Private One for the Road

[Rin Taal]

Rin watched the exchange with Tavi from where she stood, quietly allowing the moment to belong entirely to the two of them. The little carving was crude, its shape only becoming recognizable once the blue markings caught the light, but that only seemed to make it more precious. It had been carved by small hands with enormous sincerity. When Tavi wrapped his arms around Muad a second time, she felt her heart tighten in a way she hadn't expected. She had already seen his kindness, his patience, and the quiet gentleness that seemed to emerge whenever he forgot to hide behind wit or bravado, but watching him kneel so naturally before the boy, making promises he fully intended to keep, revealed something deeper still. It was easy to understand why children trusted him. It was far more difficult not to imagine, however briefly, what a life built around moments like that might look like. Tavi's innocent declaration about marriage drew a faint warmth to her cheeks, though she wisely left the child uncorrected. Children had a habit of speaking possibilities aloud long before adults were ready to admit they had considered them.

By the time Muad wandered back to her side, the blush had almost disappeared. Almost. It returned with remarkable efficiency the moment he accepted her company with enough innuendo to make her ears warm. She let out a long, patient sigh that was entirely for show, though the tips of her ears betrayed her all the same.

"Fine," she conceded, unable to keep the smile from tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I'll bring the panties."

She refused to give him the satisfaction of anything more than that, despite the dangerous little thought that quietly crossed her mind. *I might not be smarter than that. *Fortunately, some thoughts were far better left exactly where they belonged, and she hoped it hadn't crossed through their connection.

As the last buckets hissed against the dying fire and the caravan slowly began to snake back onto the road, Rin watched familiar faces disappear one by one into the morning's work before turning her attention back to Muad. Kaio already had everyone moving with practiced efficiency, and the route ahead would unfold exactly as they had planned without her. She slipped her satchel over one shoulder, gave the wagon train one final glance, then met Muad's eyes with the same quiet certainty that had carried her through the morning.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily." The smile that followed was warm, almost teasing. "Besides..." She nodded toward the waiting speeder. "You're still riding shotgun."

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

"I'll bring the panties." The view of more cheek than panty flowed through his thoughts, and he couldn't shake the mental image. Or the mortified expression on her face. Both were tantalizing. He shook his head, the knowledge that the image could have very easily slipped between the two. Just as he considered this, he felt her unguarded words.

I might not be smarter than that.

There was a whole helluva lot to unpack there. The idea that their journey through the forest could require another sleepover that could prove more intimate than the cot. Before he entertained the path of thought any further, he shook his head and stalked Rin back to where she stood near her door. He invaded her space and leaned in, fury in his eyes.

"Just so we're clear. I'm not the good guy. I'm going to kill every single person who stands in my way. Collateral damage is a real concept that I accept in due course. If it meant letting the caravan die to get to Haymitch, I would. Death is the only currency I deal in. You've seen my scars. One day I will die, not gently in a bed surrounded by loved ones. My end is bad and bloody, surrounded by those unlucky enough to find me before my end."

His right hand raised and caught her chin, gently yet firmly, to raise her face and eyes to meet his. "You are smarter than that. Our flirting is fun, but there is no future here. My future is what I do. I came here to kill. Your future is life. I've seen the life of the caravan, due in large part to your light. There is no light in me. Accept that, and then we can move on." His thumb brushed her chin lightly before he released her. "It isn't that the idea doesn't have an appeal. But it's only a fool's dream."

His feet led him to the passenger door, which he opened and reached in to grab his satchel. He spoke without looking up at her. "How do you plan on driving your speeder through the thick of the forest?" From what he could tell, the treeline only deepened, and the space between grew infinitely smaller. Unless she knew a path through, it would be hazardous driving. Then there was the fact of the Corvette, most likely hovering somewhere on the horizon. Two people on foot would be inconspicuous. A speeder might draw unwanted attention. And undesired cannon fire. His bow was stowed within the satchel as he awaited Rin's plan.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

His words settled over her without resistance.

She didn't interrupt him. She didn't argue when he called himself a killer or insisted there could never be a future waiting at the end of whatever road they had begun walking together. She simply listened. The Force needed no guidance to tell her he believed every word he had spoken. There was no deception hiding behind them, no attempt to manipulate her into turning away. It was simply the truth as he understood it, forged through centuries of battle, loss, and bloodshed. What saddened her wasn't what he believed about himself. It was how little room he had left for the possibility that he might be wrong. He saw only the darkness behind him and assumed it stretched endlessly ahead, never once considering that perhaps someone else could see a different horizon.

She watched him turn away toward the speeder, allowing the silence to remain between them while he reached inside for his satchel. There would be another time for the conversation he'd tried so hard to end before it had truly begun. Right now, trying to convince him otherwise would only sound like contradiction, and she had already learned enough about Muad to know that the quickest way to make him dig in his heels was to push before he was ready. Instead, she simply crossed the few steps separating them and came to rest beside him just as he questioned how she intended to drive a speeder through a forest dense enough to swallow it whole. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, the sort that appeared whenever practicality quietly answered a problem someone else thought insurmountable.

"I wasn't planning to."

She reached into one of the pouches at her belt and withdrew a well-used datapad, its casing worn smooth around the edges from years of regular use. A few practiced taps awakened the display before she turned it so they could both see. Unlike the broad route map she'd left with Kaio, this was a navigator's working chart. Terrain overlays, elevation scans, old survey routes, animal migration notes, seasonal flood markers, and countless little annotations filled the display, each one accumulated over years of wandering wilderness. Her finger followed the winding road leading away from the caravan until it reached the edge of the great forest, where the maintained trail simply vanished beneath an uninterrupted sea of green.

"The road to the forest entrance is still a fair distance from here." Her fingertip rested at the final marker before sliding a little farther into the canopy. "I'll drive us this far, then we leave the speeder hidden here and continue on foot. Beyond this point the canopy becomes too dense. Flying risks being seen, driving risks getting us stuck, and walking gives us the best chance of reaching your crystal without announcing ourselves to everyone else hiding beneath the trees."

Only then did she look up from the datapad, her golden eyes finding his once more. The quiet certainty she'd carried throughout the morning remained there, untouched by everything he'd tried to place between them. She made no attempt to revisit the future he'd already dismissed, nor to argue over whether he deserved hope more than he believed. Some conversations needed time to find their own footing, and she suspected this would be one of them. Instead she shifted a little closer so they could comfortably study the display together, her shoulder brushing lightly against his arm as her finger traced a narrow game trail branching away from the road.

"Come here." A small smile returned as she enlarged the image and highlighted the faint path disappearing beneath the trees. "Let me show you."

For now, that was enough. She would walk beside him into the forest exactly as she intended to walk beside him through everything else: not by forcing him to see the road the way she did, but by remaining at his side long enough that one day he might discover it for himself.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

She was infuriating. Instead of an argument, she led with passivity. Not that he should have been surprised. In all of his experiences with Rin, she was ever the calm. Even in the storm, she was the eye. It was just one of the reasons she intrigued him. When her arm brushed him, he did nothing but chuckle under his breath. With a sigh, he moved the satchel aside and leaned in at her beckoning words.

"Wise decision. I cannot argue with the huntsman. Huntswoman? Whichever." His head tilted as he observed her recommended path. Prudent. Her scent wafted to his nostrils at their proximity, filling them with her smell that was beginning to grow as familiar as his own. He nodded in agreement as much as to clear his head. "Then lead on, fearless leader."

He turned away, with a small smirk finally appearing on his face. "We should go." But before he turned away, he paused. A flash in the Force. Then he did walk away from her and toward the alcove where the caravan had spent the night. Nothing was seen or heard, but there was something unseen. Stretching out in the Force, he allowed his consciousness to flow. Past the tracks left in mid that was slowly drying. Through the first dozen trees ringing the cleared space. And kilometers away.

He felt it. Heat. Pain. Terror. Animals fled on loping strides and tiny feet. Wings flapped as birds took to the air, screeches rising on the wind. And older, slower, feelings instead of the rapid thoughts of animals. A sense of burning. The death of even older kindred. Knowing that their slow movement would not spare them.

He eased his mind back to the present where his boots stood perched on a groove carved by a large wagon wheel upon its departure. He raised his chin and breathed in. The remains of Rin's scent still tickled his nose. However, this was not what he searched for in the breeze. He stood, frozen in place as he waited. And then the first ripple came.

In the skies above, dozens of birds flapped their majestic wings as they escaped an unknown danger. His eyes followed them in the morning sky before turning back to the forest. One minute passed in silence. Then two. A sound echoed in the distance, followed by more. Hoofbeats. Nearly a hundred creatures stampeded from the forest, barely avoiding the massive tree trunks in their wake. They galloped by and leaped the established road before turning across the meadows and racing away. Smaller creatures of every kind tottered, slithered, and pounced from the forest with only one impression on their minds.

