“Max!” Katie screamed. “Max!”
A third report was heard. The slug sent Max spinning. He stumbled drunken-like.
Nobody knew where the shots were coming from.
Aidos reared back Bucephalus and darted towards Max.
“Aidos!” he yelled, buckled over, trying to wave her off. “Get away!”
She stopped just short of him and faced into the darkness.
“Get down, girl!” the commander yelled.
In one fluid movement, Aidos reached behind, withdrew an arrow from her quiver, loaded, and fired into the night. The whoosh of her arrow was answered by another gunshot.
She turned to Max. “Get on!”
Max staggered toward the horse.
Aidos reached for him. “Take my hand. Hurry!”
Just inches from her grasp, he collapsed to his knees.
“Max!” Katie shrieked. She tried scrambling to her feet but one of the soldiers yanked her back, ordering her to keep the hell down.
Steve Hanson rushed to the side of his wounded friend, the last gunshot still ringing in the air. He scooped Max up and heaved him on top of the horse. He slapped Bucephalus on the ass and shouted, “Go!”
The horse reared and bolted. They hurdled a wooden barricade and galloped up onto the sidewalk, Max slumped against Aidos’ back. A band of troopers raced after them on foot. A moment after the horse sped past the doors of the church, a rifle clattered onto the sidewalk behind them. The soldiers slid to a halt and looked up.
Reporters and cameramen rushed to the scene. They heard a tumbling noise from above. A soldier sprang away and cried, “Watch out!”
They saw a passing blur, followed by the sound of a dull thud. The reporters lurched back in horror.
“Holy crap!” said the Glitch reporter. At his feet he saw the crumpled, moaning body of the principal, Mason Kohl, an arrow sticking out just below his collarbone. The reporter stepped gingerly out of the way as a puddle of rain-diluted blood formed on the sidewalk. He arched his head and squinted up into the darkness. “Nice shot,” he said.
Next to him stood a man in a white overcoat, his hair plastered to his head by the rain. He smirked and shook his head.
“You know that girl?” the reporter asked, noting the man’s wry, distant smile.
“Her name is Aidos,” he said hoarsely.
A deep cannonade of thunder tumbled across the heavens. In the distance, above the heads of the galloping horse and its two young riders, a tremendous streak of lightning illuminated the skyline.
“I know that,” the reporter said. “But who is she?”
Hardy Thoreson, his eyes pursuing the shrinking sight of the fugitives as they slipped deeper into the flashing darkness, thought of his wife, Julie. He nodded toward the flickering horizon and answered, “The future, I think.”
The End
The fun and adventure continues in the exciting sequel, Say Uncle - Aidos Trilogy: Book Two. You don’t want to miss it!
A Message from Benjamin Laskin
Thank you for reading Stormer’s Pass. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you liked the book, I hope you’ll consider posting a comment at at Amazon.com. Your reading experience could be valuable to those considering giving one of my novels a try, and so really make a difference. Thank you very much!
If you would like to contact me directly, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected], or reach me via my Facebook author’s page, or through my website: www.benjaminlaskin.com. You can also sign up for my newsletter for the latest in news, updates, and pay no more than 99¢ for any new Ebook release.
With gratitude and warmest regards,
Benjamin Laskin
Other Novels by Benjamin Laskin
Thank you for reading Stormer’s Pass - Aidos Trilogy: Book One. There is more where that came from. All of Benjamin Laskin’s novels are available both as paperbacks and e-books at Amazon.com.
Novels by Benjamin Laskin
Stormer’s Pass
Say Uncle
The Will
Shooting Eros
Murphy’s Luck
The Amazing Adventures of 4¢ Ned (Coinworld Series)
The Amazing Adventures of 4¢ Ned Series Coinworld Series
Coinworld: Book One
Coinworld: Book Two
Coinworld: Book Three
Coinworld: Book Four (coming soon!)
STORMER’S PASS
If you can’t wait for a hero, you must become one.
The sleepy town of Pinecrest is jolted from its slumbers by two unlikely citizens—star high school quarterback, Max Stormer, and Aidos, an extraordinary girl who has been living for years unobserved on the outskirts of town.
When Max is just one season away from a state championship and its accompanying rewards, the mysterious Aidos saunters out of the surrounding hills, and punts all of his plans.
Inspired by Aidos’ bewitching genius, Max is soon on a collision course with those who fear the changes the remarkable girl is having on him and his friends. With a championship, scholarships, and many reputations at stake, Max finds himself leading his friends into a contest far more dangerous than a football game. Whether maverick or hero, outlaw or savior, being a champion was never harder.
Stormer’s Pass is an enthralling adventure about two peoples’ uncommon faith in each other, their friends, and in the miracle-making powers of courage.
SAY UNCLE
Believing in himself was difficult.
Someone else believing in him was deadly.
