by Renee Ahdieh
—but this meal was not bone but durasteel, scavenged by the tribe from some old settlement. The hefty weapon’s tip was doused with sandbat venom, and at the taste of that fast-acting paralytic the dragon stumbled sideways in confusion. A’Koba hung on to the shaft of the gaderffii, forcing the weapon farther into the monster’s maw. The krayt collapsed, narrowly missing him and kicking up a shower of sand as it struck the surface.
A’Koba wrested the weapon free from its mouth and climbed its scaled head. This time, it did not react to his repeated stabs. The deed was done.
“Yes!” A’Vor called out in the braying tongue of the Tuskens, releasing his clench on the dragon’s tail. “We are adults now!”
“I am. I don’t know about you two.” A’Koba looked back to see A’Vor’s brother clambering through the sand toward them, injured but not broken. Before he could chide them for their performance, he spied the watchers from the clan descending from the ridge onto the battleground.
He dislodged his gaderffii from the krayt’s brain and raised it into the air. “I am A’Koba!” he shouted, standing proudly on the corpse’s giant head. “I have slain a krayt dragon. I am a Tusken!”
“You have slain a hatchling in the heat of day,” said one of the newcomers. “Do not think you are a warrior of legend.”
“Who—” He looked down, where a glint of light reflected from the setting suns told A’Koba exactly who had spoken.
A’Yark.
Where other Tuskens had two metal turrets for eyepieces, the chief of the clan only needed one—and had long ago jammed a crimson jewel into the useless right eye. It plugged the hole, true, but it also reminded everyone who was in charge.
“Come down from there,” A’Yark said. “Looking up at you itches my neck.”
A’Koba thought of five things to say, banished them all as unwise, and complied. The shambling twin brothers assembled nearby. “We did meet the challenge,” A’Vor said.
“Yes, yes.” A’Yark turned to where a companion held the twins’ errant weapons. “Our law says whoever has two hands can hold a gaderffii. I am not sure what it makes of warriors who keep dropping them.”
The brothers shrank back in shame, but A’Koba did not withdraw. “It was no small victory, A’Yark.” He gestured to the corpse. “A canyon krayt, the largest hatchling of its clan.”
“And should its parents find you, you will be the flattest of ours.” A’Yark’s head shook.
“I will kill its whole family,” A’Koba said, clenching his cloth-wrapped fist. “You will see. I will lead the clan in battle one day.”
“So you have told us all.” A’Yark stepped past and evaluated the krayt. “I admit it is a worthy feat. When I became chief long ago, the clan had been brought so low our younglings were forced to kill logra in the rites of adulthood.”
And womp rats, and sand beetles. At the moment of his triumph, A’Koba was in no mood for another lecture on how A’Yark’s chieftaincy had saved the clan. “I meant what I said,” he declared. “I fear nothing. Send me, and I will lead a hunt tonight.”
A’Yark looked back abruptly. “Only a fool fears nothing.”
“Then either I am a fool—or you are wrong.” A’Koba stalked around the corpse, making a show for the others. “What should I fear? Surely not the settlers and their machines—and I know not to walk near a sarlacc.” He pointed to the north. “Or do you mean the Hutt? Let him spend a day out here on the wastes, beneath the suns. He will shrivel down to the worrt he really is!”
The line amused his cousins; amphibian worrts were an odd thing to find on a desert planet, but most Tusken younglings had clubbed at least a few of the squat creatures to death. A’Yark, however, was neither entertained nor deterred. “You speak only of the obvious threats,” the chieftain said. “But there are magicks in the desert. I have lived long, and seen great powers at work—wielded by beings beyond our ken.”
“I have had my dinner, and need no story.” A’Koba gestured back toward the hills. “I am sure there are children back at the camp to scare.”
A’Yark grabbed his shoulder firmly. “It takes more than courage to lead. It takes eyes that are open!”
And I have one more than you. “You leap at gusts of wind, A’Yark.” A’Koba snorted—and then caught himself. He stepped back and made his respects. “I fear only you, my chieftain.”
“That is a start.” A’Yark’s jewel caught the light from the setting suns. “Claim your bantha and lead your hunt. But before you strike at anything, report back to me.” The chieftain waved dismissively at the twins. “And if these two lose their gaderffii in the dark, lose them!”
—
“A’Yark is the true fool,” he had told the brothers more than once on their overnight hunt. A’Koba did not fear their wagging tongues; open ambition was a feature of Tusken life. No Sand Person would respect a quiet schemer. There was some security offered by his youth; he was so far from ready for a confrontation that A’Yark would likely not take offense.
A’Koba had no idea how old the chieftain was; only that A’Yark had held the role longer than anyone in memory. That, in another clan, would have suggested someone aged, and in danger of being challenged. Not A’Yark, who remained as fierce—if not fiercer—in battle as any warrior A’Koba had seen.
