“It did for our ancestors, surely,” Jabar said, “but with our castles and our knowledge of the ants' ways, it is safe enough now. Indeed, we scarcely ever lose a worker, and any large city has far more deaths due to footpads and accidents.”
Balkis turned back to him with an uncertain smile. “You seem to like it well enough”
Jabar nodded vigorously. “There is a camaraderie, a closeness and sharing, that I have found nowhere else. It may be born of the constant awareness of the danger that lurks outside our walls, but it is all the stronger for that.” He fairly beamed at her, still nodding. “It is a good life, maiden, and if you tire of the jealousies and backbiting of the wide world, remember us.”
“I shall,” Balkis promised, and Anthony nodded agreement.
The stars told them it was midnight when Balkis and Anthony came to another valley. He frowned, gazing at its rocky depths and single wavering strip of greenery, almost black in the moonlight. “The river must plunge underground,” he said, “then rise again here.”
Balkis nodded. “I would guess it has done so for thousands of years, and has carved out these valleys by its passage.”
“If that is so,” Anthony said, “it must have once been a mighty river indeed, for these valleys are a mile and more in width.”
“Perhaps it still is, when the rains are heavy in the mountains.” Balkis pointed downward at a line of broken branches and brush in the limbs of the trees nearest them. “How else would such wrack have been spread so high?”
“A good thought,” Anthony acknowledged. “We are not likely to hear thunder so early in spring, but if we do, let us climb back up here as quickly as possible.”
“If we hear thunder,” Balkis agreed. “Since we do not, I would rather travel near water while we can.”
Anthony agreed, and they started down into the valley as the moon swung lower in the sky. They found no road, only a deer-track, so it took them two hours to reach the valley floor.
“Strange that so few travelers have come here,” Anthony said, but looked over his shoulder at the skeletal branches of oak and ash with the stars behind them and shivered.
“The night brings fear of spirits,” Balkis agreed, “but only to us human folk. The animals who made this track have no dread of such things.”
In the distance an owl hooted. A few minutes later they heard the death-scream of some small animal.
Anthony shuddered. “Perhaps we might do best to build a campfire against the gloom and walk this valley by day.”
“Do you fear things you cannot see?” Balkis jibed.
“Quite right,” Anthony affirmed. “I fear them far more than the things I can see.”
His honesty disarmed Balkis, and she went onward feeling almost ashamed.
They followed the riverbank under bare branches. Balkis shivered in the chill of the desert night and drew her cloak more firmly around her. She had to admit that the leafless trees and silent flow of dark water were unnerving, and reminded herself that they would not be so by day. In the distance something howled, and something else screamed. She shivered—only from the chill, she told herself.
Then she began to hear a different sound.
It was soft at first, soft and distant, but she knew it at once— the drums of war. They rattled in time to men's steps, and they were coming closer, from in front of her, and coming quickly.
Anthony looked about desperately. “Where can we hide?”
A trumpet blared in the distance. Across the valley another answered it, but with a different rhythm.
“Why do they march at night?” Anthony cried.
“If they meant to catch their enemy unaware, they have failed,” Balkis said.
The sounds ceased to approach; they stayed more or less distant, but shouting broke out, and with it the clash of steel, then the screams of the dying.
“Let us go out of this valley, and quickly!” Balkis turned toward the slope half a mile away. “I dislike the feel of this place.”
“Flowing water seems less important now,” Anthony agreed, and turned with her.
Across the meadow they fled by starlight, their eyes on the ground, watching for holes and rocks. The night wind sped no faster than they, nor the owl who sailed overhead, fleeing the shouting and the clamor.
“Only a hundred yards more,” Anthony panted, and sure enough the ground was already rising toward the hillside before them. Then the ground dipped, and a soldier in leather armor rose up before them, circular shield barring their way, battle-axe already swinging down at them.
CHAPTER 13
Anthony shouted and threw himself against Balkis, knocking her out of the axe's path, but it struck at the base of Anthony's neck and cleaved straight through to his hip. Balkis screamed and threw herself at him, already catching up her gown to stanch the flow of blood before seeing it. Then she saw a spear-point emerge from her chest and stab on into Anthony, who was still intact, and through him and into the axe-wielder, who threw up his hands, mouth widening in a scream that sounded only faintly, echoing as though from a distance.
“Down!” Anthony cried as they both struck the meadow grass—and saw the metal sandals step before them, felt a chill that froze them clear through, and knew that the other foot had trod down through them, then risen. Their owner stepped on past the companions, showing greaved shins, then a kilt of leather straps stiffened with plates of brass, then a brazen back-plate beneath jointed epaulets and a brass helmet with a horsehair crest above all.
“It is a soldier of ancient Macedon,” Anthony exclaimed in wonder.
“It is a ghost!” Balkis cried.
Sure enough, the soldier was smoky gray, and they could see stars through him, no matter how dimly, as he wrenched his spear out of his fallen enemy, who faded into nothingness even as they watched. The victor tucked his spear-butt under his arm and marched on toward the center of the valley, but his boots made no sound, left no print in the grass. The tread of marching men was distant, echoing down the canyons of time with the shouts and clashing and trumpets and drums of a battle long past.
“This is a haunted valley, and the ghosts can have it!” Anthony declared. “Come!”
His arm helped Balkis to her feet, and together they fled up the hillside. Twice more warriors rose to block their paths, but they ran on, shivering at the chill as the ghostly battle-axes slid through them but not pausing for a second, their fear of the ghosts only lending wings to their feet.
Finally they struggled up the last few feet of slope and collapsed on the level ground above, chilled to the bone, to the marrow, by the piercing of ghostly weapons. They gasped for breath and looked back the way they had come to make sure none of the phantoms had followed them. There were none near, but far away, in the center of the valley, ghost-lights swirled as a ragtag line of barbarians gave way foot by foot to the phalanx of Macedon. They hold their valley dearly, though—undisciplined or not, they were each of them valiant warriors, and two Macedonians died for each of them. But the phalanx clearly prevailed.
The breeze blew them the sound of battle again, and Balkis shivered. “What ghosts are these who fight a battle long past, again and again every night?”
“My ancestors,” Anthony said, voice grim and face hard.
Balkis glanced at him and felt sympathy flow. To lessen the pain, she asked, “Which side?”
“Both.” Anthony seemed shaken as he gazed down at the ghost-battle below. “I had thought the tale to be only someone's dream spoken aloud, nothing but some spinning of an after-dinner rhyme that held better than most—but I see now that it is more.”
The tale clearly disturbed him as much as the ghosts he had just endured. “Tell me,” she urged.