Guns of Mars 44
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 11.5
The orluk struggled to improve its hold on the rocks, its lower sets of claws failing to find support and flailing in the air.
The thark, sensing an opening, rushed forward to bring his saber down in a broad swing that struck sparks off the stone even as it neatly sliced off two of the gripping toes. The digits and their cruelly hooked claws spun away in a gout of blood. The beast howled then as blood gushed from its wounded appendage.
Kal moved forward once more, sword raised only to retreat as, with renewed determination, the orluk managed to get a third and then a fourth claw over the edge of the outcropping and begin to lever its bulk upward.
The thark retreated until his back was pressed against the wall of the crater, his sword held ready for a final strike before the beast took him.
The orluk, cautious now and favoring its wounded foot, moved toward him, its back humped and jaws gnashing. He watched, transfixed, as the haunches of the creature rose, the muscle in its rear legs quivering in anticipation for a final, fatal lunge.
Kal gripped the long handle of his sword in two fists, his sinews creaking with the effort. He set his feet against the inevitable charge. His jaw clenched, he met the gaze of those hideous eyes.
“Come on, you bastard,” he snarled. “You’ll pay for this meat in blood.”
Two strides from taking the thark in its jaws, the orluk staggered to one side. A great gout of blood and tissue erupted from a wound where flesh met armor at the top of its spine. A crimson spray from its mouth spattered Kal with hot gore from head to foot. With a burbling growl it straightened for another run at its prey. The thark moved the point of his saber, ready for a fresh attack.
A booming sound echoed from the walls of the crater, following hard on the heels of the orluk’s sudden wound. Kal did not turn his head to find the source, keeping his eyes trained on the beast now closing with him once more.
The orluk was struck again, this time a fatal blow. Its massive skull exploded sending brain matter and bone flying. Its legs went lifeless beneath it as it crashed to the rock, its huge bulk sliding almost to Kal’s feet where it lay, the only sign of life a feeble twitching of its flesh.
Again, the report of a firearm reverberated off the rock all around. Kal stepped around the gargantuan carcass to look in the direction he supposed the shots had come from. Down on the floor of the canal, a figure stood up from where it had braced a rifle over the saddle of a kneeling thoat.
It was an unknown figure of a man dressed in a hooded robe belted with a brace of handguns. All but his lower features were hidden behind a visor of some kind. The thark watched as the stranger charged the big rifle, a thark rifle, with a fresh round before raising the barrel to sight on Kal for a center shot.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