Escape.

Finally, the scent he wished not to smell reached him. The smell of smoke and death. Not just any death, but the cloying stench of rotting flesh. Muad grimaced. "Fierfek." He knew that stench and whom it belonged to. And it didn't bode well. Turning on his heel, he rapidly moved to the speeder and gripped the loose handle of the door before it opened. Glowing blue eyes turned to Rin with an expression of haste.

"We have to go. Now. If he has been let loose, then Haymitch has narrowed the search. I know you feel it. A fire has been set in the forest. And not any ordinary fire. Flames from a sithspawn." His face revealed he was very familiar with what they would meet. There wasn't fear because he believed that emotion left him centuries ago. But there was clear concern. His hand pulled the door shut, and he nodded at the datapad still in Rin's grasp. "We don't have much time."

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin had barely finished enlarging the route across the datapad when Muad's attention shifted somewhere far beyond the caravan. At first she thought little of it. He had a habit of listening to currents in the Force she neither sensed nor particularly relied upon herself. Instead, she remained focused on the terrain spread across the display, mentally measuring distances, landmarks, and the places where the forest narrowed enough to force them onto game trails. It wasn't until his silence lingered that she finally looked up from the screen.

She didn't search the Force. She watched the world.

The first sign came as birds burst from the distant canopy in numbers that no ordinary disturbance could explain. A heartbeat later, the tree line itself seemed to shudder as movement rippled through it, followed by the unmistakable thunder of hooves. Herd animals poured from the forest with blind determination, abandoning every instinct that normally kept them beneath the shelter of the trees. Smaller creatures followed without hesitation, predators and prey alike united by the same overwhelming need to flee. Nature rarely forgot itself like this. When it did, something had frightened the forest itself.

By the time the faint scent of smoke reached them, Rin was already moving.

The datapad disappeared back into its pouch in one practiced motion while her other hand caught the speeder door. She slid behind the controls almost before Muad finished speaking, the familiar sequence becoming muscle memory as the repulsorlifts hummed awake beneath them. Her rifle settled within easy reach beside her seat, her knife clipped securely at her hip, and the survival pack she'd prepared earlier landed behind them without another thought. She didn't waste precious seconds asking questions whose answers waited somewhere ahead.

The engines answered with a rising whine as she guided the speeder away from the last of the departing wagons. Behind them, the caravan continued organizing its morning departure, blissfully unaware of what was unfolding beyond the horizon. Ahead, the road stretched toward the forest where smoke now smeared faintly across the bright sky. Her hands remained steady on the controls, eyes fixed forward while the vehicle gathered speed with practiced confidence.

"If the animals are abandoning established territory, whatever's driving them isn't hunting." Her voice remained even despite the urgency in the speeder's acceleration. "It's consuming everything in its path."

She spared him only the briefest glance before returning her attention to the road rushing beneath them.

"We'll reach the forest entrance first." The words carried the quiet certainty of someone already thinking several steps ahead. "Once we're under the canopy, you lead us to the crystal."

There was no fear in her voice. Only resolve. If the forest needed them, then that was where they were going.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

Black smoke blew across the road, choking them with its thick stench. The blue sky grew turbulent with unnatural clouds originating from deep within the forest. More animals fled the woods; one animal leaped in front of the speeder so quickly there was no time to react. Thankfully, only its hooves struck the hood of the vehicle, as it continued to flee the fire through the meadow. The sound of cracking tree trunks echoed from the deep, sap superheated and expanding before the trees burst. Smells of burnt animal flesh filtered into the smoke.

Muad glanced at Rin as she concentrated on the road, the fleeing animals, and the smoke lowering the visibility to only a handful of meters. Despite that, the speeder cruised over the road, a few times swerving to avoid animals and random dips in the road. The speeder wheezed from the intake where smoke was pulled in. When she spoke, he grimaced. "It's worse than that. It isn't consuming everything in its path. He's consuming everything in his path."

Turning in his seat, Muad looked back from whence they came. Despite himself, worry tinted his expression. "Kaio and Mara will know what to do, right? Put distance between them and the forest?" He slipped back and turned around, eyes staring forward. A few moments passed as he bounced in his seat, the speeder taking a corner at reckless speed. Then he spoke in a more subdued voice.

"I didn't think Haymitch would be that desperate. Not to bring him. 'Kurgan'. He was once a wookiee gladiatorial slave until he won his freedom. And he walked right into the hands of Haymitch. Ten years later, Kurgan wasn't a wookiee anymore. He was a sithspawn. Twisted by the dark side and alchemy. Whatever once existed in his soul is forever gone." His voice lowered even more. "My friend, a gentle giant who grew plants and painted the skies of Kaahyyyk, is gone. Now, he's just Kurgan."

Absently, his right hand rubbed just below his collarbone, where a round scar the size of a siskeeni denari, or a Coruscant credit, marred his flesh. Muad had tried to save his one-time friend only to have the enraged sithspawn of a wookiee try to skewer him with a spear. It missed his heart but still pinned him to a wall in the old house on Kaahyyyk. Before Kurgan ripped Muad's throat out, the mad man set the house on fire. And the wookiee. Now he carried the scar as a reminder. Of the friend he failed, the friend he must one day kill, and the man responsible for it all, Haymitch.

The speeder slid along a stretch of road before she stopped. Before them was a narrow passage into the woods, smoke already hovering just below the canopy. He hopped out and opened his satchel, making sure he had all the weapons on from previously. Then he pulled out a bandolier filled with power cells for his blaster rifle and several thermal detonators. The last ones were for a last resort. But with a Sithspawn wookiee who wanted to rip his throat out with his fangs, he'd bring a star destroyer if he could. Instead, it was just him, his weapons, and a Zorren woman named Rin. He looked up to Rin and grinned. Maybe they had the upper hand after all.

He slipped the string of his bow over his chest and grabbed the rifle before looking to Rin. "Last chance to not run into a burning forest." There was no expectation of her changing her mind. So he shrugged, then took off for the passage at a sprint.

The run through the forest had none of the gentle lope of the night before. Then, they had the chance to choose when and where to face their enemy. Now, now they ran toward an enemy that knew their foe was still on the hunt. And they knew where they were going. The pair no longer had the element of surprise.

Deeper into the forest they ran. The gentle path disappeared until they leapt from ground to massive root, and back again as sure-footed as the herd animals who fled the woods they called home. Muad slowed once when something hit his cheek and his fingers wiped ash away. Almost like the first flurries of a winter storm, ash drifted from the heavens. Branches caught many of the falling ash, but also inevitably snatched burning embers from the wind. With a small breath of wind, the embers caught dried leaves and dead limbs afire in the canopies above.

Muad increased his pace. In the not-too-distant forest, loud explosions erupted and shook the ground. The familiar sound of aerial turbolaser fire ripped into the trees. Unfortunately, the aerial display of firepower created a ring around an unseen piece of land, which was directly where they were headed. Several forms appeared from the murky smoke that now cloaked their surroundings. Several herd animals screeched by, the fur pelt on their backs set aflame. They ran off before Muad could do anything.

They neared a massive tree with great big roots, and Muad paused, eyes downcast in a search. Finally he found what he was looking for in a depression created by the ancient roots. Without thought, he ripped both sleeves from his tunic and dipped them into the stagnant water in the slight hovel before tossing one to Rin. Then he wrapped his piece of wet cloth over his nose and mouth. "It's not a rebreather, but it'll do in a pinch. For now. Once we are near where the turbolaser blasts are circling their perimeter, we'll slow and gauge the timing so we can slip through." And then he was off again, into the darkness of the smoke and below the burning branches above.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin caught the wet strip of cloth without breaking stride, looping it across her nose and mouth in one practiced motion as she pushed off after him. The familiar scarf resting around her neck would have served much the same purpose, yet there was something quietly reassuring about accepting the protection he'd thought to prepare for her. The damp fabric smelled of stagnant water and rich earth, hardly pleasant, but it would buy them precious breaths beneath the choking smoke. Around them the forest had become a blur of blackened trunks, drifting ash, and terrified wildlife, every heartbeat carrying them deeper into a place that was crying out in agony.

As her boots carried her over roots slick with soot and around fallen limbs already beginning to smolder, Rin reached beyond herself. She never slowed, never closed her eyes, and never allowed her attention to leave the path ahead. Instead, she let her awareness sink quietly into the living world around her. She felt frightened animals racing blindly through the undergrowth, the deep anguish of ancient trees splitting beneath impossible heat, the cool persistence of groundwater still flowing unseen beneath the burning earth, and the steady wind struggling to carry clean air through the suffocating smoke. She did not seek to command any of it. Nature had never answered well to domination. Instead, she offered herself with quiet humility as one small part of something infinitely older and greater, asking only for enough strength to stand beside it while it endured.

