Terror of the Shadow

CHAPTER SIX

He opened his eyes. Everything was a blur. Sand filled his mouth and nostrils. He tried to move, but the most he could do was run his fingers through the dust. Dark shadows moved in front of him. Voices above him muttered incoherently. The War'acks must have caught up to him...

"I think he's still alive!" one of the voices exclaimed.

"Impossible," said another.

Laban felt a leather glove on his face.

"He's still breathing!" a voice said. "Get him onto the transport!"

Laban was lifted off the ground and laid onto a bed of dented metal.

Someone placed a mask over his face. Laban could feel the cool flow of oxygen, which he gulped at hungrily. It soothed his burning lungs. His surroundings began to take shape. He was on his back, staring up at the dirty blue sky. He had been brought aboard some sort of hovercraft, the sort that hunters and warriors often used to quickly cover long distances in the Outland. A man in a gas mask was looking back down at him. Another sat at the helm. He primed the engines, and the hovercraft shot forward. The desert wind rustled their hair as they put a safe distance between themselves and the War'ack hideout. A third passenger knelt at Laban's side, handling his stump wrist.

"Don't worry. We'll get you patched up," the man said. He pulled out a small first aid kit from a stowage compartment. After a few injections and some fresh bandages, the flow of blood began to show signs of stopping. The pain began to subside, too, but only barely. It was at least tolerable now.

Laban realized that he recognized the men that had come to save them. They were members of their same camp.

"Are you Laban?" one of the men asked. "The one that went missing?"

Laban nodded weakly.

"There... there was another man in your party, wasn't there?"

"Torreck," Laban coughed in response.

"Where is he? Is he close?" the man asked.

"He's... gone," Laban hesitated to say.

The man's face drooped.
"Did you know him?" asked Laban.

"He was my cousin."

The weight of Torreck's death began to fall, and Laban felt the whole of it land squarely on his shoulders. He hadn't been the one to hold the blade that killed him, but he may as well have. If only he had let go of that stupid rock...

"I'm... I'm sorry." Laban muttered.

The wind was filled with a palpably awkward silence.

"Here, drink this." One of the men handed Laban a canteen of fresh water. Once his parched throat had been quenched, he asked: "How did you find me?"

"The War'ack are ruthless but oftentimes careless," one of them replied. "Master Torreck had a communicator with him. I guess they didn't find it when they searched the both of you. We managed to pinpoint your location from his distress call before the signal finally disappeared. We sent a party to rescue you, but... once we realized where you were..."

"We didn't dare march into a War'ack fortress," the other man finished his sentence. "There were some of us that wanted to go in anyway— our boys have enough firepower to take on more than a few War'acks. But the Elders advised against it. We could have lost a lot of men, and we knew that you and Torreck were more than likely beyond saving by then. It's not that we didn't think you were worth—"

"I understand," Laban said.

He did, really. If he had been on the other side of the situation, he doubted he would have wasted lives and resources to save two lost hunters.

"It's a miracle that we even found you," one man said. "Our scanners picked up some lifeform signatures, so we started tracking it."

"It's an even bigger miracle that you got out of there at all," the other added. "Especially with such, well... I don't want to say minor injuries. But you can't imagine the things a War'ack would do to a person."

"Yes. I can," Laban said.

"Yeah... I guess you could."

The rest of the ride was silent, or at least Laban was. His rescuers joked amongst themselves, almost as if nothing had happened. He didn't blame them, but he would have preferred silence.

Laban couldn't hear what they were talking about over the sound of the wind. He tried to close his eyes and sleep, but the images of the bloodthirsty War'ack and the flash of Ithtar's blade were forever burned into his eyes, no matter how hard he tried to shake them. His hand quivered and his head felt dizzy. Perhaps that was just from the blood he lost, but perhaps at least some of it was still from fear. He knew that the Outland was a dangerous place. He had heard about the War'ack. He had experienced what they could do when he was just a boy. He had been scared before. But for the first time, he felt unprotected, like a soldier without his shield. No matter where he was, he always had Them, the heavenly beings, to help him, to help his family. His family was gone now. He had just watched his friend (or closest thing he had to one) die right in front of him. He had been beaten, bruised, and maimed by a terrorist and a monster. More than that, he had lost his seer-stone. Laban looked up into the sky. The heavens suddenly seemed even more distant than ever.