Authors: David Gemmell
Parmenion walked back to the dead fire where Alexander was sleeping peacefully beside the centaur Camiron. Removing his cloak, Parmenion covered the child, pausing to stroke the boy’s head.
Attalus saw him, his eyes narrowing, but he masked his feelings as Parmenion joined him. “Why is the beast so nervous?” asked the Macedonian, flicking his hand toward the sleeping Gorgon.
“A thousand Makedones have entered the forest.”
“Only a thousand? Surely they will prove no problem for the
strategos?
What will you do this time? Summon the birds from the trees to our aid? Or perhaps the trees themselves will uproot and march to your orders.”
“Your anger is misdirected,” Parmenion pointed out. “I am not your enemy.”
“Ah! A friend, I suppose. That is an amusing thought.”
Parmenion turned away to see the tall priestess watching them both. Her voice whispered into his mind:
“We are being watched by a priest of Philippos. They have broken through our defenses, and he is listening to your words, relaying them to the demon king.”
Parmenion gave no sign that he had heard her and swung back to Attalus. “I know you find this hard to believe, Attalus, but I say again, I am not your enemy. And here, in this dread place, I am indeed your friend. We will stay here for two more days, then strike east, back across the mountains. Once clear of this forest, you will feel more easy in your mind. It is the evil that gnaws at you. Believe me.”
“What gnaws at me is none of your concern,” hissed Attalus.
“He is gone!”
pulsed Thena. “Gorgon drove him back.”
Parmenion leaned in close to the Macedonian. “Now you listen to me. There are enemies all around us, and if we are to survive, we must be together in spirit and strength. You think me your foe? Perhaps I am. But here I must depend on you. And you must trust me. Without that our hopes—slender as they are—will prove to be for nothing. We were both threatened by the chaos spirit. But I choose to ignore his words. He does not know the future, and I will always be the master of my fate. As will you, for we are men of strength. Now … can I trust you?”
“Why ask the question? You would not believe me if I told you what you wanted to hear.”
“You are wrong, Attalus. Say the words and I will believe them.”
The swordsman smiled. “Then you can trust me,” he said. “Does that satisfy you?”
“Yes. Now we will rest for two hours and then find a path west and south.”
“But you said …”
“I changed my mind.”
“You cannot trust him,”
Thena pulsed, but Parmenion ignored her.
Stretching out on the cold ground, he closed his eyes. All around them, as he had said, there were deadly enemies, moving in from three sides and guided by the malevolent power of the Makedones king. The Spartan considered his allies: a dying Minotaur, a priestess, a twisted assassin, and a forest king steeped in evil.
His thoughts were not hopeful, his dreams full of torment.
Attalus lay awake, his thoughts confused. The threat from the demon nagged at him, burning in his mind with fingers of fire. It would be so easy to creep across the campsite and draw his dagger across the boy’s throat. Then the threat would be neutralized. And yet the child was the son of Philip, the only man whose friendship Attalus had ever desired.
I need no friends, he told himself. But the words echoed in his mind, flat and unconvincing. Life without Philip was worth nothing. He was the sun, the only warmth the swordsman had known since childhood.
He need not know you slew his child
. Now, this thought was tempting. At some point he could lure Alexander away from the others and kill him silently.
Breaking Philip’s heart in the process
.
As Attalus rolled to his side, the darkness was lifting, thin beams of moonlight piercing the overhanging trees. There came a sound, a soft swishing, like a stick cutting the air, and Attalus looked up to see a Vore gliding down from the upper branches of a tall pine. The creature landed lightly, moving silently toward the sleeping Alexander.
The swordsman did not move. Wings folded, the Vore leaned over the child, reaching out …
Here, thought Attalus exultantly, was deliverance!
The creature’s taloned hands dropped toward Alexander.
Attalus’ dagger flashed through the air, glittering in the moonlight to plunge into the Vore’s back. The beast let out a high-pitched shriek. One wing flared out, but the second was pinned to its back by the jutting dagger. Gorgon surged to his feet and ran toward the Vore. The dying creature stumbled, pitching face-first to the ground. Parmenion and the others, awakened by the Vore’s screams, gathered around the still-twitching corpse.
