Guns of Mars 76
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 23.1
Sun-drenched and weary, Kal Keddaq fell to his knees. He’d lost track of how many days he spent crossing the cracked plains now at his back. If he had regrets, it was far too late to entertain them. The only way for him was forward up into the rocks rising blue before him in the gathering dusk.
Two burning urges continued to drive him. His need to find this mysterious source of water the bounty man swore lay somewhere ahead. And his desire to repay Bhartee Bhar for betraying him. Both vied for prominence in his mind as wild thoughts of that ferocious reckoning swirled about in his fevered brain.
He survived the long, dry march by drinking the blood of creatures he’d slain. He brought them down with his rifle or fell upon them with his dagger. Sometimes he was fortunate enough to find a thoat or some other prey who did not void their bladder before dying. He drank these bitter quaffs as he traveled, utilizing the baggy organs as makeshift chagals.
He was thark. He was a rider of the western Warhoon. His breed survived in the wastes where all others died. He could keep up a trotting pace for all of a day and all of a night if he had to. Even so, his travels brought him to the extent of his stamina. Blood and piss might sustain him but he would need water before long. Real, pure untainted water free of acid or alkali or salt.
In addition to insufficient hydration, he was exhausted from the sheer struggle required to survive in these lands. To make the best time, he traveled along the ridges rather than in the arroyos and washes. Where he came to a cut he climbed down into it to continue up the other side and on his way south. Some fissures were narrow enough to leap. This allowed him to maintain a more direct route to the far mountain range.
This chosen method of travel also made him visible for long distances across the near-featureless landscape. More than once, he had to discourage attacks of banths by killing the largest of them, their sire, with a well-placed shot as they loped for him. On one hellish afternoon, he fought off an entire pride with gun and blade over the carcass of a freshly killed thoat. He placed his back to a wall at the end of a blind ditch. It was only the bite of his sword that discouraged them in the end. They retired leaving four of their own dead.
He ate their hearts.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