Five years have passed since the headline-exploding events in Stormer’s Pass. For help in protecting their secrets and very lives, Max and Aidos turn to a lonely laggard named, Guy.
Guy Andrews has spent his twenty years on his back crying uncle. His hope for change arrives in the form of a beguiling young woman who recruits him to track down a man he has never met, whose name he cannot know, and whose amazing life Guy can unravel only through clues left in the man’s secret-saturated past.
Lured into a world of gorgeous spies and ruthless assassins, Guy needs to find Anonymous Man before the man’s many enemies find Guy. To do so, Guy must slay the slacker within, draw on wits and courage he didn’t know he possessed, and solve the mystery of his own past before everyone he loves becomes its next victims.
Say Uncle is the story of a young man’s humorous and inspiring struggle to find in anonymity his own unique place, and so—to say uncle no more.
THE WILL
Putting the will in willpower.
Josh McCain has two years to reinvent himself. Stripped of everything that made life a swanky, booze and babe-filled breeze, Josh embarks on a grueling and often hilarious two-year regimen of self-discipline that targets his mind, body, and spirit.
Along the way, skeptics mock him; his own past taunts him; and saboteurs resolve to stop him. But Josh is determined to complete his “bucket list from hell,” and prove that who he was is not as important as who he can become.
Operating in unfamiliar territory, Josh turns to a cast of quirky characters to aid him on his secret journey; persons he’d have previously shunned. Upbeat and inspiring, The Will is an enthralling story of goofs and grit, of the regenerative power of friendship—and if Josh doesn’t blow it—real love.
SHOOTING EROS
Love’s greatest champion has just become evil’s fiercest foe.
Trained in Heaven by secret sages; dismayed on Earth by evil men: a banished cupid commando battles to save both from a loveless oblivion.
In the year 2034, Heaven’s most lethal cupid commando, Captain Cyrus, is exiled to Earth where he is expected to die a quick and unlamented death. Instead, Cyrus sets out to remind both battered and faithless worlds that some things are still worth fighting for.
Two worlds divided; one holy mission. A match made in Heaven; a love forged on Earth. Love is a battlefield.
A genre-bending epic fantasy.
MU
RPHY’S LUCK
Sometimes rotten luck is better than no luck at all.
Jinxed from birth with astonishing bad luck, Murphy Drummer hasn’t ventured beyond his backyard since he was a little boy. To remedy his loneliness he immersed himself in the mastering of hundreds of hobbies, and in the process developed some amazing abilities.
Now grown up, Murphy must seek a new sanctuary where the world might be safe from his mystifying jinx. Trailing both miracles and mayhem wherever he goes, Murphy stumbles into Joy Daley, a happy-go-lucky optimist who never forgot to thank her lucky stars. The comical, topsy-turvy effects from the collision of Lady Luck and Murphy’s Jinx whimsically upends the lives of everyone in their paths.
At first, Murphy’s victims question who he is; at last, they’ll be questioning who they aren’t. An inspiring and magical romantic comedy of wood-tapping proportions.
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF 4¢ NED
(COINWORLD SERIES)
Big worlds come in coin-size packages.
In a world ruled by money, a lone 1938 nickel stands a penny short. Minus a cent, but having discovered within him a million bucks of fantastic, Ned Nickel sallies forth to save Coinworld from a worthless future.
Shunned by his fellow coins, but sought after by dogged collectors, 4¢ Ned learns that he has a most daunting destiny. With the help of a sagacious Indian nickel and a shabby and luckless Lincoln wheat penny, Ned becomes “The Four,” champion of small change everywhere.
Ned must navigate the ever-changing currents of commerce as he battles for justice and searches for the love of his life, a 1922 Peace Dollar named Franny.
Beginning in 1949, Ned and his team of Raider Special Forces roll frolicking forward through the years in their attempt to save Coinworld—and perhaps the entire universe—from a valueless future.
The Amazing Adventures of 4¢ Ned is e pluribus awesome.
Acknowledgments
As always, deep gratitude to my loving mother, Lenore. Also, many thanks to Elaine Waterstrat and Cheryl van Varseveld for their crucial assistance and generous time during the early stages of this book. I am also indebted to the Swiss Army Knife of friends, Brian Volkhausen, for his patient sounding board and enduring camaraderie.
About the Author
Benjamin Laskin grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He has lived in a number of countries, including many years in Hamamatsu, Japan. Benjamin can now be found sauntering through the maze of narrow, stony alleyways in the ancient and legend-rich town of Safed, in Israel’s upper Galilee. He is currently at work on his next novel.
Benjamin would be thrilled to hear from you. You can email him at: [email protected]. Or, you can contact him via his Facebook author’s page or through his website at: www.benjaminlaskin.com.
For more information or to contact Benjamin Laskin:
@BenjaminLaskin
benjaminlaskin.author
www.benjaminlaskin.com
[email protected]
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