We were, as Nick would say, a walking all-you-can-eat buffet line.
This is also why the ULF didn't have to post much of a guard on the prisoners.
There were twenty-eight, all told: two dozen jungle prospectors and the four surviving children. The jups were left to stagger along supporting each other as best they could, dragging those who could not walk on smaller versions of the travois hauled by the grassers.
They were watched by only a pair of Vastor's Akk Guards and six of their fierce akk dogs; as Vaster led Mace past, he explained that the guards and dogs were there only to make sure the Balawai did not steal weapons or supplies from wounded Korunnai, or otherwise attack their captors. The guards didn't need blasters; any prisoner who wished to escape into the jungle was welcome to.
That is, after all, what was going to happen to them anyway: stripped of everything but their clothing and boots, they would be turned loose in the jungle, left to make their way to whatever safety they might be able to find.
Tan pel'trokal. Jungle justice.
Mace leaned alongside the grasser's neck, to speak softly for Vastor's ears alone. 'How do you know they won't double back along the line of march? Some of your wounded are barely walking. These Balawai might think it worth the risk to steal weapons or supplies.' Vaster gave a grin like a mouthful of needles. Can you not feel them? They are in the jungle, not of the jungle. They cannot surprise us.
'Then why are they still here?' It's light, Vaster rumbled, with a wave of the wrist at the green-lit leaves above. The day belongs to the gunships. We give prisoners tan pel'trokal after sunset.
'In the dark,' Mace murmured.
Yes. The night belongs to us.
Mace remembered the recording of Depa's whisper:. I use the night, and the night uses me. It gave his chest a heavy ache. His breath came hard and slow.
Nick was down with the prisoners, leading by the reins a mangy, underfed grasser. This grasser had another dual-saddle setup like the one that had been blown to bits on Nick's grasser back in the notch pass; each saddle was big enough to hold two children. Urno and Nykl rode in the upper, forward-facing saddle, gripping the heavy pelt of the grasser's ruff, peering out from below its ears. Keela and Pell rode in the lower saddle, facing the rear and clinging to each other in mute despair.
Seeing those four children reminded the Jedi Master of the child who was not there, and he had to look away from Kar Vaster. In his head he saw the lor pelek holding the corpse of a boy. He saw the gleam of the shield through the wet streaked sheen ofTerrel's blood. He could not meet Vastor's eyes without hating him. 'And the children, too?' The words seemed to swell up Mace's throat and push themselves out at the other man. 'You give them to the jungle?','/ is our way. Vastor's growl softened with understanding. You are thinking of the boy.
The one in the bunker. Mace still could not meet his eyes. 'He was captured. Disarmed.' He was a murderer, not a soldier. He attacked the helpless. 'So did you.' Yes. And if I am taken by the enemy, I will get worse than I gave. Do you think the Ealawai will offer me a dean, quick death?
'We're not talking about them,' Mace said. 'We're talking about Y you.
Vaster only shrugged.
Nick caught sight of them and gave a sardonic wave. 'I'm not really a baby-sitter,' he called.
'I just play one on the HoloNet.' His tone was cheerful, but on his face the Jedi Master could read the clear knowledge of what would happen to these children at sunset. Mace's own face hurt; he touched his forehead and discovered there a scowl. 'What's he doing here?' Vastor stared past Nick, as though to look upon him would be a compliment the young Korun did not deserve. He cannot be trusted with real work.
'Because he left me behind to save his friends? Chalk and Besh are veteran fighters. Aren't they worth the effort?' They are expendable. As is he.
'Not to me,' Mace told him. 'No one is.' The lorpelek seemed to consider this for a long time as he walked on, leading Mace's grasser. I do not know why Depa wanted you here, he said at length. But I do not have to know. She desires your presence; that is enough. Because you are important to her, you are important to our war. Much more important than a bad soldier like Nick Rostu.
'He's hardly a bad soldier-' He is weak. Cowardly. Afraid of sacrifice.
'Risking his mission-his life-for his friends might make Nick a bad soldier,' Mace said, 'but it makes him a good man.' And because he somehow could not resist, he added: 'Better than you.' Vastor looked up at the Jedi Master with jungle-filled eyes. Better at what?
FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU I don't see Vastor as evil. Not as a truly bad man. Yes, he radiates darkness-but so do all the Korunnai. And the Balawai. His is the darkness of the jungle, not the darkness of the Sith.
He does not live for power, to cause pain and dominate all he surveys. He simply lives.
Fiercely. Naturally. Stripped of the restraints of civilization.
He is less a man than he is an avatar of the jungle itself. Dark power flows into him and out again but it does not seem to touch him. He has a savage purity that I might envy, were I not a Jedi and sworn to the light.
Black is the presence of every color.
He doesn't make the darkness, he only uses it. His inner darkness is a reflection of the darkness of his world; and it darkens the world around him in turn. Internal and external darkness create each other, just as do internal and external light: that is the underlying unity of the Force.
As Depa might say, he didn't start this war. He's just trying to win it.
And that was it, right there: my Jedi instincts had made a connection below the threshold of my consciousness. Vastor. The jungle. The akk dogs, and the humans who had been made into Vastor's pack. Depa.
