“Wait,” Alexandros commanded. “These dogs have taken Ox-Head. I want him to lead us to their village.”
The boy did as he was told. We wound through the narrow pass, out onto a wider trail, and then up a rocky hillside where sheep had cropped the grass almost to its roots. Beyond the second row of hills, nested in the cup of a wooded valley, was the boy’s village.
All the way there, Alexandros raged and fumed about Ox-Head. “Steal him from me, will they? I’ll roast them alive, each and every one of them. They’ll curse the day they were born. If they don’t return Ox-Head to me I’ll kill them all with my own hands!”
I saw that his hands were shaking: the aftermath of battle. He had nearly been killed, although he actually suffered nothing more serious than a few nicks and bruises and a bad fright.
We must have made a grim sight, six bloodied warriors, three of us on foot. I had given Alexandros my mount to ride. Nearkos walked beside me, slim and small, silent and dark as a shadow, leading his bleeding horse with one hand, his sword in the other.
The village elders came out to meet us, trembling visibly. A pair of half-naked boys, silent and round-eyed, led Ox-Head and Hephaistion’s mount toward us.
The elders stopped a few paces before us, dithering and jittering, glancing uneasily at us and each other.
Before they worked up the courage to say anything, Alexandros spoke. “Where are your young men?”
The elders looked back and forth among themselves.
“Well?” Alexandros demanded.
One of the elders was completely bald, but had a white beard that ran halfway down his chest. His fellows nudged him forward.
“Our young men, lord, are dead. You have killed them all.”
Alexandros snorted. “Don’t lie to me, grandfather! We allowed ten or more of them to escape. I want to see them. Now! Else I will burn your miserable village to the ground and sell your women and children into slavery.”
“But, brave sir—”
“Now!”
“Sir, they have run away. They fear your wrath and they have hidden themselves in the hills.”
“Send your boys to find them. Have your women prepare a meal for us. See to it!”
They jumped to his command. It struck me that half a dozen men could be swarmed under if the whole village attacked us at once. But they were cowed, terrified. The boys scampered out toward the hills. The women bustled around their cook fires. The elders led us to their village’s central green, where a feast was prepared for us.
By nightfall, seventeen young men stood sullenly before Alexandros, firelight flickering on their grimy, frightened faces. Several of them wore blood-soaked bandages on their arms or legs.
We had eaten a decent meal of roast lamb. The local wine was thin and bitter; Alexandros had made certain that we drank no more than one cup apiece.
Now he strutted up and down before the failed ambushers, fists on his hips, firelight glinting off the jeweled pommel of his sheathed sword. The meal seemed to have taken the edge off his rage. That, and the fact that Ox-Head had been returned unharmed.
Turning on the white-bearded village leader, Alexandros demanded, “What retribution should I exact on men who tried to kill me?”
The old man had recovered some of his courage, too. “You have already slain enough men to keep our village in mourning for the rest of the year, young lord.”
“Is that your answer?”
He bowed his head. “You may take whatever vengeance you desire, my master.”
“I will take, then, these young men.”
“You would slay them all?” Beyond the fire’s dancing shadows I sensed a stir among the villagers.
“I will not slay any of them. They will join my army and fight against my enemies.”
His army! I wondered what Philip would say to that.
“But, sir,” said the old man, “if you take all of them we will have no one to tend the sheep, no one to defend our village from the marauders of the next valley.”
“You would prefer that I hang them, here and now?”