"Lend us your strength," she whispered, the words barely carrying beyond the damp cloth across her face. "Not so we may conquer...only so we may protect what still remains."

The answer arrived not as words but as quiet understanding. Cool strength settled into muscles already weary from everything the previous day had demanded. Her breathing steadied despite the smoke pressing relentlessly against the cloth, while the heaviness lingering in her limbs quietly melted away. For the briefest heartbeat, her golden eyes brightened until they shone like sunlight caught in amber, and somewhere high above the smoke-choked canopy, leaves stirred with a breeze that seemed determined to keep moving despite the fire below. Then the moment passed, leaving behind only the lingering certainty that the forest had heard her.

Without another word, Rin lengthened her stride until she once again matched Muad's pace. Ash drifted around them like dark snow, embers swirled through the air on restless currents, and the thunder of distant turbolaser fire rolled through the burning woods ahead. The forest had entrusted them with what little help it could still offer. Now it was their turn to fight for it.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

For a moment, he lost track of Rin in the smoke-filled forest. While his eyes couldn't see her and his nose couldn't pierce the burnt scent filling the air, he felt her presence in their bond. Reassured, he continued forward. They ran like the ancient sprites of legends. Barely did their feet touch the ground before they were into their next step. The forest changed. No longer bright greens and soft browns, the smoke turned everything to ash and char. Elder trees wept resin from the heavens, and flame took hold and destroyed all it touched. Even through the mask, he tasted the gritty spot that now stained their bodies.

Finally, they neared the ring of turbolaser fire as it seared trees into non-existence, scorched the earth, and shattered stones half-buried in the ground. The Corvette hovered fifty meters above a circle of forest that remained untouched. Muad paused near the edge of the random firepower being unleashed from above. "The temple ruins must be in there. But I can't do nothing. The forest doesn't deserve this. I'm going to do something, and it very well might make me a target for ground forces. I'm sure there are soldiers in there waiting with Kurgan. Keep them busy if you can. And don't do anything stupid, like me."

They were standing together, using the form of a great tree as cover. Thirty meters above, the tree ended in a smoldering stump where an errant turbolaser blast had sundered the top fifty meters of the tree that once lived there. He dropped the blaster rifle amidst the broad roots of the tree and closed his eyes, letting the Force activate the primal aspect inside. His talons merely grew stronger as his fangs reappeared. Then he turned and stepped up to Rin, an arm pulling her forwards, where he leaned his head against hers. "Don't die." Then he kissed her on the cheek and winked at her. "For luck, witch."

Then he walked to the base of the enormous tree and placed his hands against the trunk. Forgive me for hurting you. I do what I must to avenge your wounds and fallen brethren. With that, he leapt straight up, almost ten meters and latched onto the sides of the trunk with bared claws. As he climbed, he felt the sap sticking to his shirt and one cheek. Each handhold tore deep grooves in the elder tree as he climbed higher. As he ascended, the smoke grew thicker, nearly choking him. Tears streamed from his burning eyes as he used the rage to fuel the strength in his body. And then he reached the top and pulled himself up. The blast had sheared through the wood, which gave him a level place for his boots to stand.

For a moment, he considered the idiocy of his plan. But there was no other way. And the forest deserved its vengeance. He would merely be their avatar.

A breath was drawn into his lungs as he stretched out, feeling the forest alive around him for miles. Terror filled animals who found no route for escape. Despair clutched those who lay next to kindred killed by flame and smoke. Disorientation from birds in the sky as they searched for nests hidden below. Agony from creatures who writhed in flame. All of this he drew into him. All the pain, fear, confusion, loss, and even the slow rage of trees unable to act. Every ounce was pulled into the catalyst he was becoming.

Then there was the fire.

It breathed. It spread and procreated in the only manner it knew, the consumption of organic material. Fire crept and sprinted, looking to grow and expand. But Muad knew the secret of fire. It simply wanted to exist. It desired to live. To make its mark. And it wanted to be remembered. Fire had a life, an existence. It wanted, needed, desired. And fire also knew that its life would be short. Muad understood that. It was what he felt in his chest.

He whispered on the wind. Words learned from Dathomirian witches, the Sages of Dorin, from Guardians of Breath, and even from the secret language of the Sith. His voice rose as he sang a song of power. A melody of rage. A tune of Force. Muad courted the power of the flames burning all around the forest and spoke of a single act that would be remembered in song and story for generations, memorializing the fire as a holy power that saved Batuu. And then he felt it in his soul, a whisper that scratched at his thoughts.

Yesssssssss …

His hands raised out from his sides and blue flame erupted from his palms, slowly spinning around him in a vortex. The forest gasped and inhaled, fire from miles around rushing back in on itself. The red of the forest fire swirled around him, a maelstrom of flame that condensed into a whirlwind of fire. Muad used all the emotions of the forest to fuel his own rage, anger, hate, and loss, and he looked across from where he stood at the Corvette hovering above the ruins of the temple. Blaster fire lanced up from the ground as soldiers rushed to see a demon of hell standing on a tree and summoning the fires from all around to his location. A bolt clipped his armored boot and was deflected away. Another creased his ribs below his left arm. But the Mad Master took no notice.

He was the sum of all he had experienced. All that the forest experienced. And the only thought in his mind was vengeance. Muad stretched forth his left arm, palm facing the hull of the ship. The blue runes that snaked from his elbow to his hand shimmered on his skin. Then they slowly turned black. The blue surrendered to the changing hue as black as dark as night infected each rune until the last glyph in his palm was as black as the charred remains of the dead trees below. The last to change was the glowing blue eyes in the face of the snarling mad man. Eyes of obsidian. And with all the emotions drawn in, all the powers of the fire, and all the rage and madness he possessed, he roared a single word.

"Traycn!"

The fire condensed into a single stream of light as it flew unerringly toward the ship. And then the Force Destruction was released through his palm, an inky tendril of darkness flying forth and spearing through the hull, ripping bulkheads before the concentrated fire dipped through the tear and exploded in a flash, consuming all in the Corvette. The half-powered reactor exploded, tearing the ship in half and dropping both pieces into the circle of virgin land where the temple ruins waited.

He wavered there, on the tree, as his eyes looked to the forest to see that all the flames had heeded his call. Smoke still rose from charred embers. But the forest was quiet. It still lived. Good, he thought before he toppled forward and dropped through the branches and toward the ground, which rapidly approached his unseeing eyes.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin felt him disappear.

Not from sight. The smoke had stolen that long ago. Not from the Force, either, for she had never relied upon it the way so many others did. Instead, she felt it through everything else. Through the sudden tightening of the forest around her, through the frantic rhythm of fleeing paws against scorched earth, through the desperate cries of birds circling above a canopy that no longer existed. Nature had become one enormous, wounded creature, and every instinct she possessed strained toward it. So when Muad drew her close beneath the shattered trunk and rested his forehead against hers, she needed no explanation for what he intended. She saw it in his eyes before he ever spoke the words.

His request settled quietly between them.

Don't die.

For the briefest instant surprise stole even her breath as his lips brushed her cheek. Before he could pull away entirely, instinct moved faster than thought. Rising onto her toes, she caught his own cheek with a kiss just as gentle, lingering only a heartbeat before letting him go. As he turned, her hand slipped from his arm, and she smiled despite everything burning around them.

"I don't plan on it," she whispered after him, her voice nearly lost beneath the roar of the dying forest. "You don't either."

Then he was gone.

She watched him climb with impossible speed, vanishing into the smoke while blaster fire already began searching for movement high among the dying branches. For one suspended heartbeat she simply stood there, following his ascent until the smoke swallowed him completely. Then she drew one slow breath through the damp cloth covering her face, lowered herself instinctively toward the forest floor, and became something else entirely.

The transformation was subtle to anyone unfamiliar with her people, yet profound all the same. Her posture lowered until her weight settled naturally upon hands and feet alike, powerful legs coiling beneath her as though gravity itself had shifted. Golden eyes narrowed, pupils widening while pointed ears pivoted independently through the haze, catching shouted commands, snapping branches, the metallic scrape of armor, and the hurried footfalls of soldiers moving through the smoke. Her claws bit effortlessly into charred roots as her tail swept low behind her for balance. Every movement shed another layer of civilization until the hunter born from generations of surviving wild places emerged completely. She no longer ran through the forest.

She hunted.

The first soldier never knew she had found him.

