Terror of the Shadow

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Laban raised his rifle high in the air. He pulled the trigger, and the sound of the gunshot echoed across the flat.

"Halt now, or fall where you stand!" Laban cried, as loud as he could. A few of the advancing War'acks slowed, but most of them continued forward, growling like animals.

"Stop now! I am warning you!" Laban yelled again. He fired another round into the air. "My name is Klito, captain of the Order of the Heretics! I order you to drop your weapons!"

That did it. Moments before the animals could have slashed his flesh with their jagged swords, they stopped dead in their tracks.

The name Klito was one he had never forgotten, ever since Torreck first used it to intimidate their captors all that time ago. He had asked Aristarchus about it several times, naturally, but that was one subject that he never talked about freely. Even though he knew very little about the legend surrounding the name, he figured if it had worked once, it was worth trying again.

"You heard me," Laban said, summoning his most intimidating voice. "I am Klito. I am the one who has killed your men, and I did it alone. Bring me Ithtar, or I will kill you all, too."

There was a laugh somewhere in the crowd. Laban knew that laugh. It was low, dry, and as coarse as the desert sand.

"Make way, make way!" the laughing man said. The crowd parted, allowing Ithtar to pass through. They all bowed as he walked by.

He laughed as he approached Laban. "My, oh my... It is an honor," Ithtar said, making an overly elaborate gesture with his arms and stooping low to the ground. 

"The great Klito, here, in the flesh. I've heard so much about you, my lord."

"You mock me, War'ack," Laban spat.

Ithtar's eyes suddenly burned with that fire that Laban knew all too well.

"It is you who mocks me, peasant!" Ithtar smote Laban across the face with the back of his hand. It nearly knocked the mask off his face. Before he could re-adjust it, a sharp force punched his chest, sending him reeling backward into the sand. He felt himself lose his grip on the rifle. He heard it hit the sand somewhere next to him.

He felt the barrel of a gun shoved into his stomach so hard he nearly vomited again. A pair of hands ripped the mask off his face. Ithtar's smiling face looked down at him.

"Hello again, my child," he giggled. "I thought that was you. So, you go by Klito now, young Laban? Or was that just some prank you wanted to use to frighten my soldiers?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Laban coughed. Ithtar frowned.

"No," he said. "It didn't. They only stopped because I told them to. My men are very loyal. But I must say that I am impressed. I honestly would not have expected it was you flying around, destroying my well-trained armies. I'd guess there are more than a hundred dead because of you. You've grown a lot in the past year. Truly, I am impressed. But it won't be enough. I am afraid that this little... escapade of yours will not stop the thousands more that will rain fire upon your happy little town of Ura-chan! I suppose you thought you would be preventing a war by coming here. I'm afraid that you have failed. Utterly. Completely. Absolutely. Your bones will lie in some forgotten grave out here in this godforsaken desert. But don't worry, my child! I will ensure that your name lives on in the pages of history as the man who started a war!"

Ithtar pressed the barrel of the rifle against Laban's head.

"Now... any last words?" Ithtar asked.

"Where is my stone?" Laban growled.

"What?"

"The stone. The seer-stone you stole from me, back in your cave. I am going to take it back."

Ithtar chuckled again. "Ah... yes. That stone. As I recall, you were quite fond of that one. You would have lost your arm before you gave up that little trinket... of course, I was more than happy to oblige. Isn't that how it went?"

"Give it back. I can make you suffer."

Ithtar laughed, then shrugged.

"Even if I wanted to give it back to you, child, I couldn't. I don't have it. I don't think I've seen it since the day after I took it from you. I haven't the slightest idea why, but there are some people in Teraam that will pay quite a pretty penny for artifacts like that one."

"You... you sold it?" Laban stuttered. "But... your magic..."

"I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. But you won't be alive long enough for me to find out."

"You don't have it..."

The realization sunk in, slowly, like the blade of a knife cruelly twisting itself into his heart.

Ithtar turned his back to Laban to bark an order at his troops.

Laban took his pistol and fired at Ithtar. The bullet buried itself in his back. The War'ack king fell to his knees, and Laban leaped to his feet. Several of Ithtar's men rushed to his aide.

"Not me, you idiots!" Ithtar screamed. "Get the boy!"

But Laban was already halfway up the dune. Bullets pounded the sand around him. One grazed the back of his calf. He slowed for only a moment before biting through the pain and trudging onward. He turned and fired over his shoulder, hitting a few and maiming another.

He cleared the peak and tumbled down into the gorge. He saw the War'acks leap over behind him just as he made it to the bottom.

Too afraid to look back, he limped over the valley and climbed into the cockpit, catching only a glimpse of angry War'ack faces behind him in the reflection of the glass canopy. He felt much safer when the glass sealed around him and locked. His shaky fingers fumbled across the control panel, frantically trying to get the engine started. The reassuring noise started with a dull hum and quickly grew to a roar. The War'acks pounded on the glass and the hull of the bullet craft, but their blades did not make so much as a scratch. He hoped that the metal would hold.

When the engines had been primed, Laban threw the throttle forward. The engine screamed and belched smoke and sand, trying in vain to unbury itself. It began to inch forward, slower than a crawl. Laban twisted the control stick this way and that, hoping to jostle it free, but nothing worked. Even at full throttle, it only slowly gained speed. The War'acks ran along to stay with it, still trying to tear the craft apart with feral bloodlust.

The craft veered left and hit the edge of one of the dunes. The nose tipped upward. Using the hill like a ramp, the craft suddenly unstuck itself. Laban and the craft were sent flying.

Laban finally exhaled his stress when the thin layer of white clouds drifted by and was lost somewhere behind him. 

He was safe.