Bright Shadow Chapter 8

Previous Chapter:  Chapter 7 - Unholy Alliance 

 Chapter 8 - Assassination Attempt 

Two years later.

Cursed is the night that provides a cover for cowardly butchers and spineless killers. Those who chose to perform their sinister deeds under the nocturnal blanket of darkness chose to defy the simple rules of engagement. Those born with sharpness of mind and quickness of body often lead themselves into a predatory profession. One of taciturn slaughter. Their path inked in the blood of gratuitous murder. They chose to discard their honour and disgrace their rectitude all for a cheap kill.

Such is the way of the Sith.

Doran snuck out of the fighting pits after the brutal twelve-hour session. He and four accompanying acolytes travelled out of the Academy and into the Valley of the Dark Lords. Amongst him was the dark-skinned male Miraluka, the Nikto named Qirsk, the female Kage and a male human. All five of the acolytes trekked across the near-black, scorched lands of the valley, passing many desecrated tombs and graves as they walked.

Standing at the edge of a cliff looking out into the Dark Canyon was a figure clad in thin, black robes. The figure held himself still as the harsh torrent of wind gusted through his wraps and cloak.

As Doran and his four henchmen approached the figure, they donned their hoods and unsheathed their metal blades, sharpened and shiny. The light from the setting Korriban sun reflected off of them like glistening water. Doran’s acolytes marched over the ruins and debris of demolished buildings, sneaking ever closer to their target. He led the group towards the lone figure, signalling to the others with a simple hand gesture to surround the man, cutting off his chances of escaping their clutches. The man remained still and composed. Not moving an inch as Doran slowly crept up behind him with his blade ready to impale his target in the back.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” said the figure, stopping Doran dead in his tracks.

The man turned around to face his assailants, his black shawls still swaying in the warm evening wind. The red skin and bone spurs of the man were unmistakable: it was Vycerant. Now grown into a fully-fledged pureblood. His once long and flowy hair had been cut short. The thorny bone spurs on his temple and chin were now fully developed, protruding out of his face like pointy barbs naturally breaking out of his skin.

Doran, however, was much the same as he was two years prior. His face was still almost as pale as ice and his head was still absent from any hair. His eyes were bloodshot and baggy, resembling a man who had not slept in weeks, and he still bore his trademark scars. He stared down Vycerant with a confounded rage in his eyes.

“You knew we were coming,” he said.

“Well you have spent the last two years trying to kill me," Vycerant replied mockingly. "Goodness, it makes you sound incredibly incompetent when you say it out loud. Two whole years, and not a single shred of progress? Dulcia will not be pleased."

Doran chuckled at his nemesis’ remark, indifferent to his four companions who were all tensely watching the situation, nervous of a sudden eruption of violence. “Look around you little vermin," said Doran. “You’re surrounded.”

Vycerant smiled at Doran, undaunted by the enemies that surrounded him. “Am I?” he said confidently.

Sensing the presence of other individuals behind him, Doran spun around to witness two other hooded individuals emerge from hiding in the tattered ruins. One male and one female. Doran’s henchmen nervously shuffled their feet on the rocky ground as they held their weapons tightly, ready for whatever trap laid before them.

The two newcomers removed their hoods. The female uplifted her hood to reveal long, crimson hair. Her pristine face was marked by black eye liner shrouding her piercing, yellow eyes. The other figure displaced his cowl to reveal his masked eyes and scruffy, brown hair. His short, tattered robes matched the colour of his hair as he unsheathed his sharpened training sword. His red-haired counterpart did the same, unsheathing two blades from her utility belts and pointing them both at the acolytes that surrounded Vycerant.

Belushi and Kristina stood firm against the despising looks of the enemy acolytes. “Suppose you forgot about us, Doran?” the Belushi said to the leader of the ambush.

“A minor setback, child," Doran retorted. "Once I’m done with all three of you, everyone will forget you. Your path to becoming Sith ends here. Your names will be wiped from history!”

Vycerant smiled as he unsheathed his own blades from his belt. Doran turned back to face the red-skinned acolyte who had fused the hilts of the swords together to form a double bladed saber. He twirled it around his head and positioned himself in a defensive stance. He raised his left hand at Doran and tauntingly indicated his nemeses to attack him.

“Kill them all!” Doran shouted to his henchmen, who all charged towards Belushi and Kristina. The dark-skinned Miraluka and the male human engaged Belushi while the female Kage and Qirsk the Nikto charged towards Kristina.