He turned toward the impossible spectacle unfolding above, blaster raised toward the burning tree where Muad stood silhouetted against swirling flame. By the time instinct finally warned him to look elsewhere, a tawny blur exploded from beneath a fallen trunk. Rin struck low and hard, one clawed hand slamming his rifle aside while the other raked across the joints of his armor with frightening precision. Before he could cry out she was already gone, disappearing into the smoke as another pair of troopers spun toward the sound. One fired wildly into empty haze while the second received only the flash of glowing golden eyes before Rin sprang from the side of a blackened tree, planting both feet against the trunk to redirect herself through the air. Her talons carved bright sparks from plastoid armor before she vanished again, forcing them to fire after ghosts while Muad remained untouched above.

Around her the forest itself seemed to join the hunt. Fallen branches collapsed beneath hurried boots. Smoke concealed every leap. Embers drifted thick enough to hide movement until she was already among them. Every instinct sharpened by the Trial guided her flawlessly through the chaos, her growling breaths lost beneath explosions as she struck, withdrew, and struck again from another direction. They searched desperately for a single attacker while the woods answered them with a predator that refused to remain where they expected.

Then the world stopped. The flames disappeared. Every living thing paused together.

Rin looked upward just in time to see a single impossible stream of fire lance across the sky and tear through the hovering corvette. The explosion swallowed the heavens in white and orange light, the shockwave ripping outward with enough force to flatten burning branches all around her. Soldiers froze in stunned disbelief as flaming wreckage began raining toward the untouched clearing below.

Then she felt it. Not through the Force. Through him. The bond between them shuddered.

Without a second's hesitation, her head snapped upward, golden eyes piercing the thinning smoke just in time to glimpse a solitary figure tumbling through shattered branches. Her heart lurched.

"Muad."

The name escaped as little more than a breath before she was already moving.

She ran with every ounce of speed her body possessed, no longer weaving between obstacles but flowing over them. Great roots became stepping stones. Fallen trunks vanished beneath effortless leaps. Then she found the ancient tree and never slowed. Claws dug deep into the bark as she sprinted almost vertically, her powerful limbs carrying her upward in great bounding strides that ignored what should have been possible. Splintered branches became handholds. Her tail whipped behind her, balancing every impossible change in direction until she burst through the smoke just below his falling form.

She leapt. For one suspended heartbeat there was nothing beneath either of them but smoke and open air. Then she caught him.

The impact drove the breath from her lungs as his unconscious weight slammed into her shoulder and chest. One arm caught around his back while the other locked across his waist, her body twisting with the force of the collision until both of them crashed hard against the ancient trunk. Her talons bit deep into the bark, carving long furrows as they slid downward together. Bark splintered beneath her claws while her legs braced against the trunk, slowing their descent little by little instead of stopping it outright. Every muscle in her body screamed beneath the impossible strain, yet she refused to surrender another inch than she absolutely had to.

By the time they reached the first great limb beneath the shattered crown, most of their momentum had finally bled away. Rin drew a ragged breath before shifting Muad's weight more securely against herself. Pressing her forehead briefly against his soot-darkened temple, she closed her eyes for only a heartbeat.

"I've got you," she whispered, the words emerging as a low, instinctive growl more felt than heard. "I've got you."

And with the forest finally quiet around them, Rin began the careful descent back toward the earth, carrying the man who had just saved it.


Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

The feeling of weightlessness was all his body knew. His mind lay shattered from a thousand individual fires that swept across his consciousness, consuming his identity. Who was he? What was he? The questions didn't seem to matter. All that he knew was that the flame sacrificed itself for the forest, and he was merely a conduit and witness. A brief thought coalesced in his mind. Was this what death felt like? But no. He had sipped from that particular decanter, and this wasn't it. As his eyes finally began to focus, he felt several impacts against his form.

The first was familiar. The shape of a woman against him. Not just any woman. The witch herself, Rin Taal. He would know that thigh thrown around his hips, anywhere. Then her leg tightened, pulling him into an embrace as the second impact jolted them together even tighter. Slivers of wood fell into his face as her claws tore at the trunk of the tree. Arms encircled him and her scent finally broke through the smoke. He wasn't sure if it was her legs around him or her arms. Either way, he lay in her embrace, only the strength and perseverance of the woman keeping him from landing in an undignified and, most likely, un-alive splat upon the forest ground.

His eyes flickered when her forehead leaned against his temple, and very slowly his eyes finally came into focus. Her forehead was marred by soot; ash covered her like a dirty snowfall, and sweat and blood splattered her clothing up to the corded muscles of her neck, standing in stark relief from the strain. An exhausted smile twitched his lips. "You are making this a habit. Saving me. And, I guess, I'm making a habit of falling for you." A light chuckle rattled in his chest, and he turned his head, a racking cough escaping thanks to the smoke inhalation.

Somewhere between the climb, the fire, and the fall, Muad had managed to lose his impromptu face mask, and the rest of his tunic had been consumed. Soot stained his skin black. As his energy slowly returned, he reached out and lent a hand in their descent. Rin still ended up doing the majority of the work despite his small amount of assistance. "You've got me? You should have focused on the mission. But … thanks."

When their feet finally touched the ground between the massive roots, he sighed as he leaned against the zorren. She was a beacon of strength and strong moral character. She was also the reason he wasn't dead. Again. Her hands remained on his body, mostly to steady him on his feet. He didn't mind. Not at all. However, he did lean forward and press his sweat- and soot-stained forehead against hers. "Stop saving me, or I won't know what to do without you." His resin-stained fingers lightly gripped her shoulder as the world finally stopped chaotically spinning. The world was no longer aflame, despite the glow of her golden eyes. Then he was finally able to focus. Blood splattered her face like red freckles. Her lips were partly open as she breathed to regain her composure after the feat of saving him. The tips of her ears had fallen ash adhered to them, coating them in a charcoal white. Her hair was in disarray, a shadow falling over her head as something blocked what little sunlight pierced the smoke-induced haze above.

Muad reacted on instinct. Hands shoved hard, down and away at her shoulders even as he leaned backward. The massive, spiked club crashed into the roots they were standing on, severing the foot-thick limbs from the power of the blow. The club was pulled free with one enormous, hairy hand while another swung a monstrous double-bladed vibroax, which sliced clean through the tree trunk that Muad and Rin had just descended. Resin and dust spit into the air as Muad felt a distant pain that had nothing to do with his flesh and everything to do with the link between him and the now-dead tree.

He hit the ground on his back and allowed the momentum to flow, swinging his legs over his head and rolling to his feet. Fallen leaves and ash coated his sweaty back even as his right hand raised to his shoulder to pull the beskad free. An armored foot nearly the size of Rin's speeder's door crashed into his chest and sent him flying, where he ricochetted against another tree before hitting the ground hard. The handle of his beskad flew from his tingling fingers.

Meanwhile, the nearly ten-foot-tall figure of the Kurgan threw the battle-axe with all his Sith alchemy-reinforced strength and speed directly for Rin's torso. Then Kurgan leaped high, his massive spiked club descending where Rin might move, if she avoided the vibroax.

Muad shoved his body up, wet earth staining his hands as he roared, pulling his kal from its sheath while the other hand slipped the lightsaber free and ignited it. He ran forward with the sinking feeling he would not arrive in time to stop Kurgan. It was up to Rin to survive alone for a few moments.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

The world exploded into motion.

Muad's shove came without warning, yet Rin trusted him before she even understood why. Rather than resisting, she surrendered to the force behind it, twisting low as her hands struck the forest floor alongside her feet. The monstrous vibroaxe screamed through the space her chest had occupied an instant before while the enormous spiked club crashed into the roots behind her, splintering ancient wood into a storm of jagged fragments. She was already moving before either weapon completed its arc, racing not away from the towering Wookiee but around him in a blur of tawny fur, soot, and flashing golden eyes.

The Trial had taught every Zorren how to survive when strength alone could not. Her body flowed naturally onto all fours, powerful legs driving her between shattered roots and fallen trunks while her claws found effortless purchase wherever they landed. Smoke burned her lungs, ash coated her tongue, and the roar of Kurgan's fury shook the air itself, yet none of it drowned out the rhythm she sought. The heavy footfalls. The scrape of armor. The whistle of metal through smoke. A hunter did not fight by overpowering something larger. A hunter survived by understanding how it moved.

Bodies lay scattered throughout the ruined clearing where the earlier fighting had reached its bloody conclusion. As Rin darted past the nearest fallen soldier, she slowed for only the briefest heartbeat. Her fingers brushed across the cooling breastplate before gently closing the warrior's eyes.

"May your gods welcome you home," she whispered.

A vibroknife disappeared into her hand while spare power cells and grenades were stripped from his chest webbing in practiced motions. She carried none of it for herself. The battlefield simply belonged to the living now, and she would not allow Kurgan's soldiers to reclaim what the dead no longer needed.

She was moving again before the giant completed his turn.

