Guns of Mars 93
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 28.2
The thark squatted on the sand to await the return of the man. Sweat ran down his back in greasy tributaries. He’d thrown a cloak over his shoulders to protect him from the sun. It was soaked through, wisps of vapor rising to catch the desert wind.
The thoats rested in their haunches, dozing through the heat of the day. But now they rose in a sudden motion, ear stalks raised before trotting away in a cloud of dust.
Kal stood, allowing the sodden cloak to slip from him. He shaded his eyes to look away in the direction opposite of the thoats’ retreat. A motion, a mere speck, drew his attention out over the distant peaks. There was a dark shape in the sky growing larger with every second. The puttering sound of propellors reached them as it neared on a direct course for where he stood. The airship passed over him and turned, rising, to make a circuit high over the mountain summit. It banked steeply to return, passing through the edges of the smoke cloud to make eddies of white mist with its passage. It set down on the sand between the mountain and the setting sun.
A figure descended a ladder from the ship to walk toward them, his shadow long before him. The sunlight made a shimmering corona about the figure as it approached.
Bhar-Bhartee. The hooded man.
He stopped fifty paces from the thark, the heels of his visible hands resting on the twin butts of his guns.
“Is this the place you spoke of, Kal Keddaq?” the pale figure said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“It is,” the thark said.
“You are here alone?”
“The bounty man is here.”
“The man called John,” the hooded figure said, his eyes hidden behind the slits of his visor. “The same one who left you to die?”
Kal grunted a reply.
“The water is here,” the hooded man said. “It is good to drink?”
“It will be.”
“The fire? Has it tainted the water somehow? I saw the source of the smoke rising from the floor of the crater. Black ashes cover the ground.”
Kal said nothing in reply.
“And here I am,” the hooded man said, raising his chin to point back at the airship. “With a vessel to bring your water to market. Or were you going to rely on the thoats for transport? You know those bandits in Yttrium would only track you back to this place.”
Kal said nothing.
“You’ve a choice to make, Warhoon.” The hooded man’s lipless mouth parted to reveal the many points of his teeth.
Kal said nothing.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