Eager for a fight, Doran charged towards the red-skinned acolyte and swung his blade in a complex sequence of flurries, throwing Vycerant off balance and nearly knocking him off the cliff. Thinking fast, Vycerant used the Force to propel himself off the ground and jump over Doran’s attacks. In the middle of his jump, Vycerant unleashed a torrent of blue lightning from his fingertips. Doran raised his hand and absorbed the azure-coloured energy into his palm. As Vycerant landed on the ground away from the cliffside, Doran fell to one knee and held his left hand close to his chest. Grey smoke rose from his singed, clenched fist as he gritted his teeth in pain.

“Not been paying attention in class, Doran?” Vycerant asked insultingly.

Doran flexed his burnt fingers and shook his hand, killing the source of the smoke emanating from his palm. He looked up at Vycerant from his scorched hand, clenching it again and letting the pain fuel his anger.

“I never needed the lessons,” Doran replied. “You were never Sith material no matter what Zhen thinks of you or your bloodline. To me you’re just an animal that needs to be put down. And I shall ascend to greatness and you will be forgotten.”

“Greatness?” asked Vycerant, the two men beginning to circle each other. “You can't be serious, Doran. Do you really think that Dulcia will let you live after you do her dirty work? The moment you fulfil your purpose what’s the first thing she’s gonna do? Kill the only person who knows of her treachery.”

“Let her try,” Doran said as he circled in the same path as Vycerant. “She’s no match for me.”

“I’ll save her the trouble,” Vycerant said as he lunged towards Doran again with his double-bladed sword. The clashing blades generated amber sparks that shone in the late day. The sun of Korriban had set on the horizon during the skirmish. Darkness had crept up the side of the cliff and shrouded the derelict ruins as Belushi and Kristina fought their own assailants.

The dark skinned Miraluka managed to slice at Belushi’s thigh, cutting shallowly into his skin. Shouting in pain, Belushi retaliated with a complex blade spinning technique that knocked both the Miraluka and the human male off their balance. Taking advantage of his newfound opportunity, he knocked the human male’s sword out of his hands and impaled the man through his chest. The limp body of the man dropped to the rocky floor with a crunching thump, no doubt fracturing his skull as his corpse landed on the jagged cliffside rocks.

The two swords of the Miraluka clashed again, their faces squaring up to each other with a fierce rage on their masked faces.

“The Betoa would be ashamed of you, throwing in with a weakling like Vycerant. You’re a disgrace to our species”, the other Miraluka said to Belushi, holding his position against his foe. He spoke with a weaker accent than Belushi, almost akin to the common drawl of the galaxy. Belushi’s eye-patch covered most of his face but his anger towards his fellow Miraluka was obvious.

“You have no right to speak ill of me or use our god against me when you have committed yourself to a regime that will crush our homeland and annihilate our people!” argued Belushi as his enemy broke their clash and continued to swing his blade in the direction of Belushi’s body. Both men were blind my nature and used their enhanced other senses to fight.

Kristina led her attackers on a merry trip around the ruins, running in and out of the desecrated temples and houses that ran along the cliffside. Upon entering a clearing, she reached into her pockets and pulled out a set of tiny explosive devices. She turned to face her attackers as they exited the last ruin she fled through and chucked the cracklers at her pursuers.

The Nikto named Qirsk had quicker instincts and dived to one side of the building, avoiding the bright bursts of fire and sparks. The second attacker, the female Kage, was not as swift of mind and ran directly in the path of the cracklers. She held her hand up and shouted in pain as the tiny shrapnel scarred her skin. The deafening explosions covered the running footsteps of Kristina who jumped and swung her blade down into the body of the female Kage. The grey-skinned woman fell to the coarse ground, scarred and bloodied by the Kristina’s crafty attack.

Quickly regaining his bearings, Qirsk leapt back onto his feet and swung his blade at Kristina’s waist. Jumping back from the Nikto’s attack, Kristina dived backwards, heading back towards Belushi and the other Miraluka. A swift strike of the Nikto’s blade to Kristina’s sword briefly unbalanced her and left her temporarily defenceless. Qirsk took the opportunity to clobber Kristina’s unshielded face with his scaled fist. The punch threw the woman’s head back, with red blood spilling out of her mouth.

