Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [85]
But how much of your power is wasted on the parasites infesting your body?
The question sprang unbidden to his mind, posed not in his own voice but that of his apprentice. Zannah had expressed her concerns about the effect the orbalisks might be having on him; it was possible she was right.
He had always believed the drawbacks of the orbalisks—the constant pain, the disfiguring appearance—to be offset by the benefits they provided. They healed him, made him physically stronger, and protected him against all manner of weapons. Now he began to question that belief. While it was true that he could channel his power through the creatures for a temporary increase in his abilities, over the long term they might actually be weakening him. They were constantly feeding on the dark side energies that flowed through his veins. Was it possible that, after a decade of infestation, his ability to draw upon the Force had been subtly diminished?
It was an idea he would have once dismissed out of hand. But his continued failure with the Holocrons had forced him to reevaluate his symbiotic relationship with the strange crustaceans. He could feel them even now, feeding, drawing on the Force that flowed through his veins.
The orbalisks suddenly became agitated. They twitched and trembled against his flesh; he felt their insatiable hunger growing as if in response to the nearby presence of a fresh source of dark side power.
Bane glanced around, expecting to see Zannah approaching the camp beneath the brightness of the full moon. He saw nothing; he sensed nothing—not even the small creatures and insects that came out at night to hunt for food, flying overhead or crawling across the sand. The normal awareness he had of the ambient world around him seemed strangely muted or … masked!
He leapt to his feet and drew his lightsaber, the blade blazing to life with a crackling hiss. A burst of red light exploded around him, illuminating the darkness and burning away the illusions cloaking his unseen enemies.
Eight red-robed figures surrounded the camp, their identities hidden by the visors of their helmets. Each carried a long metal rod that Bane recognized as a force pike, the traditional weapon of the Umbaran Shadow Assassins.
Specially trained in the art of killing Force-sensitive adversaries, Shadow Assassins preferred to rely on stealth and surprise. Exposed by Bane’s energy burst, they suddenly found their greatest advantage taken away. And even though there were eight of them, Bane never hesitated.
He leapt forward and cut the first red-robed figure down before he—or she—had a chance to react, a single slash of his lightsaber bisecting the unfortunate opponent horizontally, just above the waist.
The other seven swarmed him, thrusting their force pikes forward to deliver the deadly electrical charge stored in the tips. Bane never even bothered to parry the incoming blows, relying on his orbalisk armor to protect him as he adopted a strategy of pure offense.
His unexpected tactics caught two more of the assassins completely unprepared, and they walked right into a sweeping two-handed cut that disemboweled them both.
The remaining five struck Bane almost simultaneously, their force pikes sending a million volts of current through his body. The orbalisks absorbed most of the charge, but enough filtered through to jolt him from his teeth down to his toes.
The Dark Lord staggered and fell to his knees. But instead of rushing in to finish him off, the assassins simply stood their ground. The idea that anything smaller than a bantha could withstand a direct hit from a force pike set to maximum charge—let alone five pikes at the same time—was inconceivable. Their miscalculation gave Bane the second he needed to shake off the effects and rise to his feet, much to the amazement and horror of his enemies.
“Zannah was right about you,” a voice from behind Bane called