The Twileks survey Vader and the Emperor's Lylek slaughter

"What do we expect to find here?" Isval asked Cham. "Bodies?"

Cham shrugged, looked to Goll.

"If the lyleks caught them, there won't be anything left of the bodies," Goll said. "But there will be signs of a feeding frenzy. That'll tell us all we need to know."

The thought of Vader and the Emperor being torn apart by a hungry pack of Ryloth's chief predatory animal seemed fitting somehow. Still, Isval had seen the things Vader could do-things that no one should have been able to do.

"And if there was no feeding frenzy?" she asked. "If they escaped?"

"No one escapes on foot," Goll said.

Isval was not so sure.

Within the half hour they found the first of the lylek carcasses. The huge body lay in the undergrowth, its head missing. Isval eyed the body, which seemed all edges and spikes and points, covered in a dry, chitinous exoskeleton that looked like weathered stone and was probably sturdier than armor. Its tentacles were rubbery lengths thicker around than her arm.

"Blaster shot," Goll said, examining the stump of the lylek's neck. "See the charring? 'Bout the only way a blaster brings one of these down."

"If they killed the entire horde, could you pick the trail back up?" Cham asked.

Goll looked at him in disbelief. "Cham, killing one lylek is one thing. Maybe just a lucky shot. But wiping out a horde with a blaster while on foot? That's like trying to kill a sandstorm. It's a force of nature. It'll consume you and barely know you're there."

"Could you pick the trail back up, Goll?"

"I...yes, I think. Lot of variables, of course, but-"

"Good," Cham said.

Soon they found more carcasses, all of them headshot.

"Getting closer," Goll said softly. "Stay sharp."

They came to the edge of a ravine, and all three of them stopped cold. They looked down into it for a long time, staring in shocked silence. Goll broke the quiet with a soft curse.

Dozens of lylek carcasses lay scattered about the bottom and walls of the ravine. A number of them headshot, but some other force had destroyed the rest. Legs were broken and twisted, exoskeletons shattered and cracked. One carcass lay half buried in the hillside on the opposite side of the ravine. Goll surveyed the scene, the usual furrow back in his brow.

"The horde didn't come out of the ravine," he said. "Lyleks nest underground. This must be an entry point." He didn't sound certain to Isval. "Probably a lot of holes leading down to the nest all along that side of the ravine. But I don't..."

"Was there a feeding frenzy here?" Cham asked.

Isval knew the answer before Goll said it.

"I don't...no, I don't think so," he said. "Come on."

Isval hesitated a moment as a mental image formed in her brain of lyleks bubbling up out of holes in the ground, trapping them in the bottom of the ravine.

"Stay up here and cover the approaches," she said to Goll's people, who lined the edge of the ravine, staring down in wonder.

"Stay sharp," Goll ordered them, and started down the side of the ravine, using what remained of the undergrowth to keep his footing as he descended. Cham and Isval followed.

The creek that once ran through the ravine had been churned into a paste of mud ichor by the lylek horde. Eyeing the carcasses of the dead, Isval could not imagine what Vader and the Emperor had done to break apart the lyleks so thoroughly.

"Grenades?" Goll asked, though Isval saw no sign of charring or burning.

"Must be something we haven't seen," Cham said.

"These are apex predators," Goll said in disbelief. "We fortify our cities out of fear of facing a handful of these. And this group of four, facing a horde on foot? These are apex predators," he repeated.

Vader is the apex predator, Isval thought but didn't dare say aloud.