Mace didn’t trouble with the distractions that had made Vastor’s path jag like a bolt of lightning; he went straight for the door’s shattered gape as though launched from a cannon. He reached it only steps behind the larger man.

And froze.

Froze despite the chilling whine of those teardrop shields, despite Vastor’s rumbling snarl like the hunting-cough of a hungry vine cat. Despite a sound Mace could no more ignore than he could reverse the rotation of the planet: the shrieks of children screaming in terror.

The burning compound below lit the bunker’s ceiling with shifting light the color of blood, casting Mace’s shadow huge and wavering, indistinct but utterly black: a shadow that shrouded all within. The only light that fell upon the core of his shadow was the unnatural wash of mingled green and purple glare from his lightsabers.

Vastor stood within, hunched like a gundark, his right arm drawn back to strike. Dangling from hair tangled in Vastor’s left fist, feet kicking above the floor, sobbing uncontrollably about how all you stinkin’ kornos have to die, was Terrel.

“Vastor, stop!” Mace opened himself to the full flood of the Force, and used it to hammer at the lor pelek’s will. “Don’t do it, Kar. Put the boy down.”

He might as well have not bothered; Vastor’s answering snarl translated in Mace’s mind as When I am done with him. The shield strapped to Vastor’s left arm made a mirrored halo over Terrel’s head, but now the other angled toward where Besh and Chalk lay. Look there, and see what sort of creature I hold.

“He’s not some creature,” Mace responded with reflexive certainty. “He’s a boy. His name … his name is …” His voice trailed away as his eyes finally made sense of what Vastor was pointing at. “Terrel …”

Besh and Chalk lay on the stone floor midway between where Vastor stood holding Terrel and where Keela, Pell, and the two younger boys cowered. The clothing of the thanatizine-bound Korunnai appeared inexplicably rumpled, even tattered, and over their torsos it glistened a wet oily black.


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 8