Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [41]
Speed.
“Everyone ready?” Holding his steed’s reins effortlessly in one hand, Kyakhta looked back at his companions. Bulgan signaled that the last of the supplies had been loaded. “Then let’s go and find the Borokii!” Facing forward, he slapped his mount on the smooth back of its neck and shouted sharply, “Elup!”
The suubatar seemed to rise from the ground. In reality, it had simply launched into the requested gallop. The six-legged gait was extraordinarily smooth, Luminara noted delightedly. There was little sensation of jouncing or jolting. Leaning back in the saddle’s viann, her fine, strong legs thrust calf-length into the deep leather stirrups, she watched the city fly past. Sluggish pedestrians had to scramble to get out of their way.
Far sooner than she expected, they sped beneath the high-arching Govialty Gate of the old city and found themselves on a dirt road leading westward. Kyakhta came pounding up alongside her. Despite what struck the Jedi as an extreme pace, she noted that his mount was not even breathing hard.
“Are you comfortable, then, Master Luminara?” The guide shouted to make himself heard.
“It’s wonderful!” she yelled back. “Like riding on a cloud made of spun Dramassian silk!” Outside the city walls, they were exposed to the near-constant winds that circled the planet endlessly. Cool air rushed past her face, the suubatar’s long, narrow, slightly triangular skull parting it like the prow of a ship.
A glance back showed Barriss hanging on for dear life, while Anakin’s expression alternated between grim determination and youthful alarm. She would have laughed, had it not been unseemly. As for Obi-Wan Kenobi, he sat serenely in his embroidered saddle, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. His reins lay secured to the pommellike brace in front of him. He might as well, she thought with some astonishment, have been sitting in a first-class seat on a starliner. She had known many Jedi, but never one so composed in the face of the unexpected.
“Kyakhta!” she called out to the rider galloping alongside her. “It’s good to leave the city behind so swiftly, but aren’t you concerned about overexerting our mounts? Won’t this pace tire them quickly?”
“Overexerting? Tire?” From his saddle, he eyed her quizzically. Then realization dawned. “Ou, you do not understand. But that is reasonable. None of you have ever seen a suubatar before, much less ridden one.” Pulling his slim legs and feet free of his stirrups, he stood up on the back of his pounding steed and looked back the way they had come, holding on to the crest of the viann for balance. “No one pursues us, but of one thing I’m sure: Bossban Soergg is not snoring this business away.” Sitting back down and resuming his former riding posture, he smiled at her anew. “You’re sure you are comfortable?”
“It feels almost natural. As I told you, I’m enjoying it.”
He performed the Ansionian equivalent of a nod. “Then there’s no need for us to continue dawdling here.” Raising his voice and freeing his feet from the stirrups, he leaned forward once again and shouted, “Elup!” At the same time he kicked his mount sharply with his heels, making contact simultaneously on both front shoulders.
“By the Force!” Anakin exclaimed as he grabbed for something to brace himself with. Barriss started laughing wildly, the acceleration sending her cowl and the folds of her robes streaming backward like flames. Obi-Wan deigned to wake up.
Until then, it seemed, the suubatars had only been trotting. At Kyakhta’s command, they broke into a six-legged sprint of such speed that their long-toed legs seemed not to touch the ground. When they did, six long powerful clawed toes dug into the hard-packed dirt and flung it backward. Thirty-six such digits propelled each ground-thundering