Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [153]
His helmeted head nodded. “Help me rig a shelter, then.”
Doallyn and Yarna used the rest of the sun-shield material to make a lean-to, employing the hovering landspeeder to anchor the material. They crawled into the resulting shadow, and half reclined there; both were too tall to be able to sit up straight. Yarna handed Doallyn the water flask. Gallantly, he handed it back to her.
“You first, Mistress.”
The Askajian shook her head. “No. I drank before we left. I need far less liquid than you to survive. Drink your fill, Sergeant … do not ration yourself, or you will become ill.”
He hesitated, then his helmeted head nodded. Slowly, carefully, he released the catches on his helmet and breathing mask, and took them off. Yarna didn’t want to stare openly, but she discovered she was intensely curious about her companion. Busying herself with opening food packets, she cast a sidelong glance at his profile.
At first glance, he appeared as human as any Corellian, but his skin bore a faint bluish tinge, beneath a close-cropped shock of jet-black hair. It was too shadowy beneath the landspeeder to be sure of the color of his eyes, but Yarna thought they were light, rather than dark. His features were regular, and rather attractive. He was not as handsome as that Corellian smuggler, Solo, but he was pleasant to look upon, Yarna decided, as she held out a packet of food to him.
Slowly, almost deliberately, he turned his head toward her as he reached out to take it, until she was looking at him full-on.
Yarna stifled a gasp and forced herself not to recoil.
Noting her reaction, half of Doallyn’s mouth stretched in a grin that told her he’d expected as much. The smile seemed more like a rictus of agony than any expression of good humor.
By the Moon Lady’s mercy, what happened to him?
One side of Doallyn’s face was horribly scarred. A broad band of roughened flesh pulled his mouth upward, and twisted and pitted the skin over his cheek. The slash narrowly missed his left eye, then ended at his hairline. Yarna forced herself to look away, unwilling to stare.
As though he could read her thoughts, Doallyn said suddenly, “It’s a claw mark. From a Corellian sand panther. Their claws are poisoned, and the wound festered.”
“It attacked you?” She struggled to keep her voice matter-of-fact. Instinctively, she knew that any expression of sympathy would be scornfully rejected.
“I was hunting it, and I wounded it. It turned on me.” Methodically, Doallyn took a bite of the food and chewed determinedly.
“You’re fortunate you weren’t killed,” she said after a moment.
“I was careless,” he said bluntly. “For an instant, I was careless. It does not pay to do that when you’re a hunter.”
“I thought you were a soldier.”
He shook his head. It was odd to see him without his helm, even though his features were nearly as expressionless exposed as they had been masked. “I was a hunter. That’s why I came to Tatooine. Jabba advertised for a hunter to get him a krayt dragon.”
“A krayt dragon?” Yarna stared at him incredulously. She’d heard the beasts described before—the young ones were as large as a rancor, and they reportedly grew even bigger as they aged. “What did he want with one?”
“He wanted to match one against his rancor, and charge admission. Jabba thought it would be the sporting event of the century. He offered a huge bounty for a live krayt dragon.”
“And you actually thought you could capture one?”
“I have been a hunter for many years. There are not many beasts I cannot outwit,” he said, with a quiet confidence that was far more convincing than any amount of boasting. “I studied everything that is in the databanks about krayt dragons. I came well prepared to hunt one.”
Yarna took a bite of dried fruit and chewed thoughtfully. “If you came to Tatooine to hunt a dragon, then how did you end up guarding Jabba’s palace?”
For the first time an expression flickered across his face in the dimness of the tiny makeshift