devastating palm strikes to either hinge of his jaw.
An ordinary man would have been unconscious. Vastor seemed to be getting stronger.
Vastor fired another of those blinding slaps. This time, instead of ducking, Mace countered with a whirring hook that met the lor peleKs swinging arm directly on the nerve that ran up the inside of the biceps. Vastor threw the other even harder-which only made the inside of that arm connect that much harder with Mace's coun- terhook.
Vastor's mighty arms spasmed and dropped limply to his sides. 'This is called Vaapad, Kar.' A fierce light burned in Mace's eyes. 'How many arms do you see?' Then he hit Vastor twice in the nose before the lor pelek could even blink.
Vastor howled in pain and raging disbelief, falling back against the akk dog's flank once more, twisting and turning to try to find some way to avoid the Jedi's flashing hands.
Mace stayed with him, pinning him to the akk's flank, fists whirling through Vaapad flurries, striking not to disable or to kill, i IILII OIUTLI't't but instead to hurt: stinging flicks to soft tissue, smashing ears and nose, stabbing up under the chin.
The akk dog suddenly lurched away from them, giving Vastor half a meter of clearance. The lor pelek sprang sideways, diving away.
Mace let him go. 'Go on and run, Kar. This is over. You lose. I'm the big dog here-' Vastor turned his dive into a roll and spun to face the Jedi Master from one knee, and before Mace had even finished speaking the Force whirled around him and Mace found himself wrenched off the ground, hurtling backward through the air to slam against the smooth-barked gray trunk of a meter-thick lammas tree. The whole tree shivered with the impact, and a spiral galaxy birthed itself inside Mace's head.
He thought, I was wondering when we'd get to this part.
Vastor's face tightened. Strength must have been returning to his nerve-punched arms already, because he managed to raise one and gesture as though throwing a stone; Mace was whirled forward from the tree to crash against the skull of an astonished akk dog.
The impact folded him over the dog's head and blasted the breath from his lungs; the dog's crown spines gashed Mace's abdomen, and when it tossed Mace aside with a twitch of its head like a Nymalian water-ox, his blood ran down the black outer shells of its eyes.
Jedi Padawans learn to counter Force kinesis before they even begin lightsaber training. Still in the air, Mace sensed the flow of power that held Vastor's grip upon him; with a sigh, he allowed his center-Vastor's point of Force contact-to relax and ground Vastor's power back into the jungle around them.
And that jungle came to life.
A gripleaf trailer snaked down from above and seized one of Mace's ankles in its unbreakable clutch. His airborne tumble became a wide-swinging head-down arc.
Gripleaf trailers only grew tighter as their victim struggled, and their fibers were nearly as strong as durasteel cable; they could not be broken by mortal strength. This one squeezed his ankle, drawing blood with the edges of its sharp waxy leaves. Another trailer reached toward his other ankle, and from his upside-down vantage he could see a thick blade-thorned length of brassvine curving toward his neck.
He almost reached into the Force for his lightsaber- But that would be admitting defeat.
Time to be clever.
He used the Force to shove the gripleaf trailer so that the arc of his swing sent him whirling out over the ring of dogs and men. One of the Akk Guards smirked at him as he swung overhead: 'Big dog? More like little tusk-pig.' When his swing carried him back in, Mace reached down and grabbed the Akk Guard by the arm, yanking him into the air. Drawing upon the Force for a burst of strength, Mace whipped the astonished Guard up and over and used the edge of his razor-sharp shield to slice through the trailer before releasing him to flail helplessly through the air and crash into the jungle darkness.
Mace turned his own fall into a flip that landed him on an akk dog's shoulders. He bounded off into the air- And Vaster's Force grip seized him again.
Vaster was on his feet now, and his arms didn't seem hurt at all. His blood-smeared mouth spread wide in a howl of triumph as he yanked Mace through the multicolored glowvine-shaded night, pulling him in while he opened his arms for that lethal embrace.
Mace thought: Well, if you insist.
Instead of resisting or grounding the power of Vastor's Force grip, Mace added his own strength to it. The speed of his flight suddenly doubled; Vastor had only time to widen his eyes in dismay as Mace flipped headfirst in the air. The top of his head speared into Vastor's gut and drove the lor pelek to the ground as though he'd been hit by a concussion missile.
On the other hand, Vastor's stomach wasn't much softer than that lammas he'd slammed Mace into; the impact didn't do Mace's head a lot of good, either.
Another spiral galaxy blossomed where the first had been as Mace rolled off him, lying on his back while he watched stellar clusters wheel inside his skull. Vastor lay beside him, making faint panting noises while he tried to pull air into his spasming chest.
Vastor's breath began to return in great whooping gasps, and Mace knew his time was running out. He shook the stars out of his head and reached down to his ankle to unwrap the severed gripleaf trailer. Limp now, dying, it was unresisting as an ordinary rope; Mace took one end in each fist, and as Vastor rolled over and gained his hands and knees, Mace slipped a loop of the trailer over the lorpelek's head from behind and tightened it around his throat.
Vastor straightened and his hands went to his throat, clawing at Mace's improvised garrote, but not even he was strong enough to break a gripleaf trailer with his bare hands. His face darkened, swelling with blood; the back of his neck bulged; veins writhed across his temples and forehead.
Ten seconds, Mace thought, hanging on, wedging his knees into Vastor's back. Ten seconds and out.
Vastor got one foot under him.