Attalus stepped past them, ripping clear his dagger.
“Be careful,” snapped Gorgon, “the blood is poisonous. One touch and you will die.” Attalus plunged the blade into the earth at his feet, cleaning the dagger on the moss before returning it to its sheath.
Gorgon flipped the Vore to its back. “He was one of mine,” he said. “It is time to leave.”
“You saved me,” said Alexander, moving alongside Attalus and gazing up into the swordsman’s face.
“Are you surprised, my prince?”
“Yes,” answered the boy.
“Are you?” Attalus asked Parmenion.
The Spartan shook his head. “Why should I be? Did you not give me your word?”
“Spoken words are small noises that vanish in the air,” said Attalus softly. “Do not put your faith in words.”
“If that were true, you would not have intervened,” countered Parmenion.
Attalus had no answer and swung away, his thoughts full of guilt and self-loathing. How could you be so stupid? he railed at himself. Moving back to his bed, he gathered the cloak he had used for a blanket, brushing the dirt from it and fastening it once more to his shoulders with the brooch of
turkis
given to him by Philip.
The others were all preparing to leave save the priestess, who was sitting quietly beneath a spreading oak.
Gorgon’s voice broke the silence. “Stay close to me, for where we travel it is very dark and the dangers are many.” But still Thena sat beneath the tree. Attalus walked across to her.
“We are ready,” he said.
“I will not be traveling with you,” she whispered.
“You cannot stay here.”
“I must.”
Parmenion joined them, and the seeress looked up at the Spartan. “You go on,” she said, forcing a smile. “I will join you when I can.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Parmenion, kneeling down beside her.
“I must delay the Makedones and fool the demon king.”
“How?” Attalus asked.
“Like that!” she said, pointing back across the camp. Attalus and Parmenion turned … to see themselves apparently still sleeping by a fire that now burned brightly. Across the clearing the form of Gorgon could be seen, lying beside the Minotaur Brontes, while Alexander snuggled against the sleeping centaur. “You must go swiftly, before the spirit of Philippos returns.”
“I will not see you in danger,” said Parmenion.
“We are all in danger,” she insisted. “Go now!”
Attalus could see Parmenion had more to say and seized his arm. “No more foolishness, remember? The boy must be saved. Now come on!” Parmenion pulled clear of his grip but moved away to stand alongside Gorgon.
“She has great power,” said the forest king, gazing at his own sleeping form several paces away.
The Spartan did not answer, and Gorgon led the way into the depths of the forest; Parmenion and Brontes followed, Attalus bringing up the rear just behind the centaur and the boy.
As Gorgon had said, the trail was dark, and they made slow progress for the first two hours. Then the dawn light began to seep through the intertwined branches, though no birdsong greeted the morning and all was silent.
But toward midmorning Gorgon, at the front of the small column, suddenly waved his hand and darted into the undergrowth, moving with surprising speed for all his bulk. Swiftly the others followed him, Parmenion grabbing Camiron and pulling the centaur to his side. For a moment the beast’s hooves flailed in the air. “Quiet!” hissed the Spartan. From
the north came the sounds of many men trampling through the undergrowth. Dropping to his belly, Attalus eased back the bush before him and saw a troop of soldiers emerging from the trees some thirty paces away. They were marching in single file, their spears held carelessly to their shoulders.
After they were gone, Gorgon rose from his hiding place and the group set off once more, this time angling to the north.
Parmenion dropped back alongside Attalus. “How many did you count?” asked the Spartan.
“Eighty-five. You?”
“The same. That means there are more ahead of us.” Parmenion glanced back. “I hope she escapes them.”
Attalus nodded but said nothing.
Derae sat in the moonlight, her thoughts sorrowful. This, she knew with calm certainty, would be her last night alive. In order to keep the Makedones away from Parmenion she needed to hold the spell, but in so doing she was forced to remain in the clearing, drawing the warriors of the demon king toward her.
