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Master L'narri let out a scream as the lightsaber came down across his midsection. Only judicious application of the force to throw himself away from the blow had saved him from being cut entirely in half. The master stumbled, and Grievous' clawed foot struck his chest, flinging him away from the melee. L'narri hit the ground with a groan, still alive, but didn't rise.
Fane had barely a moment to take a breath before Grievous was on her again, all four lightsabers taking turns to assault her guard. Every hit seemed to land harder than the last, and though she was loathe to admit it, she was tiring fast. Perhaps in other circumstances she'd have been able to hold out for longer, but the extra energy she was expending to defend her young padawan was taking its toll.
The boy in question was fighting dutifully to her left, blocking blows of his own to keep them from reaching her. But Baz was only fourteen. He stood no chance against Grievous if she fell, if she even faltered for a moment. Digging out an opening for him to disengage and flee had been a challenge when there were two full Jedi defending him, a challenge that they had ultimately failed to achieve.
Grievous was the better fighter. In an all out assault, Fane would lose. But it was rapidly becoming clear that she was not going to be able to outlast him. Well. If she was going to die either way, then she would simply have to put everything she had into her next push, and pray it was enough to allow Baz a way out.
A half step back took her beyond the reach of Grievous' swing, and one to the right shifted her weight onto her dominant foot. A brief moment to gather the force around her, and then she launched herself forward, lightsaber extended, sweeping out to catch a pair of Grievous' sabers on hers-
Rather than engage, he stepped to the side. Fane flew past, landing several feet behind the cyborg. Immediately she scrambled to reorient herself, boots digging into the dirt as she spun back to the melee. He glanced at her over his shoulder, triumph in his eyes as Fane was forced to watch her mistake.
General Grievous, famed jedi killer, loomed tall over her little padawan. She was standing only feet away, but it may as well have been miles.
He lifted one of his sabers over his head, blue light glinting off his metal shell and coloring Baz's dark hair.
Fane shouted wordlessly and desperately flung herself back toward them, pulling her saber around in an arc aiming for Grievous' unprotected back, but even as she moved, she knew she was going to be too late.
Baz twisted, pulling his lightsaber up into a block, but too slowly. His wide eyes locked onto the blue blade hanging high over his head, saw it swinging down, and Fane watched as the fear in her padawan's eyes dimmed into resignation as he watched his death rapidly approaching.
The blade came down across her boy's chest and she screamed-
Just as it would have contacted Baz's shoulder, the blade suddenly flickered and died. The boy stumbled back in shock.
Grievous hesitated, staring down in utter bafflement at the now dark sabre.
Fane didn't. She swung her lightsaber up, carving a smoldering line from his hip to his shoulder, taking both arms off at the joint.
Grievous screamed, bringing his remaining two sabers down onto Fane's. Her knees nearly buckled, weakened by the relief that was flooding her body.
Alive! Alive! Her boy was still alive!
She parried three more blows, and Grievous began glancing around warily. The few jedi who had survived their encounters with the cyborg had reported that if sufficiently injured, Grievous tended to flee rather than fight to the death. Fane had once thought it was rather cowardly of him, but in this moment, as his blows slowed and he began casting around for a way out, she could only feel relief. This would be over soon, she just had to hold out a little longer. Just a little longer, and Baz would be safe.
She swung her saber up, nearly catching Grievous' chin as he leaned away. She stepped forward to follow through, and all but crashed into his outstretched foot. The claw dug into her tunic and grazed her chest, as he lifted her off her feet and flung her back toward Baz.
She hit the ground hard, but rolled back to her feet, raising her lightsaber into a defensive stance...
Toward the General's rapidly retreating back.
Fane breathed heavily, and did not pursue. Still, she waited until the cyborg was out of sight before she allowed her lightsaber to dip toward the ground, and then shut it off entirely, staring blankly into the distance for a long moment.
A hesitant, “Master?” came from beside her.
With a gasp, she turned and flung her arms around her padawan, collapsing to her knees and pulling the boy down with her. She twisted her fingers into his outer robe, and clutched him tight to her chest, doing her best not to think about how he had nearly just died. She would meditate on her fears and close brush with death later. Now she was only grateful to feel his heart beat beside hers.
She was not the only one who would be spending time meditating, but to his credit, Baz's voice wobbled only slightly as he asked, “Master, are you alright?” A hand came up to brush gently against one of her horns. “You're missing a bit here.”
Fane had taken not a few glancing blows in her efforts to protect him. She responded immediately, “I'm fine, Baz. And I have many horns. Not all need remain intact.”
