Star Wars: Slave Of Darkness

The screams of the dead filled the air as the dozens of corpses scrambled across the gap between them and the Jedi. Arcs of blue light lanced between their ranks harmlessly as I contributed a torrent of lightning.

To his credit, the Jedi didn't flinch or pause, instead meeting the tide of rotting flesh head on. One green blade caught the lightning and redirected it into the first of his attackers, momentarily blowing the skeletal corpse back into the one behind it. The other end whipped around, bisecting a zombified acolyte from hip to shoulder.

The two halves of charred former-human hit the ground and were quickly covered by its brethren as they continued in a tide of flesh and bone. However, it was not down for the count.

I could still feel the undead thing in my mind, whispering through the stone that served as the focus for the spell. While the scrolls had recommended a gemstone of high value, the polished quartz hidden under my breastplate was serving adequately for my purposes.

Korriban Zombies could exist on their own without a master once raised by either spell or via bite, but the focus was required to control them. Fortunately, any spawn they created were also slaved to the spell.

The creatures were intelligent enough to use weaponry and rudimentary tactics, but their greatest advantage was their sheer tenacity. Unless you knew to destroy their heads, they were nearly impossible to keep down permanently.

But there was a downside. Though they were hardly comparable to what they had been in life, small bits of self remained to power their animalistic intellect and they were aware enough that basic thoughts would pass through their minds. Through the focus, those thoughts would pass into my mind.

Most were but simple observations of their surroundings, but the content of them was not the problem. It was the sheer number of them.

Now that I was experiencing this spell firsthand, my respect for both Castor and Dathka Graush had grown. The former had raised and controlled hundreds of them while retaining his composure. The latter had commanded legions of the dead to conquer entire systems while also ruling the Sith for decades.

I forcefully snapped my focus back to the fight. Letting my mind wander was dangerous.

Garsh was no idiot. He was fast and he was skilled, but sheer numbers could bog him down if he stayed in one place no matter how fast he was spinning his lightsaber.

So he ducked and dodged and weaved around the rotting limbs reaching for him. He lashed out with his lightsaber whenever possible, always keeping the blades moving towards the next target. In the span of a few seconds, he had already cut down nearly a dozen, nearly a third of what I had available.

Despite his progress, things were not going well for him.

The zombies he had already taken down were not finished off and their dismembered bits were trying to trip him up and bite at his legs. Though they had little success thus far in that endeavor, it was nevertheless forcing him to divide his attention between the different threats.

But worse for him, the Jedi was getting tired as well. I could see that he was getting just the slightest bit slower and he was breathing more heavily.

His fighting so far, from what I had observed now and during the bouts in the training hall, had been highly aggressive and mobile, likely indicating Ataru or Juyo. Both forms were energy intensive and not well-suited for long, drawn out engagements. 

The running battle from the entrance to here, having to deal with both Olia and I, the droids, and the zombies…it was all taking its toll.

Of course, the poison now flowing through his veins would only have made it come faster. The strain of fighting off the irrational darker urges the poison was sparking was both physically and mentally taxing, not to mention it made connecting to the Force in a Jedi's preferred manner difficult.

I reached out with the Force for several bricks that had fallen from the walls. With an exertion of will, telekinetic power shattered them into dozens of pieces, which I launched at Garsh from both sides in a shotgun blast. Occupied as he was with the zombies, he didn't even have time to raise a barrier to protect himself.

Most of the jagged rocks simply pelted off his thick robes without causing visible damage worse than a bruise, but the ones that hit exposed skin tore bloody gouges from his face and hands. One lucky stone had struck his forehead, causing a line of line of blood to start dripping down into the corner of his right eye.

Garsh leaped back in a Force-empowered jump, quickly wiping at his face with his sleeve as he soared through the air. And I smiled.

As he planted his boots against the wall to use it as a springboard and propel himself across the room, he stumbled upon a complication.

His feet were now firmly stuck to the wall nearly twelve feet off the ground.

Weaving Force-imbued webbing onto the walls had been an easy solution to the problem of keeping him grounded and thus force him to fight the zombies instead of just bypassing them to strike at me directly. Webs were also hanging from the ceiling, ready to catch him if he tried jumping higher than fifteen feet.

To my disappointment, he did not awkwardly pinwheel his arms in his efforts to recover, instead managing to keep himself from faceplanting into the wall in an admittedly impressive display of muscular control. 

