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Dark Jedi Knight Korbane

One who had not been raised in the perpetual gloom of the under layers of Coruscant would not have noticed the subtle shift in the depth of darkness, the slight tingling breeze of fresher air. To Teachdaire the changes came as obviously as a slap in the face, and he picked up his pace, hoisting his wounded tyro to his side.

"What is it?" the frightened tyro demanded, glancing about as if he expected the Obelisk Warlord Asuko Harmann to jump out of the nearest shadows and devour him.

They passed a wide but low side passage, sloping upward. Teachdaire hesitated, his direction sense screaming to him that he had just passed the correct tunnel. He ignored those silent pleas, though, and continued on, hopeful that the opening to the outside world would be accessible enough for him and his tyro to get a welcome breath of fresh air.

It was. They rounded the a bend in the tunnel and felt the chilly burst of wind in their faces, saw a lighter opening ahead, and saw beyond it towering mountains... and stars!

The tyro’s profound sigh of relief echoed Teachdaire's sentiments perfectly as he carried him on his back. When they came out of the tunnel, both of them nearly overcome by the splendor of the mountainous scene spread wide before them, by the sheer beauty of the surface world under the stars, so removed from the sky less mountains of the caverns they had been trapped and hunted in before. The wind rushing past them seemed a vital and alive entity.

They were on a narrow ledge, two-thirds of the way to the bottom of a steep thousand foot cliff. A narrow path wound  up to the right, down to the left, but only at a slight angle, which offered little hope that it would continue long enough to get them either up or down the cliff.

Teachdaire considered towering the cliff. He knew that he could easily manage a few hundred feet to the bottom, could probably get to the top without to much trouble, but he didn't think he could bring his wounded tyro with him and didn't like the prospect of being in an unknown stretch of wilderness, not knowing how long it would take to get back the task force that had landed to take over this fortress.

The rest of the phyle, not so far away, was in trouble he could sense it.

"That looks like a landing barge is over there," Teachdaire's tyro remarked hopefully, pointing to the northwest, "probably no more then a few miles."

Teachdaire nodded but replied, "We have to go back in."

While the tyro did not seem pleased by that prospect, he did not argue, understanding that he could not get off this ledge in his present condition.

"Well done," came Asuko's voice from up the bend. The warlord's dark silhouette came into sight, the jewels attached to his lightsaber glimmering like the heat of his eyes. "I knew you would come to this place," he explained to Teachdaire. "I knew that you would sense the clean air and make for it."

"Do you congratulate me or yourself?" the Dark Jedi Knight asked.

"Both!" Asuko replied with a hearty laugh. The white of his teeth disappeared, replaced by a cold frown, as he continued to approach. "The tunnel you passed fifty yards back will indeed take you to the higher level, where you'll likely find your phyle... your dead phyle no doubt."

Teachdaire didn't take the bait, didn't let his rage send him charging ahead.

"But you can not get there, can you?" Asuko teased. "You alone could keep ahead of me, could avoid the battle that I demand. But, alas for your wounded tyro." Think of it, Teachdaire. Leave the tyro and you can run free!"

Teachdaire didn't justify the absurd thought with a reply.

"I would leave him," Asuko remarked, dropping the cold glare over the tyro as he spoke. The tyro gave a curious whimper and slumped on the strong back of Teachdaire.

Teachdaire tried not to imagine the horrors his tyro had suffered at the vile hands of the Obelisk Warlord Asuko.

"You will not leave him," Asuko continued. "We long ago established the difference between us, the difference you call strength, but that I know to be weakness." He was only a dozen strides away; his slender lightsaber unleashed its energy with a hum, illuminating him in its blue-green glow. "And so to our business," he said. "And so to our destiny." Do you like the battlefield I have prepared? The only way off this ledge is the tunnel behind you, and so I, like yourself, can not flee, must play it out to the end." He looked over the cliff as he spoke. "A deadly drop for the loser," he explained, smiling. "A fight with no reprieve."

Teachdaire could not deny the sensations that came over him, the heat in his breast and behind his eyes. He could not deny that, in some repressed corner of his heart and soul, he wanted this challenge, wanted to prove Asuko wrong, to prove the Obelisk Warlord's existence to be worthless. Now, with his tyro helpless behind him and his phyle somewhere above, facing the armies of Malachai, the challenge would be met.

He felt the hard metal of his lightsaber handles in his hands; let his eyes slip back fully into the normal spectrum of light as one flared an angry blue and the other raging green.

Asuko halted, twin blue-green lightsabers in each hand and motioned for Teachdaire to approach.

