Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [134]
Ten standard years had passed since he had lost his orbalisk armor. Ten years since his body had been burned almost beyond recognition by the devastating power of Force lightning unleashed from his own hand. Ten years since the healer Caleb had brought him back from the brink of death and Zannah, his apprentice, had slaughtered Caleb and the Jedi who had come to find them.
Thanks to Zannah’s manipulations, the Jedi now believed the Sith to be extinct. Bane and his apprentice had spent the decade since those events perpetuating that myth: living in the shadows, gathering resources, and harboring their strength for the day they would strike back against the Jedi. On that glorious day the Sith would reveal themselves, even as they wiped their enemies from existence.
Bane knew he might never live to see that day. He was in his midforties now, and the first faint scars of time and age had begun to leave their marks on his body. Yet he had dedicated himself to the idea that one day, even if it took centuries, the Sith—his Sith—would rule the galaxy.
As he continued to ignore the aches and pains that inevitably accompanied the first half of his nightly regime, Bane’s movements began to pick up speed. The air hissed and crackled as it was split time and time again by the crimson blade that had become an extension of his indomitable will.
He still cut an imposing figure. The powerful muscles built up during a youth spent working the mines on Apatros rippled beneath his skin, flexing with each slash and strike of his lightsaber. But a tiny sliver of the brute strength he once possessed had been whittled away.
He leapt high in the air, his lightsaber arcing above his head before chopping straight down in a blow powerful enough to cleave an enemy in two. His feet hit the hard surface of the courtyard stones with a sharp, sudden smack as he landed. Bane still moved with fierce grace and terrifying intensity. His lightsaber still flickered with blinding speed as he performed his martial drills, yet it was the merest fraction slower than it had once been.
The aging process was subtle, but inescapable. Bane accepted this; what he lost in strength and speed he could easily compensate for with wisdom, knowledge, and experience. But it was not age that was to blame for the involuntary tremor that sometimes afflicted his left hand.
A shadow passed over one of the twin moons; a dark cloud heavy with the threat of a fierce storm. Bane paused, briefly considering cutting his ritual short to avoid the impending downpour. But his muscles were warm now, and the blood was pumping furiously through his veins. The minor aches and pains were gone, banished by the adrenaline rush of intense physical training. Now was no time to quit.
Feeling a blast of cold wind blow in, he crouched low and opened himself up to the Force, letting it flow through him. Drawing on it to extend his awareness out to encompass each individual bead of rain as it fell from the sky, he resolved not to let a single drop touch his exposed flesh.
He could sense the power of the dark side building inside him. It began, as it always did, with a faint spark, a tiny flicker of light and heat. Muscles tense and coiled in anticipation, he fed the spark, fueling it with his own passion, letting his anger and fury transform the flame into an inferno waiting to be unleashed.
As the first fat drops splattered onto the patio stones around him, Bane exploded into action. Abandoning the overpowering style of Djem So, he shifted to the quicker sequences of Soresu, his lightsaber tracing tight circles above his head in a series of movements designed to intercept enemy blaster bolts.
The wind rose to a howling gale, and the scattered drops quickly became a downpour. His body and mind united as one, he channeled the infinite power of the Force against the driving rain. Tiny clouds of hissing steam