Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (47 page)

The horned head swung toward her. Yarna skidded to a halt, and back pedaled frantically. Doallyn, taking advantage of the distraction, covered the distance between him and the dragon in two huge bounds. He leaped up, catching hold of the rightmost horn, hanging on as the beast’s head went skyward in a sickening rush. It roared, the sound deafening in the confines of the ravine.

Doallyn clung like an insect to the horn, then he threw himself forward, grabbing the middle horn.

The beast swung its head in a sickening arc toward the cliff wall, plainly intending to crush the annoying creature against the stone surface. But before that arc could be completed, Yarna heard the whine and saw the flash of Doallyn’s blaster. He shot the beast right below the middle horn, between the eyes.

Air rushed out of the krayt dragon’s lungs with the force of a small explosion. As Yarna stood transfixed, the huge legs splayed outward, bonelessly, and the head dropped like a boulder, to crash against the rocky bed of the ravine. The impact flung Doallyn ˇ free, where he lay motionless.

He killed it, Yarna’s numbed brain realized, a second later. By the Moon Lady, he actually killed it!

But had Doallyn survived his victory?

With a muffled exclamation, Yarna ran forward to the sprawled body of the man. She crouched beside him, calling his name, for what seemed like an eternity—but was, in reality, only a moment or two—before he stirred, moved. She heard him gasp, then groan.

“Doallyn, are you hurt?”

His voice reached her, muffled by the helmet.

“Breath… knocked out…” He struggled to raise himself, and, seeing that he moved freely, if stiffly, she helped him. He gasped for a moment, then said, in a more normal tone, “It’s dead?”

“As dead as Jabba,” Yarna said solemnly. “I can’t believe you killed that thing with one shot!”

“Vulnerable point… the sinus cavity leads directly into the brain… good thing I studied them.”

Pushing Yarna’s supporting arms gently aside, Doallyn levered himself up until he was standing, surveying his kill. Yarna saw his shoulders straighten, and his whole body proclaimed the triumph he was feeling as he regarded the dead behemoth.

“I’ll have to get a trophy,” she heard him mutter.

“No one will believe me, otherwise.”

“You are the best hunter in the entire galaxy,” Yarna said, and she believed every word of it. “I don’t think anyone else could have killed that thing.”

Doallyn’s helmeted head swung toward her, and he nodded. Without seeing his face, she knew that he was grinning exultantly. “But I couldn’t have done it without you, Yarna! If you hadn’t distracted him by moving at just the right instant, he’d have gotten me!”

The Askajian laughed out loud as some of his triumph was transmitted to her. Then, as she climbed to her feet, reality rushed back like a blow.

“Doallyn, the landspeeder… all our supplies… are gone.

Sucked down into a sand pit.”

“We’ll have to walk it,” Doallyn said. “There are hubba-gourds.

We can survive on them for a couple of days.”

“But what about your breathing cartridges?” she asked, quietly.

He stood still, as transfixed by that thought as she had been by the dragon. “I put a couple into my pocket,” he said, slowly, digging his fingers down. Moments later, he held out three cartridges. “Not good,” he said, slowly.

“Enough hydron-three to see you into Mos Eisley?

We can buy more there, can’t we?”

“Yes, most vendors who sell spacesuits or breathing gear would have it,” he said, slowly. “As to whether it will be enough… it should be.

If we don’t dawdle.”

Yarna tugged at his sleeve. “Then let’s start walking right away.”

“In a minute,” he said. “There’s something I have to do first.”

Realizing that he was asking for privacy, Yarna realized that she, too, could use a few minutes to herself.

She nodded at Doallyn. “Which way do we go?”

He pointed. “Due east.”

“Meet you back here in a few minutes, then.”

He nodded, and turned away.

The Askajian dancer turned and walked in the opposite direction, past the krayt dragon’s snout. In death, the beast appeared only a little less fearsome than it had in life. It’s a reptile, Yarna thought, remembering similar creatures (though only a fraction of the size) on Askaj. It won’t really die until the sun goes down…

AS soon as Yarna was out of the way, Doallyn sprinted as quickly as he could back to the krayt dragon’s hind-quarters.

Sketches of the beast’s anatomy flashed through his mind as he drew his blaster again, resetting the weapon so it would fire a narrow, slicing beam rather than explosive bursts.

