They drove to the ancient ruins of Dariyyah, lying desolate and abandoned in the desert. They left the limo and marched him through the rubble of the empty city, the roofless ruins of the ancient mud brick fortress rising in jagged spires to the perfect blue sky. The town had been abandoned long ago. No one knew why. But there were whispers that it was inhabited by afreet and zars and other evil spirits. They stood the Scorpion next to the lip of an old dry well as two of Bandar’s men struggled to move the massive stone covering the mouth of the well. The Scorpion’s mind was racing. He remembered Sheikh Zaid teaching him how a Scorpion will sting itself rather than be taken alive. He thought of how most of the wells in this part of the Najd were about twenty feet deep and sand often seeped in when the wells went dry. Most of all, he was counting on Bandar’s vanity and skill.

“Where is the king?” the Scorpion asked.

“Q-quite nearby,” Braithwaite said, unable to resist a glance at the old fortress. “Prince Abdul Sa’ad is ‘persuading’ Salim to abdicate in f-favor of Abdul Sa’ad.” A faint cry, thin and distant like a bird trill, came from the direction of an ancient tower. Bandar smiled.

“Shouldn’t take long now,” Braithwaite remarked, squinting at the Scorpion in the bright sunlight.

Bandar stood near the lip of the well and called down. Kelly, the Scorpion thought, his heart leaping.

“Do you want up—be for me—no more escape—or stay under dark—think more?” Bandar called down in clumsy English.

“Leave me alone,” a defiant voice echoed from the depths of the well. Good girl, the Scorpion thought.

“Not alone! I send friend—keep company on you!” Bandar growled.

The Scorpion’s heart pounded. He stood alone on the lip of the well, his hands still bound behind him. He looked around at the silhouettes of the ruins against the blue sky, blue and unblemished from horizon to horizon. At that moment, he never had wanted to live so badly.

Bandar had backed away about twenty feet and cocked the AK-47. The sound of the bolt slamming home had a feel of terrible finality.

“Because you are a Mutayri, I give you a choice to be a man. Do you want it in the head or the heart?” Bandar called, sighting at the Scorpion.

The others stood there, watching.

“Heart—and I bet you can’t do it with a single shot, you slimy offspring of a Hutaymi camel,” the Scorpion shouted, his mouth dry as the desert.

Bandar’s face was terrible to see in that last moment. The Scorpion’s last conscious memory was the sound of a single shot and the impact of a terrible blow in his chest, sending him flying backwards into the well.

The Well of Death

The Well of Death