Another fallen trooper yielded a compact sidearm, which she drew only long enough to place three carefully aimed shots into the thick joints behind Kurgan's armored knee. The bolts were never intended to wound. They flashed instead against overlapping plates with enough force to make the towering creature instinctively shift his weight. Before the echoes of the blaster faded, Rin had already discarded the pistol beside another body and vanished once more into the smoke.

Every heartbeat carried her somewhere unexpected.

One moment she sprang across a fallen trunk. The next she rebounded from the exposed roots of an ancient tree before slipping beneath hanging branches blackened by fire. Kurgan's immense size demanded commitment with every swing. Rin offered him nothing solid to strike. Every attack chased only where she had been, never where she was becoming. If Muad stood before the monster like an unyielding blade, Rin became the forest itself, impossible to pin down and forever circling just beyond reach.

Her eyes found Muad only briefly between Kurgan's furious assaults. Alive. Still moving. Relief swept through her, but only for an instant. There would be time for relief later. Now there was only survival.

Her claws tightened around the salvaged vibroknife as another opportunity revealed itself. Smoke shifted across the clearing while Kurgan turned once more toward Muad, exposing his unguarded flank. Rin lowered herself until she was almost flush with the earth, ears flattening against her head and muscles coiling beneath soot-stained skin.

The hunters struck.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

Fierfek, he was faster. And stronger. The last time they met, Kurgan still had the majority of his fur. That was before Muad set him on fire. He was just glad he wore the chest plate. It kept the wound sliced across his torso hidden from view. The mad man charged forward directly at Kurgan, the kal held in a reverse grip as he attacked with an overhead strike. He sensed Rin's eyes on him but didn't take his own from the sithspawn. The blue lightsaber blade swept down only to be parried by the massive club to the side. Force imbued … not good. The vibroax swung horizontally, aiming to bisect Muad at the waist. He ducked and spun, pivoting on his feet as the wind from the axe was felt just above his head.

The kal reached out and sliced the leather straps holding the armored greaves to legs the size of tree trunks. Even in the chaos of the maneuver, he took care not to slice Kurgan's skin. He'd seen what happened when his blood was spilled. He twisted and leaped back, lightsaber having spun to disengage with the spiked club. His eyes caught Rin's movement forward, a blade slicing against the backsides of the monster's knees. Before Muad could shout a warning, it was too late.

The Kurgan's knees buckled backward, knee joints reversing direction even as black ichor poured from the wounds. Instead of flowing freely like blood, the fluid resembled a thick tar. And then the ooze solidified into dozens of spikes nearly six inches in length and launched from his wound in a shotgun spread that sent a pattern of spikes in Rin's direction. Muad drove forward, the rockets in his boots launching him with massive momentum as his shoulder dipped to impact the beast in the gut.

A grunt was all the response Kurgan gave to the wound at his legs and the blow to his stomach. His inverted knees bent, dropping him low as his face slammed into Muad's, blood pouring from a split upon his right brow and pouring over one glowing blue eye, staggering the mad man backward as the club descended straight for his head. The lightsaber rose, deflecting the club sideways and away from his body even as Kurgan spun and threw his vibroax faster than eyes could track, directly at Rin. All Muad saw was a blur of motion even as he swept the lightsaber up towards the giant's wrist that held the club.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin never saw the spikes leave his body.

One heartbeat, she was already slipping away from the backswing, expecting the towering creature to stumble beneath the slash behind his knees. The next, the black ichor burst outward in a storm of jagged shards. Instinct carried her sideways before thought could catch up, her body dropping low as she sprang toward the shelter of a shattered root.

Most of the volley hissed harmlessly past. One did not.

A spike the length of her hand punched clean through the flesh high in her left shoulder, spinning her violently sideways as the force of the impact tore her from her footing. Pain flared white-hot down her arm, and for an instant her fingers refused to obey. She struck the forest floor hard, rolling through ash and broken branches before coming up on one knee several meters away.

Her breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a growl.

Golden eyes dropped briefly to the wound. The black spike protruded through the back of her shoulder, thick tar already hardening around it where it had pierced her. Blood welled around the jagged edges, bright against soot-darkened skin. Every instinct screamed to pull it free, but another, older instinct overruled it. Hunters did not stop moving while danger still stood over them.

She gritted her teeth.

"That..." she muttered through a pained breath, "...was unpleasant."

There was no time to remove it.

The blur of the spinning vibroaxe burst through the smoke toward her with a howl that set every instinct screaming. Rin planted her good hand against the earth and exploded into motion, abandoning the place where she had fallen only a heartbeat before. The massive weapon tore through the space she'd occupied, close enough that the rush of air tugged loose strands of hair across her face before it buried itself deep within the trunk of an ancient tree behind her.

She landed in a low crouch several meters away, favoring her injured shoulder but refusing to surrender the speed that had kept her alive this long. Only then did she dare look back through the drifting smoke.

Muad was still standing.

Relief loosened the knot in her chest, though it lasted only a heartbeat before Kurgan's hulking form moved to engage him once more. Pain could wait. The hunt could not.

With a slow breath drawn through clenched teeth, Rin lowered herself once more into the stance of a predator and disappeared back into the smoke. The hunt wasn't over. It had only just begun.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

His heart leapt into his throat when he saw Rin go down. And then the vibroax shattered the spot where she had moments before lain. Good girl. She was on the move again. On the hunt. He sent a last-minute warning through their connection. Don't draw his blood. Energy weapons that cauterize are the best. And then all thought left his mind as he reacted with instinct. Kurgan had turned back, his right hand balled into a fist that drove at Muad's face. He managed to raise his left arm, which took the massive blow on his outer elbow. The force of the strike numbed his whole left arm, the kal dropping from nerveless fingers even as his lightsaber flashed through Kurgan's left wrist, severing the hand holding the club.

Just as Muad snarled in victory, the Kurgan reached across his body and grabbed Muad's right hand holding the lightsaber, in his left. The two stood together, the giant towering four feet over Muad, and slowly pushed the lightsaber toward the man's glowing blue eyes. In a contest of strength, Kurgan would win. Even as he felt the power of the blue blade sizzle on his right cheek, Muad knew this was a gargantuan task he would fail at.

So Muad did what he did best. Turn the tables. By any means necessary. By cheating.

His right leg bent at the knee, boot extended behind him. Then he swung with all his might as the rockets in the soles blasted to aid in even more acceleration. His leg flew forward, and the toe of his boot flew unerringly up; the steel toe of his armored boot parted the Kurgan's battle dress and connected with the sithspawn's jewels to a wonderfully horrifying crunch. The giant dropped to his knee, and Muad shoved the blue lightsaber toward the monster's slobbering jaws. He leaned his left arm against Kurgan's own forearm and shoved. The blue plasma blade grew closer and closer until the stray fur of his face singed.

And then Muad could move the blade no closer.

The Kurgan's grip on Muad's right hand tightened. And tightened. And tightened. The first bone in his hand broke. Then the second. And then, a third. Both men now snarled into one another's face as his hand rippled from each broken finger. Muad lanced out with his left fist, once, twice, into the temple of the kneeling giant. The monster's charred stump lashed out into Muad's chest an equal number of times. On the second blow, he felt a rib give. Then the silver hilt of his lightsaber began to bend, his own fingers melded to the cylinder as the giant crushed hand and lightsaber alike. Their free hands continued to trade blows.

Then the blue lightsaber blade sputtered, then died. Right before the silver hilt exploded, sending shrapnel that was previously a silver cylinder into both men and shredding their hands in the eruption of plasma. Both men held mangled hands even as the blood of the monster turned from black goo into long tendrils of spikes. Kurgan tried to place the second stump of a hand against Muad's cheek. Still, Muad managed to clamp onto his forearm and press his chest against the rows of spikes before he leaped, wrapping his legs around the torso of the giant and sandwiching the spike-studded stump against the giant's own face. And then the spines erupted, launching them into the Kurgan's face—and Muad's chest.

The force of the spikes threw Muad backward, where he bounced against a tree trunk then landed on his back. Half a dozen glistening black spires pierced his chest. His ruined right hand lay on the ground amidst charred leaves and a small puddle of his own blood. A rasping cough escaped his lips, and he tasted his own blood. Another wheeze and more blood flew in spittle from crimson lips.

The Kurgan staggered to his feet, weaving drunkenly, before lashing out with a massive foot that launched Muad's body deeper into the smoky haze that permeated the forest. He rolled across roots and ash until his back connected with a stump. He groaned, feeling the tips of the spikes against the bark of the stump. Slowly, his thoughts formed enough coherence to realize the spikes now went all the way through his chest. His blue eyes glowed weakly as he watched the Kurgan use his stumps to rip all the armor from his body before turning his face in the direction Muad lay.

