• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

It was, after all, the nature of the dark side.

* * *

Bane watched the Buzzard until it disappeared in the sky before turning his attention to gathering up his camp. He would have to act carefully now. Githany would tell Kaan she’d tried to poison him. When he showed up at the camp still alive things could become … difficult.

He could simply stay away and let events run their course. The Jedi on Ruusan would rally, turning the tide of the battle once again. It was a given; Bane was counting on it. Desperate, Kaan would then turn to the gift Bane had sent him. He would unleash the thought bomb, unaware of its true nature. And then every Force-user on Ruusan—Sith and Jedi alike—would be destroyed.

This was the most likely scenario. But Bane had come too far to leave the end of the Brotherhood of Darkness to chance. When Kaan’s army faltered this time, there were those in his camp—like Githany—who might turn against him. They could flee Ruusan, scattering before the Jedi. And then Bane would have to deal with each of his rivals separately before he could become the unchallenged leader of the Sith.

Better to be on hand, guiding the events to the outcome he desired. That, however, meant he’d have to come up with a plausible story to explain his desire to join the Brotherhood even after a failed assassination.

He thought about it for nearly an hour, considering and discarding a number of ideas. In the end there was only one reason any of them would believe that he had come back. He had to make them all think he wanted to overthrow Kaan and become the new leader of the Brotherhood.

Bane smiled at the subtle beauty of the plan. Kaan would be suspicious, of course. But all his effort and attention would be focused on holding on to his position. He wouldn’t realize his rival’s true purpose: to exterminate the Brotherhood completely; to destroy every last Sith on Ruusan.

Plus, there was the added advantage of having another opportunity to convince Githany to join him. Once she understood what he had truly become—and how he had manipulated Kaan and the other so-called Dark Lords—she might actually accept his offer to become his apprentice. At the very least he would get a chance to see her face once she realized her poison had failed to—

“Ungh!” Bane let out a grunt and doubled over as a vicious pain ripped through his stomach. He tried to straighten up, but his body was suddenly racked with a prolonged coughing fit. He raised his hand to cover his mouth, and when he let it fall it was covered in frothy red flecks of blood.

Impossible, he thought, even as another stabbing pain through his guts dropped him to his knees. Revan had shown him how to use the Force to ward off poison and disease. No simple toxin should be able to affect anyone strong enough in the dark side to be a Lord of the Sith.

Another coughing fit paralyzed him until it passed. He reached up to wipe the sweat rolling down his face and felt something warm and sticky on his cheek. A thin trickle of crimson tears was leaking from the corner of his eye.

He rose shakily to his feet, turning his focus inward. The poison was still there. It had spread throughout his entire body, polluting and corrupting his system and damaging his vital organs. He was hemorrhaging internally, bleeding from his eyes and nose.

Githany! He would have laughed if he hadn’t been in such unbearable agony. He had been so confident, so arrogant. So convinced she was underestimating him. Instead he had underestimated her. A mistake he vowed never to make again … if he survived.

He had read enough about synox to recognize the symptoms. If he had detected it immediately, he would have been able to cleanse it from his system, just as he had done with the rock worrt venom that had concealed its presence. But synox was the subtlest of poisons; the insidious toxin had sapped his strength as it had spread unnoticed throughout his body.

Summoning all his resources, he tried to purge the poison from his body, burning it away with the