Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 20_ The Final Prophecy - J. Gregory Keyes [4]
A terrible wail went up from her pursuers. She could see them now, all horribly disfigured, all Shamed Ones. They raised their short clubs and faced the warriors.
They didn’t have a chance—she saw that immediately. For an instant, the tracker held her eye, and she thought he would give her away, but instead his expression went grim.
“Run!” he shouted. “We cannot win here!”
Tahiri hesitated only an instant longer, then made a series of steplike leaps to the ground. The first of the Shamed Ones had already fallen when her feet touched the spongy soil.
A warrior caught her motion from the corner of his eye and turned to meet her, snarling a war cry. His face transfigured in surprise when she answered it in his own language. He whirled his amphistaff toward her, a lateral strike aimed at her scapula. She caught the blade and cut toward his knuckles, but he parried with distance, pulled his weapon free of the bind, and lunged deep with the venomous tip. She caught it in a high sweep and stepped in, cut to his shoulder where the vonduun crab armor shed its fury in a shower of sparks, then dodged past, reversing the weapon and plunging its fiery point into the vulnerable spot in the armpit. The warrior gasped and sank to his knees, and she whipped the weapon around to decapitate him even as she launched herself at the next foe.
Combat was a blur, after that. Eight warriors had dropped from the flier. Seven were left, and fully half the Shamed Ones were bleeding on the ground. She had an image of the tracker, his arms knotted in a neck-breaking hold. She saw another Shamed One strike a warrior on the temple with his club only to be run through from behind. Mostly she saw the lightning-quick amphistaff strikes of the two warriors trying to flank her. She cut at a knee, smelled the scorch of flesh as the blade severed through armor. An amphistaff whipped toward her back and she had to roll beneath the blow. Parry, thrust, and cut became her entire existence.
Spattered with Yuuzhan Vong blood and bleeding from several cuts of her own, she suddenly found herself back to back with the tracker. He was all that remained of the six who had initially been following her, but there remained only three warriors.
For a moment, they stood like that. The warriors backed away a bit. The leader was massive. His ears were cut into fractal patterns; great trenchlike scars stood on his cheeks.
“I’ve heard of you, abomination,” he snarled. “The one-who-was-shaped. Is it true what they say? These pathetic maw luur excretions worship you?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Tahiri said. “But I know when I see a dishonorable fight. They were not only outnumbered, but poorly armed. How can you call yourselves warriors, to attack in such a way?”
“They are Shamed Ones,” the warrior sneered back. “They are outside honor. They are worse than infidels; they are heretic traitors, not to be fought but to be exterminated.”
“You fear us,” the tracker rasped. “You fear us because we know the truth. You lap at Shimrra’s feet, yet Shimrra is the true heretic. See how this Jeedai has laid you low. The gods favor her, not you.”
“If the gods favor her, they do not favor you,” the warrior snapped.
“They are delaying us,” the tracker told Tahiri. She noticed he had blood on his lips. “They delay us while another tsik vai arrives.”
“Quiet, heretic,” the war leader bellowed, “and you may yet live to snivel a little longer. There are questions we would ask of you.” His expression softened. “Renounce your heresy. This Jeedai is a great prize. Help us win her, and perhaps the gods will forgive you and grant you an honorable death.”
“No death is more honorable than dying by the side of a Jeedai,” the tracker answered. “Vua Rapuung proved that.”
“Vua Rapuung,” the warrior all but spat. “That story is a heretic’s lie. Vua Rapuung died in disgrace.”
For answer