Guns of Mars 77
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 23.2
He was thark and his kind were the true masters of the land that lay between the cities of men. He would survive.
Kal struggled to his feet, resisting the call of sleep that he had denied for more days and nights than he could recall. From somewhere in the shadows at the base of the range that lay before him he heard a murmuring bleat. He unsheathed his sword and moved low toward the familiar sound. He kept a steady pace, taking care not to shift the crush of pebbles beneath his feet.
A small herd of wild thoats had taken refuge in a crevasse that ran down from the crown of the rock. He was on his belly now, crawling toward them, his blade returned to its scabbard. It was a collection of no more than ten animals. A bull with two mature females and a litter of juveniles of various ages. They were grazing on bulbous shoots of lichen that sprouted in the deepest shadows of the cleft’s interior.
If he startled them to flight, he knew the bull would stand firm to cover their escape. But they had to move past Kal to reach open ground. It was not food on his mind as he watched the barrel-chested male standing tall, eyes trained on the moon-lit opening of the crevasse.
He crept to the very edge of the herd until he could almost feel their hot breath, until his nostrils filled with the rich musk of them.
With a hoarse cry he swept his sword from its sheath and rushed the gathered animals. They scattered in panic. Their feet shook the ground like thunder, sending sprays of shale fragments flying to clatter behind.
Kal charged into their midst as they bolted past him, some brushing him nearly off his feet. He slapped at their rumps with a flat of his sword, howling a war cry as he raced on.
He sprinted now, the stampede opening a gap in which stood the bull turning about in search of the threat to his brood. With all the force he could muster, Kal’s feet left the ground in a leap that carried him to strike the side of the bull between the two sets of four legs on the flank facing him.
The large creature was taken by surprise, its feet sliding in the loose scree. Kal’s momentum had struck it high enough to unbalance it momentarily. The thark braced his feet into the gravel and shoved to press his advantage and felt the thoat begin to tip. It came down with a crash just as another beast like it had when he played this game as a boy. Tipping thoats was common sport among the Warhoon and he had not forgotten his winning methods.
The thoat rolled over on its side with a keening bellow, Kal atop it. The thark swiftly moved over the heaving body toward the head. He leaped down to straddle the animal just behind his head. He gripped his sword in both hands and held it over his head with the point of the long blade aimed down. With a mighty downward thrust he drove the blade into one of the bull’s nostrils at an angle across its snout that saw the point emerge from the opposite orfice.
His full weight upon the pommel, he hammered the blade into the scree beneath them effectively pinning the great beast to the ground. Should it try to move, to rise, it would only increase the agony of the saber now firmly jammed through the gristle of its fleshy septum.
Kal slid down from the quivering thoat, its eyes wide with terror and rage. With each snort came a bloody spatter from the painful, but not lethal, wound. In stark contrast to his cruel attack, the thark crouched by the thoat’s head and offered soothing words as he gently stroked its temples.
After a time the white-rimmed eyes grew calm, the breathing sonorous. In its tiny brain the huge animal knew that its tormentor was also its savior and, finally, its master.
The thark left the thoat pinned as it was to fashion a crude bridle and reins from a loop of rope he’d braided from strips of fresh hide. He returned to his new mount’s side, brushing hands down its neck with cooing words of comfort. At last the thoat dozed off, its chest rising and falling in a regular rhythm. Then Kal surrendered to sleep, his last thoughts were for the morning when he would free the now docile thoat and ride it along the rim of the range in search of a southward pass.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
