“That makes sense. But why stay on Dathomir, then? With your powers, you could go elsewhere and rule many more people than you can here.”
It took Halliava a while to formulate her answer. “To go elsewhere would mean starting all over. Learning as a child does. I have been a child already. I will not yield one bit, one speck of the power and influence I have now.”
“Even to gain more, ultimately?”
“Even so. Surrender is failure. I refuse to fail.”
Vestara’s chuckle was insufficiently respectful. Halliava decided to let it pass. The girl was an offworlder, after all, not brought up with proper manners. She would learn.
“And if the Bright Sun Clan had stayed two clans, not joining with the Broken Columns, in order to gain power, would you have killed Olianne and Kaminne and Firen? Your friends?”
Halliava offered a disdainful sniff. “Kaminne stopped being my friend when she decided she could accept that Hapan man as her mate and equal. Not just a man, but a man without the Arts! I would have no regrets about killing her. That would make Olianne my enemy, so of course I would have to kill her. Firen—now, Firen is a follower at heart. She would follow me. Why do you ask?”
“I suppose I was just thinking about how you looked on betrayal.”
“We live in the natural world, Vestara. Affection may be real, love may be real, but alliances can only be based on mutual need. The first person to recognize that a need is no longer mutual is the one who can profit by breaking the alliance. She who profits is stronger, her line is stronger, they are better suited to crushing their enemies.”
“I agree. You are a good teacher, Halliava.”
They continued in silence for a while, until they were less than a kilometer from the meadow. Now Halliava brought them to a halt.
“Our pursuers?”
“Still with us. I think it is now time to find this tracking device.”
They searched their gear by touch. It took Halliava a minute to find an unfamiliar bulge in her waterskin. She pulled the item free and held it up into a sliver of moonlight. It was a comlink like those the offworlders carried, like those the members of the Raining Leaves traded for.
Vestara smiled, all white teeth surrounded by darkness. “That’s it.” She took it.
“I’ll find an animal.”
It took Halliava only another couple of minutes to make good on her promise. She detected and grabbed an albino night-hunting lizard before it was even aware of her. Immature, no longer than her arm, it thrashed helplessly as she carried it back to Vestara.
With a thong, Vestara securely tied the comlink to the creature’s neck. Then, from her pouch, she drew a small stoppered transparisteel vial holding a small quantity of brownish dust. This, too, she affixed to the thong.
Halliava frowned at the addition. “What is that?”
“Blood. Luke Skywalker’s blood. It took me a while, coming to Dathomir, to figure out how he was tracking me. Once I understood that it was through sensing his own blood, I’ve waited for a chance to use it against him.”
“Ah.”
Halliava released the lizard. Together they watched it disappear into the night.
“Now,” Halliava said, “we make ourselves small in their senses.”
“Small in the Force.”
“Yes.”
They did, each carefully willing her presence in the Force into a smaller and smaller glow. So good was Vestara at it that Halliava lost all sense of the girl before Halliava herself was through with her own spell.
They waited. Distantly, Halliava could feel their pursuers—there were moments of puzzlement, then the sense of the three offworld men changed in direction and distance.
They waited a few minutes more.
“Done.” Halliava smiled. “They are led astray. It will be some time before they find us again.”
“Good.” Vestara held her lightsaber up into the moonlight. It was, of course, not lit, but the hilt gleamed. “Would you like to know something lightsabers are good for, other than cutting?”
“What?”
“Hitting.” Vestara drove the hilt into Halliava’s solar plexus.
The blow, backed by physical strength but not accompanied by strong emotion, came as a complete surprise to Halliava. It also drove all wind from her body. She bent over, momentarily helpless.
She felt the hilt hammer into the side of her head. Stars of pain exploded through her vision. She fell to the moist, leafy ground, not quite unconscious. She tried to move, to rise, but could not. Vestara held her down.
She became aware that she was flat on her face, her arms twisted up behind her. A thong was being tightly wrapped around her wrists, binding her fingers. Moments later Vestara went to work on her ankles. Soon, too, they were bound.
