Guns of Mars 41
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 11.2
Kal glanced back as his thoat reached the foot of the slope of broken debris. The great beast was closing, ribbons of blood-streaked foam streamed back from the gaping maw of its mouth, impossibly wide with rank after rank of razor teeth gleaming red. The eyes, all six of them arrayed in a row above the open jaws, glowed with malevolent hunger.
The thark raised his rifle and fired a shot back at his monstrous pursuer. He turned back without assessing any damage his desperate shot might have wrought. From the bellow of the beast sending a gust of putrid wind across his back, Kal assumed his slug had done little harm if it managed to strike the orluk at all.
The already inadequate pace of the thoat slowed as they climbed the slope of crushed stone. His mount slipped on the uncertain footing, sending streams of gravel to spill behind.
The orluk was not so inconvenienced and climbed the slope in bounds.
Kal kicked his feet from the stirrups and rolled from the saddle just as his pursuer struck the thoat’s rump with its razor-sharp claws. The mount fell to its side with a pitiful shriek and the orluk was on it, tearing and rending until the thoat lay unmoving at the head of a stream of steaming blood.
The thark struggled upwards until he reached a section where the canal wall remained largely intact. He tossed his rifle to a ledge of broken rock above and clambered up to it, his hands and feet finding swift purchase.
He rolled up onto the ledge seconds before a row of hooked claws struck sparks from the stone behind him. Braced with his back to the cliff face, he craned his neck to see what passage might lie above. There was a vertical shaft cleft in the rock and he made for it after one glance back to see the orluk levering its bulk onto the ledge to follow him.
His rifle in his lower set of hands and saber strapped across his back, Kal braced his remaining hands and his feet to either wall of the narrow channel to work his way up using scant holds. The orluk roared its frustration below, its upper body balanced on the edge of the ledge he had just departed.
Climbing with increased urgency, the thark reached a point where the shaft broadened to a width that his limbs could no longer span. The surface above was worn smooth from ages of wind erosion and would provide no footing. Off to his right lay a jagged outcropping with nothing but open air between it and where he clung by the tips of his fingers.
Looking below, he saw the orluk poised upright, his four front legs against the foot of the cliff face and snarling up at him. There was no way up and no way down. And his arms were beginning to tire, the tips of his fingers bleeding where they were rubbed raw in his desperate ascent.
With a roar of defiance, Kal pushed out with arms and legs and, turning, launched himself toward the lip of the outcropping. He struck the edge of it, driving the wind from his lungs but he managed to get a grip on a fracture that ran along the stone ledge. The force of the hard landing knocked the rifle from his grip to clatter to the rocks below. Using all four of his hands, he pulled himself over and onto the slanted surface accompanied by a rising howl from below as the orluk expressed its frustration at seeing its anticipated meal vanish from sight.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
