Guns of Mars 86
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 26.3
If riled up, they would likely charge in to protect the reservoir that gave them life. Just as certain, Kal would abandon him, trapped atop the archway with a horde of maneaters beneath him and no escape. Such was their partnership.
The bounty man hissed for the thark’s attention.
“Your rifle rod,” he whispered when he had the other’s attention.
Kal slid the ramrod from its place and tossed it upwards. With the long steel rod, the man was able to probe the hole he’d made in the mortar. He could feel the crumbly grout give way like putty. When he encountered more resistance, he tapped the end of the rod with the pommel of his dagger after covering it with a cloth wrap to reduce noise. With the fourth tap he felt the blockage at the end of the rod give way. He tested the opening with his hand and felt the end of the rod moving freely in space. Working the rod about, he managed to widen the hole until he could fit three fingers within its interior.
He shifted his position to the other side of the block and repeated the process until he’d bored holes at each of the outer corners of the keystone. When he’d done that, he had the thark toss him an end of his improvised tow line. This he fed into his first hole, forced through to the end with the ram rod.
Now the trickier proposition of working from within the tunnel to thread the line through the bottom-most hold opposite the first bore. He climbed the walls just inside the archway, boosted by the thark. He found a precarious perch against the curved ceiling of the tunnel with one foot on the narrow lip of rock and the other wedged against the arch itself. He eventually had the line run through all four of the holes he’d bored and cross-tied over the keystone front and back.
He dropped to the ground and he and Kal pulled the slack from the line cinching the rope tight around the block. They tested it with both their weights and it held, loosening some mortar residue that fell on them in streams of white dust. They planted their feet and pulled harder. The stone shifted with a grinding sound.
Kal brought one of the thoats forward to loop the end of the tow line around the horn of the saddle. He urged the beast forward with a kick to its rump. The line went taut, creaking as the slack went out of it and braided fibers twisted to take up the strain. They were rewarded with a grating nose that set their teeth on edge.
Man and thark, they added their own might to the pulling power of the thoat. More fine dust rained down as the keystone moved a finger’s width in its place within the embrasure. Kal drew his dagger and poked the point into the thoat’s rear. It lurched forward, huffing in protest. The sudden jerk on the line pulled the stone further from place. Mortar and stone chips fell from all across the span of the arch. Kal stabbed the beast again causing it to buck forward with a bellow that echoed off the walls of the cavern.
“You’ll wake up every one of those bastards!” the bounty man snarled as they pulled.
“They will come soon enough, little man,” Kal growled back as he tugged. “We had better have this door shut before they do.”
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