And yet somehow the chieftain had grown tentative—particularly when A’Koba and the twins returned from their night’s stalking. They had reported seeing a droid trundling along a valley along the southeastern limb of the Jundland, motoring along in darkness without evident care. Mechanical effigies made to talk, droids were one of the more puzzling features of settlers’ lives; they were rarely of interest to the Tuskens, who usually neither knew nor cared what they had been built for.
The tubby droid had one sure purpose, however. It made for excellent bait. Someone would come for it—and then, A’Koba would strike—
—if he was allowed to. It was A’Yark again. The droid’s trail passed not far from a place, the chieftain said, where an entire camp of Tuskens had been mysteriously massacred in the night, many cycles before. Most clans had avoided the ruins ever since, ascribing ill omens to the area.
More nonsense—but A’Yark took it seriously enough that the chieftain insisted on going along with the trio that morning to shadow the droid’s trail. With banthas, in case they needed to move fast or carry spoils—and with blaster rifles.
Your superstition verges on cowardice, A’Koba thought as he and A’Yark watched the desert from a craggy outcrop. They had gone to a spot along the droid’s path where the gorge zigged and zagged, offering multiple settings for an ambush; there were even safe places nearby to leave the banthas. But A’Yark had made them take the long way around to reach the place—and the chieftain had stopped repeatedly to study their surroundings.
“We have wasted much of the day,” A’Koba said as they waited on a hillside and watched. “We could have been here long ago.”
“There is more to avoid here than you know. A great power, indeed. Beyond these mountains dwells—”
“I will not hear it!” A’Koba snapped. “What could happen, with the suns high above? I do not know what you are trying to—”
“Quiet!” A’Yark yanked at A’Koba’s robe—but it was not to accost him. He heard a moment later what the chieftain had heard: the sound of an approaching engine. The two hustled to a promontory where they saw a landspeeder, an infernal human machine, zooming into the valley below.
This is it! Raising his rifle, A’Koba drew a bead on the distant vehicle as it raced from left to right—only to withdraw when A’Yark touched his shoulder. The chieftain was correct about this, at least: The landspeeder was too far away, and if its occupants were coming for the droid, they would surely stop when they reached it.
The warriors moved swiftly with their banthas to a ravine southeast of the last place they’d seen the droid. A narrow ridgeline separated them from their prey; A’Koba could hear the engine of the landsp
eeder whine to a halt. Leaving the hairy beasts of burden behind, he and the twins began scaling the ridge. There was little time to lose.
So when another hushed call came from over his shoulder, A’Koba looked back in aggravation. “What is it, A’Yark?”
The one-eyed chieftain stood partway down the rise, rifle in hand, and gestured to the mountains to the north. “This place. I tried to tell you. It is near the lair of a powerful shaman.”
“A what?”
“A human—yet more than flesh,” A’Yark said. “We have avoided this area, too, for years.”
What have you not avoided, old fool? A’Koba looked up to where the twins had completed their ascent—and then called back to A’Yark, quietly. “He has militia, like the settlers?”
“He needs none. The creatures of the sands answer him.” A’Yark paused in reflection. “No—the very air answers him.”
A’Koba stared, incredulous. Then he found his canteen and pitched it down the hillside. “You should stay here, my chieftain—and drink. The suns have gotten to you.”
“I tell you, I speak the truth.”
The two watched as A’Vor scrambled back down the incline. “The speeder did stop,” he reported when he reached them. “A human and another droid—this one, a golden man.”
A’Yark looked up. “What…does the human look like?”
“Hair the color of sand. Young, I think. As we are. Dressed as a farmer.”
A’Koba regarded his cousin and raised his hands to the chieftain. “You see? Not your wizard. Come on.”
But A’Yark stood transfixed, trying to work it out. “A farm child and his droids, all the way out here—here? It does not augur well.”
A’Koba stared for a moment—then shrugged. He shook his head. “You disappoint me. Go down and remain with the banthas. We will bring the prizes to you.”
A’Yark responded with reluctance. “Go. Take. But do not kill, unless you must.”
A’Koba turned back to face his cousin—and together they started scaling the rise. A Tusken chief, scared of shadows and counseling mercy? Madness!
Perhaps, he thought, he might be making a challenge for leadership much sooner than he ever imagined.
—
The twins threw Sandy Hair’s limp body to the ground. It had been simply done, moments earlier, by A’Koba; his first attack as an adult warrior. He had not killed, as he would have preferred—but he had disarmed the young farmer in an instant, and had knocked the boy unconscious after filling him with abject terror. An auspicious start, A’Koba thought, to a legend of his own. Perhaps doddering simps would speak his name in low tones one day. His partners had been forced to satisfy themselves with chopping the arm off the golden man, which in the listing of feats hardly counted.
“Where is the squat droid?” A’Vor asked.
“You wish another glorious kill?” A’Koba sneered. “Forget it. Get to work.”
Together the three rifled through the materials on the landspeeder, searching for anything that might be of use. It was the raiders’ nature to look quickly, although there was definitely no rush. Out here, there was no rescue possible for the stricken traveler. Nothing to worry about at—
“Ayooooo-eh-EH-EHH!”
