Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [8]
Gonar assisted him reluctantly, afraid to come too close to the monster and yet wanting to. With the major exterior injuries tended to, Malakili turned to the ruined mess of the monster’s mouth. He sent Gonar running for a pair of tongs, which he used to grasp the shards of diamond-hard chitin still wedged like broken glass between the rancor’s fangs. He stood directly inside the rancor’s mouth, yanking and tugging as he extricated the jammed pieces.
Gonar trembled watching him, but Malakili had no time to worry about such things. The rancor was in pain. If these shards remained stuck in its jaws, the wounds would become infected, and the monster would be even more ornery.
A foul stench rose from the rancor’s throat as its stuttering snores grew quieter. Malakili found the shattered stumps of two rotten teeth that must have snapped off in some other battle. Malakili grasped these too and tugged them out. The stumps came loose more easily than he expected, but the rancor’s mouth was so full of fangs that it seemed to grow two for every one it lost.
The monster stirred, and its beady black eyes blinked. Its nostrils flared as it heaved in a deep breath. Malakili leaped out of the way just as the jaws snapped shut.
“It’s awake!” Gonar shrieked, and fled through the low door. The dose of the sleeping gas had worn off with alarming swiftness.
Malakili fell backward as the rancor lurched to its feet. It swayed unsteadily for a moment. Malakili considered that this might be his last chance to bolt for the door.
The rancor reared up and spread its claw-laden hands. It snorted and glared down at him, still in obvious agony.
Malakili froze, looking up at the monster. If he ran, that would draw its attention, and he would instantly be eaten. A part of him prayed that the rancor would recognize him and not kill him.
The rancor grunted again, then bent low to sniff the medicinal salve on its torn legs. It raised its humongous hand to its flattened nostrils and sniffed again, looking at where the wounds from the combat arachnid’s spines had been salved and bandaged. The rancor grunted at Malakili, then looked around the floor of its den as if searching for something.
Malakili continued to stare, frozen in awe and terror. Sweat poured off his grimy skin. His heart hammered like colliding starships in his chest.
But then the rancor found what it was looking for: the long femur from a food beast. Still looking sidelong at the human in its pen, the rancor picked up the bloody bone and squatted down in its cage, gnawing nonchalantly, though his mouth must still have been in great pain.
Malakili stood there for a long, long time before he finally, quietly left.
A Game of Fetch
Malakili didn’t bother to ask if he could take the rancor outside of the palace, where the monster could romp in the desert vastness, stretch its sinewy legs, and enjoy the freedom of open air. He figured no one would argue with him if he was accompanied by multiple tons of fangs and claws.
Malakili had been around vicious animals enough to know that the thing they wanted most in life, the thing simmering behind their small, ultrafocused minds as they paced in the pens they had grown to hate was the simple wish to get out, get out, Get Out!
Malakili waited until the hottest part of a Tatooine afternoon, after both suns had reached their peaks. At this time Jabba and his pandering minions took a siesta as their only defense against the smothering heat.
From the main garage levels, he took a one-person sandskimmer and parked it outside one of the huge weighted doors at the base of the citadel. This door had been opened exactly once, when Bidlo Kwerve and Bib Fortuna