Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [81]
At Shimrra’s nod of consent, Jakan raised his arms and spoke, and the bellies of the four mon duuls carried his invocation far and wide.
“Accept what we offer as evidence of our wish to render unto you what is rightfully yours,” the high priest intoned. “If not for you, we should not exist!”
Dedicated lambents illuminated statues of the gods, which lined the quadrangle. The statues would be anointed with first blood. But because of the special nature of the sacrifice, Yun-Yuuzhan would receive only a healthy share, with much of the sacrificial blood going instead to Yun-Yammka, god of war.
Guards began to force the captives to ascend the staircases. Despite their sedation, they floundered and fought, showing no appreciation for the honor that had been bestowed on them. In the end, though, there was little they could do to affect their fate.
The first of the captives had reached the circular platform when a howl rose from below. With nearly half the audience of elites rising to their feet, Nom Anor couldn’t see what was going on. It sounded as if a battle had broken out among some of the guards stationed at the base of the spire—perhaps a domain dispute. He pitied those who lacked the self-control to delay their contest until after the sacrifice. But at least he wouldn’t be blamed.
Then he realized what was actually happening.
As if detonating, carefully camouflaged chuk’a caps were popping from the quadrangle’s hexagonal paving stones. The shells of an aquatic creature, the caps concealed the entrances to shafts that must have descended into the maze of canyons below the Place of Sacrifice—down to the wide thoroughfares that had once separated the tall edifices of Coruscant, down into the dusky underworld of scrub growth and meandering pathways the Shamed Ones had claimed as their own.
Out of the shafts were emerging hundreds of Shamed Ones—Yu’shaa’s flock of heretics—armed with amphistaffs, coufees, an array of homemade weapons, even a few blasters! Momentarily taken off their guard, the warriors—many in ceremonial armor only—were slow to react, and dozens were felled in an instant. As the Shamed Ones spread out into the crowd, the commoners began to panic, surging down into the quadrangle.
Fearing that the heretics had come for Shimrra, the slayers closed ranks around the Supreme Overlord, unfurling their amphistaffs, heedless of any who might be standing in front of them. But Nom Anor saw that only a small contingent of Shamed Ones was closing on Shimrra’s dais, and that this group was clearly a diversion.
It was the prisoners the heretics had come for.
Oblivious, thinking perhaps that it was all a hallucination, the captives were being scooped off their feet by bands of heretics and rushed back into the labyrinthine underworld from which the pariah army had climbed. Not all of them made it to safety; scores were dropped by thud and razor bugs, along with three times as many Shamed Ones.
Shimrra’s black-smeared seers were flailing their arms in dread, and Jakan appeared to have been struck deaf and silent. The executioners, however, were rushing down the staircases and lashing out with their keen weapons, determined to administer at least a few decapitations—as if the gods could be satisfied with a snack, when they had been anticipating a feast!
What blood was running into the quadrangle, the ndgins were thirsty to absorb. Unable to contain themselves, they were wriggling free of their handlers, and, in so doing, providing slick patches of crushed bodies for warriors in pursuit of the heretics and the captives they had set free.
Nom Anor wasn’t sure if he should flee, throw himself on one of the slayers’ coufees, or crawl to Shimrra on his belly and beg forgiveness while there was still a chance. He glanced over his shoulder to see Drathul skewering him with a look of unmitigated hatred. The high prefect had said that he would hold Nom Anor accountable for any interference,