Four black spikes had driven into the monster's own face. A tarred spire replaced one eye. Another went through his cheek. A third had driven into the hard wedge of forehead. The final one had torn a furrow along the jaw before being deflected into his throat. Yet the giant turned his singular eye malevolently toward Muad's broken form. The giant took one step forward. And then another. His intentions were clear. Finish off the man who had burned his body and left him for dead on Kashyyyk.

Muad thought he saw motion in the smoky fog. Rin. If only he could rise and keep Kurgan's attention, then maybe she could do something to end the monster. A thought whispered in his mind. The vision he had seen. Them in the banged-up speeder as two children ran up. But the image changed as the vision of himself faded. Rin remained. His body tensed, trying to rise, but all he got for his effort was a stream of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. Kurgan took another step forward, and the smoke parted with unseen movement. Rin. He couldn't see her, yet he knew she was there, a predator on the hunt. Muad wasn't sure if she could take him, though she would try.

His eyes closed as he felt the tremor in the earth from another step by the gargantuan sithspawn. He knew his limits. Between the expenditure of energy on the tree and his broken form, he knew his limitations had been exceeded. But he wasn't alone. And he wasn't simply a human. He was more, all thanks to the pact made on the blackest of nights decades ago. To become the Shaman of Doashim, he had to accept change. Augmentation. A manifestation of the monster that beat within his own chest. All he had to do was accept it. What was it that Rin called it? A guardian. He knew it wasn't a guardian. It was the epitome of the evil which beat in his dark heart.

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

He was a monster. And he had felt the cold caress of the Abyss's gaze in him. All he had to do was say "yes". For Rin, he was willing to damn what was left of his soul. After all, she had saved him from the kiss of death. And he would do the same. His eyes opened; the blue glow brightened for a moment as bloody lips rasped with what air was left in his lungs.

"Ya'nika El'da, ho'hahe. Kik'suyapi mi. Mi'caje to kaha. Numpa nagi kage wanji cehpi ha. Apaha, yuaslate niyecika. Iha gye ukitawa waka sica etaha wiconi. Hemaca nitawa mila haske. Nitawa taca."

Spoiler: Translation

"Ancient Elder, welcome. Remember me. My name is Blue Demon. Two souls make one flesh. Rise, reveal yourself. Destroy our evil enemy from life. I am your sword. Your body."

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Muad's warning reached her through their bond before the battle dissolved into a blur of crashing bodies and shattered steel.

Don't draw his blood. Energy weapons that cauterize are the best.

Rin's golden eyes dropped instinctively to the vibroknife still clenched in her right hand before drifting toward the black spike protruding through her own shoulder. The wound pulsed with every heartbeat, a constant reminder of the lesson she had already paid dearly to learn. She understood immediately. Without another thought, the knife disappeared back into its sheath. It had served its purpose. Against Kurgan, it would remain there.

The clash between man and monster erupted only a short distance away. Metal shrieked against metal. Bone cracked with a sound that twisted something deep inside her chest. Every instinct begged her to race to Muad's side and throw herself into the struggle, but another voice, older and steadier, refused to yield to panic. The Trial had not simply sharpened her claws or quickened her senses. It had taught her patience. Predators survived because they knew when not to strike. Lowering herself into the smoke until it concealed even the glow of her eyes, Rin became little more than another shadow moving through the burned forest.

Her uninjured hand settled gently against the scorched earth as she reached beyond herself and into the living world. Beneath the blanket of ash, life endured. Cool water still threaded unseen through the roots of ancient trees. Thick roots continued their slow search through soil softened by fire and moisture alike. Above them, blackened branches creaked beneath their own weight whenever the breeze wandered through the canopy, their fibers weakened but not yet broken. None of it needed to become something else. None of it needed to become a weapon.

"Please..." she whispered softly. "Help us."

She never sought to command the forest. That had never been the way of her people. Instead, she offered only the smallest encouragement. Water continued its patient rise through the churned earth, leaving patches of mud hidden beneath drifting ash where firm footing had once existed. Ancient roots continued pressing upward through loosened soil, creating subtle ridges and uneven ground that blended naturally into the forest floor. The wind shifted again, carrying thick smoke across the clearing while gently worrying at branches whose strength had already been stolen by flame. Nature required no violence of its own. It merely continued being exactly what it had always been.

Only then did Rin slip the rifle from her shoulder. Her injured arm protested the movement immediately, reminding her that her dominant hand would not answer as faithfully as it usually did. She adjusted without complaint, changing her stance until the stock rested comfortably and allowing her right arm to bear more of the weight. Years spent hunting across Veradune had taught her that perfection was a luxury rarely afforded in the wild. Adaptation was what brought a hunter home.

She was not searching for Kurgan's heart. That belonged to Muad now. Instead, her eye sought every smaller opportunity the battlefield might offer. A broad knee should the giant commit his weight too heavily. An exposed ankle between overlapping plates. A wrist reaching for a weapon. Leather straps holding battered armor in place. A buckle that, if severed, might loosen another layer of protection. Every careful shot would ask a question rather than provide an answer, forcing the towering Sithspawn to think about something besides the man before him.

The first blaster bolt lanced through the smoke before Rin had already abandoned the place from which she fired. By the time its glow faded against the haze, she had circled farther into the forest, using every fallen trunk, curtain of smoke, and ancient root to conceal her movement. Another measured breath brought another deliberate shot from an entirely different direction, followed once more by silence as she melted back into the woodland that had raised her. She never lingered long enough to become predictable, allowing the forest to swallow her over and over until even she seemed another living part of it.

Whatever darkness Muad had begun to awaken behind her, whatever ancient thing answered words she could neither speak nor understand, Rin entrusted it to him. Her task lay elsewhere. Patiently, methodically, she continued shaping the battlefield one careful step, one quiet prayer, and one deliberate shot at a time until the giant no longer stood within a clearing, but within a forest that had begun, little by little, to remember whose home it truly was.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

Doashim, heed me.

He struggled with his breath even as he raised his hand to the obsidian spikes lodged in his chest. A crimson bolt pierced the haze of smoke and drilled Kurgan between the shoulder blades. The giant took no notice as another step drew him closer to the man against the stump. Another flash of light, this time from a completely different direction, splashed against the giant's outer knee. The monster roared and turned as his knees reversed direction and popped back into place. His one eye searched the smoky haze as a third blast bolt connected with his massive shoulder.

This time the giant crouched, hideous head cocked to one side as ears listened attentively. The massive nostrils flared, attempting to filter out the ash and find the scent of the one who stalked within the shadows. This time, when a shot rang out, Kurgan had turned in the direction it came from and opened a maw of sharpened teeth. The bolt splashed on his chest, singing flesh and remnants of fur. But now it seemed the giant had caught Rin's scent. Not her naturally heady musk. He tasted her blood, and the spike in her shoulder, in the air. He crouched even lower, using the stumps of his hands to brace against the newly muddied ground.

When the next flash of light occurred, Kurgan had already stepped to the side and widened his mouth as an orange glow sprouted from his throat before brilliant flames launched from his maw. He swept his head side to side, firing red fire to where the shot came from and then spraying it to either side. His haunches quivered and then launched him straight up, where he disappeared. Kurgan was once a wookiee. And even after his transformation, there were still the instincts of a hunter predator used to the forest. Boughs bent from his weight above as he leaped from branch to branch, tracking the woman below through scent.

The heavy footfalls which created the stout limbs grew silent. His movement came when the wind swept through the trees and rustled their great branches. Several large snaps occurred in the heavens as Kurgan shattered limbs in his feet. Through the process he endured, which turned him into a sithspawn, the alchemy had altered his feet into something akin to hands. His big toes split off and became opposable. Toes lengthened. And his already formidable feet became capable of wielding weapons.

Rin and the Kurgan circled one another. She was on the ground, feet slipping from bare soil to newly excavated roots. Every step was a choice to make no sound and leave no trace. The rifle was shouldered somewhat awkwardly, and yet no less dangerous. Golden eyes searched above her, trying to pierce the veil of smoke that cloaked her adversary. Only her golden eyes moved rapidly as her ears flexed and strained for a sign of her enemy's location.

Above her, Kurgan replicated her feat. He moved only when the forest sounds stirred from the breeze. Every move was made delicately, belying the gargantuan frame that tested every foothold as he zeroed in on her blood. His single eye scanned the haze below as the breeze cleared paths between the ground and the canopy he lurked in. Until a bestial roar shook the crisped leaves in the trees, his single eye turned back to where his nemesis lay against the stump that would be his tombstone.