They started easily, each measuring his steps on the unorthodox arena. The ledge was perhaps ten feet wide at this point, but narrowed considerably just behind Teachdaire and just behind Asuko.

A backhand slash with the lightsaber led Asuko's routine, with his other lightsaber thrusting after the slash.

Two solid parries sounded, and Teachdaire snapped one lightsaber for the opening between Asuko's blades, an opening that was closed by a retreating lightsaber in the blink of an eye, with Teachdaire's attack slapped harmlessly aside.

They circled, Teachdaire inside near the wall, the Obelisk Warlord moving easily near the drop. Asuko slashed low, unexpectedly coming in from his normal attacks.

Teachdaire hopped the shortened cut, came with a two-chop combination for the ducking Warlord's head. Ausko's lightsaber darted left and right, worked horizontally above his head to block ensuing blows, and shifted its angle slightly to poke ahead, to keep the Dark Jedi Knight as bay while the Obelisk Warlord could gain equal footing.

"It will not be a quick kill," Asuko promised with an evil smile. As if to disprove his own claim, he leaped furiously, lightsaber leading.

Teachdaire's hands worked in a blur, his lightsabers hitting the deftly angled weapon repeatedly. Teachdaire worked to his side, kept his back from flattening against the wall.

Teachdaire fully agreed with the Obelisk Warlord's estimate, this would not be a quick kill, whoever might win. They would fight for many minutes, for an hour perhaps. And to what end? Teachdaire wondered. What gain could he expect? Would Malachai and his soldiers show up and bring the challenge to a premature conclusion?

How venerable would Teachdaire and his tyro be then, with nowhere to run and a drop of several hundred feet just inches away!

Again the Warlord pressed the attack, and then again Teachdaire worked his lightsabers through the proper, perfectly balanced defenses, Asuko getting nowhere near hitting him.

Asuko went into a spin then, imitating Teachdaire's movements in their previous encounter from years ago, working his two blades like the edge of a screw to force Teachdaire back to a narrower position on the ledge.

Teachdaire was surprised that the Warlord had learned the daring and difficult maneuver so completely after only two observations from years ago, but it was a move that Teachdaire had designed, and he knew how to counter it.

He, too, went into a spinning rotation, lightsabers flowing, up and down. The lightsabers connected repeatedly with each turn, each hit causing shrieks of energy to come from the lightsabers, green and blue mixing in an indistinct blur. Teachdaire moved right by Asuko the Warlord reversed his spin suddenly, but Teachdaire saw the shift and came to a stop, both lightsabers blocking the reversed cut of his opponent.

Teachdaire began once more, counter to Asuko, and this time, when Asuko again turned his rotation back the other way the Dark Jedi Knight anticipated it so fully that he actually reversed direction first.

For Teachdaire's tyro staring helplessly, not daring to intervene, and for any of the region's nocturnal creatures that might have been watching, there was no words to describe the amazing dance, the interweaving colors as the two opponents glowing lightsabers passed, the cold blue of Teachdaire's eyes, and the red heat of Asuko's. The shrieks of the energy blades became a symphony, a myriad of notes playing to the dance, evoking a strange sense of harmony between these bitter enemies.

They stopped in unison, a few feet apart, both understanding that there would be no end to that spinning dance, no advantage by either player. They stood like bookends of identical weight.

Asuko laughed aloud at the realization, laughed so that he might savor this moment, this many act play that would perhaps see dawn, and perhaps never be resolved.

Teachdaire found no humor, and his private eagerness at the beginning of the challenge had flown, leaving him with the weight of responsibility for his tyro and his phyle in the upper levels of the tunnels.

The Warlord came in low and hard, lightsaber darting, climbing with each strike as Asuko gradually straighten his stance, taking a full measure of Teachdaire's defenses from a variety of cutting angles.

Asuko settled him into a parrying rhythm, and then broke the melody with a vicious cut. The Warlord howled with glee thinking that his lightsaber had slipped thought Teachdaire's defense.

Teachdaire's lightsaber had come from nowhere intercepting the attack cleanly barely an inch from Teachdaire's side. The Warlord grimaced and stubbornly tried to push on as he came to understand the truth.

Teachdaire's expression was even colder still and neither lightsaber moved an inch.

A twist of the Dark Jedi Knights wrist and both lightsabers went flying wide. Asuko was wise enough to push off and break the clench, to circle back and wait for the next opportunity to present itself.

"I almost had you," he taunted. He hid his frown well as Teachdaire in no way responded, not with words, not with body movements, not with the unyielding set of features on his face.

