For reasons Valor did not quite understand, the small Spear of Ashla gifted to him by the scar-faced hag, (
Corazona von Ascania
) was the only item in his possession with any true power in the Force; a compact little stake of songsteel, light enough for a child's hand and easily carried, it had been deliberately fashioned to cleanse corruption, harry Dark-sided energies, and wound those things steeped too deeply in them. Darkened relics, foul creatures, and practitioners sunk in malignant power could all be weakened beneath its Light.
The
Spear of Ashla was not much to look at, hardly grand, hardly impressive in its design… but it had been made as a tool of purging, a spiteful little shard of Light meant to press against wicked things and make them suffer for lingering too near its radiance.
The scar-faced hag had apparently lied to him. For all its holy importance, the precious Jedi artifact felt little better than a child's night-light within his trembling hand; a foolish little relic out of some nursery tale, dressed in borrowed myth and handed down by doddering old fools as though their reverence alone could make it dangerous.
Injured already, with several broken ribs along one side, Valor was left propping himself up with the mad-dog durasteel sword cane in hand. It carried no blessing, no hidden power, no miracle to soften what was to come. Worse, it was not even free to serve him properly as a weapon; for the moment, it had been reduced to the lowly task of keeping him upright.
He had no armor, no enchanted cloth with warding worked through its weave, no alchemized protection fitted close against the skin, no charm hanging at his throat to shunt death aside. He did not even have the comfort of an Initiate's lightsaber resting at his belt.
Nothing shielded him. Nothing softened the field. Nothing stood between his battered body and what waited to break it further, save a paltry holy trinket in one hand and stubborn violence in the other.
He was injured, exposed, and painfully mortal.
That was all.
Anet's answer told him enough. Rather than meet him cleanly, her will slipped toward the broken place in him, seizing upon battered ribs as though pain alone would make him easy prey.
It was a foolish assumption.
Valor was already keenly aware of her presence since she had revealed her self with the initial force push that had slammed him against the tree. His attention was now locked onto her, already contesting her in the same invisible current through which she now tried to crush what had already been damaged. Such things were never so simple between Force-users. The will of one met the will of another; pressure met resistance; intent met something that could feel it coming and answer in kind. Unless one towered over the other in power, control, or focus, there was no easy certainty in that sort of attack.
Force-users resisted one another by instinct as much as training, through will, awareness, and the simple fact of their own living connection to the Force. Whether through
Force resilience,
Force deflection, or sheer force of will, mental intrusion, telekinetic domination, and direct internal pressure did not come cleanly against an opponent who was conscious of the threat and able to push back. Such things could still be attempted, yes, but not without contest, and not without the risk of meeting resistance instead of collapse.
She would find the stubborn Echani's force of will and defiance to be a far more formidable obstacle than she had first assumed. Even so, the pressure still landed. Pain cinched viciously through Valor's side as though unseen fingers had found the broken places between bone and tried to close them tighter. Breath rasped sharp in his throat, and sharp pain flashed beneath his ribs hard enough to hollow the edges of his vision for a brief, miserable moment.
Valor had not gotten the clean split he wanted. The haunted thing still clung close to Anet's shadow, cautious now rather than emboldened as a protector, and the girl herself had proven just wary enough to deny him any easy finish. Fine. Let her keep her little shelter. Let the malignant thing skulk where the Light could not fully scour it.
He recognized that Anet and the armor were yielding him very little. The haunted shell had grown cautious, and Anet was not overcommitting, choosing instead to drag the exchange out and bleed his time away. With his ribs in the state they were, a prolonged fight was a poor trade; that much he understood. Continuing to press the apprentice would cost him more than it was worth.
His gaze shifted past her then, toward the wider chaos unraveling across the hillside. That was where the true pressure on this battlefield lay.
Ko was being overrun.
The Kel'dor had perhaps been the only person Valor had ever known to offer him something like genuine kindness… and that stirred a small, unfamiliar feeling within him, something that caught and swelled hot in his chest.
Valor had been made to protect. Raised to understand that his only true purpose was the survival of the one he stood beside. He himself was expendable; they were not. He had been shaped to guard, to intercept, and to answer threat with violence before it could ever reach what stood behind him.
The priority became clear; Anet was no longer the problem he intended to solve first.
Valor pulled in a sharp breath, the hand bearing the sword cane drawing tight against his ribs as pain carved through him again. His posture dipped, his attention seemingly dragged inward for that brief miserable moment as he steeled himself against the inevitable flare of hurt…
The hillside had curdled into a fresh nightmare. Sithspawn boiled toward Ko, and the Master's position within it was plain enough. Valor's focus cut that way at once, instincts older than any fresh Jedi teachings locking into place with an ugly sort of clarity.
He
suppressed his pain and burst forward with sudden speed and vicious agility, far more than someone in his battered state should have been able to muster. He drove himself into the fray faster than his battered form had any right to allow, all sharp purpose and stripped-down intent, aiming to place himself where the oncoming horrors would have to come through him first.
