Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [71]
Johun was already back on his feet, bracing for the first man’s next attack. But rather than face him alone, his remaining adversary turned to flee, making a break for the walkway leading from the platform back to the shore.
He passed the Twi’lek at a dead run, then stopped as his body went rigid and his hands flew to his throat. He turned around slowly so he was facing Johun, clutching the bloody gash just beneath his jaw as he toppled forward and fell facedown on the platform.
It happened so fast it took a moment to register on Johun. Then he noticed the small, crescent-shaped blades clutched in each of the Twi’lek’s hands. They looked like miniature sickles; the one in his left hand was a bright silver, the one in the right dripped with red.
The Chiss and the tattooed man had been making their way toward the platform to join the battle. Seeing the Twi’lek cut their escaping accomplice down, they abruptly reconsidered. Faced with a wrathful Jedi Knight and an ally who would kill them if they tried to flee the confrontation on the platform, they made the only logical choice and raced back up the walkway to their waiting vehicle. Piling in, they fired up the engines and sped away, wanting no part of a plan that had gone so wrong.
Stepping over the still-gasping body of the accomplice he had just killed, the Twi’lek dropped into a fighting crouch. He didn’t seem to know or care that the other two had abandoned him. His lekku hung down behind him like twin tails, the tips twitching and curling in anticipation.
“I’ve always wanted to test my skills against a Jedi,” he said, issuing the challenge.
Johun was more than willing to accept. He leapt forward, moving with the blinding speed of the Force as he stabbed his lightsaber squarely at the Twi’lek’s chest to put a quick end to their confrontation. With an almost casual grace, the red-skinned Twi’lek merely leaned backward and twisted out of the way, slashing out with the strange crescent blades at Johun’s throat.
The Jedi turned his body at the last second, avoiding the first blade completely, but catching the other with the meat of his right shoulder. It sliced deep into the muscle, eliciting a grunt of pain from Johun.
He wheeled back around to see the Twi’lek in the same low crouch, holding the crescent blades up in front of him like a boxer. Johun approached more cautiously this time, recognizing that this opponent was far more dangerous than the other three put together.
Using tight slashes and quick cuts, he probed his enemy’s defenses with his lightsaber, trying to learn the patterns and rhythms of his foe’s unfamiliar weapons. The Twi’lek slapped each blow aside with contemptuous ease, alternating hands so he could always leave one of the crescents up in a defensive position.
The unusual weapons sacrificed reach for speed and maneuverability, Johun realized. He was vulnerable if he let the Twi’lek get in close, but if he could keep him at a distance he had the advantage. The Twi’lek seemed to realize this, too, and began to move in slowly.
Johun tried to force him back with a sequence of aggressive attacks, but he was unable to penetrate the Twi’lek’s defenses. No matter what he tried, his enemy was always able to keep at least one of the crescent blades back to parry his blows.
Frustrated, Johun overextended on one of his strikes, bringing the lightsaber in a fraction of a centimeter too high and wide and putting too much weight on his front foot. The mistake nearly proved fatal.
The Twi’lek swatted Johun’s blade aside and stepped forward, closing the distance between them to less than a meter as he slid inside the arc of the lightsaber’s effective range. The sickle of his left hand sliced down in a high vertical strike as the one in his right carved