Vestara rolled her onto her back. Still dazed, Halliava had at least managed to recover a little of her breath. “What—”
As Halliava’s mouth came open with the question, Vestara stuffed a ball of cloth into it. Then she took a final length of thong and wrapped it around Halliava’s mouth, binding the improvised gag into place.
Finally Vestara blew a sigh of relief and smiled down at Halliava. “I imagine you were asking what I was doing. What I’m doing is granting you a favor. A tremendous favor.
“I’ve told you I admired you, and why. I wasn’t lying. But, Halliava, you must understand. You’re a savage. Unsophisticated, unschooled, unbathed. In a little while, though, you’re going to go up and live among the stars. You’ll teach and you’ll learn. You’ll surrender for now and rule even more because of it. You thought you were doing me a favor by making me a Nightsister. I’m returning that favor and multiplying it—someday you’ll be a Sith. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that half the Sith are men, but, well, ridding you of stupid preconceptions will be the job of your teachers for the next few years.”
Vestara took a few moments to rid Halliava of her gear—weapons, supplies, even boots. Then she hauled the woman up and took her across her shoulders in a rescuer’s carry.
“Oof. You’re not the only one who makes foolish mistakes. I should have done this when we were much closer to the meadow. Oh, well. Live and learn.” She set off at a slow walk, every step pressing her narrow shoulders into Halliava’s gut.
Halliava screamed in frustration, in anger, but the muffled sound carried only a few meters.
LANDING MEADOW, DATHOMIR
BY DATHOMIR STANDARDS, IT WAS A FORMIDABLE FIGHTING FORCE. Nearly two dozen Nightsisters moved out of the forest verge. With them, in three groups, were nearly as many rancors—trained, obedient, monstrously powerful.
Ahead, halfway across the meadow, the first shuttle touched down and slid to a smooth stop. It was boxy, silvery, with wings that extended a considerable distance but raked back as soon as the vehicle was still. Two more such shuttles, visible as silvery needles, descended toward a landing.
The woman at the center of the Nightsister gathering was clearly their leader. Tall, broad-shouldered, gray-haired, carrying on her face and elsewhere on her skin the blotches that were the mark of pride of a user of the dark Arts who was not afraid to show it, she was dressed in lizard-hide garments dyed as black as night and studded with precious gems taken as prizes from a hundred raids and duels. Dresdema was her name, and the clan she had once belonged to was long gone, hunted unto extermination by enemies of the Nightsisters.
But the Nightsisters lived on, and tonight they would become an invincible force.
As they walked, she caught the eye of the sister to her right. “Halliava?”
“Any minute, I think. I felt her nearing us not long ago.”
Dresdema nodded. She would not delay these proceedings because one girl was foolishly late. Halliava was a valuable sister, clever and inventive, but clearly had no sense of time. Tonight, once the Bright Sun Clan was destroyed, perhaps Halliava would come to live with Dresdema’s core group and learn some discipline.
By the time
the Nightsisters were halfway to the first shuttle, the other two had landed. They waited, their boarding hatches still closed. Dark shapes moved in the cockpits, then passed through the cockpit hatches into the shuttles’ main compartments, out of sight.
Dresdema breathed deeply. “Can you smell it, sisters? The dark Arts on the wind, like a flower.”
She saw heads nod in silhouette to the right and left of her. They could feel the power.
Of course, if these Sith women showed the slightest sign of weakness or treachery, the Nightsisters would set upon them, kill them all, take their weapons and their shuttles. That was the way things were. Surely the Sith understood that.
The Nightsisters and their rancors arrayed themselves in a semicircle around the central shuttle. Dresdema stood ahead of the others. She raised her voice to be heard at a distance. “The Sisters of the Night are gathered. We welcome you, the sisters of the Sith.”
The boarding hatch of the central shuttle swung down, transforming into a set of stairs. Two robed, cloaked figures descended. The boarding hatches were lowering on the other shuttles as well, and two figures could be seen in each glowing portal.
