George Martin - Old Mars

“Rac, there’s still time for me to withdraw the challenge,” Jason called out. “We don’t have to do this. Just let those people go, and we can …”

The rest of his words were drowned out by the high-pitched pop of a whip snapping only inches from his face, the dry air crackling with the electrical discharge from its tip.

“I’ve heard enough of your talk for one lifetime,” Rac shouted. “Shut up and die .”

As the challenged party, Rac had been given the choice of weapons, as well. So naturally he had chosen one that least suited Jason’s talents.

“All right,” Jason snarled. He flicked the whip he held in his right hand, allowing it to uncoil and hang down past his feet. “Enough talking.”

Jason raised his arm overhead in a slow swing, the whip trailing through the air, then pulled back with a jerk after making a complete circle, sending the tail of the whip racing ahead, only to snap back just as it reached the column atop which Rac stood.

Rac’s mandibles quivered with laughter as he leapt nimbly from the column to a rooftop that rose above the sands, just in time to avoid Jason’s lash.

“You never could get the hang of it, could you, pink-skin?”

Since arriving on the red planet, Jason had made full use of the increased speed and strength that he enjoyed relative to the natives of the low-gravity world. But tasks that called for finesse and a light touch, requiring him to rein in his strength, were actually more difficult for him. The whips, which the natives were able to manipulate like sinewy snakes beneath the water and like lightning in the air above, had always presented Jason with difficulty.

But he wasn’t about to give up yet.

Rac’s own whip shot through the air again, and as it whistled toward him, Jason managed to step to one side, almost—but not quite—managing to avoid it. The whip’s tip grazed his bare shoulder, sending a shock of pain across his chest, accompanied by the acrid tang of cauterized flesh. It was almost enough to make him lose his grip on his own weapon. But even a full charge wouldn’t have been fatal, assuming it had struck him in the same spot. A shock to a limb he could survive, but one to his trunk might well stop his heart from beating, and one to his head could fry his brain.

While Jason recovered his balance and lashed out with his own whip, Rac had already alighted on another roof, and by the time Jason’s whip cracked in empty space, Rac had leapt to the top of another ruined statue. The sand-sharks below circled hungrily, tracking their movements, and, overhead, a flock of leatherwing scavengers wheeled silently, patiently.

Rac’s whip swept forward again, and Jason jumped off the top of the column with as little force as he could manage, aiming to come down on top of a temple roof that jutted out of the sands at an angle. But he misjudged the distance, overcompensating for the strength of his jumps, and failing to take into account the diminished strength of his injured knee, and almost fell short. His arms pinwheeling on either side, as if he might somehow swim through the thin air, he just managed to grab hold of the roof’s edge with his free hand and dangled for an instant off the precipice, almost losing hold of his whip in the process.

As Jason scrambled to pull himself up onto the canted roof, he heard a whistle and crack, followed by a riot of pain in his left leg. He lost his grip on his whip, which went tumbling down to the sands below, where it was instantly swallowed whole by one of the sand-sharks. Jason collapsed forward onto the roof, his leg spasming and twitching violently, having received almost a full charge from Rac’s whip.

He managed to roll over onto his back, just as Rac’s whip whistled and popped above him once more. A second slower, and it would have caught him square in the face.

Jason was struggling into a sitting position as Rac landed lightly on the other side of the temple roof, some fifteen feet away. Rac’s whip snaked in his grip as he swung his arm back and forth, building up speed, slowly stalking toward the place where Jason lay.

“I should have killed you the first moment I laid eyes on you,” Rac said, swinging his whip in a wide arc overhead, slowly at first but faster with every rotation. “You’ve been nothing but a pain in my side ever since.”

Jason couldn’t stand, his left leg still rendered useless and twitching by the shock. His arms and hands still worked, but without a weapon in them, he was unable to strike back. Rac could keep his distance and hit Jason with his whip as many times as it took to kill him, or drive him off the roof, whichever came first. Of course, if Rac managed to hit Jason’s head, it would only require one shot.

Unless Jason managed to even the odds a bit.

“Good-bye, pink-skin,” Rac said, mandibles clattering with vicious laughter. “You won’t be missed!”

Rac swung his arm forward, then back, sending the tip of his whip snapping straight toward Jason’s head. Just at the last instant, as the whip whistled toward his face, Jason reached up with blinding speed and grabbed hold of the whip with both hands, gripping as tightly as he could manage.

Jason’s arms shuddered and twitched with the charge, but he kept hold of the whip. His mind reeled with the pain, but he held on.

“Fool,” Rac cursed, and yanked back on the whip with all of his strength.

Jason chose that moment to pull the whip toward him , and, in a test of brute strength, even in spite of the pain he was enduring, he came out on top. Rac swore angrily as the handle of the whip was pulled out of his grip.

Using the last of the strength and control in his now almost-entirely-numbed limbs, Jason swung the heavy handle of the whip back over his head, letting go when it was at the top of its arc. Rac’s whip sailed out over the ground, landing on the sands just long enough to draw the attention of a pair of sand-sharks, who each took hold of one end and devoured it down to the center in mere moments.

Jason flopped back onto the warm, dry surface of the temple roof, his arms shuddering uncontrollably on either side. He was having difficulty breathing, but somehow held on to consciousness.

A shadow fell across Jason’s face as Rac loomed over him.

“Pity we can never reach whatever world you come from, pink-skin.” Rac leaned closer. “If it is filled with the likes of you, we could conquer the lot in no time.”

Rac reached down, and his fingers closed on Jason’s shoulders. Rac lifted him partially off the surface of the roof, and began to drag him bodily toward the edge.

“Whatever afterlife awaits creatures like you,” Rac said, “I hope it is a disappointment to you.”

Rac leaned as he struggled with the weight of Jason’s body, but just as he approached the edge of the roof, Jason used the only limb still under his control. He kicked out, snapping one of Rac’s legs at the joint. As Rac howled in pain, Jason hooked his leg around Rac’s other leg, and pulled .

Still howling in pain and rage, Rac went plummeting over the edge. Jason collapsed back onto the roof, eyes closed, unable to move another muscle. But when Rac’s screams ended with a soft thud, quickly followed by the sound of gnashing teeth, Jason allowed himself a bitter smile.

Another shadow flitted across his face, and he felt sharp claws digging into his abdomen.

“Oh, come on,” he said. Surviving single combat with a devious enemy, only to be a meal for a scavenging leatherwing? Where was the justice?

But instead of feeling the pain of the leatherwing’s snout biting into his soft tissue, eating him alive, Jason felt a tug at his belt, as the leatherwing tried to get at a pouch that hung there.

He opened his eyes and managed a weary smile.