The Mars Arena

408 Pages·1997·1.07 MB·English

by  Axler James

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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
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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,
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
Page 1
And from the Roman days
The red god sets the pace Mars, it's always Mars
With Venus in his arms
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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 endure—in 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.
healing skills to a nightmare.
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Jak Lauren:
Page 2
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
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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
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 Page 3

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
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
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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-
"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
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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 Page 4

footsteps going up that mountainside will have disappeared."
"Mebbe we'll have disappeared right alongside them." Ryan flashed his old
friend a grim smile.