Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 09_ Edge of Victory 02_ Rebirth - J. Gregory Keyes [1]
He was spinning, too, very slowly, through the little nebula of blood. Even in the negligible illumination he could tell he was only a few centimeters from a wall.
From the ache in his leg and skull, he had a good idea where the blood was coming from. It was cold, too, but the air seemed stuffy.
What was going on?
Outside the window, something large and irregular moved to block the stars, and he remembered.
Tsavong Lah, warmaster of the Yuuzhan Vong, clicked the obsidian-sharp talons of his new foot against the living coral of his command chamber floor and considered it in the pale light of the mycoluminescent walls.
He might have had the foot the cursed Jeedai took from him replaced with a clone of his own, but that would have been not only dishonorable but personally unsatisfying. That an infidel had taken something from him was bad enough; to pretend that the wound had never happened was unthinkable.
But a hobbling warmaster would lose respect, especially if he had not made the sacrifice himself.
The pain was fading, and feeling was coming into his new foot as the nerves learned their way. The four armored digits of a vua’sa now made up half his stride.
The choice was an homage to the most ancient traditions of his office. The first warmaster created by Yun-Yuuzhan had not been a Yuuzhan Vong, but a living weapon-beast he named vua’sa. A Yuuzhan Vong challenged the vua’sa to single combat, triumphed, and took its place. Even now, Vua was a popular name among the warrior caste.
Tsavong Lah had bade the shapers grow him a vua’sa. Though the creature had been extinct since the ancestral home planet was lost, its pattern still existed in the deeps of shaper memory-qahsa. They had made it; he had fought it and triumphed, despite having to fight on one foot. Now Tsavong Lah knew the gods still deemed him worthy of his station.
And from the cooling corpse of the vua’sa, he had a new foot.
“Warmaster.”
Tsavong recognized the voice of his aide, Selong Lian, but did not look up from the examination of his prize.
“Speak.”
“Someone petitions for words with you.”
“Not my expected appointment?”
“No, Warmaster. It is the deception-sect priestess Ngaaluh.”
Tsavong Lah growled in the back of his throat. Worshipers of Yun-Harla had failed the Yuuzhan Vong of late. Still, the sect was powerful, and Supreme Overlord Shimrra continued to favor the antics of those who worshiped the Trickster goddess. And since Yun-Harla oversaw the elevation of warriors and had possibly aided him in his fight with the vua’sa, he perhaps owed the goddess a favor, as well.
“Let me hear her words,” he said.
A moment later, the priestess entered. She was slender, her back-sloping forehead narrower than most, the bluish sacs beneath her eyes mere crescents. She wore a ceremonial robe of living tissue grown to resemble a flayed skin.
“Warmaster,” she said, crossing her arms in salute. “I am greatly honored.”
“Your message,” he snapped impatiently. “I have other business waiting. Harrar sent you?”
“Yes, Warmaster.”
“Speak, then.”
“The priestess Elan, who died to further the conquest of the infidels—”
“Who failed her task,” Tsavong Lah reminded.
“Just so, Warmaster. She failed, but died nevertheless in the cause of the glorious Yuuzhan Vong. The priestess Elan had a familiar, a sentient creature named Vergere.”
“I am aware of that. Did it not die with its mistress?”
“No, Warmaster. That is what I have come to tell you. It managed to escape the infidels and make its way back to us.”
“Did it.”
“Yes, Warmaster. She has communicated to us much of interest concerning the infidels, things she learned in their custody. Much more she knows and will not tell except to you, Tsavong Lah.”
“You suspect an infidel trick? An attempt to assassinate me, perhaps?”
“We do not entirely trust her, Warmaster, but determined to bring you her words so you might decide how to treat her.”