III - The Way
The inferno within both of them burned bright as it did around them, and A'Met took the lead in the lethal dance.
The first step, a vicious overhead strike that near-buckled Fett's elbows.
The next, a low sweep with the flanged end of the gadderfi that nearly took away Boba's left foot.
So on and and so forth—an unrelenting staccato barrage of strength and steel his coda, each strike aimed to maim or kill.
Such was this dance made to the crackling flames, the chanting of the clan possessed and the pounding of the drums of war.
A'Met's bellows of rage and pain added to the din, the sound of their gadderfi smashing into one another akin to peals of desert thunder.
Boba Fett could not begin to imagine the pain that ran through A'Met's being—this honorable warrior who had saved his life, reduced into this animalistic berserker.
He could barely meet the enraged Tusken's strikes head-on. Neither Krrsantan nor Bossk had given him this much trouble during the times they had resorted to fisticuffs to settle disputes.
The Tusken's gadderfi was black lightning striking from every direction and Fett struggled despite being proclaimed a prodigy by the tribe.
His attempts to counterattack were met with astoundingly fast and vicious responses from his once-brother, his gadderfi's blows never quite making their target and barely slowing A'Met's advance.
And then at last, A'Met's strikes hit home.
Fett had dived low to avoid a lethal sideways swipe—there, the human tried to smash the mad Tusken's face with a horizontal thrust from the shaft of his staff.
Alas, sparks flew.
The screech of grating metal melded with the howls of the tribe when Boba Fett's gadderfi was rent in two by a mighty upwards sweep from the bladed end of A'Met's staff.
The Tusken followed through with a powerful kick that sent the remains of Fett's weapon flying from his hands and him tumbling nearly into the yawning precipice.
Fear.
It is said that when faced with calamity, all sentients revert into their most primal being.
All thought gone except to kill or be killed.
Boba Fett knew this and more—such unrestrained primordial instinct was ill-advised.
He had practiced a cold methodical approach all his life. This he had taken after his late father—and not once had it failed him until then.
It was his pride that he could be so ruthlessly efficient without giving into unbridled savagery as it was with beasts in his former profession such as Bossk.
Fear had been alien to him. But now…
Standing quickly at the literal edge of oblivion, naked as the day he was born and without a tool to defend himself…
Fear.
To kill or be killed.
For the first time perhaps since his nightmarish torture from within the filthy bowels of the Sarlacc, Boba Fett felt fear.
He was losing the battle and with it, his life.
Know your fear.
Boba heard his father's voice say in his clouded mind, and he understood.
His pain dulled, his muscles flexed.
Know yourself.
His heart hammered, though his breaths had calmed.
His thoughts had cleared, and his senses sharpened.
This is the way.
A'Met charged only for Fett to evade his enraged attack, the blunt end of the Tusken's gadderfi smashing and lodging momentarily into the ageless rock.
A barrage of punches then rained down on the Tusken—landing home on his thigh, hip, ribs and square on the jaw.
Momentarily dazed, A'Met faltered from his furious lunge and was answered by a knee to the face that sent him toppling backward and slamming hard onto the sandy earth, blood spurting from his mouthpiece.
Boba Fett's fists landed on A'Met with the force and sound of crashing thunder, adding new notes in the symphony made by the chanting tribe, the pounding drums and the roaring flames.
No retreat.
Jango Fett's words rang clear as daylight in his son's mind—he had wasted no time pouncing upon the dazed Tusken to end what they had begun.
No surrender.
The adage that all Mandalorians lived and died from sang into his spirit, lending him strength.
This is the way.
Had A'Met been another human, and Fett may have succeeded in beating him to death.
Alas, with a roar and strength borne from sheer rage and desperation did the Tusken warrior manage to rise from the dust, lifting his assailant bodily with him.
Time seemed to slow down for the astonished human even as he continued to beat back his assailant.
Then for a moment, Fett's world went white upon being slammed down onto the unforgiving sand and stone.
By then, the glow of the first of Tatooine's suns was joining the living scarlet of the blazing ring.