Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [100]
And there was that hand, reaching for him again. He rolled to one side, realized belatedly that his lightsaber was gone. The rancor’s hand plowed through a tent beside the spot he’d just been sitting. He did a backward handstand and came up on his feet, shaking his head to clear the dizziness.
Ah, there was his lightsaber, still lit. The blade had fallen upon a leather tent and cut its way through the material. Ben gestured and the weapon flew into his hand.
The rancor took two steps and was in reach of him again. It lunged. Ben leapt forward, somersaulting between its legs, and stood out of the roll at the very crest of the hill. He turned to face his opponent.
It spun and lunged again. Ben skipped along the ridge of rocks along the crest, and it pivoted. Then he reversed directions, somersaulted past it, and lashed out at the back of its already injured knee.
He connected, a good slash. He couldn’t tell if he’d hamstrung the beast, but as he rose he knew he’d succeeded at his objective. The rancor flailed and fell, toppling over the crest of the hill.
Ben watched it go. It rolled, crashing into outcropping after outcropping on its way down, creating a miniature stone avalanche. Then it hit the ground, rocks from the avalanche pouring down atop it.
Even then, it was not still. It rolled away from the stone downpour and struggled to its feet. Then it began limping back toward the trees.
Ben turned and found Dyon.
Dyon might not have been a Jedi, but he possessed the acrobatic ability of one. He leapt, he rolled, he spun, he rebounded, all the while firing into his rancor’s chest and limbs and face with his small, underpowered blasters. The constant stream of fire from his weapons looked like energy from a blaster battery in miniature.
But that rancor did not fall and did not seem slowed, for all that its face and armored body were peppered with spots of char.
Still, it was slightly off-balance. Dyon executed a beautiful leap, a flying side kick that caught the rancor in the temple just as it was leaning slightly out over the far crest of the hill. Dyon bounced off from the impact and landed hard, rolling away from the rancor in an effort to stay out of its reach. The rancor wobbled but did not fall. Ben leapt in that direction, knowing he could not reach the beast before it regained its balance.
Then someone else was there, a slim figure, pale of skin, replicating Dyon’s kick. This figure connected even more forcefully than Dyon had, and landed better, coming down on both feet in a well-balanced crouch.
The rancor uttered a moan of fear, then toppled. As Ben reached that crest, he could hear the beast crashing its way down that slope.
The slight figure was Vestara. She gave Dyon a hand up.
Dyon glanced at the number readouts on the butts of his weapons, then pocketed them. “Many thanks. That was well timed.”
She brushed her hands together as if removing dust. “I finished my water duties, did some meditating and reading, then decided to come over here and see if anything interesting was going on.”
Dyon snorted, amused.
Ben suppressed a flash of irritation. He looked back toward the southwest slope.
There were no rancors there. Dathomiri were standing at the edge, shaking spears and other weapons down toward the valley floor, and some were jeering, but there did not seem to be much conviction in their voices.
And there were bodies among them, injured and dead. Even in the darkness, Ben thought he saw six or seven. He headed that way.
And now, drifting up from the trees surrounding the hill, came the sound of laughter from many throats—brittle, female laughter.
At the lip of the southwest slope, the leaders held a hurried conference while the clan members tended to the dead