They came from the sides, out of the fog like ghosts. Two acolytes on her right, one on the left. She darted back and to the left. The man who came at her was tall and reedy, but the corrupted place of power gave him might. His thrust was unskilled, but he recovered too quickly for her to land a counterattack. Saketa continued falling back, moving, moving, moving as they tried to surround her.
They fought as the other three had at the Tanga, all seeking to score the kill to earn their master’s approval, rather than coordinate. Blades sliced through the fog with an eerie chorus of whooshes. Saketa parried when one acolyte got ahead of the others, but could never counter before they caught up. They drove her back, towards the slope, but when two bumped together it bought her the moment she needed to lunge at the third one.
Avanon, still on his perch, let loose a tendril. It was a crude, crackling beam of simple destructive force, and it sheared right through her blade. She was left holding a hilt with a handspan of metal sticking out of it.
Her target attacked with a semi-skilled thrust, and Saketa had just enough of a blade left to awkwardly parry the strike, but it threw her off-balance. Another one seized the moment and came at her side, and she could only retreat further, closer to the edge.
Another tendril came through the fog. This was one was pure and focused, a humming, magenta-coloured lance of death. She danced to the side and it narrowly missed, and now the third acolyte came at her. The man came in with an overhand that was just crude enough to parry with a little nub of a sword, but the crossguards locked and he slammed his body into her. And with that she was over the edge.
The ruined sword flew from her grip. Her back was the first to hit the sheer slope, and after that the fall turned into a rolling series of bounces. She had the training and the physical conditioning to control the descent and manage the impacts, but the darkness weighed everything down and she simply flopped downwards like a crashing vehicle.
It was one hit after another, seemingly everywhere on her body, and for a few seconds her world was just impact and confusion and the rattling of her own skull. The confusion lived on after the other two stopped, but through it she sensed the corrupted energies coming, borne towards her by their human agents.
There was no time for pain. Her warrior self moved her into action, giving her the will to move all those tangled, battered limbs. She flopped back down.
They were still coming, and death was almost upon her. She groaned and actively fought the disorientation. She managed to move again, and in the right direction, even. And then the first one reached her.
It was the warrior, that entity that long and gruelling training had made a part of her being, that flipped her to the side as the sword came down. She went for the knife, found the sheath actually in the right place for once, and drew it as she flipped back.
Her left hand sought upwards and found the person’s waist. Her right one drove the knife into their calf, then the thigh, then the hip. A masculine scream gave the figure some identity, but he couldn’t bring his sword to bear before the knife went into his lower abdomen.
She didn’t know if it was a kick, a punch, an elbow or a shove, but something threw her away from the acolyte, and she was falling downwards again. She’d stopped at one of the little mini-ruins, and the wet flatland was still some distance away.
This time she did manage some control of the descent, and her final roll into the dead swamp brought her up to her feet with some momentum to spare. Running hurt, but the warrior could take it. Whether the warrior could actually maintain her balance remained to be seen.
They were still coming. Two of them, and the injured one lagging a bit behind, not so much running as falling down the slope upright. She felt the dark energies being gathered, funnelled, and she arrived at one of the huge boulders just before the power sprang loose.
It was another amateurish tendril, enabled by the place of power, and it tore out a large chunk out of the fifty-ton rock as she dove behind it.
Saketa put her back against the boulder for just a moment, just to catch one single breath in peace. Her battered lungs objected, but she forced a generous amount of air down, and then started running again.
Finally the fog was of some value to her, but it just wasn’t as thick as it was up above. She heard their soggy footsteps mingle in with her own, and felt their presence with a similar lack of precision. She turned her head and saw no one at the moment, and so chose to move behind another boulder.
A knife could work against multiple swords, in tight starship hallways or in the middle of a melee crush. This was neither, and she could come up with no real plan other than to attempt an ambush.
She heard a set of feet come her way, splashing in the dead, rotting vegetation, and she stood ready to lunge out from either side of her cover.
The woman leapt over the boulder and her sword descended with her like an executioner’s blow. Saketa sidestepped. Her orientation was only partially back and she couldn’t launch an attack before the woman recovered from the miss and swung the sword again. The disciple drove Saketa before her with another blow, and another, and Saketa risked combining her fourth dodge with a low kick. She struck the woman in the leg and it bought her a moment to launch an attack. The woman managed a parry, and the knife slid along the sword. Saketa almost managed to turn it all into a grappling match, but the woman freed her sword and brought the hilt up into a blow.
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It impacted with Saketa’s already rattled skull, and it was little more than blind luck that landed the flailing knife on the woman’s arm. It opened a gushing wound, and while she forced Saketa back with another swing she didn’t immediately pursue.
Saketa backed away by a few more steps, giving herself more time to react to the inevitable charge. The man who’d been with her was advancing out of the fog. He now moved with a hint of caution, but was still coming fast and ready for a fight. And further back Saketa could glimpse a silhouette. It was the injured one, still able to move at a fairly brisk pace.
