Star Wars: Path of Destruction: A Novel of the Old Republic (14 page)

Early in Bane’s training, he had fought Fohargh-and he had lost. Badly.

The Makurth was nocturnal by nature. Like the miners of the night shift on Apatros, however, he had grown accustomed to an unnatural schedule in order to train with the rest of the apprentices at the Academy. During their first duel Bane had underestimated Fohargh, expecting him to be sluggish and slow during the daylight hours. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

As Kas’im and the apprentices watched in silence, the two combatants circled each other in the ring, training sabers held out before them in standard ready stances. The Makurth’s breath came in grunts and growls from his flaring nostrils as he tried to intimidate his human opponent. From time to time he’d give a short bellow and shake his four-horned lizard’s head while flashing his savage teeth. The last time he’d faced the green-scaled, snorting demon of an apprentice, Bane had been intimidated by Fohargh’s act. Now he simply ignored the posturing.

Bane lunged out with a simple overhand strike, but Fohargh responded with a quick parry to deflect the blow to the side. Instead of the crackle and hum of blades of pure energy crossing, there was a loud clang as the weapons clashed. Immediately the combatants spun away from each other and resumed their ready positions.

Bane rushed forward, his blade ascending diagonally from right to left in a long, swift arc. Fohargh managed to redirect the impact with his own weapon, but lost his balance and stumbled back. Bane tried to press his advantage, his training saber arcing up from left to right. His opponent spun out of harm’s way, backpedaling quickly to create space. Bane broke off the half-completed sequence and settled back into the ready position.

Back on Apatros his latent abilities in the Force had allowed him to anticipate and react to the moves of his foe. Here, however, every opponent enjoyed the same advantage. As a result, victory required a combination of the Force and physical skill.

Bane had worked on acquiring that physical skill over the past months. As this ability grew, he was able to devote less and less of his mental energy to the physical actions of thrust, parry, and counterthrust. This allowed him to keep his mind focused so he could use the Force to anticipate his opponent’s moves, while at the same time obscuring and confusing his enemy’s own precognitive senses.

The last time he and Fohargh had fought, Bane had still been a novice. He had only learned a handful of sequences. Now he knew almost a hundred, and he was able to transition smoothly from the end of one sequence into the beginning of another, opening up a wider range of attack-and-defense combinations. And more options made it more difficult for a foe to use the Force to anticipate his actions.

Fohargh, despite his terrifying appearance, was smaller and lighter than his human opponent. Physically outmatched by the brute force of Bane’s Form V, he was forced to rely on the defensive style of Form III to keep his larger opponent’s overpowering attacks at bay.

Spinning his training saber in a quick flourish, Bane leapt high in the air and came crashing down from above. Fohargh parried the attack but was knocked to the ground. He rolled onto his back and barely managed to get his saber up in time to block Bane’s next slashing attack. A chorus of metal on metal rang out as Bane’s blows descended like rain. The Makurth kept him from landing a direct hit with a masterful defensive flurry, then swept Bane off his feet with a leg-whip, leaving them both supine.

They flipped to their feet simultaneously, mirror images, and their sabers met with another resounding crash before they disengaged once again. There were some whispers and mutters from the assembled crowd, but Bane did his best to tune them out. They had thought the battle was over … as had Bane himself. He was disappointed that he hadn’t been able to finish off his fallen opponent, but he knew victory was near. Fohargh’s survival had extracted a heavy toll: he was breathing in ragged gasps now, his shoulders slumping.

Bane rushed Fohargh again. This time, however, the Makurth didn’t back away. He stepped forward with a quick thrust, switching from Form III to the more precise and aggressive Form II. Bane was caught off guard by the unexpected maneuver and was a microsecond slow in recognizing the change. His parry attempt knocked the tip of the blade away from his chest, only to have it slice across his right shoulder.

The crowd gasped, Fohargh howled in victory, and Bane screamed in pain as the saber slipped to the ground from his suddenly nerveless fingers. Mindlessly, Bane used his other hand to shove his opponent in the chest. Fohargh reeled backward, and Bane rolled away to safety.

