Heir To The Empire by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online Page B

gases. Gritting his teeth, Pellaeon joined the other two. With Rukh in the lead, they headed down.
    No one shot at them as they reached the ground and took a few steps away from the shuttle. Nor did anyone scream, call out, or make any appearance at all. “Shy, aren’t they?” Pellaeon murmured, keeping his hand on his blaster as he looked around.
    “Understandably,” Thrawn said, pulling a megaphone disk from his belt. “Let’s see if we can persuade them to be hospitable.”
    Cupping the disk in his hand, he raised it to his lips. “I seek the Guardian of the mountain,” his voice boomed across the square, the last syllable echoing from the surrounding buildings. “Who will take me to him?”
    The last echo died away into silence. Thrawn lowered the disk and waited; but the seconds ticked by without any response. “Maybe they don’t understand Basic,” Pellaeon suggested doubtfully.
    “No, they understand,” Thrawn said coldly. “The humans do, at any rate. Perhaps they need more motivation.” He raised the megaphone again. “I seek the Guardian of the mountain,” he repeated. “If no one will take me to him, this entire city will suffer.”
    The words were barely out of his mouth when, without warning, an arrow flashed toward them from the right. It struck Thrawn in the side, barely missing the ysalamir tube wrapped around his shoulders and back, and bounced harmlessly off the body armor hidden beneath the white uniform. “Hold,” Thrawn ordered as Rukh leaped to his side, blaster at the ready. “You have the location?”
    “Yes,” the Noghri grated, his blaster pointed at a squat two-story structure a quarter of the way around the square from the palace.
    “Good.” Thrawn raised the megaphone again. “One of your people just shot at us. Observe the consequences.” Lowering the disk again, he nodded to Rukh. “Now.”
    And with a tight grin of his needle teeth, Rukh proceeded-quickly, carefully, and scientifically-to demolish the building.
    He took out the windows and doors first, putting perhaps a dozen shots through them to discourage any further attack. Then he switched to the lower-floor walls. By the twentieth shot, the building was visibly trembling on its foundations. A handful of shots into the upper-floor walls, a few more into the lower-
    And with a thunderous crash, the building collapsed in on itself.
    Thrawn waited until the sound of crunching masonry had died away before raising the megaphone again. “Those are the consequences of defying me,” he called. “I ask once more: who will take me to the Guardian of the mountain?”
    “I will,” a voice said from their left.
    Pellaeon spun around. The man standing in front of the palace building was tall and thin, with unkempt gray hair and a beard that reached almost to the middle of his chest. He was dressed in shin-laced sandals and an old brown robe, with a glittering medallion of some sort half hidden behind the beard. His face was dark and lined and regal to the point of arrogance as he studied them, his eyes holding a mixture of curiosity and disdain. “You are strangers,” he said, the same mixture in his voice. “Strangers-” he glanced up at the shuttle towering over them “-from offworld.”
    “Yes, we are,” Thrawn acknowledged. “And you?”
    The old man’s eyes flicked to the smoking rubble Rukh had just created. “You destroyed one of my buildings,” he said. “There was no need for that.”
    “We were attacked,” Thrawn told him coolly. “Were you its landlord?”
    The stranger’s eyes might have flashed; at the distance, Pellaeon couldn’t say for certain. “I rule,” he said, his voice quiet hut with menace beneath it. “All that is here is mine.”
    For a handful of heartbeats he and Thrawn locked eyes. Thrawn broke the silence first. “I am Grand Admiral Thrawn, Warlord of the Empire, servant of the Emperor. I seek the Guardian of the mountain.”
    The old man bowed his head slightly. “I