Unbeknownst to Ushant Prabalah, death was standing over him, looking down on him and judging him. But instead of ending the boy, the harbinger simply turned and walked silently away. Walking straight toward the hidden caves in the valley below even as Ushant so valiantly guarded them.

Shahim’s feet fell on the rocky surface with a precision not even the most highly trained human soldier could replicate. He had removed the sandals that the mountain warriors often wore, allowing his bare feet to adhere softly to the rocky surface, never slipping, never displacing the slightest pebble. Like a cat he, moved down into the sleeping valley.

His heat sensitive eyes told him that there were several groups of men in various tunnels and caves around the valley. But two groups stood out. In these two caves, he could see individuals sleeping apart from the rest of their groups, in both cases at the back of the cave, behind a wall of other warriors.

Ah, the two great generals. Such brave warriors … cowering behind their minions.

Shahim stepped slowly toward the first cave. The fully repaired and operational weapons system behind his left eye was already unsheathed and ready as he gently stepped into the cave, two long knives also brandished in his hands. Two guards sat just inside the door, barely awake as they peered into the darkness and tried to make out the black shape wafting in through the small entrance. But it made no sound, and carried no light, so they dismissed it as a trick of the night. Shahim neatly and silently decapitated the two men in unison, catching their severed heads before they touched the floor and resting them on each man’s lap.

Less than a minute later, Shahim was emerging from the cave once more. The first general was dead. After killing the guards, he had turned to the rest of the men sleeping peacefully on the ground. He had stepped over them carefully, walking to the back of the cave to lean in close to the man who slept alone behind them. The general had been wrapped in more blankets than all the other men combined, but his warm breath had been visible from the gap in his thick insulation. Shahim had focused his deadly stare on the man’s closed eyes and then fired a tight beamed sonic punch straight through the soft ocular tissue, crushing the eye easily and driving inward through the pulp to pulverize the grey tissue behind. The general’s head barely moved against his pillow as his brain was pulped, wiping his mind out in a silent second.

On his way out of the cave, Shahim had carefully extricated the rifles from each of the two dead guards along with several grenades from each of their belts and then he had stepped back out into the night.