The night was cool, the trunks of the nearby trees bathed in silver. A fox moved out into the clearing, drawn to the carcass of the Vore. Carefully it moved around the body, and then, catching the putrid scent of the dead beast, it slunk away into the undergrowth.
Derae took a deep breath. The golden stone was warm in her hand, and she gazed down at it, marveling at its beauty and its power. Aristotle had given it to her as they stood in the stone circle.
“Whatever you wish—within reason—the stone will supply,” he had told her. “It will turn stones to bread, or bread to stone. Use it with care.” The stone was but a fragment of gold veined with slender lines of jet. But as she held the spell in place, the black lines thickened, the power in the fragment fading.
“Where did you come by it?” she had asked the
magus
.
“In another age,” he had answered, “before the oceans drank Atlantis and the world changed.”
Closing her fist around the stone, she looked across the clearing at the sleeping image of Parmenion. It was a surprising thought that these five days in Achaea had doubled their time together.
Her thoughts sped back over the years, her mind’s eye picturing the gardens of Xenophon’s home near Olympia where she and Parmenion, uncaring of danger, had kissed and touched and loved. Five days: the longest and shortest five days of her life. The longest because her memories dwelt in them, seizing on every passionate moment, the shortest because of the weight of the barren years that followed.
The seeress Tamis was the source of all the pain Derae had endured, yet in truth it was impossible to hate her for it. The old woman had been obsessed by a dream, her mind dominated by one ambition: to prevent the birth of the Dark God. Walking the paths of the many futures, Tamis had discovered all the identities of the men who could be used by chaos to sire the demon. What she needed was a man to use as a weapon against them—a sword of the source.
In order to achieve her desire she caused Derae to be taken from Sparta and hurled into the sea off the coast of Troy, her hands bound behind her. When Parmenion discovered her fate, it unleashed within him a terrible hatred, changing his destiny and setting him on the path of revenge. All this had been planned by Tamis in order that Parmenion would become the man of destiny she longed for.
It would have been better, thought Derae, had I died in that sea. But Tamis had rescued her, keeping her prisoner in the temple, filling her head with lies and half-truths.
And for what?
Parmenion did kill all the possible fathers save one. Himself.
“I will not miss this life,” she said aloud.
She shivered as fear touched her soul. Gazing up with her spirit eyes, she saw the image of Philippos hovering in the air above the campsite, his golden eye staring at her and probing
her thoughts. Filling her head with memories of the past, she obscured all her fears of the present, while the power of the eye whispered through her mind like a cold, cold breeze.
In the distance she could hear the stealthy sounds of men creeping through the forest, and her fear swelled. She licked her lips, but there was no moisture on her tongue. Her heart began to hammer.
Just then she felt the elation of Philippos as he gazed down on the sleeping child. Anger flared in Derae, and she let fall the spell, reveling in the king’s shock and disappointment as the bodies disappeared.
Rising from her body, she faced Philippos. “They have escaped you,” she said.
For a moment he did not reply, then a smile appeared on his handsome bearded face. “You have been clever, witch. But no one escapes me for long. Who are you?”
“The enemy,” she answered.
“A man is judged by the strength of his enemies, Derae. Where is the boy?”
The golden eye glowed, but Derae fled for the sanctuary of her body, her hand closing around the golden stone and shielding her thoughts.
“I do hope you will gain some enjoyment from your last hours alive,” came the voice of the king. “I know my men will.”
Soldiers burst clear of the bushes surrounding the clearing. Derae stood and waited for death, her mind suddenly calm.
Two men ran forward to pin her arms, while a third strode out to stand before her. “Where are they?” he asked, his right hand on her throat, his fingers digging into her cheeks.
“Where you will not find them,” she answered icily. Releasing her chin, he struck her savagely with his open hand, splitting her lip.
“I think you would be wise to tell me,” he warned her.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Slowly he drew his dagger. “You will tell me all I wish to know,” he assured her, his voice deepening, his face flushing. “If not now, then later.” His fingers hooked into the neck of
her tunic, the dagger slicing through the material, which he ripped clear to expose her breasts and belly. Sheathing the blade, he moved in, his hand sliding over her skin, fingers forcing themselves between her legs.