Scrambling to his feet, Bane extended his left hand to the training saber lying on the ground three meters away. It sprang up and into his palm, and he once again assumed the ready position, his right arm dangling uselessly at his side. Some Sith learned to fight with either hand, but Bane hadn’t yet reached that advanced stage. The weapon felt awkward and clumsy as he held it. Left-handed, he was no match for Fohargh. The fight was over.

His opponent sensed it, as well. “Defeat is bitter, human,” he growled in Basic, his voice deep and menacing. “I have bested you; you have lost.”

He wasn’t asking Bane to yield; surrender was never an option. He was simply taunting him, publicly humiliating him in front of the other students.

“You trained for weeks to challenge me,” Fohargh continued, drawing out his mockery. “You failed. Victory is mine again.”

“Then come finish me!” Bane snapped back. There wasn’t much else he could say. Everything his enemy said in his heavily accented Basic was true, and the words cut far deeper than the blunted training saber’s edge possibly could.

“This ends when I choose,” the Makurth replied, refusing to be baited.

The eyes of the other apprentices burned into Bane; he could feel them drinking in his suffering as they stared at him. They resented him, resented the extra attention he had been receiving from the Masters. Now they reveled in his failure.

“You are weak,” Fohargh explained, casually twirling his own saber in a complex and intricate pattern. “You are predictable.”

Stop it! Bane wanted to scream. End this! Finish me! But despite the emotion building up inside him, he refused to give his opponent the satisfaction of saying another word. Instead he let the all-but-useless saber fall once more to the ground. In the background he could see the Blademaster watching intently, curious to see how the confrontation would reach its inevitable end.

“The Masters cosset you. They give you extra time and attention. More than the others. More than me.”

Bane barely even heard the words anymore. His heart was pounding so loud he could hear the blood coursing through his veins. Literally quaking with impotent rage, he lowered his head and dropped to one knee, exposing his bare neck.

“Despite this, you are still my inferior … Bane of the Sith.”

Bane. Something in the way Fohargh said it caused Bane to glance up. It was the same way his father used to say the word.

“That name is mine,” Bane whispered, his voice low and threatening. “Nobody uses it against me.”

Fohargh either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He took a leisurely step forward. “Bane. Worthless. An insignificant nothing. The Masters wasted their time on you. Time better spent on other students. You are well named, for you truly are this Academy’s bane!”

“No!” Bane screamed, thrusting his good hand out palm-forward even as Fohargh leapt in to finish him off. Dark side energy erupted from his open palm to catch his opponent in midair, hurling him back to the edge of the crowd where he landed at Kas’im’s feet.

The Master watched with an intrigued but wary expression. Bane slowly clenched his fist and rose to his feet. On the ground before him, Fohargh was writhing in agony, clutching at his throat and gasping for breath.

Unlike the Makurth, Bane had nothing to say to his helpless opponent. He squeezed his fist harder, feeling the Force rushing through him like a divine wind as he crushed the life out of his foe. Fohargh’s heels pounded out a staccato rhythm on the temple’s stone roof as his body convulsed. He began to gurgle, and pink froth welled up from between his lips.

“Enough, Bane,” Kas’im said in a cold, even voice. Though he stood only centimeters away from the death throes of his student, his eyes were fixed on the one still standing.

A final surge of power roared up in the core of Bane’s being and exploded out into the world. In response, Fohargh’s body went stiff and his eyes rolled back in his head. Bane released his hold on the Force and his fallen enemy, and the Makurth’s body went limp as the last vestiges of life ebbed away.

“Now it’s enough,” Bane said, turning his back on the corpse and walking toward the stairs that led back inside the temple. The circle of students quickly opened a path for him to pass. He didn’t need to look back to know that Kas’im was watching him with great interest.

Bane felt the presence of someone following him down the stairs from the temple roof long before he heard the footsteps. He didn’t change his pace, but he did stop at the first landing and turn to face whoever it was. He half expected to see Lord Kas’im, but instead of the Blademaster he found himself staring into the orange eyes of Sirak, another apprentice at the Academy. Or rather, the top apprentice at the Academy.

