Dark Prince (17 page)

Aristotle had known only that the boy was not held by the Makedones. Somehow he had escaped. Yet despite his skills, the
magus
could not locate him. All he knew was that the child had appeared close to Olympus and that the Makedones still searched for him.

Wrapping himself in his cloak, Parmenion slept.

He awoke in the night to hear a whispering laughter echoing in the woods. Sitting up, he looked toward Attalus, but the swordsman was asleep beside the dead fire. Easing himself to his feet, Parmenion tried to locate the source of the laughter. Some distance away he saw twinkling lights, but the trees and undergrowth prevented him from identifying their nature and source. Moving to Attalus, he tapped the man’s arm. The swordsman awoke instantly, rolling to his feet with sword in hand. Gesturing him to silence, Parmenion pointed to the flickering lights and began to edge his way toward them. Attalus followed him, sword still drawn.

They came at last to a circular clearing where torches had been set in iron brackets on the trees. A group of young women dressed in shimmering
chitons
were sitting in a circle, drinking wine from golden goblets.

One of the women rose from the circle, calling out a name. Instantly a small creature ran forward, bearing a pitcher of wine and refilling her goblet. Parmenion felt Attalus tense beside him, for the creature was a satyr, no taller than a child—ears
pointed, upper body bare of hair, his legs those of a goat, his hooves cloven.

Touching Attalus’ arm, Parmenion backed away, and the men returned to their camp.

“Were they nymphs, do you think?” asked Attalus.

Parmenion shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I took little note of myths and legends when a child. Now I wish I had studied them more carefully.”

Suddenly the distant laughter faded, to be replaced by screams, high-pitched and chilling. Drawing their swords, the two men ran back through the trees. Parmenion was the first to burst into the clearing.

Armed men were everywhere. Some of the women had escaped, but at least four had been borne to the ground, black-cloaked warriors kneeling around them. A girl ran clear, pursued by two soldiers. Parmenion leapt forward, slashing his sword through the neck of the first man, then blocking a savage cut from the second. Hurling himself forward, he crashed his shoulder into his assailant, spinning him from his feet.

Hearing the sound of clashing blades, the other warriors left the women and ran to the attack. There were at least ten of them, and Parmenion backed away.

“Who in Hades are you?” demanded a black-bearded soldier, advancing on Parmenion with sword extended.

“I am the name of your death,” the Spartan answered.

The man laughed grimly. “A demigod, are you? Hercules reborn, perhaps? You think to kill ten Makedones?”

“Perhaps not,” agreed Parmenion as the soldiers formed a semicircle around him, “but I’ll begin with you.”

“Kill him!” the man ordered.

At that moment Attalus emerged behind the circle, stabbing one man through the back with his dagger and sending a slicing cut across the face of a second. Parmenion leapt forward as the men swung to face this new threat. The black-bearded leader parried his first lunge, but the second plunged through his leather kilt to slice open the artery in his groin.

Attalus was in trouble, desperately fending off four attackers,
the remaining three turning on Parmenion. The Spartan backed away once more, then sprang forward and left, engaging a warrior and slashing his sword toward the man’s neck; he swayed back, and Parmenion almost lost his balance. A soldier ran at him. Dropping to one knee, Parmenion thrust his sword into the man’s belly, ripping the blade clear as the other two closed on him.

“Help me, Parmenion!” yelled Attalus. Diving to his left, Parmenion rolled to his feet and ran across the clearing. Attalus had killed one man and wounded another, but now he was fighting with his back to an oak tree, and there was blood on his face and arm.

“I am with you!” shouted Parmenion, seeking to distract the attackers. When one turned toward him, Attalus’ blade licked out, plunging into the man’s throat. Attalus shoulder-charged the warriors before him, ducking as a slashing sword tore the helm from his head.

Parmenion reached his side, and the two Macedonians stood back to back against the remaining four warriors.

A deafening roar sounded from the trees, and the Makedones, terror in their eyes, fled from the clearing.

“By Zeus, that was close,” said Attalus.

“It’s not over yet,” Parmenion whispered.