Instead of seeing the dying figure of the blue-eyed man, what met his sight was decidedly not. Black spires lay discarded upon the earth, blood mixing with water from the deep. Scours were etched into the stump while claw marks had ripped the compacted soil. A thin layer of ash lay on a bloodied, discarded shirt. Armored boots lay shredded, one perched precariously on a gnarled root ball. Even weapons lay in a heap. The gun belt lay half submerged in mud while the deactivated energy bow was half buried under a pile of debris. However, there was no sign of Muad.

Kurgan turned back to the hunt, senses searching out the ground below. Nothing. Until he saw it. Two small embers of candlelight. Almost imperceptible. Almost ignored. And then they disappeared only to reappear like a slow blink. The wind shifted, easing the thickest of the smoke along the forest floor, and he could barely make out her form. Her body leaned into a tree trunk, nearly merging with it as her legs splayed along the roots. Rin's camouflage was perfect. The barrel of her rifle angled in such a way that it could easily be mislabeled as another small branch. She was looking away from the giant as he slobbered in victory. Using his stumps for leverage, Kurgan raised his legs, both feet gripping the makeshift spears he took earlier. With triumph, his legs coiled the massive muscles in thighs and calves before he launched the spears toward Rin below with a strength and speed rarely seen, and only hinted at in holovids of gods with inhuman ability.

As Kurgan looked down upon Ein below from a vantage point of height and obscurity, so too did a pair of glowing blue eyes stare down on the Kurgan from an even higher position in the trees. If either looked up, all that would be visible were a pair of glowing orbs within the canopy and smoke.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

The warning came from the tree before it came from her ears.

The ancient trunk against her shoulder shuddered beneath a sudden burden, the vibration rolling through the bark and into her fingertips. She had spent nearly a century and a half wandering forests like these, sleeping beneath their branches and trusting them to speak in the quiet ways only living things could. They never shouted. They groaned beneath impossible weight. They whispered as roots strained through stone. They sighed when the wind carried danger upon it. This tree was no different.

Its warning was enough.

Rin flowed away from the trunk a heartbeat before the spears came screaming through the smoke. One smashed through the place where her chest had been, exploding the bark into a shower of splinters that stung her cheek as they flew. The other buried itself among exposed roots with such violence that the haft quivered like a living thing. She never stopped moving. Her boots scarcely remained on the same patch of earth for more than a step before another root, another stone, or another fallen limb carried her onward, the rifle cradled carefully against her aching shoulder as she disappeared once more into the shifting curtain of smoke.

Only after the immediate danger had passed did her attention return to where Muad had fallen. The sight waiting there tightened something painfully within her chest. The stump remained.

So did the discarded armor, the torn shirt, the broken bow, and the scattered black spikes glistening against the ash-covered earth. His weapons lay abandoned exactly where the battle had left them. Every sign of the struggle remained untouched.

Everything except Muad.

Her breath caught as her eyes searched the haze again, slower this time, refusing to surrender to panic. She could not see him. She could not hear him. Yet somewhere beneath the fear threatening to overwhelm her remained the quiet certainty born from the bond they shared. He was still there. Changed perhaps. Hidden certainly. But not gone. That knowledge steadied her heartbeat enough for thought to overcome instinct.

Her uninjured hand settled against the rough bark of another ancient giant, fingertips tracing grooves weathered by centuries of wind and rain. Closing her eyes for only the briefest moment, she reached outward with the same quiet respect she always had, never demanding and never expecting obedience.

"Old friend..." she whispered softly. "Help us, if you can."

The answer came not as words but as a chorus of aching wood. Fire had wounded the forest as surely as Kurgan had wounded Muad, and the ancient trees carried those injuries in silence. Cracks hidden beneath bark spread another fraction beneath the giant's tremendous weight. Limbs that had endured centuries of storms now bowed farther than they ever should, each groan passing from trunk to trunk until it became a language Rin understood as clearly as speech. The roots beneath the ash continued their patient work through softened earth while branches already blackened by flame protested every shift above them. The forest could not choose where the giant placed his feet, nor could it strike him down in her stead. But if he continued demanding more than wounded wood could bear, eventually something would answer with gravity instead of words.

A faint smile touched Rin's lips as her eyes opened once more. She understood.

The rifle settled into her shoulder despite the pain that flared through her wounded arm, and this time she no longer searched for Kurgan himself. Instead, she studied the branches that carried him, watching which limbs dipped lowest beneath his weight and which swayed farther than the others whenever he shifted position. The hunter hidden in the canopy believed himself the predator. Rin intended to remind him that every predator still hunted within someone else's home.

She squeezed the trigger.

The crimson bolt snapped through the smoke and splashed against the outside of Kurgan's knee just as he shifted onto another branch. She never waited to admire the shot. Before the fading glow had vanished into the haze, she was already moving again, slipping between ancient trunks until another angle presented itself. A second measured breath sent another bolt into the broad curve of his shoulder, not to wound him grievously, but to force another adjustment of balance. Every movement demanded another foothold. Every foothold asked another weakened branch to bear the impossible.

Patiently she circled, boots finding firm ground where the roots guided her while smoke concealed her passing. She never lingered where she fired, never allowing Kurgan more than a heartbeat to answer before another careful shot arrived from somewhere new. One bolt snapped through a leather strap still securing battered armor across his thigh. Another hissed against the joint of his ankle as he gathered himself to leap. None of the shots sought to kill him. Every one of them asked the same question.

Move. Keep climbing. Keep trusting a forest already straining beneath your weight. Somewhere above, the old trees answered with another long, protesting groan and a horrendous crack.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

There was a horrendous crack from beneath Kurgan's feet, and as he fell, he realized what the female had perpetrated against him. While blaster bolts still peppered his flesh to annoyance and flashes of pain, the shots he assumed she had missed had not, in fact, missed at all. Deliberately precise, each lance from the woman's rifle had weakened the branches he hunted from. Until another step combined with another blaster bolt shattered the limb he perched on. The tree branch broke first, falling from beneath his feet to leave him suspended in the air for a brief moment. Then his gargantuan frame descended from lofty heights.

Smaller branches scratched at his flesh as he fell by them. Ash and leaves accompanied his descent, though they merely floated when compared to his deadfall. The ground rushed up at him, and he bent his mighty legs to absorb the impact of his landing. One knee in particular had been the focus of several of Rin's camouflaged attacks, and it buckled, dropping the wounded leg deep into the moist soil. Other than the wounded joint, all the female had done was bring the apex predator closer. He rose, arms held wide, as he inhaled deeply in search of the smell of her blood and the spire from his own body.

He caught her scent and bellowed a challenge. His mouth opened, and he exhaled unholy fire along the trail she left before leaping ahead of where the scent led. Before he landed, his feet threw fist-sized stones to where he thought she would be while lashing out each arm to either side of the location. While he wanted to kill the blue-eyed male, the woman would only be wounded, incapacitated, for he had other plans for her. Capture. An offering to Haymitch. And maybe she would be turned into a sithspawn like him. Perhaps he would take her for a mate. This idea settled in his primal brain and, as his feet touched the ground after his leap, he thrust forward, looking to wrap his arms around the woman and squeeze the breath from her ….if she was slow enough and he guessed her location accurately.

Meanwhile, above within the burnt canopy and smoke-filled haze, the blue eyes dropped from perched heights to land alongside a tree trunk near where the Kurgan fell. While the smoke had cleared somewhat upon the ground, where the glowing eyes remained perched on the trunk, the smoke still masked many things from view. But not all. A black reptilian hide was nearly invisible in the dark smoke. Talons dug deep furrows into the wood from monstrous claws. Behind the partially hidden figure whipped a long, serpentine tail with a barb at the end. And if one of the two below were to look up and see the glowing blue eyes, they would see them set deep inside the cold-blooded snout of what could only be described as a humanoid dragon. Its mouth opened, and a long tongue swept over the elongated jaw of savagely sharp fangs that filled its mouth.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

The moment the branch surrendered beneath Kurgan's weight, Rin felt the crack reverberate through the forest like a cry of triumph. Her golden eyes followed his descent through smoke and shattered foliage, watching the immense creature tear through smaller limbs before striking the earth with enough force to send damp soil and ash outward from his feet. One injured knee buckled beneath him exactly as she had hoped, and for a fleeting instant satisfaction warmed her despite the pain throbbing through her shoulder. She had brought the hunter down from the canopy. Unfortunately, bringing him down also meant putting him considerably closer.

The bellow that followed shook whatever satisfaction remained from her. Rin was already moving when Kurgan's maw opened and orange light blossomed somewhere deep inside his throat. She knew fire intimately. She had spent the day surrounded by it, felt the forest's agony as it burned, and watched Muad call those same flames into himself before turning them against the corvette overhead. What rushed toward her now was different, born from something twisted and unnatural, but fire remained fire. It breathed because air permitted it. It spread because something allowed itself to burn.