Almost completely undaunted by the Nikto’s brawler-style attack, the red-haired woman slowly turned her head back to face Qirsk and unveiled a sadistic smile. Her bone-white teeth were now sullied and stained by her own blood, giving her the look of a cannibalistic nightmare. The beauty of the woman was eclipsed by her terrifying, masochistic grin which dissolved Qirsk’s will to fight. His fingers unclenched and dropped his blade to the floor, creating a metallic thump as it landed. He fled the scene as Kristina tilted her head and the vicious smile she bore grew even larger. She grasped her right-hand blade loosely and chucked the blade in the direction of the Nikto. The spinning sword found it’s mark in the back of the fleeing Qirsk, who dropped to his knees and collapsed onto the floor before the large ruins. All those months of humiliation at the hands of Doran swept away. All the years of living in fear of evaporated with his life. Kristina wiped the blood from her mouth with her cape, staining the copper-tinted cloak she wore with a thin layer of red.

“Kristina!” sounded a voice to her left.

The woman looked to the origin of the call to see Belushi pressed against a demolished wall by the dark-skinned Miraluka. The acolyte had Belushi trapped mere inches away from his blade, which was becoming dangerously close to his throat. Belushi used all his might to hold back his enemy’s weapon.

The triumph in Kristina’s eyes were quickly replaced with concern for her friend as she gripped her left-hand sword lightly and threw the blade in the direction of Belushi’s attacker. The sword pierced the side of the attacking Miraluka. The scream of the man was cut short by Belushi grasping his throat with the Force and choking him. Raised off the surface and gasping for air, the dark-skinned Miraluka had just enough time to look to his right and see Kristina sprinting towards him. Belushi released his deathly grip on the man as Kristina leaped into the air and kicked him over the edge of the cliff. His screams echoed throughout the Dark Canyon as his body landed somewhere in front of the Sith Academy. No doubt a late-night snack for any Wanderers who had made it out into the grounds of the Academy.

Panting hard and resting his hands on his knees, Belushi struggled to look up at his saviour. Kristina smiled and raised her eyebrows at her exhausted friend.

“Don’t thank me,” she said smugly. “All in a day’s work.”

Belushi shook his head and chuckled to himself, albeit slightly embarrassed at nearly being defeated in front of her. “Maybe next time I won’t call for your help,” he said, trying to outdo Kristina’s haughtiness.

“Let’s just hope there is not a next time, shall we?” she asked rhetorically.

"Let's," Belushi agreed as he straightened his back and flexed his shoulders. “Come on let’s get back to Vycerant.”

Doran had called upon the evilest of potencies to combat Vycerant’s abilities. A small storm had manifested around him and levitated the man almost ten feet off the ground. He unleashed a barrage of lightning out of his fingers which Vycerant struggled to block. As he pressed further with his blade to keep back the onslaught of blue electricity, his legs almost gave out on him. If he were on less competent ground, his feet would have dug into the surface. The coarse ground had provided him with enough of a foothold that would have otherwise led to him slipping and thus falling off the cliffside to his doom.

Doran soon realised that he would not be able to kill his nemesis by throwing him off the cliff. He changed his strategy to catch Vycerant off guard and expose his vulnerabilities. He gathered as much sand and stone he could carry with the Force and surrounded Vycerant with the debris. Trapped in a bowl of pebbles and garnet Vycerant did the only thing that he could do; using the Force to propel his body upward, he leaped out of the cage of rock only to see the outline of Doran flying towards him. With his leg extended, Doran kicked Vycerant in the abdomen and sent him hurdling across the rocky surface and into a wall that once held up an old smithy works. The looser bricks of the ravaged building fell to the floor, luckily missing Vycerant by inches. Doran approached Vycerant with his blade in hand. The dazed and exhausted pureblood reached for his own blade that was just a few metres away from him but felt a sudden searing pain in his right leg; an old shard of shattered glass had lanced his thigh. Blood trickled out of Vycerant’s leg wraps like a viscous lava flow.

Kristina and Belushi arrived at the scene, immediately seeing Doran approach Vycerant with his blade in hand. The presence of Vycerant’s allies was a mere inconvenience for Doran who extended his left arm and unleashed a wave of Force power, knocking Kristina and Belushi down to the ground.

Vycerant once again reached for his blade but Doran used the Force to chuck the sword away from the man. He raised his blade above his head preparing to strike his nemesis. The vacant face and blank eyes of the shaven head man embroiled Vycerant with fear. The same face Doran bore when he fed Sharmall to the Wanderers and killed his brothers. His emotionless demeanour was like a predator approaching its daily kill. Vycerant raised his hands and closed his eyes, almost accepting his fate at the hand of malevolent acolyte. Doran swung his blade towards Vycerant’s head, fuelled by rage and abhorrence of his enemy.

