'The ship-'
'Forget the ship,' Obi-Wan said. 'We need to find shelter.'
'We can escape in the ship!' Anakin insisted. 'She's ready to go!'
Obi-Wan took hold of his shoulder and pushed him low to the smooth rock surface. Thus distracted, he could not raise the lightsaber in time to provide even a partial deflection for the next laser salvo. The blast knocked him several meters and tumbled him over and over. Flecks of broken and molten rock flew through the air, burning his clothes, drilling into his skin. Instinctively, he held up one arm to shield his face and the other to protect Anakin.
But the boy was out of reach. Obi-Wan could not get up. Something had slammed into his solar plexus-a sharp piece of rock. He found blood there and a hole in his tunic.
Then he heard footsteps. People shouting, crying out in pain.
Anakin made a sound through the smoke, a cough and then a sharp grunt, as if he had been struck. Obi- Wan tried to roll over, tried to reach out for his Padawan, but he could not regain control of his body, even with the most extraordinary concentration of effort.
A figure loomed out of the murk and stood over Obi-Wan: tall, dressed in dark blue, many-jointed, with iridescent golden skin. A booted foot came down on his arm and pinned it.
'I could kill you now, Jedi. Your death will restore my honor.'
Small black eyes focused on Obi-Wan. He grasped the hilt of his lightsaber and extended the blade. The foot stomped his arm again, nearly breaking it, and kicked the lightsaber out of his hand, out of reach. The blade skittered and sizzled across the rock.
More laser salvos slashed through the air behind the Blood Carver, blowing apart the suspension bridge and setting the buildings on an adjacent pillar ablaze. The glow of destruction made his shining skin dance like a flame, part of the destruction.
'Yes, Jedi, I live,' the Blood Carver snarled. 'I still live.'
Chapter 43
Anakin had done his best to elude the nightmare that rushed forward out of the smoke, but the laser blasts had stunned him as well as Obi-Wan. He could only crawl backward on his elbows and grimace up at the shadow, trying to make his body hurry or time slow. Time slowed, all right, but he did not speed up.
The shadow disappeared in a fresh billow of smoke, reemerged, became clear.
'Slave boy!'
It was the same Blood Carver Anakin had encountered in the garbage pit. He carried a long shaping lance with a wicked blade on the end and moved quick as lightning. He swung the lance down so quickly Anakin hardly had time to begin his roll to one side. The flat of the blade struck the boy across the back of his skull and neck. His head exploded with sparking pain.
The blow stunned him, but he did not lose consciousness. He felt himself lifted by one ankle, like an amphibian delicacy on Tatooine, and swung through the smoke, dripping blood from his nose. As his assailant whirled him about, he saw the Sekotan ship still in her tendril sling, undamaged.
The Blood Carver casually plucked out and threw aside an engineer who poked up from the dilated opening in the hull, then hoisted Anakin over the ship's side lobe and dropped him in. Then he crawled after.
Anakin found he could move a little, but pretended to be inert. Where's Obi-Wan? Is he still alive? How could this all happen so fast?
But he knew. This was the trial, the test no Jedi Temple could provide, no Jedi Master could oversee.
The Force is never a nursemaid.
Anakin was on his own. The first thing he did, while the Blood Carver poked around the interior, looking for any other engineers, was to still all his resentment, all his feelings of failure and inferiority, and most important, his self-anger at having distracted Obi-Wan with his own foolish regard for the ship.
That regard was not so foolish. The ship is part of your power- it is essential in the here and now. It is the beginning of your trial- and it will end with the trial of Zonama Sekot. Your master cannot help you now.
He thought for a moment this might be the suspended voice of Obi-Wan, or even Qui-Gon Jinn, but it was not. If the voice had any quality whatsoever, it was his own-older, more mature. The Jedi I will become. All I have trained to be.
The Blood Carver growled and Anakin heard a small shriek. Jabitha was pushed forward from the back of the cabin, where she had hidden behind a thick cross brace.
She glanced at Anakin, eyes wild with fear like a small, trapped animal. The Blood Carver yanked her arm and tossed her lightly into an alcove beside the rear acceleration couches.
'Be still! He's dangerous,' Anakin warned her.
Jabitha dropped her jaw as if to speak, but the Blood Carver slapped her hard across the face, then swiveled gracefully, grabbed Anakin by the shoulders, and yanked him into the pilot's seat. The seat automatically adjusted to Anakin's body, and he felt a greeting from the ship-a tremulous recognition of his presence.
The seed-partners had united. They spoke now as one, reporting the ship's condition, her readiness-and their concern. The ship knew something was wrong, but Anakin was still too groggy, his movements too uncoordinated, for him to hazard any action.
Jabitha crawled into a rear passenger seat, whimpering. Her face was bloody.
Anakin's blood seemed to chill. He felt her pain.
