Bleeding Kyber Chapter 8: 08_ Force Awakening (2)

Read chapter 8 of Bleeding Kyber by theRonin_666 on NovelPedia.

The morning sun rose in the desert sky, its rays scorching the early morning mist and drying the last moisture from the desert. The second morning, they took the tongueless man. Herald didn't see it happen, the scavengers came while the sky was still dark, before the heat woke up, but he heard it. The scrape of a cage door. A muffled grunt. The thud of boots on sand. Then the hauler rumbled through the darkness of night. "What are they doing with him?" he asked the lesser force. 'Selling him. The same as they plan to sell you.' "Where?" 'A settlement. A way station. Does the location matter when the fate is the same?' Herald didn't answer. The pebble was in his hand. He closed his eyes and lifted it. This time, it rose five inches. This time, it held for six seconds. And when it dropped, he didn't feel like his skull was going to split open. 'Still adequate,' said the lesser force. "Getting there," said Herald. By the third day, he could lift two pebbles simultaneously. By the fourth, he could hold them in the air while carrying on a conversation, which the lesser force informed him was the first milestone toward sustained telekinesis. The headache was fading. The connection was strengthening. The blue thread no longer felt like spider silk; it felt like thread finally solid, no matter the strength. But the cages kept emptying. The two women went next, sold together to a merchant who met the hauler at a crossroads Herald couldn't see. He heard their voices, once desperate, now lifeless, fade into the distance. The next day, a man with a brand on his forearm that marked him as a rebel sympathizer was dragged out by two scavengers and handed over to a uniformed figure whose voice was all clipped efficiency and Imperial accent. Each time, Herald practiced. Each time, the pebbles rose a little higher, held a little longer. On the fifth day, there was only him in the barricade. The scavengers had stopped looking at him. He was the last piece of cargo, and they were in no hurry to offload damaged goods. Greel would pay for him, they'd heard the name in the controllers' message, but Greel was still days away, and the scavengers had fuel to burn and arguments to finish and a flask that never seemed to run dry as they drank until dark. Herald sat in his cage and lifted three pebbles at once. They orbited his head in a slow, trembling circle. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His jaw was clenched. But the pebbles kept moving. 'You are ready,' said the lesser force. "For what?" 'The door.' Herald opened his eyes. The pebbles dropped. He looked at the cage door, the rusted lock, the simple latch mechanism, the chain that wrapped around the bars. "I can't lift a lock yet. I've barely got pebbles." 'You do not need to lift the lock. You need to move the latch. You have been training for this.' Herald stared at the latch. It was right there. Five feet away. A finger's width of metal. "How long will it take?" 'That depends entirely on you.' The hauler rumbled on. The scavengers argued about remaining fuel. The desert stretched endless and indifferent. And Herald, alone in his cage, reached out with the Force and began, very slowly, to pull. The scavengers moved away from the barricade, the noise of their argument fading into the desert wind as darkness crept following the falling sun. The air became cold as the temperature in the desert dropped. A faint dark cloud hung in the sky, as if foreseeing what was about to happen. Blue light shone faintly in Herald's cage, force flowing from his mind as he willed the latch outside to unbind. The latch gave way with a click so soft it might have been a dream. Herald held his breath. The cage door swung outward an inch, then two, and the cold desert air rushed in like a living being set free. He waited for a shout, a footstep, the crack of a photonic whip. Nothing. The scavengers were still arguing somewhere near the hauler's cab, their voices smeared by distance and drink. He slipped out of the cage. The