Guns of Mars 69
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 20.2
Five more days brought him through the pass that snaked up and through a gap in the gray rocks. He’d killed the pack thoat three days prior. His mount served to carry slabs of the slain animal as well as their dwindling water supply. The reduced contents of the skin sloshed back and forth with each movement. The sound was maddening to the bounty man’s ears.
His mouth and throat burned for a drink between rations. His joints ached for lack of water. He saw the world before him through lids gritty with dust and scant tears to wash them clean. The animal he rode was suffering as well and would not last another day on the meager amount of hydration he allowed it.
The trail topped off a slope of scree with only open sky visible behind it. He dropped from the saddle to lead the thoat upwards by its lead reins. The beast protested, bellowing its objections in a weak squawk. He set his feet and pulled with all his weight but only brought the thoat to the knees of its four front legs. They’d come only halfway up the rise and the thoat would go no further.
The bounty man slid back to where the animal was now keeling over onto its side. He dropped to his knees by it to draw his curved dagger. The thoat bled out quickly from the slash across its neck, the blood thick and black. He was tempted to drink from the rivulets but knew the salty content would only further enflame his thirst and leech away whatever moisture remained in his muscles and joints.
After unpacking what goods he deemed essential, he climbed the hill under the weight of his rifle, bandoliers, water skin and what remained of the animal he’d slaughtered days before.
As he climbed, he felt his strength being sapped away with each lumbered step. The crest of the hill swam before him against the painful glare of the sky. The light stabbed into his brain until it began to flicker to black then white again and back to black. He felt his senses leaving him as he crested the slope. His legs gave way beneath him and the ground rushed up to embrace him in a scalding darkness.
It was full dark when he awoke. A chill ran through him causing his limbs to convulse. The stars seemed to explode against the black sky. They looked down on him with cold disinterest from a firmament that had not known clouds in his lifetime. He fought down the urge to close his eyes again, to surrender to the crushing weight of weariness, and forced himself onto his knees.
From this vantage point, his arms shaking with the effort to hold him off the ground, he surveyed the way ahead.
The trail had brought him to a broad mesa. Before him lay a flat plain interrupted only by a mound of land that lay with its features concealed in ebon shadow. With an agonizing effort, he raised himself to stand on trembling legs. His eyes were fixed on the solitary feature that stood alone in the distance.
He remained that way, wavering, to stare at the black shape defined only as a gap in the star-spattered firmament, a blot on the universe.
It was not until Cluros, the smaller of the two moons, rose into the sky that he could make out more details of the lonely hummock before him. Blue shadows danced down its slopes. An aura shimmered about it in an azure corona.
The bounty man squinted hard, his entire being fixated on the details emerging as Thuros, the larger moon, arced overhead in its race with its sibling. The ghostly light defined ledges and rifts in the face of the mountain that emerged from the shadows in stark relief.
And chief among the details the moons revealed were a pair of rounded spires jutting up into the sky like two fingers raised in silent defiance.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
