Guns of Mars 43
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 11.4
He fired more rounds to little effect. Some ricocheted off the plate armor that covered its spine. One struck near an outer eye managing to streak the fearsome visage with dark blood but little more. He was merely stinging it, stoking its already incandescent rage. He fired a last shot that pinked the flesh of one of its forelegs.
The orluk backed off then and Kal though he might have, at last, discouraged the beast. He watched it climb up the hill of broken rock, higher and higher, until it was at a level above him. It could look down on him now but still a great divide of open air separated them. An impossible leap even for an animal this powerful of limb. The orluk rested back on its haunches, regarding him with cold surmise.
Kal watched in fascinated horror as the orluk launched itself from the slope, spraying pebbles in its wake with the force of its leap. When it came roughly even with the level of the outcropping, it sprang off the incline, claws outstretched. It fell well short and Kal heard it scrabbling to make purchase and finally impacting on the rocks below.
He moved with trepidation to the lip of the ledge and looked down. The orluk tumbled down the slope but quickly recovered. Gaining its feet once more it raced up the incline until it was once again above his refuge.
Rather than a standing leap, the beast now raced down the slope, all eight of its limbs driving it downward. When level with the top of the outcropping it sprang out again. It failed to gain the top of the crag but managed to hook two of its taloned claws into cracks in the rock face. From there it levered itself up, pulling its full weight upward, muscles bunching and straining until that row of unblinking black eyes cleared the edge to stare hungrily at the thark.
Kal backed away then, drawing the long saber from the scabbard slung across his back to hold it before him in his two upper arms. One of his lower arms drew the curved blade of a dagger from his sheath. He would die here but not without cost to his enemy. He would die, his only remaining regret that the bounty man escaped alive.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
