Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [88]
“I knew you had the strength to defeat them, Master,” Zannah said. “That was why I didn’t come to your aid during the battle.”
“And what if you were wrong?” Bane asked in a quiet, menacing voice. “What if they had somehow killed me?”
“Then you would have been weak, unworthy of being the Dark Lord of the Sith,” Zannah answered boldly. “And you would have deserved to die.”
“Precisely,” Bane said with his familiar grim smile, and Zannah knew her Master approved.
16
Winter was still a new—and not entirely welcome—phenomenon on Ruusan. Originally it had been a temperate world, its climate controlled and moderated by the vast boreal forests that dominated the planet’s surface. But during the prolonged conflict between the Brotherhood of Darkness and the Army of Light, millions of hectares of old-growth trees had been decimated, turning a huge swath of Ruusan’s northern hemisphere into a desolate and arid wasteland.
Alone, the dramatic changes in the geographic features of the world might not have been enough to affect a significant climatic shift. However, the damage to the environment left the world more vulnerable to the terrible devastation of the thought bomb. In the wake of Kaan’s ultimate weapon, a powerful Force nexus was created: an invisible maelstrom of dark- and light-side energies capable of permanently altering the planet’s weather patterns.
As a result, even in the regions of the planet where the forests still stood, snow—a rarity in generations gone past—became a regular yearly occurrence. The unprecedented winters typically lasted only a few months, but they were particularly brutal on an ecosystem that had evolved in a much warmer clime. Some of the flora and fauna of Ruusan, like the humans who still inhabited the world, had learned to adapt. Other species simply died off.
Over the years Darovit had learned there were three keys to surviving the harsh cold. The first key was to always dress in layers. His hooded overcloak was a gift from a farmer he had treated for a bad case of fungal rot. The thick sweater beneath had been offered as payment by a miner after Darovit mended the man’s foot; he’d accidentally crushed it with his own pneumatic jack. In fact, every garment on his person—the long-sleeved shirt, his heavy trousers, his warm padded boots, the fur-lined glove on his left hand, and the custom-made cuff covering his amputated stump—had been given to him by locals who had come to his isolated home seeking aid from the “Healing Hermit.”
The second key to surviving the winter wind and snow was to stay dry. He learned to watch the sky, seeking shelter at the slightest sign of precipitation. If he allowed his clothes to become wet, hypothermia could easily set in before he was able to find help. It was one of the disadvantages that came with living alone deep inside the forest, but Darovit had become too accustomed to his life of solitude to give it up now.
In his first years he had been a wandering vagabond, exploring the wilds of Ruusan as he traveled between the small pockets of civilization scattered across the land. But as he learned to hunt and forage for himself, he found fewer and fewer reasons to venture into the towns and villages he came across.
Six years ago he had wearied of his nomadic existence. Locating a suitably remote location beneath a large stand of sheltering trees, he had constructed a simple hut of branches and mud. The hut gave him a sense of permanence and stability while still allowing him to enjoy the inner peace he had found in his self-imposed isolation.
There were no other human settlements within ten kilometers of his home, and even the closest bouncer colony was almost five kilometers away. Yet that didn’t mean he was without visitors. From the teachings of the bouncers and the experiences of his youthful travels, he had become wise in the lore of herbal medicines and natural remedies. Three or four times a month he would be visited by someone imploring