Eclipse at Noon by James Axler

In less than five minutes they’d be on top of him.

He turned again and stared ahead, spotting the golden glimmer of a collection of oil lamps off to the right, down a narrow spur track toward the north.

Toward the river.

There was no way of concealing his route. The few clouds that decorated the starry night were nowhere near the moon. Ryan had simply to choose between the inevitability of being caught on the main trail or chancing the side track with the strong possibility that it would finish in a dead end, offering him only the dubious hope of trying to swim the big river.

THERE WERE four or five small huts, gathered close together at the end of the narrow road, with a tumbledown jetty and some nets hanging over poles.

Ryan realized with a frisson of something close to fear that he was nearly at the end of his tether. The battering in the gorge and his time in the coma had caught up with him, and he was on the brink of exhaustion. He stared blankly across the endless expanse of the river and knew deep in his heart that he had no chance of swimming it. No chance at all.

A mongrel dog came snarling out of the nearest cabin, tail stiff, teeth bared, sidling toward him.

Behind him, no more than two or three hundred yards, there was the pounding of hooves. There’d been no more shooting, no more wasted ammunition. He figured that they knew the area better than him and were confident of being able to ride him down without any trouble.

At least he could make sure that the bastards paid a high blood price.

The dog came in so fast, low and silent, that it took Ryan by surprise, all of his attention diverted to the pursuers. He turned around to face it just as it was powering up at him, out of its attacking crouch, jaws gaping, a thread of slaver hanging silver in the moonlight.

“Fuck!” He swung a fist and caught the animal a glancing blow at the side of the muzzle, knocking it off balance, where it landed on its side in the dirt. It scrabbled to regain its feet and come in at him again.

The dog was still silent, a deep snarl muted in its throat. Ryan didn’t want to disturb everyone, though the thundering hooves would rouse them quickly enough.

There was just time to draw his panga. It had suffered from the immersion in the river, and he had worked on it for hours in Paddy Maxwell’s shotgun shack, polishing and wiping away the flowers of rust that marred the oily sheen of the eighteen-inch steel blade.

The brindled dog was going for his ankles this time. The honed cleaver thudded home at the base of the animal’s stubby, muscular neck. There was the brief grating of the bones of the spine parting, then the blade was clear out the other side, and the dog’s skull was rolling in the trampled dirt, jaws still clicking ferociously together on empty air.

The headless body hit Ryan hard below the knee, making him stagger, but he easily pushed it away, where it ran just a few hesitant, macabre, lopsided steps, then collapsed on its flank and lay still.

“You done for me dog, you outland bastard!” The man was very tall, looming out of the door of the same hut. “Come to steal our buggerin’ boats, have you?”

“Boats?” Ryan suddenly saw them, pulled in tight in the shadows of the jetty, three small fishing craft with masts and sails stowed away.

The man held a long billhook and stepped out into the moonlight, waving it menacingly at the intruder. “Cut your bastard lights out for doin’ that to good old Jerrylee.” He suddenly was aware of horsemen, only a short distance away, shouting. “They after you Yeah, that’s it.”

Ryan didn’t hesitate. He drew the SIG-Sauer and shot him carefully through the exact center of the neck, the crack of the blaster almost drowned by the noise of the approaching pursuers.

He turned and fired eight spaced shots toward them, hearing at least two horses clattering to the ground. Someone screamed in shock and pain. Ryan waited a moment, hearing the rest of the riders reining in, fighting their galloping animals, cursing and yelling in total confusion.