Guns of Mars 89
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 27.2
The bounty man was down the steps and sprang forward with the big thark rifle in his hands. He raced by Kal to shove the end of the barrel into the space where the limbs still flailed. With a jerk of the trigger, he discharged a fat round pointblank into the massed plants pressed into the tunnel. The recoil flung him back hard against the flank of one of the thoats, the rifle still in his grip. Bawling in terror, both of the animals fled around the lake and out into the greater darkness. The end of the steaming rifle barrel dripped with an evil smelling slime.
“And what did that accomplish, little man?” The thark’s eyes betrayed amusement despite the desperate straits they’d found themselves in.
“We won’t stop them,” the bounty man said even as he loaded a fresh round in the outsized rifle. “Not with blade or shot.”
“And I will not abandon this place to them,” the thark grumbled. His discus eyes were alive with fury.
“Then fire it is. We set them ablaze.”
Kal nodded, his mouth set hard.
“Can you hold them back?”
The thark’s eyes narrowed to slits as a grin split his face.
The man raced up the steps three at a time, the rifle balanced against him. On the terrace, he dropped the loaded rifle to the tiles before running back into the rooms to find amphorae filled with oil stacked against the wall of a storage bin. Two at a time he dragged the heavy ceramic jugs to the lip of the mezzanine and tipped them over the edge. They tumbled down to shatter among the wavering throng.
He lost count of the number of trips he made back and forth to the stacks of amphorae while below the thark hacked and slashed away any limb that dare expose itself through the quavering surface of the debris mound.
Two more amphorae plummeted down into the pit to break open on the tops of the shrieking mass. The first moon was up and the light of it shone on the forest of gyrating branches below. They gleamed like glass, soaked with oil that flew from their flashing stalks in arcs of moonlit spray. Still, they crowded forward, massed at the foot of the tunnel and trilling from a thousand reedy throats. He stared down at them, transfixed by their song and gyrations.
A new roar from the thark cut through the high-pitched chorale, breaking the bounty man free from his trance. He stooped for the rifle and held it braced at his side. Once again, the discharge sent him stumbling back as the blast flashed down toward the teeming swarm of fascii below. Sparks flew from the end of the barrel to drift down on the massed plants.
From the edge of the terrace he watched as he reloaded. A whisp of white smoke turned to a gray cloud then black before he saw the first tongues of flame licking upward. The inferno spread quickly, accelerating outward on the skim of oil that covered the plant men’s limbs and boles. The fire bit deeper then, consuming the flailing appendages of the distressed plant creatures. They were dry now from a day in the sun away from the water and the greedy flames devoured them as they writhed.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
