground.
When at last it broke through into the clearing, he was astonished at its size—a great boar, perhaps two cubits at the shoulder, as big as any two men. Its tusks were gleaming white, and its cruel little eyes glittered with rage. When it saw Philip in its path it stopped short, tearing at the earth with its hoof as it lowered its black head for the attack.
Philip held his sword with the point angled down, knowing he would have only one chance. Face-to-face with this murderous beast, he felt a strange joy.
“Come to me, my pretty,” he murmured in that singsong voice one uses with young children. “Come to me, that we may know which of us will be alive a minute hence.”
As if answering a dare, the boar snorted angrily and charged him. Philip stood his ground, trying not to think, keeping his arm straight and his sword point lined up with a spot between the boar’s shoulder blades, as if only that spot were hurrying toward him and not five or six talents of muscle and bone, with tusks as long as daggers. It was the hardest few seconds of his life.
The impact was tremendous. Philip felt all the air go out of his body as he was lifted up, like a mote of dust someone has swept from his garment. He had no idea whether or not his thrust had gone home—he had no idea of anything. He did not even remember striking the ground.
He must have been knocked unconscious, at least for a few moments. He opened his eyes, a little surprised even to be alive. The boar was dead, almost at his feet, with Philip’s sword buried up to the hilt, precisely between its shoulder blades.
That made him feel better—at least he had not lost his nerve in the last instant. It nearly made up for the tear in his thigh, as long as his middle finger and about as deep, where the filthy brute had managed to gore him.
Almost as soon as he became conscious of the wound, a stab of pain shot up from his knee all the way into his groin. At first he could not even breathe, but then the pain subsided into mere burning ache. There was blood, but not too much. Philip decided he would probably survive.
Then he moved his leg and the pain came back, this time so bad that it made him feel giddy. His horse was standing some twelve or fourteen paces away, grazing on the thin grass—it seemed an uncrossable gulf.
“Alastor, come!”
The stallion raised its head and looked at him as if to say, Now what do you want? Nevertheless, it came and stood beside its master.
Philip raised himself to a crouch, keeping the weight off his bad leg. Then he reached up and just managed to grab a handful of Alastor’s mane. With much effort, and enough pain to make his hair damp with sweat, he at last was able to stand up.
But climbing up on the stallion’s back, as he came to realize, was simply beyond him. He was considering what to do next when three mounted men galloped into the clearing, reining in their horses at the sight of him. Their lances were already drawn and ready.
“It is an offense to hunt the king’s boar,” one of them said in the slightly choppy dialect of the mountain peoples. “It is an offense punishable by death.”
“The boar seemed under the impression it was hunting me,” Philip answered, grinning at his own joke.
For a long moment no one spoke, as if they had reached some sort of impasse.
“Why did you dismount?”
It was a different man who at last broke the silence. Philip merely stared at him. At first he had no idea what the fellow was taking about.
“Why did you get off your horse? A man is safer if he keeps to his horse.”
“Yes, but the horse isn’t,” Philip answered, when he understood. “Besides, I didn’t have a lance—only a sword.”
They all looked down at the body of the dead boar.
“That looks like an Illyrian sword. I can tell by the hilt work.”
“It is an Illyrian sword.” Philip let his eyes narrow, as if he fancied himself insulted. “But I am a Macedonian.”
“You made a good kill,” the man said after a moment, seeming to ignore Philip’s claim. “Still, boy, you were a fool to have tried it. And all for the sake of a horse.”
“He is my horse, and I put a high value on him.”
Philip held his gaze, until at last the other man was forced to look away—wondering, perhaps, why this raw youth appeared determined to make an enemy of him.
The silence now was hostile and oppressive. Philip still stood beside his horse, clutching a handful of mane. His leg throbbed with pain until he was beginning to feel quite sick, yet he was determined at all costs to keep his feet. He was only afraid he might faint, which would have struck him as a shameful weakness.
After an interval that seemed to go on forever but was probably only a few minutes, two more men rode into the clearing, one slightly ahead of the other. Philip’s captors raised their lance points in salute, but even without this he would have known the man with the curly brown beard that did not quite cover a purplish birthmark on his left cheek. He had seen Menelaos seven years ago, in Pella, during one of the infrequent periods of peace between Macedon and her nominal vassal.
“We caught this one poaching, My Lord King!” shouted the man who had tried to identify Philip’s sword as Illyrian. “He claims he was merely defending himself, that the boar attacked him, but—”
“Does anyone go hunting boar with nothing but a sword?” Menelaos broke in impatiently. He was only a year or two short of forty and had been king for a long time. One had the impression he understood how it was to be managed. “You really are a fool, Lysander.”
And then he seemed to dismiss the man from existence and turned his attention to Philip.
“Who are you, boy? That is no scratch
you have there on your thigh—perhaps you should sit down and take the weight off it.”
“I am a Macedonian, My Lord,” Philip answered, still standing, although his legs felt as if they were turning to mush. “I am also your kinsman, your sister’s son.”
The Lord Menelaos peered at him for a moment, as if he doubted his sanity, and then his eyes widened with surprised recognition.
“Philip? Can it possibly be you?”
When Philip nodded, the king of Lynkos broke into a loud laugh. “That beard is an excellent disguise,” he said, clapping his hand to his chest in sheer exuberance. “The last time we met you weren’t more than seven or eight—just a little boy. You were still playing with toy soldiers!”
He laughed all over again at the recollection and then suddenly stopped, looking down at the sword hilt sticking out from between the shoulder blades of the dead boar.
“Well, nephew, you are not a boy now. And tonight, when we dine, you will sit at the head of the table with the companions, even though it is certain you have yet to kill your first man. For to have killed a beast such as this one, and with nothing but a sword, carries with it full as much honor.”
King Menelaos was doubtless more than a little astonished when his sister’s son all at once broke into a fit of almost hysterical laughter.
* * *
“Your brother is off chasing shadows in Thessaly,” Menelaos said, absently scratching at his beard as if the birthmark itched. “Jason of Pherae was assassinated, and the Aleuadae chose the occasion to shake off the control of his successor. They appealed to Alexandros, naturally, and he was fool enough to answer their summons. I hear that things have not gone well for him down there.”
He grinned, showing strong, uneven teeth. Alexandros was his kinsman and had once been a great favorite, but the king of Lynkos would never love the king of Macedon. It was like a principle of logic.
“Is the Lord Ptolemy with him?” Philip asked innocently. He took a sip from his wine cup to cover the apprehension rising in his chest like panic. But Menelaos only shrugged.
“One supposes he must be—the flea is never found very far from the dog.”
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