It took him less than a millisecond for him to realize that touching the wall was a bad idea and he fought against gravity to lever himself into a rather uncomfortable-looking crouch.

The only reward for my cleverness was a furrowing of his eye-ridges and a bit more frustration leaking out from his shields.

Garsh only paused for a split-second as he gathered power. A ripping sound managed to echo over the zombie screeches as he shot forward, ripping the soles from his boots and leaving them stuck to the wall.

Only to immediately get bodied by a bust of Naga Sadow slamming into his gut before he got three feet away, blasting the air out of his lungs and propelling him back into the wall, back first.

Garsh hadn't been the only one gathering power in that instant.

I was not going to be risking getting into an actual lightsaber duel with him if I could help it, not when he was a much more experienced duelist than me. Instead, I took some inspiration from the Darth Vader school of thought.

Namely, pummeling the crap out of my opponent with anything and everything in the room.

The back and upper arms of his thick outer robe were now stuck to the wall, hampering his efforts to defend himself with his lightsaber. Bits of masonry and shards of bone crashed against hastily-erected Force barriers, breaking again and again.

Each time, the barriers were made faster and faster, but each was weaker and rougher looking than the last. More started breaking through, slowed but not stopped.

Finally, I chucked the still moving upper half of a bisected zombie at him, its charred entrails spilling out from its torso and trailing behind it as it flew. It screamed and reached out with its one arm, bloodied teeth gnashing.

At last, Garsh managed to slip out of his outer robe before it hit, but that forced him to let go of his lightsaber for a moment. As soon as it left his hand, the blades winked out. Of course, I took advantage of that.

The saberstaff shot across the room and slapped into my empty hand.

Oh, he definitely noticed and wasn't pleased, but he had to prioritize between either retrieving his weapon or trying to land safely among the dozens of zombies beneath him all scrambling and clawing towards him.

A part of my mind wanted to be a bit disappointed at how easy this was turning out to be. I immediately countered that thought with a reminder that getting this far had required nearly a year of training, not to mention days of preparations beforehand, poisoning him, and wearing him down.

I was not facing him at his best intentionally.

Somehow, the Quarren avoided the grasping hands of the zombies as he proceeded to use the head of one as a springboard to try and jump out of the crowd. But one zombie managed to foil that plan.

The animated Tu'kata had been hanging back for the entire fight, avoiding the Jedi while he had his lightsaber. Bits of thoughts had filtered into my mind through my link to it, but not enough to get a full picture of what it was waiting for.

It had simply been waiting for an opening.

As Garsh took to the air once again, the creature's rotting muscles tensed before it threw itself towards him, colliding and causing both of them to hit the ground hard. I could just barely see past its bulk to watch its jaws snapping downwards towards its prey again and again.

But I could still sense Garsh alive beneath it, likely just avoiding being torn to shreds.

As the other zombies turned and started rushing towards the downed Jedi, the feeling of the tomb changed, started becoming colder.

Without warning, there was a loud boom just before the undead Tu'kata was sent hurtling into the ceiling, where it got caught up in my own webbing. As my eyes followed its path, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how embarrassing that was.

Of course, I realized I had something much more concerning to be worried about a split-second later.

The other zombies, intent on tearing Garsh limb from limb, were violently thrown back in a Force Wave, many of them either becoming stuck to the walls or dying permanently when their skulls shattered on impact.

I myself didn't have time to react before what felt like a freight train slammed into my chest, sending me flying backwards. My back was the first thing to hit stone, followed by my head. Fortunately, I had a bit more protection on that front than my unfortunate minions and I didn't stick to my own webs.

Still, I was left seeing stars for a moment, a lapse just long enough that Garsh's lightsaber slipped from my hands. My heart sank when it immediately flew back across the room to his waiting hand.

"I had hoped to kill you before your poison did its work and that I would die as a Jedi, with the Light in my heart." He spoke, chest heaving from exertion, "Unfortunately, it seems that I gave you too little credit. More now than ever, I feel the regrets born from my cowardice."

Both blades of his lightsaber reignited. I shook my head and unsteadily rose to my feet. As I looked into his eyes, I felt a shiver go down my spine.

Where before they had been opalescent like pearls, Garsh's eyes were now infected with a sulfurous yellow.

"But I have seen you for what you are…and what you will become. If I must draw on the Dark Side to end you, so be it. With your death, Terrak and Ianna will at least have a slim hope of survival, even without me."

'What is the difference between a fall and a sacrifice?'

I took a deep breath in and ignited my lightsaber.

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The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.

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