Curling his lips in a disdainful grin, the sec man leveled the blaster and pulled the trigger. The Kalash-nikov fired once, winging the barb in the shoulder.
Frantic, the blueshirt hit the ejector switch to drop the dead clip, then fumbled for the bulging ammo pouch at his side. But the barb had already spun at the traitorous action and thrown. Straight and true, the lance pounded through the sec man’s chest, busting bones and exploding out of his back, carrying pieces of internal organs along with it into the ground.
Impaled motionless, the sec man exhaled and dropped the AK-47, hot blood pumping along the shaft of the weapon. Watching the hairy stranger quickly die, the barb reclaimed his lance, then took the longblaster as a trophy. Time was short. Already the grass was starting to ripple this way.
Jumping from rock to rock, the warrior raced for the safety of the tall trees. With a bound, he launched himself into the air and caught a low hanging limb, hastily climbing into the upper branches just as ropy tentacles snaked from the soil and dragged the gory corpse away to the mutie’s hidden den.
The barb waited awhile to make sure the ground was clear before continuing his interrupted journey. The machine was a great totem, a mighty trophy, yet the warrior was a bit sad. He had come to respect the hairy stranger as a fellow warrior, and assumed he had done the same. Was the mistake his, or some flaw in the dead man? It didn’t matter really. Only a fool forgave a betrayal, and death was the only coin of the realm used for paying debts of honor in Deathlands.