Table Of Content/* /*]] */ Dlands 38 - Mars Arena Cold talons pinched his skin
"Dean" someone said, and he couldn't believe how much it sounded like Krysty.
Something shimmered into being on his right. It was impossibly close, near
enough to reach out and touch him. He'd have seen anyone or anything that had
come that close to him.
Then he saw the face, made out the features. She was indistinct, as if he were
seeing her through a heavy fog. "Krysty?" Dean said, not believing it.
"Your father is coming for you. Look for him." The words sounded as if they
were coming from a long distance, then she was gone.
Before the boy could puzzle over her appearance and what it meant, the door
burst open. Framed in it was a nightmare figure Dean remembered well a giant
mutie pig, its beady, merciless eyes nearly buried in wrinkles of scarred gristle.
Before he could draw the Browning, the beast started for him, squealing shrilly
in anticipation of an easy kill.
The Mars Arena
38 in the Deathland series
James Axler
A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE
TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON AMSTERDAM PARS SYDNEY
HAMBURG STOCKHOLM ATHENS TOKYO MILAN MADRID WARSAW
BUDAPEST AUCKLAND
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is
stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and
neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped
book."
First edition August 1997
ISBN 0-373-62538-3
THE MARS ARENA
Copyright 1997 by Worldwide Library.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization
of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography,
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is
forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library,
225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the
author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or
names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or
unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with are
registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade
Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed in U.S.A.
Some say that men love games
Some say that war's a game
And from the Roman days
The red god sets the pace
Mars, it's always Mars
With Venus in his arms
Don't they know the real arena
She draws blood to stoke her love
And the Reaper shows his bones
Shedding kindness like a cloak
Mars, his nights of bliss
Venus and her blood-red kiss
from the Liar cycle the rock group Polo Heads
THE DEATHLANDS SAGA
This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that
was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.
There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the
balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.
But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endurein the way of the lion, the
hawk and the tiger, true to nature's heart despite its ruination.
Ryan Cawdor The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with
betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.
Krysty Wroth Harmony ville's own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the
strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been
fostered by her Mother Sonja.
J. B. Dix, the Armorer Weapons master and Ryan's close ally, he, too, honed his
skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.
Doctor Theophilus Tanner Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc
has been thrown into a future he couldn't have imagined.
Dr. Mildred Wyeth Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not
much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-
century healing skills to a nightmare.
Jak Lauren A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger,
the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.
Dean Cawdor Ryan's young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows,
and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.
In a world where all was lost, they are humanity's last hope
Chapter One
It was the moon that gave the brushwooders away, hanging against the sable sky,
as white and bright as a man's skull just carved clean.
Ryan Cawdor stifled a curse as he moved through the shadows and silence of the
forest, quiet himself so the stalkers wouldn't know he was among them. The
Steyr rifle that had seen him out of so many tight spots across Deathlands was
hard and sure in his hands.
Jak Lauren had noticed the brushwooders first, even before the sun had dropped
like a burst heart against the leaden evening sky. But Ryan's combat sense had
been prickling the back of his neck an hour before that.
Ryan held his breath as he watched the brushwooders, not wanting the thin gray
fog to give away his position. The pursuers had broken into at least two groups
that he could identify, and walked up the broken terrain in a staggered line. It
was a pincer movement, as old as war itself.
The one-eyed warrior had used it a few times himself, and he knew it would be
deadly effective. He and his companions were outnumbered at least seven to
one.
The sky was clear at the moment, but against the mountains the weather could
change in an instant. The wind came out of the north and carried a wolfs bite.
Ryan had dressed warmly, wearing a heavy coat he'd found after he and his
companions had raided deserted houses along their trek in from the gateway
among the Western Islands. But he'd had to shed the coat to double back on their
would-be attackers because the material was too light colored.
He felt as if he were freezing on the outside, but inside his survival instinct was
burning him up. He was a tall man, a couple inches over six feet, broad
shouldered and clean limbed. His dark curling hair held a frosting of snow from
the flurries that appeared suddenly over the Sierra Nevada along the Cific
Ocean.
Most women would have called him handsome, if not for the black leather patch
that covered his left eye, and the cruel, puckered scar that ran from the corner of
his right eye, down his cheek to just above his jawbone.
Two pointmen, one the head of each group of the pincer arms, met and knelt to
examine the ground in the light of the full moon. Ryan knew they were
following footsteps his group had left in the damp earth underneath the crust of
following footsteps his group had left in the damp earth underneath the crust of
snow. Given the weather conditions, it was hard to pass unnoticed even as
practiced as his people were.
They'd seen the brushwooders earlier in the day without being seen themselves,
not many hours after they'd made the jump through the mat-trans into the area. It
had taken Ryan only a few minutes of observation to figure them for the raiding
parties he'd been told about. The companions had encountered a group of
farmers in the early evening and learned that brushwooders had fired several
farmhouses and killed a dozen people. It was part of a spree of violence that had
been going on for days.
Violence was nothing new in Deathlands, or to the companions. The fleeing
group of farmers had also warned Ryan that the weapons they carried would be
highly prized by the brushwooders. Their leader had designs on consolidating his
hold on the area and killing anyone who stood to oppose him. Adding to his
armament was necessary to achieve his goal.
Ryan had kept his people clear of the roving hands of brushwooders, but their
search for a pass through the mountains had brought them here, and within sight
of one of the brushwooder patrols. Now they were running through the darkness
for their lives.
Rising, his nose tilted up and forward as if he were taking in the air like a
hunting hound, the pointman nearer to Ryan turned to his group and pointed
toward the east, where the terrain grew steeper. He moved on, moonlight
glinting from the blaster in his hands. He'd torn branches off trees and stuck
them inside his clothing for camouflage, as well as down the neck of his coat and
in the sleeves. Other branches were pinned against his chest and shoulders.
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
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.
Ryan knew it would be enough to fool most folks.
Ryan fell in behind the pincer movement again, pulling on the dead man's coat
as he ran. The garment was snug across the shoulders, too small to be properly
closed. But the stains from his bloody hands blended right in with the
accumulated dirt that soiled the coat.
The sounds of his footsteps were lost among the shushing and tramping the
brushwooders made. Marked by muddied snow, their trail was easy to track. The
next two men in line were together, their heads close as they talked.
Ryan closed the distances then. He held his pace, gazing ahead of the two and
spotting the man in front of them. He couldn't act yet, but a dip in the terrain was
coming up. If he could move fast enough, he could take them both out before
anyone saw. He tightened his grip on the panga.
The dip arrived, and Ryan lunged between his two targets and knocked them off
balance. He thrust the panga through the first brushwooder's throat, the point
skidding along the vertebrae for an instant, then plunging through the other side.
The brushwooder dropped to his knees, hands seizing the panga impaling his
throat. Strained gurgling bubbled from his mutilated throat.
The second one turned, leveling a blaster at Ryan's chest. The brushwooder's
face was pale, unravaged by time or circumstance as yetand feminine.
Ryan swung an arm out, chopping at the wrist behind the blaster. There was
enough time for him to draw his 9 mm P-226 pistol and shoot, but the noise
would have alerted her companions.