Rin stopped running.

Her boots dug into the wet earth while her rifle dropped against its sling, freeing her good hand as she turned toward the advancing wall of flame. Instinct screamed for her to leap aside, but something deeper held her there. She had spent the fight moving like a hunter, striking from concealment and vanishing before retaliation could find her. Yet that had never been all she was. Long before she had become a guide, musician, wanderer, or hunter, Rin had learned that strength was sometimes measured by how quickly one moved and sometimes by the willingness to refuse movement entirely.

Her hand swept outward as she reached for the rushing air.

The wind answered violently. Instead of meeting the flames directly, Rin pulled the current apart before her, creating two competing streams that peeled the inferno toward either side of her body. Fire curled around the invisible wedge with a furious roar, close enough that heat bit painfully into her skin while the ends of her hair charred and the edges of her clothing began to blacken. Beneath her feet, water already coaxed through the softened soil hissed into steam, wrapping her lower body in a veil as she dragged every trace of moisture she could reach upward to cool the air around herself. She could not stop Kurgan's fire, and she certainly could not tame it, but for several agonizing heartbeats she could deny it the path it wanted.

When the flames finally passed, Rin remained standing amid curling steam and smoke. Her breathing came harder now, golden eyes shining through the haze while patches of angry red marked exposed skin and several places along her clothing continued to smolder. She slapped one ember from her hip before reaching for the rifle again, but the stones were already coming. Her injured shoulder made the weapon too slow to bring around properly, leaving her to twist aside as one rock tore past her ribs while another clipped her thigh hard enough to stagger her several steps through the mud.

That was when she understood what Kurgan was doing. He wasn't searching anymore. He had found her.

The enormous shape came through the smoke with horrifying speed, arms sweeping wide to deny her the escape routes she had used throughout the fight. Rin could have tried anyway. Every instinct honed by the Trial knew how to become small, how to drop beneath an attack and scramble through terrain no creature Kurgan's size could easily follow. Her body had been built for exactly that sort of escape.

Instead, her eyes flicked once toward the abandoned stump. Muad was still gone. Yet the bond remained.

Rin did not know where he was, what he was doing, or what had become of him after those strange words had left his lips. She knew only that he lived, and somewhere within that certainty came an instinct she trusted more than the one telling her to run.

I'm here.

She didn't know whether the thought would reach him clearly through everything surrounding them, but she pushed it toward the bond anyway, followed by something far simpler.

Take your chance.

Rin planted her feet.

The rifle rose one final time, held awkwardly against her wounded shoulder as she fired into Kurgan's approach. One bolt struck his damaged knee, another burned into the joint of his hip, and a third flashed against his chest before his immense bulk swallowed the remaining distance between them. She kept firing until there was no longer enough space for the rifle to matter, then released it rather than allow the weapon to trap her arms against her body.

Kurgan's arms closed around her.

The impact drove what little air remained from Rin's lungs as her boots left the earth. His enormous arms wrapped around her torso, pinning one arm against her side while the wounded left shoulder screamed beneath the pressure. For one terrible moment, her vision flashed white as the spike still lodged through her shoulder shifted within the wound. A strangled growl escaped through clenched teeth, her tail lashing violently behind her while both taloned feet searched instinctively for anything against his body that might provide leverage.

She did not panic. That surprised her more than anything.

Instead, Rin looked directly into the single eye of the monster holding her and bared her fangs, golden eyes burning with something that had nothing to do with fear. If Kurgan believed catching her meant the hunt had ended, he had misunderstood her as completely as she had intended.

"Found me."

Her good hand seized whatever purchase it could find against his arm as she endured the crushing pressure, refusing to waste strength struggling blindly against something she could never overpower. Somewhere beyond the pain and smoke, she could still feel Muad, and that was enough. Kurgan's attention was entirely upon her now. His back belonged to whatever waited behind him, the canopy above had disappeared from his thoughts, and for the first time since Muad vanished from beside that bloodied stump, the giant was looking exactly where Rin wanted him to look.

At her.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

Earlier …

The words slipped from his bloodied lips as he watched Rin engage Kurgan, drawing the massive sithspawn away. And focused on her. His impotent rage could do nothing now. All he could do was watch as Rin drew the burned wookiee into a game of cat and mouse, where she played the prey who had teeth and claws to fight back. Deep inside, Muad felt the stirring made from his pact with the Patron. Bones popped out of their sockets; the new formation of calcified growth in his chest pushed against the spikes until they plopped onto the ground. His jaw dislocated and fractured, elongating in plain view of his eyes. His arms and legs spasmed, and he rolled to his stomach while vertebrae snapped into a new formation. Clothing tore from the convulsions that wracked his body.

When his face hit the mud, it felt different. The skin on his arms and torso stretched until it tore, revealing the scaled hide beneath his flesh. He felt the belt at his waist rip as his hips widened into powerful haunches. Clicks in his mouth burned with nerve endings, and he spat a dozen teeth into a puddle of mud below him. He rose unsteadily on his powerful legs that burst the seams of his pants while he stumbled as talons shredded through his boots: a quick shake and the ruined, cumbersome boots tossed to the ground. With a bound, he leapt into the trees, claws from hands and feet finding purchase to launch him higher before he wrapped them around a tree trunk.

Flesh ripped, sinews stretched, ligaments lengthened, nerves grew new pathways, and fangs popped through empty sockets of bleeding gums in his mouth. And a scream of agony roared from his snout. Instinct caused him to climb higher in search of his prey. All thought was nearly silenced as the primal desire to kill his enemy took over. He slipped through the canopy hunting the giant below. What was left of his tattered pants hung from a branch that snagged the ruined clothing from his body.

Then glowing blue eyes filled with only a hungry fury found his foe beneath. Slowly he eased through the branches that accepted him as a force of nature. Twice, he nearly lost his balance and fell. If not for the counterweight of his writhing tail, he would have. He eased along a significantly mammoth limb and gazed down in preparation to leap onto the Kurgan's back, only to see the giant fall to the ground. Slowly he eased down the trunk head first. Claws gripping deeply while his tail circled the trunk for another anchor point.

Below, he watched the giant wage war with an unseen combatant until the giant leaped forward and ensnared the diminutive form of a female. Instinct said to wait until his foe was engaged. Musk on the wind revealed the monster below sought not to kill the female, but to mate. That would prove the distraction he needed. All that required was for the involvement below to take the giant's attention completely. Then words filtered into his mind that seemed incapable of conjuring thought.

I'm here. Take your chance.

His snout flared as he drew in a breath and caught the feminine scent. The mind that was previously unable to form any form of thinking other than death to his enemy whispered a response in the bond that managed to stay intact through his transformation. Mine. My witch. My female. The cold hard lines of his lips quivered and retreated from silently snarling teeth. Fangs, claws, and the spike at the end of his tail grew hot from rage and began to burn with blue flames as the creature's blue eyes found the golden ones below. Mine. Then a furious wrath filled him as he launched from the tree and latched onto the back of Kurgan.

The sudden impact forced the giant to drop the female as fiery talons tore into his back. A scaled tail wrapped around his strong thighs and pulled them together, forcing the pair to fall. The sithspawn cried out, not understanding why his blood did not defend him, unaware that the flaming talons that tore into his flesh also cauterized the wounds. The giant tried to use his arms to push himself from the ground as he tried to turn his head to view what manner of beast assaulted him.

But massive jaws clamped onto the base of his neck and elongated fangs ripped deep into the muscles of his neck seeking to bite clean through. Kurgan saw the gleam of bone protruding from the stump of his forearm and twisted, driving the bone deep into the chest of the creature in his back. Hot blood flowed over his forearm as he stabbed back, again and again, even as his vision grew cloudy. He knew if he could just keep stabbing that eventually the creature's grip would loosen. And as the two beasts rolled across the ground wet by blood and water, coating their bodies in ash and embers, he thought he felt the thing chewing through his neck and tearing into ribs and spine loosen its grip.

Kurgan opened his mouth to roar in triumph only to find the creature wasn't weakening, just readjusting its tail around his legs. Just enough to free the end of its tail so it could drive the spike up between the Kurgan's thighs and into his groin. The kind of pain that filled the Kurgan was only understood for a moment before the massive jaws of the creature reared back and ripped the giant's head from his shoulders. With a snarling howl, the creature tossed Kurgan's severed head into the trees behind it before it rose onto its hind legs and howled victory into the forest.

Then, glowing blue eyes fell upon the woman, and the beast dropped to all fours, a hissing howl spraying blood from its exposed fangs. The beast took a step toward the female, reptilian nostrils flaring at her scent, as it propelled toward her with a completely different instinct and drive now coursing through its veins. A single, possessive thought echoed with clear intent.

Mine.

Rin Taal