Emerging from the treeline came three colossal men, each over seven feet tall. One had the head of a bull and was carrying a huge double-headed ax. The second had a face that was almost human, save that it boasted a huge double-pupiled single eye in the center of the forehead; this one carried a club into which iron nails had been half hammered. The third had the head of a lion; he carried no weapon, but his hands ended in talons the length of daggers. Behind them the women gathered together, fear still showing in their eyes.

“Sheathe your sword,” ordered Parmenion.

“You must be insane!”

“Do it—and swiftly! They are here to protect the women. It may be we can reason with them.”

“Dream on, Spartan,” whispered Attalus as the demonic beasts shuffled forward, but he returned the stabbing sword to
its scabbard, and the two men stood before the advancing monsters. The cyclops moved closer, raising his pitted club.

“You … kill … Makedones. Why?” he asked, his voice deep, the words coming like drumbeats from his cavernous mouth.

“They were attacking the women,” Parmenion answered. “We came to their aid.”

“Why?” asked the monster again, and Parmenion looked up at the club hovering above his head.

“The Makedones are our enemies,” he said, tearing his eyes from the grisly weapon.

“All … humans … are … our … enemies,” replied the cyclops. To the right the lion-headed monster squatted down over a dead soldier, ripping loose an arm at which he began to gnaw. But all the while his tawny eyes remained fixed on Parmenion. The Minotaur moved closer on the left, dipping his horned head to look into the Spartan’s face. His voice whispered out, surprising Parmenion, for it was gentle, the tone perfect. “Tell me, warrior, why we should not kill you.”

“Tell me first why you should,” Parmenion responded.

The Minotaur sat down, beckoning the Spartan to join him. “Everywhere your race destroys us. There is no land—save one—where our lives are safe from humans. Once this land was ours; now we hide in woods and forests. Soon there will be no more of the elder races; the sons and daughters of the Titans will be gone forever. Why should I kill you? Because even if you are good and heroic, your sons, and the sons of your sons, will hunt down my sons, and the sons of my sons. Is that an answer?”

“It is a good one,” agreed Parmenion, “yet it is flawed. Should you kill me, then my sons would have reason to hate you, and that alone will make your vision true. But should we become friends, then my sons would come to know you and look upon you with kindly eyes.”

“When has that ever been true?” the Minotaur asked.

“I do not know. I can only speak for myself. But it seems to me that if an act of rescue can result in summary execution,
then you are little different from the Makedones. Surely a son of the Titans will show more gratitude than that.”

“You speak well. And I like the lack of fear in your eyes. And you fight well, too. My name is Brontes. These are my brothers, Steropes and Arges.”

“I am Parmenion. This is my … comrade Attalus.”

“We will not kill you,” said Brontes. “Not this time. Our gift is your lives. But if ever you walk in our woods again, your lives will be forfeit.” The Minotaur pushed himself to his feet and turned to walk away.

“Wait!” called Parmenion. “We are seeking a child from our land who was abducted by the king of the Makedones. Can you help us?”

The Minotaur swung his great bull’s head. “The Makedones gave chase to a centaur two days ago. It is said that the centaur carried a child with golden hair. They traveled south to the woods of the centaurs. That is all I know. The woods are forbidden to humans, save Chiron. The horse people will not allow you to pass. Nor will they speak with you. Your greeting will be an arrow through the heart or eye. Be warned!”

Attalus’s fist slammed into Parmenion’s chin, spinning him from his feet. The Spartan hit the ground hard, then rolled to his back, staring up at the enraged Macedonian who loomed above him with fists clenched, blood still seeping from the shallow gash in his cheek.

“You miserable whoreson!” hissed Attalus. “What in Hades were you thinking of? Ten men! By Heracles, we should be dead.”

Parmenion sat up and rubbed his chin, then pushed himself to his feet. “I was not thinking,” he admitted.

“Excellent!” sneered Attalus. “But I do not want that engraved on the walls of my tomb: ‘Attalus died because the
strategos
wasn’t thinking.’ ”

“It will not happen again,” promised the Spartan, but the swordsman would not be mollified.

“I want to know why it happened this time. I want to know why the first general of Macedonia rushed to the aid of
women he did not know. You were at Methone, Amphipolis, and a dozen other cities when the army sacked them. I did not see you racing through the streets protecting the women and children. What is so different here?”

