• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

My father is in danger.

If you abandon the hilltop, the Dathomiri may lose heart.

My father—

Your attachment, or your duty?

Dyon was right, and that truth wrenched a groan from Ben. He stood up and pivoted, the better to leap into the midst of the rancors.

A slim hand plucked the unlit lightsaber from his grip. Ben caught a fleeting glimpse of Vestara in motion, flashing past him, before she dropped over the lip of the hill, his weapon in her hand.

Luke never lost consciousness, despite the head-sized rock that grazed his skull and toppled him down the hillside. He rolled and slid, his acrobatic skills keeping him from some of the pounding he might have experienced, and he stayed ahead of the majority of the rockfall. But dazed as he was, he could not avoid all harm. A rock slammed into his chest and he felt a pop in his sternum. Another slab of stone gave way under his weight as he came down upon it and slammed back-first onto a moving stone surface, the world spinning around him.

He leapt free but traveled only three or four meters before he hit another surface. The blow knocked the wind out of him. Stones continued to slide and clatter down toward him, but most of them stopped short of his position. Dimly, he could see the rancor he had been fighting; it was now between him and the base of the hill, lying still, tons of stone atop it.

And he could feel danger above and beyond the natural peril posed by the rockslide. Dark side Force energy was headed his way. He rolled forward, putting another two meters between him and the oncoming rockslide, pressing sharp stony points into his back and neck and legs, and sat up to see four Dathomiri women limned in blue energy running toward him. As they saw him struggling to rise, two slowed their forward pace and lifted their arms, beginning a series of intricate weaving motions.

Luke raised his lightsaber and tried to stand.

Lightning, Force lightning, erupted from the two spell-weavers. It crackled toward him, lethal amounts of energy.

He caught both bolts on his lightsaber blade. At such times, the weapon of the Jedi was more than a concentrated and constrained shaft of energy; it was an extension of himself through the Force, and the blade held the Force lightning at bay. Residual energy reaching him caused his hair to stand on end and the sheer force of the attack drove him back, forcing him down again.

The two nearest Witches were only meters away, and now Luke could see two more rancors break free of the tree line and charge toward him.

This was not good.

THE NEARER WITCHES CAME WITHIN TWO METERS OF HIM, THEIR ARMS raised and weaving spells in new patterns. Luke struggled to rise, could not do so against the press of the lightning and his own dazed condition.

Then there was a thump to his left as Vestara landed atop a flat stone the size of a tabletop. She was within reach of the nearer Witch on the left. She swung the lightsaber in her hand—blue, not the red one she’d wielded in the Maw—at that Witch.

The Witch, a redheaded woman of middle years with purpling blotches on her face, shifted the aim of her spell-weaving. Air superheated in a channel from her to Vestara. The Witches doubtless would have called it fire, but it was plasma.

Vestara took it on her lightsaber blade. She twisted, bracing herself on her right foot, and pivoted into a side kick. The blow took the Witch in the midsection, and Luke could hear ribs break. The Witch staggered back, her plasma attack sliding off sideways to play harmlessly against boulders and loose soil.

Vestara’s attack was more than a successful assault against one Witch. It distracted the others as well. The attention of the two lightning casters wavered. Luke felt the pressure against him falter just a bit—just enough.

He rolled rightward, carrying the lightning assault with him but deflecting more of its energy, and came to his feet—and more, leaping up and toward the nearest Witch to his right. His kick caught her in the chin. He felt bone break under his attack. The Witch fell back, her spell-weaving immediately