Sirak was a Zabrak, one of three apprenticing here on Korriban. Zabrak tended to be ambitious, driven, and arrogant-perhaps it was these traits that made the Force-sensitives of the race so strong in the ways of the dark side-and Sirak was the perfect embodiment of those characteristics. He was far and away the strongest of the three. Wherever Sirak went, the other two usually followed, trailing at his heel like obedient servants. They made a colorful trio: red-skinned Llokay and Yevra, and pale yellow Sirak. But right now the other two were conspicuously absent.

There were rumors that Sirak had begun studying the ways of the dark side under Lord Qordis nearly twenty years ago, long before the Academy at Korriban had been resurrected. Bane didn’t know if the rumors were true, and he hadn’t thought it wise to ask about it. The Iridonian Zabrak was both powerful and dangerous. So far Bane had done his best to avoid drawing the attention of the Academy’s most advanced student. Apparently, that strategy was no longer an option.

The rush of adrenaline he’d felt as he’d ended Fohargh’s life was fading, along with the confidence and sense of invincibility that had led to his dramatic exit. Bane wasn’t exactly afraid as the Zabrak approached him, but he was wary.

In the dim torchlight of the temple, Sirak’s pale yellow skin had taken on a sickly, waxen hue. Unbidden, it brought back memories of Bane’s first year working the mines on Apatros. A crew of five-three men and two women-had been trapped in a cave-in. They had survived the collapsing tunnel by escaping into a reinforced safety chamber dug out of the rock, but noxious fumes released in the collapse had seeped into their haven and killed them all before rescue teams could dig them out. The complexion of their bloated corpses was the exact same color as Sirak’s: the color of a slow, agonizing death.

Bane shook his head, pushing the memory away. That life belonged to Des, and Des was gone. “What do you want?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

“You know why I am here” was the icy response. “Fohargh.”

“Was he a friend of yours?” Bane was genuinely confused. With the exception of his fellow Zabrak, Sirak rarely mingled with the other students. In fact, many of the accusations Fohargh had leveled at Bane-such as preferential treatment from the Masters-could easily be applied to Sirak, as well.

“The Makurth was neither friend nor enemy” was the haughty reply. “He was beneath my notice, as were you. Until now.”

Bane’s only reply was a steady, unblinking stare. The flickering torchlight reflecting off the Zabrak’s pupils made it seem as if hungry flames licked away at the inside of his skull.

“You are an intriguing opponent,” Sirak whispered, taking a step closer. “Formidable … at least compared with the other so-called apprentices here. I am watching you now. I am waiting.”

He reached out slowly and pressed his finger into Bane’s chest. Bane had to fight the urge to take a step back.

“I do not issue challenges,” the Zabrak continued. “I have no need to test myself against a lesser opponent.” Flashing a cruel smile, he lowered his finger and took a step back. “However, when you fool yourself into believing you are ready, you will inevitably challenge me. I shall be looking forward to it.”

With that he brushed past Bane on the narrow landing, bumping him slightly with his shoulder as if unaware of him, then continuing on down the stairs to the level below.

The message of that slight bump was not lost on Bane. He knew Sirak was trying to intimidate him … and to goad him into a confrontation Bane wasn’t ready for. He wasn’t about to fall for the trap. Instead he stood motionless at the top of the landing, refusing to turn and watch Sirak depart. Only when he heard the sounds of the rest of the class descending from the roof did he move again, spinning on his heel and continuing down the stairs to the lower levels and the privacy of his own room.

The next morning Bane was not with the other students on the temple roof as they sparred. Lord Qordis wanted to speak with him. Privately.

He strode through the virtually empty halls of the Academy toward the meeting, his outward appearance calm and confident. Inside he was anything but.

All night, as he lay surrounded by the silence and darkness of his room, the duel had played itself over and over in his head. Free from the emotion of the battle, he knew he had gone too far. He had proven his dominance over Fohargh by pinning him with the Force; he had achieved dun moch. The Makurth would never dare to challenge him again. Yet for some reason Bane hadn’t been able to stop there. He hadn’t wanted to stop.

At the time he had felt no guilt over his actions. No remorse. Yet once his blood cooled, part of him couldn’t help but feel he had done something wrong. Had Fohargh really deserved to die?