GUN SALAD

After half an hour of hanging upside-down from a tree branch, Marka was beginning to feel the consequences.

The leg he’d been snared by was thrumming, and he felt an overpowering pressure building in his head. Worst of all, there was no way to get comfortable–could one even get comfortable in the absence of any surfaces, he wondered? Even the jungle floor was beginning to look like an appealing place to recline.

He tried to distract himself from his body aches and ambitions of ground-lounging by studying his captor again. For all the cold determination behind Turu’s earlier threat, he certainly hadn’t made good on it yet; instead, he’d lowered himself into a squat some time ago and taken up a fallen timpan branch to sharpen it into a spear. For twenty minutes or more, the sound of his hunting knife sloughing off ribbons of wood had been the only sound in the grove.

Marka believed it was time for that to change.

“You said you planned to kill us,” he began. “What is taking so long?”

Turu smiled wryly. “Why? Are you in a hurry?”

“No. But I fear that, if you do not kill me soon, the anticipation may get me first.”

The Iklwan man frowned and rose to his full height, striding over casually to where Marka dangled with his crude spear in-hand. “You are an interesting one. Most men in your position would not say such things.”

“I have nearly been killed many times. It is nothing new to me,” Marka replied. “Do as you wish. I would ask only that you spare my daughter, Beretta. She had no part in our plans to come here.”

At that, Turu averted his eyes from Marka’s. He looked ashamed. 

“Unfortunately, that will not be possible.”

Marka felt his nostrils flare. Obviously, the man was less honorable than he had imagined; who in their right mind would kill a child? “She is harmless,” he assured him, fighting to keep the disgust from his voice. “She is a Gunslinger, yes, but her weapon is incapable of hurting you or anyone.”

“I believe you,” Turu answered. “But it is not so simple. You may convince me, as a man, to leave her be. But you will never convince the beast inside me.”

Irritation set in as the man began speaking in riddles. Why wax poetic about something so serious? “What are you saying? You expect me to believe that your need to kill others is too strong to ignore?” Marka spat. “Lies. I refuse to accept it. We all have a choice.”

Turu regarded him angrily, his lip quivering. Marka got the sense that he was biting back a harsher reply than the one he finally gave: 

“You would be surprised.” 

The man began to pace back and forth, the butt of his spear occasionally tapping the ground as he went. “I cannot say more. I am… Unable. Just as I am unable to spare your daughter,” he ranted. “The moment I lose focus–the moment I do anything but mindfully pursue your destruction–I will lapse and come back to myself to find you all dead at my feet.

“You must understand. The darts, my crafting of the spear, the fact that I am here alone… They are a kindness. A means of delaying the inevitable–of giving you a chance. Can you not see that? Can you not see the lengths I have gone to in order to protect you?”

Marka swung slowly in place, unmoved by whatever twisted logic the troubled man before him was trying to employ. “You are mad,” he concluded. “I see now that bargaining with you was a waste of time.”

“To bargain, you must have something to offer,” Turu hissed. “All you have to offer me is another burden on my conscience. But, even so, I will do what I can to protect you.”

Turu pulled the blowgun from his hip and held it up before Marka. “This is my treasured weapon, Reedu. Whatever is put in one end comes out the other, ad infinitum, as many times as I wish. Today, I have brought a single dart with me–a dart infused with mind-affecting chemicals,” he explained. “This drug is not directly lethal. In trials, it has caused some deaths–some subjects died of a heart attack, while others choked on their own tongue–but I attribute this to a failure on their part. They faced the challenges of their own mind, and were found wanting.

“I offer you this same challenge, sir. You may not believe me, but it is the most compassionate gift I can give.” He held up the dart in question for Marka’s examination, its ruby red contents glittering softly by the light of the moon. 

“Alternatively, we may do battle. But I warn you: I am unable to put myself at a disadvantage or do anything to reduce my chances of survival in combat. Having observed your weapon in action earlier, when you first entered the jungle, I know that it may overpower me… So I cannot, unfortunately, bring myself to engage you in a gunfight. However, I know nothing of your physical prowess. As far as I know, if it came to blows, we may very well be equals. 

“So that is my second offer–a fistfight to the death. A fair contest to decide our fates.”

After his long tirade, Turu settled in to watch him expectantly. Marka looked back with no small measure of confusion written across his face; just what was this man playing at? Why did he impose such arcane rules and conditions upon himself? “I do not understand you,” he eventually admitted. “But if my only options are to fight you or be injected with an unknown drug, I choose to fight you. At least then I will have a chance of dying on my feet.”

“So be it,” Turu replied. He stooped down beneath Marka’s head and retrieved his weapons, tossing them into the bushes behind him along with his blowgun and newly-fashioned spear. “Honestly, I am glad. I have trained for many years in the art of hand-to-hand combat, but a big man like you may pose a challenge. I may even lose!”

That prospect seemed to excite the man, which Marka found more than a little perplexing. He said nothing as Turu came over to cut him down with his hunting knife, which he then threw away alongside their other weapons. If nothing else, he seemed very particular about keeping their bout fair and honorable, even if he did lack the moral fiber to show Beretta mercy.

Marka rose to his feet, tugged off the remains of the rope snare, and cracked his neck. Then he took a fighting stance, his eyes probing Turu’s own posture for potential weaknesses. “My companions and I came here to kill you,” he revealed, “but if I find myself in a position to incapacitate you, I will take it and try to find you the help you need. I believe you are unwell.”

“Your compassion does you credit,” Turu answered, bracing his bare feet against the soil, “but by taking my life, you would be doing me a great service. So do not hold back; best me, and do not hesitate to end me…

“...If you can!”

With that, the Czar rushed toward him and lashed out with a dizzying flurry of blows. They rained down on his joined forearms like gunfire on a barricade, but Marka didn’t budge an inch; he knew that victory lay in leveraging his size and endurance. He absorbed Turu’s rapid strikes with equanimity and lowered his arms to prepare a counter-offensive, thinking to use the smaller man’s momentum against him.

The moment Marka dropped his guard, though, a spinning kick of astonishing power collided with the side of his head. It sent him reeling, and he was forced to slump against the nearest timpan for support. His opponent, however, followed up with surprising speed, contorting his entire body in order to direct another powerful blow toward his unprotected neck.

Marka ducked just in time, and the timpan trunk shattered. Fragments of the hollowed-out tree rained down upon him, shocking him into a state of awed hesitation. He had never seen a man of Turu’s size generate such overwhelming force, and the spectacle of it very nearly cowed him into submission.

…But to the man he’d been as patriarch of the Moukahla crime syndicate–the man he’d been for most of his life–giving into that feeling was nothing short of unacceptable.

His hand shot out to grip Turu’s ankle before he could prime another kick. Then, with a frenzied roar, he flung the man across the grove and into a thick stand of timpans. The Czar’s body crashed against the fragile trunks, shattering several before coming to rest in the bed of green scrub that lay just beyond. Marka’s chest swelled with the pride of his momentary victory. Already, he could see his opponent’s muscles twitching as he willed himself to rise.

In that moment, the joy of conquest burned so strongly in him that he scarcely noticed the sight of birds fleeing southward as a series of gunshots disrupted the peace of their jungle habitat.