It was a gory, smelly job, carving up the krayt dragon’s innards, but finally he had alternately sliced and vaporized enough hunks of scale and meat to reveal the creature’s intestines. The last chamber of the gizzard, he thought, studying the bloody welter of internal organs that splooshed messily outward, sliding onto the ground. Where is it?

“There you are,” he muttered softly. Drawing a vibroblade out of his boot, Doallyn waded in for the final few strokes. The first sac he cut into was one of the middle chambers—the stones he drew out were larger than his fist, hunks of granite and sandstone only a little rounded and smoothed.

Using that chamber as a guide, the hunter was able to locate the organ he wanted—the last chamber of the krayt dragon’s massive gizzard system. The beasts had teeth, yes, but those teeth were used only to kill and rip apart prey. The dragon had no grinding molars for chewing.

Instead it had a gizzard, rather like a bird’s, but multichambered. AS food passed through the organ in progressively more pulverized and digested chunks, the rocks in the gizzard ground it finer and finer—until it reached the intestinal system.

Doallyn braced himself, said a quick invocation to the Sky Seraphs, and sliced open the last chamber.

Reaching inside, he felt around, then pulled forth five perfectly round objects. Each was as large as the last joint of his thumb. As he wiped the blood and ichor away, they glowed in the sunshine like the jewels that they were.

Dragon pearls.

Beauty incarnate. Two were clear green, the color of Yarna’s eyes. One was the blue of the sky just after sunset. The fourth was white, and iridescent—and the fifth was as black as the depths of interstellar space. As Doallyn stared at it, marveling at its perfection, he seemed to be able to see into the stone, as though black light were trapped deep inside.

Doallyn wanted to shout, to dance, to sing—but he remembered that with every breath he was using up his precious stock of hydron-three.

Quickly, he stowed the dragon’s pearls away in the inside, sealed pocket of his tunic. Glancing around, he realized he was covered in dragon’s blood. He had to have some excuse for that, or Yarna would ask questions…

The hunter headed purposefully for the krayt dragon’s tail. He’d cut off one of the spiky fins for a trophy, and that would, he hoped, account for the condition of his hands and clothes. If he kept Yarna from walking around to the beast’s other side, she’d never know what he’d been doing.

Kneeling down beside the dragon’s tail, Doallyn grabbed the fill and began slicing at it. Of course he intended to share some of the treasure with Yarna, he told himself. After all, she had made it possible for him to kill the dragon in the first place. I’ll keep the pearls for a surprise, show them to her after we reach Mos Eisley, he told himself, uncomfortably aware that he was rationalizing, if not outright lying to himself. After all, we have to get on the road now.

We really don’t have-Without warning, the dragon’s giant tail moved in his hands, jerking away from Doallyn’s grasp, then twitching hard from side to side. One fill caught the hunter across the side of his helmet, sending him hurtling down, into instant—and complete—darkness…

Yarna found him minutes later, where the tail’s reflex twitch had flung him. She stared in horror, then, by placing her hand on his chest, and feeling its slow rise and fall, realized he still breathed.

Moon Lady, what shall I do now? she wondered despairingly, gazing around at the stark landscape.

And all because he had to have a trophy—Just like a male furious.

Males always have to have something to flaunt and brag about. For a moment she was so angry that she felt like kicking the unconscious hunter.

Anger was good, she discovered. It lent her strength. Yarna stood there for a moment, feeling the anger rush through her veins like a powerful drug, then, slowly, carefully, she bent and grabbed Doallyn’s arm. Slinging it over her shoulder, she slowly straightened up, until his prone form was draped over her like a Tomuon lamb. She had carried many such slung in just this fashion.

Eyes narrowed against the noonday rays of the suns, jaw tight with determination, Yarna turned so she was facing due east. She began to walk.

Slap, slap… slap, slap. The sound of her leather sandals hitting the hard-packed road was the only sound in the universe. Yarna counted the beats of her stride in her head, knowing she could not afford to go slowly, though every muscle screamed for her to lay her burden down and rest.

