James Axler – The Mars Arena

Footfalls crunched into the snow behind Ryan. He whirled, bringing up the Steyr to cover the lone shadow twenty feet away.

“Me,” J. B. Dix whispered.

“How many?” Ryan asked.

“I counted forty-two,” J.B. replied, closing the distance between them without being spotted, “then I gave up. It’s bastard cold out here, and I’m not happy about them not being sociable enough to fall for our little trick back at the other camp.”

When they’d found out they were being followed, Ryan had kept his group moving, ready to defend themselves. Once he’d seen the brushwooders were willing to wait, he’d guessed they were waiting to ambush the travelers while they were sleeping rather than risking an all-out confrontation. Tense minutes had passed before they acted as if they were making camp not more than three miles back.

“Could be they did,” Ryan replied. “Mebbe they waited until the camp fire we left died a bit, then crept down to where we left those rocks piled up under blankets and realized we’d already gone.”

“Didn’t have any trouble picking up our trail,” J.B. observed, taking off his steel-rimmed glasses for a moment to clean them. When he put them back into place, he reached up and gave his battered fedora a tug, making sure it was settled into place.

“I figure Krysty and the others are a hundred yards ahead of the pack,” Ryan said.

“Yeah.” J.B. glanced at his wrist chron. “It’s been long enough.”

“This bunch of coldhearts have got their noses opened up for the chilling they’re expecting to dish out,” Ryan said, nodding at the rear of the two pincer movements. “They aren’t going to expect us to come up on them from behind.”

“We want to introduce ourselves fast or slow?”

“Slow,” Ryan answered. “They aren’t interested in moving quick, and they’re getting spread out. If we put a few of them down, it’ll only add to the confusion when they start running into their own dead backtracking us after the wheels come off.”

J.B. looked up at the dark sky. “The way this snow is picking up and sticking so quick to what’s already here, we could buy a few minutes. By the time they get themselves regrouped, the footsteps going up that mountainside will have disappeared.”

“Mebbe we’ll have disappeared right alongside them.” Ryan flashed his old friend a grim smile. “I got the left.”

J.B. nodded, then faded into the shadows.

Ryan went in the other direction.

With the Steyr slung over one shoulder, Ryan slipped the panga free of its sheath. The eighteen-inch weapon sported a wicked blade that he kept honed to razor sharpness.

He crept up on the man walking drag on the left pincer movement, moving easily and quietly. The brushwooder had stopped briefly to adjust his pack.

Ryan stepped forward without hesitation, the panga pointed up from his fist. He clapped a hand over the brushwooder’s mouth, then sliced the edged steel across the man’s exposed neck.

The blade bit deeper than Ryan thought it should have, then hung up for just a second. The man jumped in his grasp as the wound spewed hot blood over Ryan’s arms. The brushwooder tried to force a scream past the hand over his mouth, then drew in another breath through his nose to try again, letting Ryan know the windpipe hadn’t been severed.

Glancing down, Ryan saw the man had evidently been scratching at his bearded throat when he’d raked the panga across. The blade had sliced off three of the man’s fingers, the stubs shooting blood into the air, but the panga had gotten trapped in the middle joint of the index finger.

Ryan changed his leverage and pulled more forcefully on the panga. The blade separated the last finger a heartbeat before opening a wound in the man’s neck. He held the kicking, dying man until only spasmodic quivers were left, then shoved the corpse into a stand of brush. He took the man’s coat, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been seen.

In the moonlight, and supported in the brush, the dead man looked as if he were about to commit an ambush. As a final touch, Ryan propped up one of the corpse’s arms and leveled the man’s blaster in front of him. Both dead eyes remained open, catching the moonlight reflected up from the patches of snow around them.