Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [7]
Drawing new courage from the arrival of fresh reinforcements, their surviving assailants redoubled their own attack. Jedi and Padawan were forced steadily backward.
Then there was no more backward. The side street dead-ended against a featureless courtyard wall. To anyone else it would have appeared unscalable. But a Jedi could find hand- and footholds where others would see only a smooth surface.
“Barriss!” Lightsaber whirling, Luminara indicated the reddish-colored barrier behind them. “Go up! I’ll follow.” Dropping to his knees, a man clad in tough leathers took careful aim with a blaster. Luminara blocked both his shots before taking one hand briefly off the lightsaber to gesture in his direction. Like a living thing, the dangerous weapon flew out of his hands, startling him so badly he fell backward onto his butt. Protected by his fellow assassins, he did not panic like a common killer but instead scrambled to recover the blaster. They couldn’t keep this up forever, she knew.
“Up, I said!” Luminara did not have to turn to sense the unyielding wall behind her.
Barriss hesitated. “Master, you can cover me if I climb, but I can’t do the same for you from the top of the wall.” Lunging, she disarmed a serpentine Wetakk who was trying to slip in under her guard. Letting out a yelp of pain, it stepped back and switched the hooked blade it was holding to another hand, of which it still had five remaining. Without missing a breath, the Padawan added, “You can’t climb and use your weapon, too!”
“I’ll be all right,” Luminara assured her, even as she wondered how she was going to make the ascent without being cut down from behind. But her first concern was for her Padawan, and not for herself. “That’s an order, Barriss! Get up there. We have to get out of this confined space.”
Reluctantly, Barriss took a last sweeping swing to clear the ground in front of her. Then she shut down her lightsaber, slipped it back onto her belt, pivoted, took a few steps, and leapt. The jump carried her partway up the wall, to which she clung like a spider. Finding seemingly invisible fingerholds, she began to ascend. Below and behind her, Luminara single-handedly held back the entire surging throng of eager killers.
Nearly at the top, Barriss looked back and down. Luminara was not only holding off her own assailants, but had moved forward to ensure that none of those in the back would have time to take aim at the climbing Padawan. Barriss hesitated.
“Master Luminara, there are too many! I can’t protect you from up here.”
The Jedi turned to respond. As she did so, she failed to see or sense a small Throbe standing behind a much larger human. The Throbe’s blaster was small, its aim wild, but the undeflected shot still managed to graze the woman in the umber robes. Luminara staggered.
“Master!” Frantic, Barriss debated whether to ascend the remaining distance to the top of the wall or disobey her Master and drop back down to aid her. In the midst of her confusion, a subtle tremor ran through her mind. It was a disturbance in the Force, but one very different from anything they had experienced this dreadful morning. It was also surprisingly strong.
Yelling encouragement, the two men plunged past on either side of Luminara. Neither was physically imposing, though one had a build suggestive of considerable future development. Lightsabers flashing, they fell in among the bewildered band of assassins, their weapons dealing out havoc in bantha-sized doses.
To their credit, the attackers held their ground for another couple of moments. Then, their associates falling all around them, the survivors broke and fled. In less than a minute,