“Nothing,” replied the Spartan. “But you are wrong. I was never in those cities when the rapes and murders took place. I organized the attacks, but when the walls were breached, my work was done. I do not seek to avoid responsibility for the barbarism that followed, but it was never perpetrated in my name, nor have I ever taken part in it. As for my actions today, I accept they were inexcusable. We are here to rescue Alexander, and I put that in jeopardy. But I have said it will not happen again. I can say no more.”

“Well, I can. If you ever decide to act the romantic fool, do not expect me to be standing beside you.”

“I did not expect it in the first place,” said Parmenion, his expression hardening, his eyes holding to the swordsman’s gaze. “And know this, Attalus—if you ever strike me again, I shall kill you.”

“Enjoy your dreams,” replied the swordsman. “The day will never dawn when you can best me with blade or spear.”

Parmenion was about to speak when he saw several of the women moving across the clearing toward them. The first to arrive bowed low before the warriors, then looked up with a shy smile. She was slim and golden-haired, with violet eyes and a face of surpassing beauty.

“We thank you, lords, for your help,” she said, her voice sweet and lilting, almost musical.

“It was our pleasure,” Attalus told her. “What true men would have acted differently?”

“You are hurt,” she said, moving forward and reaching up to touch his face. “You must let us tend your wounds. We have herbs and healing powders.”

Ignoring Parmenion, the women closed around Attalus, leading him to a fallen tree and sitting beside him. A young girl in a dress of shimmering blue sat on the swordsman’s lap, lifting a broad green leaf, which she placed over the wound on his cheek. When she pulled the leaf clear, the gash had
vanished, the skin appearing clean and unbroken. Another woman repeated the maneuver with the cut on the warrior’s left forearm.

The satyr reappeared from the edge of the trees and skipped forward to Parmenion, bearing a goblet of wine. The Spartan thanked him and sat down to drink. Smiling nervously, the satyr moved away.

The attempt to rescue the women was everything that Attalus had implied—romantic, stupid, and, considering the odds, suicidal—and Parmenion’s spirits were low as he sat apart from the group. Thinking back, he remembered the quiet joy he had felt watching the women and the sudden explosive anger that had raced through him when he had heard their screams. Images leapt to his mind like a window thrown open in a hidden corner of his soul, and he saw again the children of Methone piled carelessly one upon another in a grisly hill of the dead.

The city was being prepared for destruction, and Parmenion had ridden through it, overseeing the demolition. He had stopped in the main market square, where wagons were drawn up to remove the bodies.

Nicanor was riding beside him. Turning to the blond warrior, Parmenion had asked a simple question.

“Why?”

“Why what, my friend?” replied Nicanor, mystified.

“The children. Why were they slain?”

Nicanor had shrugged. “The women go to the slave markets of Asia, the men to Pelagonia to build the new fortresses there. There is no price anymore for young children.”

“And that is the answer?” whispered the general. “There is no price?”

“What other answer is there?” the warrior responded.

Parmenion rode from the city without a backward glance, determined never again to view the aftermath of such victories. Now, here in this enchanted wood, the realization struck him with sickening force that he was a coward. As a general, he set in motion the events that led to horror and had believed
that by not allowing himself to witness the brutality he was somehow freed from the guilt of it.

Sipping his wine, he found the weight of his grief too powerful to bear, and tears spilled to his cheeks, all sense of self-worth flowing from him.

He did not know at which point he fell asleep, but he awoke in a soft bed in a room with walls of interlaced vines and a ceiling of leaves.

Feeling rested and free of burdens, his heart light, he pushed back the covers and swung his legs from the bed. The floor was carpeted with moss, soft and springy below his feet as he rose. There was no door in the vines, and he approached them, pushing his hands against the hanging wall and moving the leaves aside. Sunlight streamed in, almost blinding him, and he stepped out into a wide glade bordered by oak trees. Standing still for a moment as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he heard the sound of rushing water and turned to see a waterfall gushing over white marble, filling a deep pool around which sat a group of women. Others were swimming through the crystal-clear water, laughing and splashing each other, tiny rainbows forming in the spray.