She had disciples about her in three directions, and behind her was now little more than the next drop. And she still had no strategy. All she could do was try to steady herself, brace, and let out a primal growl as blood seeped down the side of her head.
The whine didn’t register to Saketa until the thing was almost upon her. It came down from the dark, foggy sky, getting louder an instant before it actually appeared. A large, boxy object swooped low, like a diving bird. It had no exterior lights, and cut into the direction of both the woman and the uninjured man.
Both threw themselves flat and Saketa flinched, unsure of what to make of this as the aircar made a sharp, reckless turn that almost brought it to a halt. A door opened and a figure dropped down about ten metres. It landed with a graceful roll and went straight from there into a sprint. Up above the aircar continued in a somewhat clumsy circle as it decreased altitude.
The woman was up on her feet, and the man lagged only a moment behind. The new arrival swerved around the latter and the former set her sights on Saketa again.
“Saketa!” Vanaka shouted, and threw the sword.
Saketa moved two steps in order to catch it, and the powerful toss slapped against her palm with a loud smack. Her other hand found the grip as the woman charged, and the red blade came free with a faint whisper. The disciple closed the distance, and Saketa sidestepped her lunge and swung the Warden blade with both hands. It sliced through the woman’s chest and she went straight down to the ground in a shower of blood.
Two more figures dropped down out of the car, in a different spot on this little battlefield, and she could guess at their identities. Vanaka had unfolded a fighting stick and had her eyes on the male disciple. He had half his attention on her in turn, and Saketa felt him draw on the local power again.
She let out a war cry to draw his full focus her way as she charged him. Sudden desperation helped bring the crude tendril forth and it lanced towards her, dead on target. She held the sword up and the deadly energies dissipated against the blade. She reached the man and he just barely got his sword up for a parry.
She was still wobbly, but her spirit had made a return and combined with superior skill to make the difference. Her strike drove him back, and her second one opened his guard and landed a deep cut on his shoulder. Vanaka came up behind him and smashed her stick into his back. That completely opened his defences, and Saketa clove his head apart.
She was off for the third one before the body hit the ground. A small flash and a sharp bang guided her, and the three of them appeared through the fog: Losan had gotten a sword somewhere, while Fredrak had a little pistol. He fired it again, and she saw it was a plain, old-fashioned ballistic weapon. It would have been of little use against armour, but the disciple wasn’t wearing any and the bullet sank into his chest to join the previous one.
Fredrak fired again, and again, hitting each time, and the acolyte let out a scream and unleashed a tendril of his own, powered by pain and fury. The FedCom agent threw himself to the side and the shot that would have annihilated him tore through a boulder instead.
The tendril ran out of energy before Losan finished going around it, and the ansoti bodyguard swung his sword. The acolyte parried single-handedly; the other side of his body seemed near-useless. It still packed enough strength to rattle Losan, but the man recovered in an instant and thrust at his foe. The disciple may have been strong, but his speed was gone and he took the blade through his dominant arm.
He yelped and the sword fell from his grip. Saketa reached him and drove the Warden sword through his back and out the chest. Losan then cut his head off.
Vanaka caught up, looking wide-eyed, and Fredrak got to his feet and ran over, aiming his weapon at the ground.
“Are there more?” Losan asked her in a brusque battlefield voice.
“No,” Saketa said absently.
Her gaze travelled upwards, to the fog-shrouded temple ruins.
“No. They’ve Tunnelled away. You can… you can stand down.”
The car touched down and the pilot’s door opened.
“Ah, is everyone alright?” Ayna asked as she poked her white head out.
“We are,” Fredrak said back. Then he turned to Saketa. “Or, are we?”
“You are bleeding,” Vanaka said carefully, and touched Saketa’s arm.
“It is nothing,” Saketa assured her.
Her body was battered but intact. She didn’t know about the rest of herself. It was as if her emotions were somehow dull and intense at the same time. But the feel of the blade in her hand, even if it wasn’t actually her own, was such a comfort.
She looked down at it, in the light of the lamps that Ayna activated on the car.
“Nara,” she said.
“Uh… yes,” Vanaka replied. “And Pietr.”
The girl untangled the cloth she’d hurriedly wrapped around her own arm and handed it over. It was indeed Pietr’s pivasi.
Ayna ran over, and looked down at the carnage.
“Whoa. This is… ahem… would now be a bad time to admit I never actually learned how to pilot those things?”
The Dwyyk exhaled.
“Hey, Saketa. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Hello Ayna.”
“I do not suppose the leader is among these dead?” Fredrak asked.
“He is not,” Saketa said.
She touched the flat side of the blade with her fingertips. Then she looked over her shoulder, towards where she’d dropped the scabbard. She had to retrieve it.
Vanaka sighed.
“So what now?” Losan asked.