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“Let me see, Mikki! Let me see!”

“Settle down, boys,” the father said wearily. “Let’s take a look.”

Bane listened to the crunching of his boots across the small stones as he approached. I am strong. They are weak. They are nothing.

“It’s a lightsaber, Father. But there’s something weird about the handle. See? It’s got a strange hook in it.”

He felt the sudden fear that gripped the father’s chest like a vise.

Survive. At any cost.

“Throw it away, Mikki! Now!”

Too late.

The lightsaber sprang to life in the boy’s hand, spinning in the air and striking him dead on the spot. The father screamed; his brothers tried to run. The blade leapt after the eldest, cutting him down from behind.

Bane, drawing strength from the horror of their deaths, rose to his feet, coming into view like an apparition disgorged from the bowels of the planet.

“Nooo!” the father howled, desperately clutching his youngest son to his chest. “Spare this one, my lord!” he begged, tears streaming down his face. “He’s the youngest. The last one I have.”

Those weak enough to beg for mercy do not deserve it.

Still too weak to even raise his arms Bane reached out once more with the Force, bringing the lightsaber up to hover over his helpless victims. He waited, letting their horror mount, then plunged the burning blade into the young boy’s heart.

The father clutched the corpse to his breast, his tortured laments echoing across the empty battlefield. “Why? Why did you have to kill them?”

Bane feasted on his anguish, gorging himself, feeling the dark side growing stronger in him. The symptoms of the poison receded enough so that he could raise his arm without the muscles trembling. The lightsaber sprang to his hand.

The father cowered before him. “Why did you make me watch? Why did you—”

One quick swipe of the lightsaber cut him off, sending the father to the same tragic fate as his sons.

26

Lord Hoth tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The creaking of his cot joined the whining buzz of the bloodsucking insect swarms that followed his army wherever they made camp. The noise was compounded by the whirring hum of small-winged night birds swooping in to feast on the insects that feasted on his soldiers. The result was a shrill, maddening cacophony that hovered on the edges of hearing.

But it wasn’t the noises that were keeping him awake, or the unrelenting heat that left him with a constant sheen of sweat on his brow, even at night. It wasn’t the military strategies and battle plans constantly running through his mind. It wasn’t any one of these things, but rather the sum of all of them together—and the fact that there seemed to be no end in sight to this blasted, cursed war. Minor annoyances that had been tolerable during the first months on Ruusan had been magnified by frustration and futility into unbearable torments.

With an angry growl he cast aside the thin blanket he slept under, tossing it into the far corner of his tent. He swung his legs over the side and sat up on the edge of the cot, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head clasped between his hands.

For two standard years he had waged his campaign against the Brotherhood of Darkness here on Ruusan. In the beginning many Jedi had rallied to his side. And many Jedi had died—too many. Under Lord Hoth’s command they had sacrificed themselves, offering up their own lives for the sake of a greater cause. Yet now, after six major battles—not to mention countless skirmishes, raids, minor clashes, and indecisive engagements—nothing had been decided. The blood of thousands stained his hands, yet he was no closer to his goal.

Frustration was beginning to give way to despair. Morale was the lowest it had ever been. Many of the soldiers grumbled that Farfalla was right: the general had let Ruusan become his mad obsession and was leading them to their doom.

Hoth no longer even had the strength to argue with them. Sometimes he felt as if he had forgotten the reasons he had come here in the first place. Once there may have been virtue in this war, but such nobility