Star Wars_ Darth Bane 01_ Path of Destruction - Drew Karpyshyn [0]
Copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2006.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79582-3
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
v3.1
To Jen, who makes everything possible.
———
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel couldn’t have come together without the help of many people.
I’d like to thank my editors Shelly Shapiro and Sue Rostoni for giving me this chance and for sticking with me through all my rewrites and revisions. I shudder to think what I would have ended up with had it not been for their valuable comments and ideas.
Anyone who has read the Jedi vs. Sith series will see the creative debt I owe to Dark Horse Comics, but I’d also like to point out the contributions of my friends and coworkers at BioWare. Much of the groundwork and background material for this novel evolved out of our research and work together on KOTOR, especially Dave Gaider, Luke Kristjanson, Peter Thomas, and James Ohlen.
Thanks for everything, guys.
Drew
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part One - Three Years Later
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Two
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Three
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by this Author
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Darth Bane: Rule of Two
Introduction to the Old Republic Era
Introduction to the Rise of the Empire Era
Introduction to the Rebellion Era
Introduction to the New Republic Era
Introduction to the New Jedi Order Era
Introduction to the Legacy Era
Star Wars Novels Timeline
PROLOGUE
In the last days of the Old Republic, the Sith—followers of the Force’s dark side and ancient enemies of the Jedi order—numbered only two: one Master and one apprentice. Yet it was not always so. A thousand years before the Republic’s collapse and Emperor Palpatine’s rise to power, the Sith were legion …
Lord Kaan, Sith Master and founder of the Brotherhood of Darkness, strode through the gore of the battlefield, a tall shadow in the night’s gloom. Thousands of Republic troops and nearly a hundred Jedi had given their lives trying to defend this world against his army—and they had lost. He relished their suffering and despair; even now he could sense it rising up like the stench from the broken corpses scattered about the valley.
In the distance a storm was brewing. As each flash of lightning illuminated the sky, Korriban’s great Sith temple was momentarily visible in the distance, a stark silhouette towering over the barren horizon.
A pair of figures waited in the center of the slaughter, one human and the other Twi’lek. He recognized them despite the darkness: Qordis and Kopecz, two of the more powerful Sith Lords. Once they had been bitter rivals, but now they served together in Kaan’s Brotherhood. He approached them quickly, smiling.
Qordis, tall and so lean as to appear almost skeletal, smiled back. “This is a great victory, Lord Kaan. It has been far too long since the Sith have had an academy on Korriban.”
“I sense you are eager to begin training the new apprentices here,” Kaan replied. “I expect you will provide me with many more powerful—and loyal—Sith