Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [95]
“I’ll go in her place,” Anakin said. “Of my own will. But you have to release her.”
“How ridiculous,” the commander said. “I will do nothing of the kind. Your decision will decide whether she lives or dies, nothing more. She is ours.”
“Jeedai,” Vua Rapuung croaked, rising shakily to his feet. “Remember your oath to me.” Anakin saw with dismay that Rapuung had one hand stuffed into a gaping hole in his belly.
What could he do? The commander would kill Tahiri. He was sure of that, and in his present condition he would never be able to stop it. But if he surrendered, he betrayed Vua Rapuung.
But Rapuung was probably dying. How would regaining his honor now do anyone any good?
Anakin put his hand on Rapuung’s shoulder. “I remember my oath,” he said. “Which one is she?”
“The female with the eight-fingered hand.”
Anakin looked back up at the commander. “All right, this one thing, then, if you want me alive. It will cost you nothing.”
“I doubt that. Speak.”
“Compel the shaper named Mezhan Kwaad to speak the truth.”
“About what?”
“The questions Vua Rapuung will put to her.”
“I see no ‘Vua Rapuung,’ ” the commander said stiffly. “Only a Shamed One who does not know his place.”
“It is not I who am shamed,” Rapuung said. “Do as the infidel says, and know the truth.”
“There is no sense in listening to any demented lies from this one,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “He fights by the side of a Jeedai infidel. What more need be said?”
Behind them, the square was gradually filling with warriors and onlookers. A shout came from below.
“Do you fear the truth, Mezhan Kwaad? If he is mad, then compelling you to speak will do you no harm.”
Anakin looked over his shoulder and saw the warrior who had stopped them the first day—Hul Rapuung, Vua’s brother.
A general murmur of approval went around with that.
“How many of you fought with him?” Hul continued. “Who ever questioned the courage of Vua Rapuung? Who ever doubted the gods loved him?”
“Mezhan Kwaad is correct, however,” the commander said dryly. “He is self-evidently pronounced mad by his behavior.” He glanced at the shaper. “However, having found one treachery in Mezhan Kwaad—the treachery of heresy—I see no reason to doubt she is capable of others.” He turned to the shaper master. “Master Mezhan Kwaad, I compel you to answer truthfully whatever questions the Shamed One once known in Domain Rapuung puts to you. Your truthfulness will not rest on your honor, but on the truthhearer I procured for your questioning in the other matter.”
“I will not submit to any such indignity,” Mezhan Kwaad replied.
“You do not have the right to refuse, and your domain will pay the full price if you attempt to. Answer his questions and let us end this.”
Mezhan Kwaad’s eyes glittered curiously, and she lifted her chin. She bared her teeth contemptuously at Vua Rapuung.
“Ask your questions, Shamed One.”
“I have but one,” Vua Rapuung said. “Mezhan Kwaad. Did you intentionally rob me of my implants, ruin my scars, give me the appearance of being Shamed? Did you do these things to me, or did the gods?”
Mezhan Kwaad stared at him with an unreadable expression, then lifted her chin even higher.
“There are no gods,” she said. “This miserable thing you are is what I made of you.”
The crowd erupted in frenzy.
Mezhan Kwaad spread her eight fingers, as if waving. Faster than the eyes could catch, those fingers elongated, spearing out. Before the commander could even blink, one went through his eye and out the back of his skull. The warriors around all dropped without a sound, similarly murdered. Anakin lurched forward, but a flick of the shaper’s wrist, and one of the finger-spears pierced his forearm and wrapped around it. Torment contracted every muscle in Anakin’s body, and his lightsaber went clattering down the landing