The blade suddenly froze mere inches away from the acolyte’s head. All of Doran’s muscles tightened and tensed up. Every part of his torso became fused as if a thousand metal beams had been inserted into his nerves and ligaments. His entire body stiffened as he desperately tried to lower his blade just a little bit more so that it would slice into the head of his opponent. He called upon all his power and malice but to no avail.

Perplexed by Doran’s sudden immobilisation, Kristina and Belushi stood back up from the ground and sensed the presence of something vastly more powerful approaching them from behind. Glancing over their shoulders, the two acolytes saw Darth Zhen standing only a few metres away and towering above them both in his dark glory. In almost perfect synchronicity, Kristina and Belushi dropped to one knee and bowed their heads at the presence of the Dark Lord. Their fear of Zhen eclipsed their worry for Vycerant’s life.

Zhen walked towards the frozen Doran, his hand extended out towards the acolyte who seethed with insatiable fury towards his uninvited master.

“Stand down, acolyte,” demanded Zhen in his bellowing voice.

Taking his opportunity to escape Doran’s blade, Vycerant dragged himself across the floor, his blood oozing across the floor and staining the orange rocks. Using all his might, the pureblood pushed himself upright with his muscular arms and joined Kristina and Belushi in bowing to Zhen. His undeniable defeat and narrow escape of death at the hands of Doran were certain to disappoint his master. His heart pounded inside his chest from both the fatiguing battle and the uneasiness he felt in Zhen’s presence. He anxiously awaited Zhen’s assessment of the situation and the inevitable punishment the Lord would bestow upon him.

Doran felt the unnatural hold on his body release and his weapon slammed onto the rocky ground with incredible might, chipping away at the surface where Vycerant’s head would have been. Vycerant’s stomach churned at the thought that his head would have been the victim of Doran’s blade; skewered by the sword of his most wanton enemy.

Doran glared at Zhen with a spiteful expression. The yellow in his eyes matched the hue of Zhen’s. The Lords’ calm face was a façade for the irritation that laid buried in his mind. His prized student had come close to falling to his rival’s secret apprentice. He would not allow Dulcia and her neophyte to gain the upper hand in the Sith hierarchy.

“Zhen! This is none of your business!” Doran shouted in a stammer.

“I am merely protecting my interest’s acolyte. As you would have done if you were in my position”, Zhen retorted calmly as Doran walked over to him.

“You’ve robbed me of my prize!” Doran protested. “There are no rules regarding how we succeed in the regimen. You should have let me…”

“I know that there are no rules, acolyte!" snapped Zhen. "I made that rule. And as there are no rules that prevent me from intervening here, I get to make the rules! So, you quit your prattle about how you know the laws of the Sith when you haven’t the foggiest idea of how we do things around here.”

Doran’s disposition shrunk like his shoulders. He had nothing further to argue with Zhen about. Without saying another word, he sheathed his blade and stormed off back to the academy, spitting in Vycerant’s direction as he left. The wind coursed its way through his now bloodied and tattered robes as he trekked back the way he had come with his now dead henchmen.

“Return to your quarters acolytes,” said Zhen, pausing momentarily to observe Vycerant’s deep wound. “Apart from you, Vycerant.”

Vycerant looked up from his kneeling position and glared into the eyes of his master, the pain of the glass shard still coursing through his mind.

Zhen continued. “I want to see you in my office. You have fifteen minutes to get that cleaned up,” he said as he pointed to the wound in his apprentice’s thigh. Kristina and Belushi stood and travelled back to the Academy as well, both helpless to assist their incapacitated friend. Vycerant remained silent and in situ from his injury as Zhen returned to the Academy too.

Left on his own at the edge of a cliffside, Vycerant’s humiliated eyes turned to the shard of glass that laid embedded in his leg. The shame of being defeated by Doran in front of his own master added fuel to the fire of his internal rage. His eyes began to swell as his gloved hand grasped the exposed end of the shard. Wrenching the fragment from his leg Vycerant kept his scream inside himself for only a few meagre seconds before unleashing the blood-curdling roar of rage and dishonour. The cry echoed throughout the Valley as the dark blanket of night settled across the wicked lands.

Next Chapter:  Chapter 9 - Lessons in Redemption 

Copyright Jacob Burbidge 2019