In his excitement, however, the rope had slipped from his teeth. The trailing end uncoiled, dangled precariously, and then brushed one glossy petal of the deadly flower below. With a surge of gut-wrenching terror, Lowbacca had grabbed the tied end of rope and hauled himself upward as the syren’s jaws snapped shut. The petals just grazed one foot as they closed with an ominous slurp and a backwash of wind.
He had earned this fiber, Lowie thought, every strand of it, enough to make a special belt, which he always wore afterward.
Exhaustion sank its claws into every muscle as Lowbacca made his way from one Massassi tree to the next, hour after hour, all through the night.
Distance held no more meaning for him; he had to get to the Jedi academy. He could hear nothing but his own ragged breathing. His injured leg wobbled unsteadily at each step. Fatigue blurred his vision, and twigs and leaves matted his fur. He pushed forward, always forward, arm-leg, arm-leg, hand-foot, hand-foot—
Lowie looked around, confused and disoriented. He had reached for the next branch, but there were no more branches. Raising his head, he looked across the clearing—the landing clearing!—and saw the Great Temple, its majestic tiers outlined in the predawn darkness by flickering torches.
Lowbacca never remembered afterward climbing down out of the tree or crossing the clearing. He noticed only the awesome, welcoming sight of the ancient stone pyramid as he bellowed an alarm. He roared again and again, until a stream of robed figures carrying fresh torches rushed out of the temple and down the steps toward him.
The night and the desperate journey had taken their toll on Lowie. The numbness imposed by his own determination had worn off, and his knee refused to hold him any longer. His gangly legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground, moaning his message.
When he rolled onto his back, a circle of concerned faces filled his vision. Tionne bent over him and brushed the tangle of matted fur away from his eyes.
“Lowbacca, we were concerned for you!” Tionne said gravely. “Are you hurt?”
Lowie groaned an answer, but Tionne didn’t seem to understand. She leaned closer to him, her silvery hair glowing in the torch light.
“Were Jacen and Jaina with you? And Tenel Ka?” She paused as he tried to moan another answer. “Did something happen?” she persisted. “Can you tell me where they are?”
Lowbacca finally managed to say that the others were in the jungle and needed help. Tionne’s brows knitted together in an expression of worry. She blinked her mother-of-pearl eyes. “I’m sorry, Lowbacca. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Lowie reached toward his belt to activate Em Teedee—but he found nothing. The translator droid was gone.
13
Tenel Ka ran through the cool near-darkness of the jungle floor, trying to come up with a plan. She held her bent arms in front of her to protect her eyes and to push obstacles from her path. Branches whipped her face, tore at her hair, and clawed mercilessly at her bare arms and legs.
Her breath came in sharp gasps, not so much from the effort of running—to which she was well accustomed—but from the terror of what she had just experienced. She hoped she had made the right decision. Her pulse pounded in her ears, competing with the symphony of alien noises as the jungle creatures welcomed nightfall. Though she searched her mind, no Jedi calming techniques would come to her.
When the loud squawk of flying creatures sounded directly behind her, Tenel Ka glanced back in alarm. Before she could turn again, she fetched up sharply against the trunk of a Massassi tree. Stunned, she fell back a few paces and sank to the ground, putting one hand to the side of her face to examine her injury.
No blood, she thought as if from a great distance. Good. Beneath her fingertips, she felt tenderness and swelling from her cheek to her temple. There would be bruises, of course, and perhaps a royal headache. She cringed at the thought. Royal. Although no one could see it, her cheeks heated with a flush of humiliation.
Tenel Ka pulled herself to her feet and took stock of her situation. In her newfound calmness she admitted to herself that she was completely lost. Jacen and Jaina—and by now perhaps even Lowbacca—were counting on her to return with help. She had always prided herself on being strong, loyal, reliable, unswayed by emotion. She had been levelheaded enough during her initial escape, but then she had panicked. She shook off thoughts of her stupid headlong flight.
Well, she thought, pressing her pale lips together into a firm line, I am back in control now. She decided to push on until she found a safer place to spend the night. When morning came, she would try to get her bearings again and return to the Jedi academy.
As she trudged along, searching in the fading light of day, the ground began to rise and become more rocky. The trees grew sparser. When she saw a jagged shadow loom out of the darkness ahead of her, she slowed. Ahead was a large outcropping of rough, black stone, long-cooled lava mottled with lichens.
Tenel Ka tilted her head back and looked up, but she could not see how high the rock went; the jungle dimness swallowed it up. Cautiously exploring sideways, she encountered a break in the rock face, a patch of deeper darkness—a small cave. Perhaps she could spend the night here, in this defensible, sheltered place. The opening was no wider than the length of one arm and extended only to shoulder height, forcing her to stoop to explore further. She needed only to find a comfortable, safe place to rest.
She shivered as she hunched down on the sandy, cool floor of the cave. Her every muscle ached, but for now nothing could be done about her pain; she could bear it as well as any warrior. But she had not eaten since midday. She felt in the pouch at her waist, finding one carbo-protein biscuit remaining. As for the cold, she could light a fire with the finger-sized flash heater she carried in another pouch on her belt.
Dropping to her hands and knees, she scrabbled along the ground near the mouth of the cave, searching for twigs, leaves, anything that would burn. Back on Dathomir she’d had plenty of practice in rugged camping and outdoor endurance.
As she thought of the cozy warmth of a fire and a soft bed of leaves, Tenel Ka’s spirits rose. The nightmarish events of the afternoon began to settle into perspective. This was an adventure, she assured herself. A test of her will and determination.
When she had collected kindling and some thicker branches, Tenel Ka began to build her fire against the velvety shadows of gathering night. She fumbled in her belt pouches for her flash heater and groaned as she remembered that Jaina had borrowed it that afternoon. She rubbed her cold, bare arms and blew on her hands to warm them.
Tenel Ka thought longingly of the cheery warmth of a crackling fire, of drinking hot, spiced Hapan ale with her parents. A rare smile crossed her lips as she thought of them, Teneniel Djo and Prince Isolder. If she were at home, she would only have to lift a hand to bring a servant of the Royal House of Hapes running to do her bidding….
Tenel Ka grimaced. She had never known poverty or hardship, except by choice. Well, you chose this, Princess, she reminded her self savagely. You wanted to learn to do things for yourself.
Her father, Isolder of Hapes, had always said that the two years he spent in disguise working as a privateer had done more to prepare him for leadership than any training the royal tutors of Hapes could provide. And her mother, raised on the primitive planet of Dathomir, was proud that her only daughter spent months each year learning the ways of the Singing Mountain Clan and dressing as a warrior woman—a practice that Tenel Ka had enjoyed all the more because it annoyed her scheming Hapan grandmother.