Guns of Mars 13
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 4.3
They reached Samarium after another short day and one long night.
Once a great city built by a long-forgotten race, the place was a husk of what it must have been in millennia past. The great white domes of the halls and palaces looked majestic from a distance. It was only as they grew closer that jagged fractures running down the length of the curved surfaces became apparent. The surrounding wall that had once served as a defense against marauding bands of tharks was broken now by gaps. The watch towers along its length had mostly crumbled to the ground. This home of an ancient people was showing its age. Over the centuries a few of the buildings had collapsed entirely. Smoke rose in the air from great chimneys that jutted up from the ruins. This is where the gathered ice was melted and loaded into tanks for shipment south where it fetched a price equal by weight to any precious gem or rare metal.
The business of Samarium was water. And anyone could see that it was a trade with shrinking prospects as the ice cap receded to the north. Where the city once sat upon an icy plain, now all around were only the frost-rimmed rocks revealed by the retreating arctic cap.
Sheltered within the remaining domes were rough structures built from the debris of finer buildings that had fallen to time and disrepair. A broad main avenue that ran the length of the miles-wide city was lined on either side by trading posts and hostels. Goods of all kinds were offered from clothing and gear made of hide to strong drink and weaponry. Some of the residents interrupted their commerce to watch the unusual sight of a man on a striped thoat leading a bound thark before him. Both looked hard traveled. The thark sank to his knees as the man dropped from his saddle before a building ringed by a stone enclosure. Inside the fenced area was a herd of fifty or more thoats.
The bronze man looked over the curious mob that crowded the lane to take a look at him and his prisoner. They were mostly red men and women with a few black men of the First Born among them. All eyed him with suspicion. He ignored them to slide his rifle from its scabbard and approach a large, broad-shouldered man with a mane of white hair that set off the wine-dark hue of his face.
“Do you have a pair of thoats I might buy?”
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