How long had she been walking? Her world had narrowed so greatly that she could not be sure. Scattered memories surfaced. Yellow globes in a rock recess… hubba gourds. She’d smashed several and dripped the water into Doallyn’s mouth, rubbing his throat until he swallowed. Then she’d allowed herself several sips of the sour, but blessedly wet, liquid.

How many times had she given Doallyn water? Two?

Three? She could not be sure, just as she could not be sure how long it had been since she had stumbled upon this road that led in the right direction. Yarna thought it might be yesterday that she’d found it, but time… time was a slippery thing, as slippery and fluid as the pulp in a hubba gourd. She was no longer sure of anything–except that Doallyn was still breathing. Her ears were attuned-to the sound of those harsh, painful breaths. She’d checked his breathing cartridges every few hours. He’d used up the one that was in his helmet, plus two others from his uniform.

She’d slipped the last one into place hours ago.

How long could he live without hydron-three? Yarna had no idea.

All she could do was walk, slap, slap… slap, slap… walk as rapidly as her fading strength and muddled mind would allow her to go.

At some point last night she’d awakened to find herself sitting in the middle of the road, with Doallyn’s body draped across her lap. She must’ve fallen asleep while walking, and sunk to the ground without ever waking up.

How long had she slept? Yarna had no idea… but the thought that the time she had spent sleeping might mean the difference between life and death for the man she carried, haunted her, even through the growing haze of exhaustion that clouded her mind.

Slap, slap… slap, slap…

Doallyn’s breaths were coming quicker now, as though he were gasping.

Yarna lowered him to the road, and looked at the gauge on the side of his helmet.

The marker hovered in the “empty” zone.

The gasps changed, grew recognizable. Doallyn was trying to speak.

Yarna leaned close. “Sorry…” she made out. “Save yourself… leave me…”

“Not while I live,” she replied fiercely. “Be quiet save your breath.

It can’t be far now…”

He clutched at the front of her desert robe, babbling urgently.

Some nonsense about a treasure. Yarna ignored him. It took all her strength, all her concentration, to get him settled across her shoulder again.

Slap, slap… slap, slap…

She plodded along, forcing herself to move as quickly as possible, knowing that every second might be Doallyn’s last. Head down, concentrating on moving as quickly as possible, she was actually walking down one of the streets in Mos Eisley before she realized she’d reached the town.

Yarna’s head jerked up at the cry of a water-seller. I’ve made it! Now to find a vendor who sells breathing gear!

Stumbling, she forced her legs into a rough approximation of a trot. Was Doallyn still breathing? She couldn’t be sure… she could no longer hear him.

Was that because of the blood rushing past her ears, as she tried to run?

Ahead of her, a bigger street. Vendors with stalls and carts, crying their wares. Yarna’s desert-hazed eyes fastened on one—an Ortolan like Max Rebo. Poor little Max… he’d gone on the sail barge, hadn’t he?

Yarna thought foggily, as she jogged across the street toward her quarry.

Reaching the stall, she unceremoniously dropped Doallyn to the dusty ground and gasped out her request.

“A cartridge of hydron-three, please!”

The Ortolan whuffled down his trunk at her. “Certainly, madame.

It distresses me to inform you, though, that hydron-three is currently rather expensive.

There hasn’t been a shipment since… well, it’s been quite a while.”

“I don’t care,” Yarna snapped, digging beneath her robe for the precious little sack she’d carried out of Jabba’s palace so long ago—was it only four days? It seemed as though half of eternity had passed. “I can pay Give me five days’ supply.”

“Certainly, madame,” the Ortolan said. “May I see your currency, please?”

Yarna’s hands shook as she took out two small semiprecious gems and the stolen credit disks–all she could afford to spare. “Here you are.”

The Ortolan shook his head mournfully, his huge dark eyes very sad. “I’m dreadfully sorry, madame, but I’ll need twice that for two days’ supply.”

Yarna glared at him so balefully that he shrank back into the dimness of his stall. “Robber! I don’t have time to bargain! Give me two days’ supply then!”

The vendor was firm. “I’m sorry, madame, but I must insist on the price I named. I’m barely breaking even as it is.”

“I have a man dying here! He needs that hydron-three!”

Yarna said, her hearts racing. If she gave the vendor what he demanded, she would only be able to buy two of her children’s freedom.

No mother could possibly make such a choice!

And yet… Doallyn had saved her life… several times.