In the past months, however, he had worked hard to learn his style and refine his technique. He learned new sequences quickly, and when Kas'im himself had commented on his progress, Bane had felt confident enough to begin accepting the challenges. He wasn't victorious every time, but he was winning far more duels than he was losing, slowly climbing his way to the top of the ladder. Today he felt ready to take another step.
The apprentices were standing three rows deep, forming a ring of bodies around a clearing in the center roughly ten meters in diameter. Kas'im stepped into the middle. He didn't speak, but merely tilted his head, a sign that it was time for the challenges to begin. Bane stepped into the center before anyone else could make a move.
"I challenge Fohargh," he announced in ringing tones.
"I accept" came the reply from somewhere in the crowd on the opposite side. The apprentices parted to let the one challenged pass. Kas'im gave a slight bow to each combatant and stepped to the clearing's edge to give them room.
Fohargh was a Makurth. In many ways he reminded Bane of the Trandoshans he had fought in his days with the Gloom Walkers. Both species were bipedal saurians, lizardlike humanoids covered in leathery green scales, but the Makurths had four curved horns growing from the top of their heads.
Early in Bane's training, he had fought Fohargh, and he had lost. Badly.
The Makurth was nocturnal by nature. Like the miners of the night shift on Apatros, however, he had grown accustomed to an unnatural schedule in order to train with the rest of the apprentices at the Academy. During their first duel Bane had underestimated Fohargh, expecting him to be sluggish and slow during the daylight hours. He wouldn't make that mistake twice.
As Kas'im and the apprentices watched in silence, the two combatants circled each other in the ring, training sabers held out before them in standard ready stances. The Makurth's breath came in grunts and growls from his flaring nostrils as he tried to intimidate his human opponent. From time to time he'd give a short bellow and shake his four-horned lizard's head while flashing his savage teeth. The last time he'd faced the green-scaled, snorting demon of an apprentice, Bane had been intimidated by Fohargh's act. Now he simply ignored the posturing.
Bane lunged out with a simple overhand strike, but Fohargh responded with a quick parry to deflect the blow to the side. Instead of the crackle and hum of blades of pure energy crossing, there was a loud clang as the weapons clashed. Immediately the combatants spun away from each other and resumed their ready positions.
Bane rushed forward, his blade ascending diagonally from right to left in a long, swift arc. Fohargh managed to redirect the impact with his own weapon, but lost his balance and stumbled back. Bane tried to press his advantage, his training saber arcing up from left to right. His opponent spun out of harm's way, backpedaling quickly to create space. Bane broke off the half-completed sequence and settled back into the ready position.
Back on Apatros his latent abilities in the Force had allowed him to anticipate and react to the moves of his foe. Here, however, every opponent enjoyed the same advantage. As a result, victory required a combination of the Force and physical skill.
Bane had worked on acquiring that physical skill over the past months. As this ability grew, he was able to devote less and less of his mental energy to the physical actions of thrust, parry, and counterthrust. This allowed him to keep his mind focused so he could use the Force to anticipate his opponent's moves, while at the same time obscuring and confusing his enemy's own precognitive senses.
The last time he and Fohargh had fought, Bane had still been a novice. He had only learned a handful of sequences. Now he knew almost a hundred, and he was able to transition smoothly from the end of one sequence into the beginning of another, opening up a wider range of attack-and-defense combinations. And more options made it more difficult for a foe to use the Force to anticipate his actions.
Fohargh, despite his terrifying appearance, was smaller and lighter than his human opponent. Physically outmatched by the brute force of Bane's Form V, he was forced to rely on the defensive style of Form III to keep his larger opponent's overpowering attacks at bay.
Spinning his training saber in a quick flourish, Bane leapt high in the air and came crashing down from above. Fohargh parried the attack but was knocked to the ground. He rolled onto his back and barely managed to get his saber up in time to block Bane's next slashing attack. A chorus of metal on metal rang out as Bane's blows descended like rain. The Makurth kept him from landing a direct hit with a masterful defensive flurry, then swept Bane off his feet with a leg-whip, leaving them both supine.
They flipped to their feet simultaneously, mirror images, and their sabers met with another resounding crash before they disengaged once again. There were some whispers and mutters from the assembled crowd, but Bane did his best to tune them out. They had thought the battle was over… as had Bane himself. He was disappointed that he hadn't been able to finish off his fallen opponent, but he knew victory was near. Fohargh's survival had extracted a heavy tolclass="underline" he was breathing in ragged gasps now, his shoulders slumping.
Bane rushed Fohargh again. This time, however, the Makurth didn't back away. He stepped forward with a quick thrust, switching from Form III to the more precise and aggressive Form II. Bane was caught off guard by the unexpected maneuver and was a microsecond slow in recognizing the change. His parry attempt knocked the tip of the blade away from his chest, only to have it slice across his right shoulder.
The crowd gasped, Fohargh howled in victory, and Bane screamed in pain as the saber slipped to the ground from his suddenly nerveless fingers. Mindlessly, Bane used his other hand to shove his opponent in the chest. Fohargh reeled backward, and Bane rolled away to safety.
Scrambling to his feet, Bane extended his left hand to the training saber lying on the ground three meters away. It sprang up and into his palm, and he once again assumed the ready position, his right arm dangling uselessly at his side. Some Sith learned to fight with either hand, but Bane hadn't yet reached that advanced stage. The weapon felt awkward and clumsy as he held it. Left-handed, he was no match for Fohargh. The fight was over.
His opponent sensed it, as well. "Defeat is bitter, human," he growled in Basic, his voice deep and menacing. "I have bested you; you have lost."
He wasn't asking Bane to yield; surrender was never an option. He was simply taunting him, publicly humiliating him in front of the other students.
"You trained for weeks to challenge me," Fohargh continued, drawing out his mockery. "You failed. Victory is mine again."
"Then come finish me!" Bane snapped back. There wasn't much else he could say. Everything his enemy said in his heavily accented Basic was true, and the words cut far deeper than the blunted training saber's edge possibly could.
"This ends when I choose," the Makurth replied, refusing to be baited.