James Axler – The Mars Arena

“GREN!” J.B. called out.

Ryan went to ground at once, sliding in behind the thick trunk of a felled tree.

J.B. pulled the pin on the explosive and lobbed the bomb toward the small knot of brushwooders defending the foothills that led to the ledge climbing into the mountains. “A little something extra I took off one of the brushwooders while I was punching their tickets for the last train West.”

Ryan hunkered down against the tree, both hands gripping the Steyr.

Someone tried to yell a warning, but the effort was torn apart and lost in the detonation of the gren. Shrapnel sliced through the trees overhead, and the concussion hurled small rocks and gravel in all directions.

“Company’s coming up from behind real fast,” J.B. said into the silence that followed the blast.

Ryan spotted the shadows shifting through the trees behind them. No longer trying to keep their presence a secret, some of the brushwooders carried lanterns and torches.

“There’s not going to be an easy way of doing this,” Ryan called out.

“Then it’d be best to get it over with quick so we don’t have time to obsess on it,” J.B. replied without hesitation. “The coldhearts behind us know we’re in a tight spot.”

Already bullets were starting to clip branches from the trees overhead and slam into the bark on Ryan’s side of the dead oak.

“On three, then,” Ryan said, knowing the brushwooders nestled in the foothills could hear them. He drew the SIG-Sauer with his right hand and held the rifle in his left.

“On three,” J.B. repeated.

“Three!” Ryan pushed himself up and into a run. There was a lull as the brushwooders were caught by surprise.

Spotting two men who shared cover behind a big squared-off rock that came up to their chests, he brought up the SIG-Sauer and snap-fired two rounds. Both 9 mm hollowpoints caught the man on the left in the chest over the heart and drove him backward. As he spun, bringing the blaster to bear on the second brushwooder, Ryan saw the other man’s head jerk backward.

Ryan never broke stride. A second later he reached the rock in time to spot a hard-faced woman kneeling at the side of a tree. She had J.B. in her sights less than a dozen paces away.

Chapter Five

Ryan fired three rounds into the woman’s belly, blowing her guts out. The woman started to scream, forcing more of her intestines outside her body.

Ryan left her to it. The screams might prove distracting and hold off the other brushwooders for a few seconds more.

J.B. finished up with the last man remaining in between them and the path leading to the ledge. Expertly he moved his Uzi subgun in a tight figure eight that chopped his target down.

Ricochets whined off the square-cut rock as Ryan knelt to examine the second brushwooder who’d been standing there. He kicked the man over onto his back, surprised there was no exit wound from whatever had hit him.

The silvery chill of moonlight bathed the dead man’s face. A neat, round bullet hole was centered between his wide, staring eyes.

The gut-shot woman finally died, and all her painful shrieking died with her.

“Problem?” J.B. asked, ducking behind the rock.

“He’s been chilled.” Ryan dropped the head. “But I didn’t chill him.”

“It could have been an accidental shot, what with all these rounds flying.”

“Square between the eyes like that?” Ryan shook his head, then raked his gaze over the ridges surrounding the forested valley. The distance was too great and the shadows drawn too deeply to allow him to see much. And getting more adventurous in looking wasn’t a good plan; the brushwooders were hitting the square-cut stone regularly now. “I don’t think so.”

“Me, neither,” the Armorer stated. He leaned over and put his fingers on the dead man’s face. “Big round. Thirty-aught-six mebbe. And for it not to penetrate the head, means it had to have been a subsonic round.” He flinched from stone splinters driven from the rock by a fresh salvo of bullets. “Hanging around here has about run its course.”

Ryan nodded, his mind still working at the man who lay before him. He didn’t care for mysteries or puzzles. He broke for the path leading to the ledge.