Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [86]
He whirled around to see a small man in his fifties, clad all in black, standing on the far edge of the camp. In his hand was a green lightsaber, though it was obvious from the way he gripped it that he had never received any proper training in how to handle the exotic weapon.
At the man’s side was Bane’s own apprentice; she had not drawn her lightsaber.
Bane snarled in anger at her betrayal, his rising anger fueled by the chemicals the orbalisks were pumping into his system.
“Today is the day you die, Darth Bane,” the man said, charging forward to attack.
At the same time, the five red-robed figures rushed in from behind him. Bane spun and thrust his open palm toward them, lashing out with the power of the dark side. Like the Jedi and Sith, one of the first techniques Shadow Assassins learned was the creation of a Force barrier. Channeling their power, they could form a protective shield around themselves to negate the Force attacks of their enemies. But if an opponent was strong enough, a concentrated attack could still breach the barrier. Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith, was definitely strong enough.
Two of the assassins were stopped in their tracks, knocked to the ground as if they had run into an invisible wall. Two more, weaker and less able to defend themselves against Bane’s power, were sent flying backward. Only the fifth was strong enough to resist the Sith Lord’s throw and continue his charge.
However, without his brethren at his side to harry and distract his foe, he found himself the sole focus of Bane’s wrath. Unable to defend against the savage sequence of lightsaber cuts and thrusts, he fell in a matter of seconds, half a dozen fatal wounds scored across his chest and face.
While the four remaining assassins regained their feet, Bane wheeled back to their leader. Wisely, the man in black had stopped his own charge and was gathering the Force. As Bane stepped toward him the man unleashed it in a single long, thin bolt of indigo lightning. Bane caught the blast with his lightsaber, the blade absorbing the energy. In retaliation he struck back with lightning of his own—a storm of a dozen bolts arcing in toward his target from all angles.
The man leapt high in the air, flipping backward to avoid the deadly electrical conflagration. He landed on his feet ten meters away, a small, smoking crater marking the spot where he had been standing only an instant before.
“Zannah!” the man shouted. “Do something!”
But Bane’s apprentice didn’t move. She merely stood off to the side, biding her time and observing the action.
The assassins fell on Bane again, but instead of repelling them with the Force, he allowed his body to become a conduit, turning himself into a physical manifestation of the dark side’s tumultuous power. As he spun like a whirlwind, his blade seemed to be everywhere at once: hacking, slashing, and slicing his enemies to ribbons.
All four assassins died in the attack, though one managed to land a single blow with his force pike before his throat was slit, the wound so deep it nearly severed his head. Fueled by rage and fury, Bane shrugged off the deadly electrical shock like a rancor shrugging off the bite of a venn-bug.
Once again he turned his attention to the man in black. Bane marched slowly toward him as his adversary stood frozen in place, paralyzed by the terrifying knowledge of his own imminent death.
“Zannah!” the man cried out to her again, holding his lightsaber vertically before him as if it were a talisman that could hold the approaching demon at bay. “Master! Help me!”
Bane chopped down with his own weapon, severing the man’s sword arm at the elbow. The man screamed and dropped to his knees. An instant later his voice went silent as Bane ran him through with a single hard thrust, the lightsaber entering his chest just below his heart and protruding a full half a meter out the back of his shoulder blade.
Bane slid his blade back out. As the old man’s body fell face-forward into the dirt, the Dark Lord turned to his apprentice. Zannah merely stood there, watching him.