Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) Read Online Free PDF

mammoth beast’s shaggy head, snapping the tusks like brittle straws and caving in the creature’s thick skull. The bantha grunted.
    Momentum carried it forward until it slumped in a tumbled heap to the canyon floor.
    As the last Tusken Raider heard a sound beside him, he whirled, bringing his gaffing stick up just as Malakili struck with the smaller boulder, crushing his attacker’s swathed head. The Tusken Raider fell to the rocks, thick bandages soaking up the spreading flower of bright blood.
    Malakili’s heart pounded as he looked at the carnage.
    The rancor let out a ululating bellow of triumph and looked at Malakili with something like contented satisfaction. Then the monster squatted over the bloody carcass of the slain bantha and began to feed.
    Later, Malakili clung to the dry knobby skin of the rancor’s neck as the monster trotted across the sands in the desert twilight. It knew where its home was and arrowed straight toward the underbelly of Jabba’s palace.
    As it ran hunched over, puffs of sand drifted into the purpling night.
    The rancor had gorged itself, and blood spattered the monster’s chest.
    It seemed to consider Malakili strange for not devouring the Tusken Raider he had killed, but Malakili had no appetite.
    Already he was wondering how he would explain everything to Jabba the Hutt.

Lunchtime Beneath the Jaws
    It turned out that Jabba didn’t particularly care that Malakili had taken the rancor out for a romp in the wastelands—he was furious, however, that he had missed its titanic battle with the two banthas.
    Malakili beamed with a paternal pride as he extolled his monster’s bravery and viciousness, but Bib Fortuna whispered a different suggestion into Jabba’s ear. The Hutt lurched upright on his dais with a belch of delight. Wouldn’t it make a magnificent duel to pit the rancor against a krayt dragon?
    The legendary desert dragons of Tatooine were huge and rare and instilled more fear than any other creature in this sector of the galaxy. None had ever been captured alive before, but Jabba’s incentive—one hundred thousand credits guaranteed to anyone who could bring in a live, unharmed specimen—was enough to ensure the most ambitious efforts. Even the great bounty hunter Boba Fett vowed to remain at Jabba’s palace as he considered the best way to tackle the challenge.
    Malakili was convinced that someone would succeed, and he looked upon the threatened battle with great dread. Though he was proud of his rancor’s abiLities, he knew how awesome the krayt dragons were.
    Jabba planned to build a special amphitheater out in the bowl of desert sands visible from his tallest towers, where the krayt dragon and the rancor would face off and tear each other apart. Even if the rancor managed to defeat the incredible dragon, Malakili suspected the battle itself would wound the rancor grievously, perhaps mortally.
    He couldn’t allow that.
    Down in the lower levels of the dungeons, Malakili wheeled a heavily laden cart stacked high with dripping stacks of meat, sawed bones, and leftovers from the slaughterhouse connected to Jabba’s kitchens.
    Porcellus, Jabba’s chef, had set aside choice morsels as treats for the rancor, as well as a sandwich of sliced, marinated meat for Malakili’s own lunch.
    Malakili got along well with the skittish cook, passing along whatever gossip he managed to hear in the lower levels, though he had to listen to the chef’s ever-increasing fears thatJabba would soon tire of his culinary abilities and feed him to the rancor.
    With a sigh, Malakili pushed the cart to the barred gate of the rancor pit. The wheels squeaked like a terrified bristling rodent in the dungeon levels. He swung open the gate, pulled the cart through, and fastened the door behind him.
    The rancor stood up and watched him bring the mound of meat closer, running a stubby purplish tongue across the edges of its packed rows of teeth.
    Malakili nudged the meat in front of the rancor