The first Sith who had descended threw back her hood. A dark-haired woman, she carried a lightsaber at her belt like a Jedi. She, too, pitched her voice as a herald would. “I greet the Nightsisters in turn. Allow me to present our mission commander, Lord Gaalan.”
The second figure reached up to throw back a concealing hood. This Sith was exotic—lean, taller than Dresdema and broader of shoulder, beautiful of feature, with a skin that, in the light pouring from the shuttle hatch and out of the cockpit viewports, seemed lavender in color.
And he was unmistakably male.
Dresdema froze. This was a joke in very bad taste … or betrayal.
Nightsisters never went wrong betting on betrayal. Dresdema glanced down her line of sisters and rancors and opened her mouth to cry out an order. Only then did she notice that there were figures a dozen paces behind her line. She spared them a quick look.
Six men and women, dark-robed like those by the shuttles, unlit lightsabers in their hands, stood waiting. They had placed themselves behind the Nightsisters with such finesse that no one had noticed their arrival.
Dresdema issued her command: “Attack! Enemies ahead and to the rear!”
Well trained and experienced, her Nightsisters brought up weapons and began weaving attack spells. About half of them turned to confront the enemies to the rear. A moment later the rancors they controlled began to turn, too.
Dresdema turned back toward the shuttles, dropping her spear, her hands weaving a spell of flame that she intended for the man who dared try to trick her.
But the woman beside the lavender-skinned leader pointed at Dresdema and snapped her fingers almost casually. A glowing, twisting, crackling arc of purple-blue erupted from her hand and slammed into Dresdema’s chest.
She felt her body convulse, felt and saw her hair stand on end. It was lightning, far more concentrated than that which the Nightsisters knew how to hurl.
Dresdema jerked and spasmed, her body racked with pain. It did not deprive her of her senses, but she could not weave her spell, could not pick up her spear. She stumbled, fell to one knee.
She saw the lavender-skinned man go airborne as if hurled by a giant. He flew toward the rancor to Dresdema’s right. The lightsaber now in his hand glowed into red light. The rancor reached for him but missed and the Sith man passed beside its head on the far side, bouncing off its shoulder, flipping to a preternaturally graceful landing behind the rancor.
The rancor’s head lolled toward Dresdema … then separated completely from its neck and fell free. The rancor’s body collapsed backward, the cauterized stump of its neck coming to ground a mere meter behind the man who had slain it. Its head bounced from the turf, rolled, and came to rest against Dresdema’s body. The smell of scorched flesh rose to her nostrils.
“No …” Dresdema forced the word out. She managed to get her shaking hands on her spear, then looked up just in time to see her lightning-wielding attacker stand directly before her. The Sith woman struck without weapons, her kick sending Dresdema’s spear into the air. The woman caught it, twirled it. Its butt cracked against the side of Dresdema’s head. Dresdema toppled, the world spinning around her.
Even then she was not unconscious. She saw, the edges of her vision blurring, the dismantling of her tribe.
Wherever a Witch commenced a spell, Sith lightning or an unarmed blow from one of the dark-robed strangers interrupted its weaving. The Nightsisters who charged forward with weapons saw lightsabers brought to life, and those energy blades cleaved the ancient tribal weapons into useless junk. Blows of hands and feet, knees and elbows put the Nightsisters on the ground in a matter of moments.
And those were the merciful attacks. No mercy was shown to the rancors. Sith leapt past the beasts, glowing blades flashing, severing lower leg or hand or neck. Few of the rancors even had time to roar. Most made noise only as their huge, awkward bodies slammed into the ground, never to rise again.
In moments it was done. The Sith moved impassively among their more numerous foes, flicking smaller bolts of lightning into the Nightsisters to keep them pained, inert, and helpless, then began attaching metal shackles to their hands and feet.
The lavender-skinned leader stood over Dresdema. He studied her and offered her a gentle smile that was somehow not reassuring. “Welcome to school.”
