Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War Read Online Free PDF Page A

leapt over the near-doused torch in the snow, scrambling to Max. She lay motionless on her stomach, twisted forward at the waist with her lower half still in the saddle, the mass of the horse across her right leg and the dead sabertooth slumped over her torso. When Buckle shoved the heavy bulk of the sabertooth’s body away from Max, he discovered that the animal’s claws were still buried in her back. He gripped the massive forepaw—with all the care he could, but the hooks were sunk deep—and drew each blood-soaked claw out of its fleshy bed beneath the heavy bearskin coat.
    “Max!” Buckle shouted, tearing the ripped cloak away from her body. “Max! Can you hear me?”
    Max raised her right hand but it dropped instantly, as if it had taken all her remaining strength just to lift it. Buckle felt both a great pang of relief and one of fright. Max was still alive, which was a miracle; by all rights, the sabertooth’s pounce should have broken her spine. But he was shocked by how terribly injured she was. He scrambled around the horse, gently rolled Max more onto her side, and leaned close to Max’s goggles, brushing back a sweep of black hair that had fallen across her face from beneath her pilot helmet.
    “Max!” Buckle shouted again. “Stay still—you hear me?”
    “Captain. Go,” Max said with a faltering voice. “Leave me.”
    “To hell with that suggestion, Chief Engineer!” Buckle replied. He started badger-digging at the snow packed around Max’s thigh, where it lay pinned under the saddle. More sabertooths roared in the wreathing vapors of the blizzard. Cronoswhinnied nearby, less a frantic plea now than a sound of foreboding, as if he had become resigned to his fate, tied to his own butcher block as he was.
    Buckle’s spine tingled as he clawed at the snow. The beasties, pack hunters, were closing in again. His back was utterly exposed. But surely the blood stink of the corpses of the dead beasties gave them pause. Of course. It must. To hell with them. Buckle continued digging.
    “Captain,” Max gasped.
    “If you are trying to talk me into leaving you, I would suggest you save your breath,” Buckle said. He scrabbled on his knees around to Max’s head, shifted her onto her back, and placed his hands under her armpits. “I am going to pull you out.”
    “Aye, Captain.”
    Buckle eased Max back with half of his strength, hoping that her leg might easily slide free. It did not. Buckle hauled with more desperate force, near lifting Max’s body out of the snow. Max’s shoulders stiffened, but she made no sound. Martians rarely expressed pain, but her eyes betrayed her: inside the aqueous humor of her goggles, they glittered a swimming gold, the Martian color of agony.
    “Damn it!” Buckle screamed. But he had to get her loose.
    Swinging his body around to cradle Max’s head in his lap, Buckle planted his boots on the withers and croup of the dead horse, bent at the knees, and clamped his hands under Max’s armpits with a grim pressure.
    “Out you go!” Buckle shouted. He yanked on Max with every ounce of strength he had. Max threw her head back, her face upside-down just below Buckle’s. Her exposed white-and-black-striped throat quivered; her white teeth were clenched,the lips drawn back and rigid, stained by a stream of blood running from her left nostril. Her goggles, kept free of ice by the warm aqueous humor within, were covered in a smattering of melting snowflakes, each fantastic, crystalline pattern illuminated by the swirling, golden light from below.
    Buckle pulled harder.
    The leg suddenly jerked free, sliding out from beneath the horseflesh as smoothly as a sword from its scabbard. Buckle fell backward, still cradling Max’s head in his lap, and as they landed, he heard her grunt and lie still.
    “We’ve got it!” Buckle yelled. “You are out, Max!”
    Buckle gently laid Max’s head on the snow as he scrambled to his feet. She lay still, her goggles fading to darkness,