A lightsaber snapped across, shrieking loudly through the breeze as Asuko brought his locking lightsaber in its path.

A sudden sound assaulted Teachdaire, reminded him that Malachai might not be far away. He pictured his phyle in dire trouble, captured or dead. He locked his stares with Asuko, reminded himself that this man had been the one to cause it all, that this enemy had tricked him into the tunnels, had separated him from his phyle.

And now Teachdaire could not protect them.

A lightsaber snapped across; the other came slashing in the other way Teachdaire repeated the routine, the a third time, each movement, each sheik of energy against energy, bringing his thoughts more in line with this task, heightening his warrior senses.

Each strike was perfectly aimed, and each parry intercepted the attacking lightsabers perfectly, yet neither Teachdaire nor Asuko, locked through their staring eyes into a mental combat, watched their hands through physical movements. Neither one blinked, not when the breeze of Teachdaire's lightsaber high slice moved the hair atop the Warlords head, not when Asuko's lightsaber came to a parried stop a hairsbreadth from Teachdaire's eye.

Teachdaire felt his momentum building, felt the give and take of battle coming quicker, strike and parry. Asuko, as consumed as his opponent, paced him.

The movements of their bodies began to catch the blur of hands and weapons. Asuko dipped a shoulder, sword lashing out straight ahead; Teachdaire spun a complete circle, parrying behind his back as he flitted out of reach.

Images of his phyle captured by Malachai tormented the Tetarch of the Hells Gatekeepers; He pictured Timeros, wounded or dying with a red lightsaber at his throat. Teachdaire accepted the images, gave the mental assault his full attention, let the fear for his phyle fuel his anger. That had been the difference between him and the Warlord, he told himself, told part of himself that argued for him to keep his mind clear and his movements precise and well considered.

That was how Asuko played the game, always in control, never feeling anything beyond the enemy at hand.

A slight growl escaped Teachdaire's lips; his burning blue eyes simmered in the starlight. In his mind his student Leara screamed out in pain.

He came at Asuko in a wild rush.

The Warlord laughed at him, lightsabers working furiously to keep Teachdaire’s two lightsabers at bay. "Give in to the rage," he taunted. "Let go of you control!"

Asuko did not understand that was precisely the point.

Teachdaire's lightsaber chopped in, to be predictably parried by Asuko's lightsaber. It wouldn't be easy for the Warlord this time though. Teachdaire retracted and struck again, and again, repeatedly, willingly slamming this lightsaber against the Warlords already poised weapon. His other lightsaber came in furiously from the other side; Asuko's other lightsaber turned it aside.

Teachdaire's ensuing flurry, sheer madness, it seemed, kept the Warlord back on his heels. A dozen hits, two dozen, sounded like one long cry of shrieking energy.

Asuko's expression betrayed his laughter. He had not expected this wild and offensive routine, had not expected Teachdaire to be so daring. If he could get one lightsaber free for just an instant, the Dark Jedi Knight would be vulnerable.

But Asuko could not free up either lightsaber. Fires drove Teachdaire on, kept his pace impossibly fast and his concentration perfect. To the darkness with his own life, he decided, for his phyle needed him to prevail.

On and on the offensive routine continued; his tyro covered his ears at the horrid wail and shriek of the lightsabers, but the tyro could not, for all his terror, take his gaze away from the fighting masters. How many times the tyro expected one or both to pitch over the cliff! How many times he thought a lightsaber had thrust and struck home! But they somehow kept on fighting, each attack just missing, and each defense in line at the last possible instant.

Lightsabers came together; Teachdaire's following strike from the other side was not parried but went short as Asuko shifted his foot and fell back a step.

The Warlords hand shot forward. Asuko released a primal scream of victory, thinking Teachdaire had slipped up.

Teachdaire's lightsaber came across from its high perch faster then Asuko expected, faster then the Warlord believed possible, gashing his forearm and instant before he got his lightsaber to Teachdaire's exposed belly. Back flew Teachdaire's lightsaber, flinging one Asuko's lightsabers away from his grasp. Asuko leaped ahead to get in close, realizing his vulnerability.

His sudden charge saved his life, but while Teachdaire could not angle the tip of his free lightsaber for a killing thrust, he could, and did, punch out with the handle, connecting solidly with Asuko's face, sending the man staggering backward.