Hurt and dizzy as she was, she still managed to find her voice. “I curse you and all your—”
Lightning flashed from the hand of the woman who’d emerged with Lord Gaalan. It crackled against Dresdema’s temple and she knew no more.
By the time Vestara Khai reached the edge of the meadow, only one shuttle remained—one shuttle, two Sith, and eighteen rancor bodies visible.
Vestara set Halliava down at the forest’s edge and, relieved of that burden, hurried forward. Even at this distance, even in the uncertain moonlight, she could recognize Lord Gaalan, whom she did not know well but at least knew by sight. She saw him note her arrival, though he did not nod or otherwise acknowledge her at first.
Of course he did not. He was a Sith Lord.
As she neared him, she was struck by his physical beauty, by the perfection of form and feature that was so common among high-ranking Sith, a perfection she would never share. She put that thought away. Perfection was not her goal this night; survival and profit were her objectives. She saluted the Sith Lord and awaited his pleasure.
“Vestara Khai. You have not told us the truth.”
His words chilled her. Any failure could cause punishment, even fatal punishment, from a Lord, and being caught in a lie was among the most dangerous forms of failure. But she tried to keep her voice calm. “My lord?”
“There is one fewer savage here than you indicated.”
“Ah. Yes. The last one is at the forest verge.”
“Very well, then. And you know you smell very bad.”
It took her a moment to realize that, though stone-faced, as severe of manner as Sith Lords and Ladies usually were with apprentices, Lord Gaalan was joking with her.
She hesitated, then offered a slight smile acknowledging his humor. “Yes, my lord. Protective coloration among the natives. I long for a good cleansing.”
“Shall I send someone to fetch the last captive?”
Another test. If she said yes, she would be showing weakness—not only that, but probably causing a Sith outranking her to perform her chores, earning that individual’s enmity. “No, my lord. I will fetch her directly.”
“First, the data.” He extended his hand.
She placed her data tablet into it. “All the navigational records of the dilapidated conveyance that brought me here. It will guide you from one approach into the Maw to the station where the dark power waits.”
“Not I, sadly. I am to conduct this cargo of savages back home. But I will see to it that the data rea
ches the correct hands. Now fetch your captive.”
Much as Vestara wanted to know who those correct hands belonged to—who else was part of this Tribe expedition, if there were any friendly faces to be found here—she knew far better than to ask. One did not show weakness or vulnerability, not ever, unless it was to lull someone into a false sense of superiority. She would find out eventually. Even so, it was enough to be among her own kind again. She saluted once more and turned back toward Halliava.
“Oh, Apprentice?”
She froze, then spun back toward Lord Gaalan. “Sir?”
“Well done.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She nodded, then returned to her task.
She did not allow the elation she felt to show on her face. Praise from a Lord. It was rare and it was meaningful.
When she reached the edge of the forest, she found that Halliava, though still securely bound, had wriggled her way, worm-like, several dozen meters back into the forest. “No, no, you mustn’t do that. You’ll end up in the belly of a pack of lizards for sure.” Vestara hauled Halliava upright and picked her up rescuer-style once more. “And now you’ve got even more dirt and leaves on you.” Jauntily, she walked back toward the meadow.
As she reached the edge once more, she was surprised to see the two Sabers who had been inside the last shuttle, one man and one woman, both human, emerge through the hatch with their unlit lightsabers. Lord Gaalan and his female aide now stood side by side, weapons in hand, staring to the southwest, well to the left of Vestara’s position.
From a depression in the rolling ground of the meadow there leapt Luke, Ben, and Dyon.
Vestara froze. This was not good.
Should she return to the shuttle to help? The Sith might not need it—would not need it, certainly. And if any of the three newcomers escaped alive, her role in the capture of the Nightsisters, and the deception she had practiced on the Raining Leaves and Broken Columns, would be revealed. Yet that deception was at an end; her self-appointed task here was complete. Still, it was hard just to abandon the fabric of half-truths and relationships she had so painstakingly built.
Fate of the Jedi: Backlash Page 30
