The courtyard was a mass of confusion, like an ant-hill kicked open. Soldiers ran about aimlessly, firing wildly into the air or at each other for no apparent reason. All along the sides of the courtyard ran a long colonnade. At the far side was the inner citadel of the fortress. That was where he had to go, the Scorpion thought. But his way was blocked by the panicked soldiers. He cocked the rifle and aimed.

A knot of khaki-clad soldiers along the parapet turned their weapons down on the courtyard, then froze at the sight of the Scorpion who was methodically mowing down a scurrying crowd of soldiers with a long burst from the AK-47. Their mouths dropped open in horror. They had thought him dead. Prince Abdul Sa’ad had told them the Scorpion had been destroyed, but clearly he was too powerful a demon. He had risen from the dead!

Few doubted that he was a demon, standing there naked except for a tattered white rag around his waist, his hair matted and unruly, his eyes demon-red and wild. His sun-bronzed body was magnificent, every muscle clearly etched as if carved out of solid stone. He seemed oblivious of the firing around him, as if the legend was true, that bullets fired at him turned to drops of water.

One soldier, fear rattling in his throat, made an incomprehensible sound and suddenly took to his heels. An officer screamed at them to fire and when they hesitated, he grabbed a gun and aimed it at the Scorpion. With a kind of sixth sense, the Scorpion glanced up just at that moment and in a single sweeping movement fired almost without aiming. The officer toppled from the parapet, a bloody scoop of flesh where one of his eyes had been. Screaming in terror the soldiers threw down their weapons and fled through the gate, where they were cut down by the cross fire from the approaching tribesmen.

Bandar came rushing from a corner turret, his good eye darting left and right as he sought the Scorpion. Without bothering to check whether his own men were in the way or not, he lobbed a hand grenade down into the courtyard. He fired into the explosion, spraying bullets all around the courtyard, but when the smoke cleared, the Scorpion had gone, vanished into thin air. With a terrible scowl Bandar turned on the poor corporal who had dared tell him the Scorpion was alive and shot him between the eyes. It was impossible! He himself had shot the vile spawn of camel slime in the heart!