Anthony and Balkis watched in amazement as the ant ran to and fro upon the ancient battlefield and the twilight faded. When the stars came out and full darkness descended in the valley, the ant froze for a moment, then dove at the ground beneath it, tearing and hurling, digging itself a deep, deep burrow, as it always did at night.
“It might bring up gold!” Anthony started down the hill.
“And it might not!” Balkis caught his arm. “You might stay there all night waiting, until your ancestors drove you mad! Come, say a prayer of thanks to them for distracting the little monster, and let us flee while we can!”
“Oh, very well!” Anthony grumbled. “But you will never be rich, Balkis, if this is how you treat your opportunities.”
“You will quickly be dead, if this is how you treat yours,” Balkis retorted, and tugged at his arm. “Let us be gone from this place!”
“Let us indeed.” Anthony tore his gaze away from the new anthill and turned to follow her up the slope. At the top, he looked back and stood gazing at the glowing battle in the bottom of the valley.
Balkis observed the somber set of his face and said gently, “It was no mere nightmare after all.”
“No, it was not.” Anthony turned his face to the desert, and the future. “Let us go, sweet Balkis. It is not good to become mired in the past.”
By degrees the arid land became more green; thorn and scrub gave way to grass and shrub. They began to find trees, first wide apart and stunted, but closer and closer together as they went farther north, until they found themselves roaming through a savannah with streams only a little more than a day's travel apart. A week after they had left the valley of ghosts, the nights were no longer so chill nor the days so unbearably hot, and they dared to begin traveling by day. So they were walking beneath a mid-morning sun when they met the urgent traveler.
They could tell he was in a hurry because he ran a hundred yards, then walked a hundred, and as he came toward them, alternately running and walking, Anthony took out his sling and fitted a stone to its cup. “What chases him, to make him run so?”
“Whatever it is, he must rest and take nourishment, or it will catch him.” Balkis held up a hand as the man approached. “Stay, stranger, and break bread with us.”
“You have bread?” The man skidded to a halt, and Balkis saw that he wore only a tunic, cloak, and sandals, with no pack and not even a wallet tied at his waist.
“You have been long without food,” Anthony guessed, and took off his pack to dig out biscuit and dried meat. “Is the land so empty of game as that?”
“I dare not tarry to hunt, let alone take time to roast my catch! Thank you, stranger, and bless you!” The traveler all but snatched the food from Anthony's fingers and began to tear at it with his teeth.
“What pursues you with such greed that you dare not stop to eat?” Balkis asked
“Women, maiden.” The traveler shuddered at the memory. “Warrior women.”
Balkis and Anthony exchanged a startled glance, then turned back to the traveler. “Tell us of them,” Balkis urged, “for we mean to go farther north. Dare we journey through their country?”
“You may,” the traveler said, but jerked his head at Anthony. “You, however, dare only go there if you can run very quickly— or have far greater willpower than any man I've ever met!”
“Why should I need willpower to travel?” Anthony asked, bewildered.
“Because you will so lose yourself in pleasure that you will forget to count,” the stranger said. “You will overstay your nine days, as I have, and will have to flee for your life.”
Balkis felt a frisson of alarm, a thrill of danger, but Anthony was intrigued. “What nine days? And what pleasure could so ensnare a man that he forgets to guard his life?”
“Women,” the man said again, simply, “warrior women,” then added, “Without their armor, at play.”
In Balkis, frisson turned to apprehension, but Anthony looked even more interested. “I would have thought that warriors' play was athletic contests.”
“You could call it that” the traveler said with a sardonic smile, then took another mouthful and explained through his chewing, “You are about to enter the country of the Grand Feminie, young people. It extends for forty-two days'journey, and if you must go north, you must go through it, or take twice as long skirting it through the desert that lies to either side. It is a nation of warriors, female warriors, and no males are allowed to dwell within its boundaries, nor have been for hundreds of years.”
“Hundreds of years?” Balkis frowned, puzzled. “Then where do new wairiors come from?”
“From the brief stays that men are allowed.” Again, the stranger managed a sardonic smile between mouthfuls. “No male may stay with them more than nine days, during which time he may carouse and amuse himself as much as he wishes and with as many different women as he can. Thus do they conceive”
Balkis's feeling of foreboding deepened. “What if he should overstay his time?”
“In such a case, the man will die—and therefore will I leave you.” The stranger stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thank you for your food, good young people— but now I must flee.” With no more ado, he took to his heels and ran.
Balkis turned to Anthony. “Let us go around this country, I pray you! No matter how many months it takes, it will be far safer!”
Anthonv frowned. “I have never seen you fear anything before.”
“True enough,” Balkis admitted, “but I fear… I fear…”
“Not their women!”
“Not their fighting, no. Oh Anthony, please…”
High-pitched, ululating cries filled the air, and a dozen female warriors burst into sight around a curve in the road. They were armed like the Macedonian ghosts, with crested helmets, brazen breastplates, brass-braced kilts, greaves, and armored sandals. They caught sight of the fleeing traveler and doubled their pace.
“Aside, quickly!” Balkis pulled Anthony off the road.
It did no good—as the women warriors came even with them, their leader barked a command, and four of them stopped, looking darkly disappointed, and challenged the companions. Their accent was thick, but Balkis could understand it—the language of Maracanda had become the international tongue of these central lands. “I am Ramba, dozen-leader of Queen Harikot,” the soldier said. “Why do you walk this road?”
A flippant answer came to Balkis's lips, but before she could defy the soldier, Anthony said, in tones of respect, “We travel to Maracanda, dozen-leader. May we pass through your country?”
“Aye, if you can come and go in nine days.”
“But your land is forty-two days across!” Balkis protested.
There was a cry of despair down the road. Balkis and Anthony spun and saw the soldiers wrestling the stranger to the ground. Balkis whirled back to the dozen-leader. “Spare him, I pray you! He is not an evil man!”
“You must speak to the gross-leader about that,” the dozen-leader said, her face granite.
As the warriors came back to them with the stranger struggling in their midst, Balkis cried to him, “I had not thought that giving you food would have slowed you to your death! Your pardon, I pray thee!”
“Given, bless you,” the man groaned. “I had not known they were so close. Believe me, the ten minutes I spent with you would have made no difference.”
Half the young women stared at him, then glanced uncertainly at one another.
“You gave this man aid?” asked a tall, older woman with cold gray eyes and a stern expression.
“I did, and I would do so again!” Balkis declared. “He is not evil, only weak to temptation! Spare him, I pray you!”