Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 20_ The Final Prophecy - J. Gregory Keyes [99]
Just in time to see the blade of a foot, level with his eyes. Behind the foot was an airborne Tahiri, her body horizontal to the ground.
The kick caught him above the nostrils, snapping his head back and knocking him completely off his feet. He crashed into the trunk of a tree, and half of the wind blew out of him. He clawed for the Jedi weapon he’d thrust in his sash, but it was missing.
In fact, it was in Tahiri’s hands, the energy blade already on.
“This is mine,” she said.
Corran had come up behind her. “Don’t kill him,” the older Jedi said.
“I won’t,” Tahiri replied, but Nom Anor heard the tone in her voice. It was not a human tone at all—although she was speaking Basic, every nuance of her speech was Yuuzhan Vong. There was no mercy in it, but promises aplenty.
“I’m going to cut off his feet, though,” she continued, stepping nearer. “And then his hands. Unless he tells us how to stop what he’s done to Sekot.”
“Do what you will,” Nom Anor said, forcing as much contempt into his voice as he could. “It has already begun. You cannot stop it.”
“Where’s Harrar?” Corran asked.
“He’s dead,” Nom Anor replied. “I killed him.” He watched the tip of Tahiri’s blade dip toward his foot, and then winced as she traced a shallow burn across the ankle.
“Tahiri, no,” Corran commanded.
Her eyes narrowed further, then she withdrew the blade.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Get up, Anor.”
Nom Anor began coming slowly to his feet.
“The ship’s landing, Corran,” Tahiri said.
“But he’s not going on it,” Corran said. “You have a villip, don’t you, Nom Anor? You’ll call them off, now, or I’ll cut your head off myself. And that, my friend, is absolutely not a bluff.”
“They will not obey me,” Nom Anor said.
“Maybe they won’t,” Corran told him, “but you’d sure better try to make them.”
Nom Anor stared into the man’s eyes and knew he was not lying.
He reached for the villip beneath his arm, thinking furiously.
Then Zonama Sekot tried to throw them all into space.
The ground bucked beneath them and an anguished cry exploded in the Force, filling Tahiri’s head with such agony that she hardly noticed when she thudded back to the ground. Desperately she tried to shut out the world’s pain and regain her feet, but the will behind it was too strong. She felt as if a trillion needles were growing from her heart, pushing through her heart and lungs and bone. She clutched at her head, screaming with Zonama Sekot’s voice.
Through her blurred vision, she saw Nom Anor running off through the crazily tilted trees.
No! Sekot, he’s the one doing this to you!
She was never sure if Sekot somehow heard her, or if that gave her the extra strength she needed to push away the sick pain, but she levered herself to her feet.
Corran was up, leaning heavily against a tree.
“Corran—”
“Just a second,” he said. “I—okay. I think I’ve got it under control now.”
The two Jedi stumbled through the newly broken terrain. The ship was on the ground, and Nom Anor was running toward it. Tahiri ran as she never had before, drawing on the turbulent Force around them. Corran was just ahead of her. They were gaining on the executor. If they could reach him before the warriors on the ship could debark, they might yet be able to save Sekot. She clung to that hope, as the breath ripped at her lungs and her heart stuttered unevenly.
Without warning, Corran lashed out at her, sending her sprawling. Even before a sense of betrayal could register, she saw he was going down, too. Less than a heartbeat later, a swarm of thud bugs whirred through the space where they’d just been.
She suddenly understood that she and Corran must have been occupied with Sekot’s pain for longer than she’d thought. The warriors had already come out of the ship and hidden themselves around the clearing. Corran and she were completely surrounded.
THIRTY-TWO
“Okay, folks,” Han said as the