On came the Dark Jedi Knight, lightsabers flashing relentlessly, driving Asuko back to within an inch of the cliff. The Warlord tried to go to his right, but one lightsaber knocked aside his blocking lightsaber while the other’s maneuvering kept Teachdaire directly in front of him. The Warlord started left, but with his wounded arm slow to react, he knew could not get beyond the Dark Jedi Knight’s reach in time. Asuko held his ground, parrying furiously, trying find a countering routine that would drive his possessed enemy back.

Teachdaire’s breaths came in short puffs as he found rhythm to his frantic pace. His eyes flared, unrelenting, as he reminded himself over and over that his phyle was possibly dying, and that he could not help them.

He fell too far into the rage, hardly registered the movement as one of Asuko’s lightsabers flew at him. At the very instant, he ducked aside, the skin above his cheekbone slashed in a three-inch long cut. More importantly Teachdaire’s forward rhythm was shattered. His arms ached from the exertion; his momentum had played itself out.

On came the snarling Obelisk Warlord, lightsaber poking, even scoring a slight hit, as he drove Teachdaire back and around. By the time the Dark Jedi Knight had regained his balance somewhat, his toes, not Asuko’s, were squarely facing the mountain wall, his heels feeling the free-flowing emptiness of the mountain winds.

“I am better!” Asuko proclaimed, and his ensuing attack proved his claim. Lightsaber slashing and darting, he drove Teachdaire’s heel over the edge.

Teachdaire dropped to one knee to keep his weight forward. He felt the wind keenly, heard his tyro scream his name.

Asuko could have called his lost lightsaber back too him now, but he sensed the kill, sensed he would never again have a better opportunity to end this game. His lightsaber came down in fury; Teachdaire seemed to buckle under its weight, seemed to slip even further over the edge of the cliff.

A part of Teachdaire wanted to give in then, to simply lie back, and let the mountains take him, but it was a fleeting moment of weakness, one from which Teachdaire recoiled , one that fueled his indomitable spirit and lent strength to his weary arms.

But so, too, was hungry Asuko fueled.

Teachdaire slipped suddenly and had to grab the ledge, releasing his grip on his lightsaber. The angry blue lightsaber toppled over the cliff, skipping down along the stones.

Asuko’s lightsaber slammed down, blocked by Teachdaire’s remaining lightsaber. The Warlord howled and jumped back, coming right back with a thrust.

Teachdaire could not stop it, Asuko knew, his eyes going wide as the moment of victory finally presented itself. The twisted Dark Jedi Knight’s angle was all wrong; Teachdaire couldn’t possibly get the remaining lightsaber down and turned in line in time.

He couldn’t stop it!

Teachdaire didn’t stop it. He had quietly coiled one leg under him for a roll, and went to the side and ahead as the lightsaber dove in, narrowly missing. Teachdaire spun his prone body about, one foot kicking against the front of Asuko’s ankle, the other hooking the Obelisk Warlord behind the knee.

Only then did Asuko realize that the Dark Jedi Knight’s slip, and lost lightsaber, had been a ruse. Only then did Asuko Harmann realize that his own hunger for the kill had defeated him.

His momentum forward with the eager thrust, he pitched toward the ledge. Every muscle in his body went taut; he somehow managed to catch hold of Teachdaire’s boot.

The momentum was too great for Teachdaire, still sidelong on the smooth ledge, to hold them both back. The Dark Jedi Knight pulled out straight as he went over, right above Asuko, skidding down the stone.

Teachdaire held tightly to his second lightsaber, jamming the blade in the stone and found a grasp with his other hand.

He shuddered to a stop, and Asuko stretched out below him, over an inverted section that offered the Obelisk Warlord no chance of a handhold. Teachdaire thought his entire insides would be ripped out. He glanced down to see one of Asuko’s hands waving wildly; the other clutched desperately to Teachdaire’s boot.

Teachdaire groaned and grimaced, as he moved his other boot into position to strike Asuko’s hand.

“No!” he heard Asuko deny, apparently understanding the precariousness of his position.

“This is not the way to claim victory!” Asuko called up to him in a desperate burst. “This defeats the purpose of the challenge and dishonors you!”

Teachdaire reminded himself of his the torture his tyro must have endured and the dangerous situation that his phyle in the upper levels must be in.

“You did not win!” Asuko cried out.

Teachdaire let the fires of his blue eyes speak for him. He set his hands and squared his jaw. Kicking out with all his might he struck the Obelisk Warlords hand perfectly.

Asuko scrambled and kicked for an instant in midair and almost got another hold with his free hand.

The Obelisk Warlord tumbled away into the blackness, his cry swallowed up by the raging blue dark side energy released caused by his crashing death several hundred feet below.