Page 53 of Hot Zone

Twelve

Rustam muttered to her, “We’ve got a problem.”

She didn’t wait for the command this time but went ahead and stuck out her hand. What now?

Over there.

Okay, she’d definitely heard his answering thought. They officially had some sort of telepathic link whenever they held hands, now.

She reached out hesitantly with her mind to seek life signs nearby like he did, unsure of the skill and how to use it. But it didn’t take any great expert to sense the Greek patrol that had passed earlier, running frantically back this way, scrambling over the rocks heedlessly, panicked.

She cast her awareness out beyond the men.

Oh, no.

A great, teeming mass of energy surged southward, not more than a mile away. Xerxes’s army.

They aren’t supposed to get here until tomorrow!

Rustam looked disgusted as he thought back, This is probably an advance guard. He no doubt sent them ahead at high speed to seize the pass. He can only bring a few hundred men into the narrow gap at a time, so there’s no need to have a hundred thousand troops at Thermopylae before he engages the Greeks.

Doing her best to keep panic under control, she transmitted, Any thoughts on what we do now?

Let those Greeks pass back to the south of us and then follow them.

To Thermopylae?

We’ll have to find another way around the pass. We can’t go through it now.

Her stomach plunged. There was always the fabled goat path that a Greek traitor had supposedly shown to the Persians and which had spelled the demise of the three hundred Spartans holding the pass. How could she suggest they search for it when nobody was supposed to know about it yet?

Rustam muttered aloud, “Those Greeks aren’t heading for the pass proper. Perhaps they came around it another way. Let’s follow them.”

The patrol was ahead of them now, racing south to warn their generals of the arrival of the Persians. Problem was, they were on foot, and Rustam and Tessa had two big, impossible-to-hide horses with them.

They couldn’t abandon the beasts—they needed Polaris and Cygna for the rest of their journey. The horses could make twice the speed and three times the distance of a man in a day, and they could do so day after day.

The Greeks stayed inland, fleeing through the mountains, following a chain of gullies and narrow washes that led generally southward. Behind Tessa and Rustam, a small party broke off from the main Persian force, following the same route. It became increasingly hard to move stealthily between the two forces and conceal the presence of the horses.

Finally Rustam stopped. “This isn’t working,” he murmured. “Take off Cygna’s bridle and stow it in your saddlebag.”

“Take off—” she started to ask. What did he have in mind?

He flashed her one of those military-commander looks that she used on her own troops when there was no time to explain, but she knew what she was doing.

She shut her mouth and reached up to unbuckle the mare’s bridle.

Rustam muttered, “Take your water skins but leave everything else on the animal. Tie it down securely.”

She did as he instructed. He made a quick visual inspection of her work, nodded his approval and gave her girth a tug to tighten it. Then he did the oddest thing. He laid his forehead against Polaris’s. The mighty stallion closed his eyes, and for all the world it looked as if the two were communicating with one another.

Rustam did the same with Cygna, who jittered nervously at first, then closed her eyes and tolerated his forehead against hers.

Rustam straightened, then breathed, “Go.”

Tessa opened her mouth to protest as the two horses turned around, to head back down the slope they’d just climbed. He was letting the horses go? Was he insane?

Lightning-fast, Rustam reached out to clap a hard hand over her mouth, and an image of a half-dozen new human signatures close behind them flooded her mind. She looked up fearfully at Rustam and nodded to indicate she’d seen the new threat.

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