He pulled back in her arms to scowl at her. She gave him a bland smile. Deliberately, without breaking her gaze, he poked at a shallow lightsaber burn on her shoulder. She very carefully did not react, even as the pain flared immediately from dull embers to blazing heat. He narrowed his eyes.
She glanced over to where Master L'narri had fallen. He appeared unconscious at a glance, but Fane could feel the flickering of his force signature that proved he had slipped into a light trance. Of the three of them, he was the most practiced in force healing, and was proving it as he continued slowly repairing some of the damage Grievous' blade had done. He would need medical attention, but he had managed to keep himself alive this long, and with Grievous gone, Fane was confident they'd be able to get him back to the ship in time.
She pressed a hand to Baz's cheek. “Collect the good General's lightsabers please, padawan. The Jedi they once belonged to have no more need of them, but they should be returned to their kin in the Temple.”
“Yes, Master,” he said, and went to retrieve them.
“Be cautious with the one that malfunctioned!”
He had mostly turned away, but she caught a glimpse of his eye roll as he said, “I will.”
She sighed, but picked herself up carefully and went to L'narri's side. Kneeling again, she pressed her hand over his where it was clutching at his wound, and tried coaxing some more energy into his healing efforts. He brushed lightly at her shields, and she felt relief flood his thoughts. His eyes blinked open and landed somewhere in the vicinity of her face. “May I assume, then, that we did not die?” he said, a grin coming to his face even as his normally gruff voice pitched further into gravelly as he fought through pain.
Had the situation been any less dire, she would have rolled her eyes. “If you are making jokes, then perhaps you are well enough to make your own way back to the ship?”
He chuckled weakly. “I'm afraid that I will be making jokes all the way to my grave, padawan. Thus it is a poor measure of my ambulatory capabilities.”
“Very well, then. I suppose I can be your crutch once again,” she said, shifting her weight to lift him up. He groaned and clutched tighter to the fabric near his wound, but made it up to a seated position.
It took liberal use of the force, but Fane finally managed to tug L'narri back to his feet. He leaned heavily into her side and his death grip around her shoulders was edging on strangling, but he was able to take a step forward with her. He shifted slightly in her grasp, and for a moment she thought he was collapsing, but then his thick horn tapped gently against the cluster of her own, the way he had when she was his padawan. The familiarity of the gesture soothed some of the lingering anxiety left over from the battle.
Baz trotted over to the pair of them, frowning down at one of the sabers in his hands. “Master? This lightsaber... doesn't feel right.”
Fane stiffened abruptly. She pulled the hilt from her padawan's hands with the force and flung it away, but didn't release her grasp of it. Baz gave a put upon sigh and raised his eyebrows at her. She didn't know what he was so cross about. Malfunctioning sabers had an alarming tendency to explode.
“I did check the force, Master. It isn't a danger.”
She narrowed her eyes, searching his face. L'narri coughed suspiciously. Shooting a glare briefly in her former master's direction, she glanced over to the saber hilt where it floated innocently a meter off the ground. The force didn't seem concerned, it was true, and if she was being honest, the saber probably would have exploded by now if it was going to.
She still gave it a vigorous shake before pulling it back to her.
The moment it hit her palm, she blinked. “It's empty.”
Baz startled. “What? What do you mean?”
She gently tugged the components of the hilt apart with the force to expose the casing that housed the kyber crystal. The empty casing, because the crystal was gone.
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“It's some sort of... evocation magic, but I can't...” Tolmerin frowned down at the small blue crystal. “It doesn't seem to do anything. It's almost like it's a spell component, rather than a magical item.”
“Will it work for our purposes?” Zuriel rolled the crystal into her fingers and held it to the light.
“Oh yes, I'm sure it will, it's just a curiosity, is all.” Merin blinked and took a sudden step back. “Ah, well...” He blinked again, his eyes growing suspiciously shiny. “I suppose that means we're leaving today then.” He took a deep breath, and his eyes flickered around the silent house.
Zuriel placed a hand on Merin's shoulder. “It is barely dawn now. We have several hours yet before we have to go. Take a moment for yourself. We have time.”
Merin's eyebrows drew together and his tears nearly overflowed, but he swallowed thickly and steeled himself, nodding. “I... think I'll take a walk,” he said, striving for pleasant, and almost reaching it.
She nodded. “I will wake the others. They will not want to waste time sleeping today.”
He took a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, today is gonna be... its gonna be something.” And with a final nod he strode out into the morning light.
Today would certainly be something.