There was no sign of smoke to show where the home of this “Circe” was. All you could see was a lot of forest. It was an island all right, but not a small island. Maybe fifteen by twenty miles of island. Searching it was going to be next to impossible.
Among the rocks and out of the forest it was hot in the sun. Hot enough to make Anibal remember the stream—and just how far away it was . . . especially as that South African girl had pointed out those paw prints in the mud. The leather that their canteens had turned into made the water taste odd, but it was better than walking back.
The sergeant repressed a shudder. Lions! First that boar. And now lions. And if Doc Jerry was right there’d also be leopards and wolves. The little guy said that ancient Greece had them. Bears, too. And a whole lot of monsters on top of that, if all the mythical stuff were true.
He sighed softly. Ranger school had taught them every damn thing. How to live off the land. How to stalk. It had been physically and mentally demanding—more than surviving here had been, for the most part. It just somehow hadn’t included wild boars and lions and legendary monsters at the same time, along with the other uncertainties of this place. It also hadn’t included keeping untrained people alive.
Still, they were doing pretty well. Cruz knew that although he and Mac could move at twice the speed, they’d not have survived so far if it wasn’t for the civilians. But they really needed something better than those spears if they were going to go on surviving. Fire was good for predators. It was also difficult to get going in a hurry. He resolved to look for a good dry branch full of twigs. It could be more useful than the M16s that they were lugging along. As far as he could work out, they were just dead weight. He decided to try burning some of whatever the stuff was that was in a cartridge now. That might be useful . . . more than some other things. Even being good at powerbreaking wasn’t going to help in this wilderness.
He sighed again. He was a city kid, fer chrissake. You knew where you were, there, just like you did in the Army. And, sure, Ranger school had been tough. But it was school. You got out at the end of it. And you didn’t have civilians to worry about.
Which led him into the other truly scary idea: They could be here forever. One of the most precious things that any soldier can take into battle is the knowledge that if he survives—he can go home. It wasn’t true in this case. You only got shipped home if you got a bad case of “dead.”
He looked across the forest again. Yeah. They were in deep shit. They were going to struggle just to survive the animals. Not to mention all of this “magic and gods” crap.
His eyes nearly bugged out. At first glance he’d thought they were horsemen. It was only at second glance he saw they really were horse-men. Centaurs. With bows. And they looked pissed.
Really pissed.
* * *
“Quick! Over the cliff!” shouted Cruz.
Liz had been musing, gazing over a panoply of forest greens that certainly was nothing like the modern Greece she’d visited in that long ago time with Nick. Her wandering thoughts—about just what impelled logic and hormones in the female of the species and why they seemed to work in diametrically opposite directions—was disturbed by a yell and the clatter of hooves. A second’s glance was enough to tell her that Cruz had the right idea.
Alas, climbing down is never easy. It was touch and go on the lichenous rock. And then, when she reached the overhang—clutch and grow . . .
But that overhang was a blessing. The centaurs had showered a good few rocks down after them.
“It’s a good thing they’re half horses, not half goats,” said Jerry, massaging his ankle with a grimace.
Liz smiled. “One thing we primates can do better than horses, and even goats, is climb. And run long distances too, for that matter.”