The sound echoed through the gorge: loud, terrible, and changing as it reverberated through the rocks. It could only have come from one thing.
A canyon krayt, A’Koba thought. And not just any. A queen!
The sound had come from the northeast; all three Tuskens looked in that direction simultaneously, fully expecting to see the vengeful parent of the beast they had slain the day before. That, in this place, would mean their deaths.
Yet what they beheld was far more unexpected. A figure cloaked in brown, face invisible beneath a pointed hood. A figure that in no world the Tuskens knew could ever make such a sound.
The shaman!
In the split second during which he processed that thought, A’Koba was gripped by fear—in every measure, the same fear he had just struck into the farmboy. Images flashed through his mind. A’Koba’s limbs went into motion, turning him from his position by the hood of the landspeeder. His cousins were already on the move, fleeing. He rushed to follow.
He was over the ridge when he dared to think again.
What had he just seen? And heard?
—
A’Koba had never clambered onto a bantha with two other warriors before, but that was what had happened. They had made for the nearest ride, and the war leader had followed on the other.
A’Yark caught up with the trio far from the gorge. The cousins were off their mount, huddled by a ridge and chattering to each other nervously. A’Koba sat in the sand at the feet of the bantha, reins still clenched tightly in his hand. He barely noticed as the chieftain approached.
“I heard,” A’Yark said. “I was already in the saddle.”
A’Koba said nothing.
“You fear,” the chieftain said. “Desert magic has not touched you before.”
“I…felt it.” A’Koba did not look up. “It was not just the sound. I felt—”
“In the presence of a mature krayt.”
“Come for vengeance, after the one I killed!”
“Mmm. And do dragons seek vengeance?”
A’Koba struggled to process the thought. He looked up. “This one did. I felt it in the sound. But when I looked, I saw that figure—” He stopped, worried he looked a fool. He had said too much, but he allowed one last thing. “I did not trust my eyes.”
A’Yark stared at him—and knelt. “The settlers call him Ben.”
“What? How do you know this?”
“All that live on the wastes I have seen,” A’Yark said, “and I first saw Ben before your birth. He is an outlander, a wizard. He dwells at the edge of the Jundland.”
A’Koba heard but did not understand. “If he is a danger, why did we not strike him before?”
“At what risk? It was better to yield this area. The desert is large—and I think he has nothing worth taking.” A’Yark paused. “We are taught that all who live are the Tuskens’ enemies. But that may be too simple. There are things that will leave us alone, if we do the same. A sarlacc will not come to visit your camp.” The chieftain stood.
A’Koba nodded, breathing normally again. Then the young warrior looked over to the cowering cousins, both shivering in the suns.
Something did not sit right.
“No,” A’Koba said at last, glancing at the skyline. “It cannot stop here. We must go back.” He stood.
A’Yark started with surprise. “Back—to the gorge?”
“Yes, in greater numbers.” He dusted himself off and looked to the chieftain. “This is our place, as hated as it is. We must show that no one may trespass with perfidy—not even wizards.”
A’Yark regarded him with evident new respect. “If you would do this, then go. You have my sanction. I must decide for the whole clan—but you are an adult, A’Koba. Your life belongs to you—as do the lives of any who would join you.”
“Will I die?”
“If you are fated to. But you will be seen to die—as a Tusken.”
—
A’Yark watched the trio vanish into the dunes in search of reinforcements, confident they had not the slightest chance of finding the wizard on their return. Life under the suns had changed Ben’s appearance, but it had not stolen his senses. If Sandy Hair was someone the wizard cared about, Ben would waste no time in spiriting him and his droids away.
So allowing A’Koba to give pursuit was a gesture—but not a wholly empty one. A’Yark knew there were certain rites even a chieftain must perform. A’Koba’s prize was already lost, but there was no sense in dispiriting him, not so soon after his reaching adulthood. So few warriors had his drive—and defiance was what separated killers from carrion in the Jundland Wastes. A’Koba had learned to fear this day; in leading his companions on a chase so soon after a scare, he would rise in their respect.
> A dual lesson, in a place where everything cast two shadows. Perhaps one day A’Koba, too, would use the example of the wizard in teaching others.
Whenever that happened, A’Yark suspected Ben would still be around. In earlier times, the chieftain had expected the sorcerer to leave, as most settlers with any wisdom eventually did. But he had remained, clinging tenaciously to the edge of existence, watching over this place or that. He seemed bound to the land, as the Tuskens were—and yet not like them. The Sand People lived under an ancient curse. Any higher power capable of shackling Ben to the desert lived today, wielding a might too frightening to consider.
No, the wizard might escape—or he might be set free. But he would not simply disappear into the sands. Such beings did not die; they shaped the fates of countless many across the stars, in places no Tusken had ever conceived of. It was idle to wonder what Ben might do if he ever left.
A’Yark only knew what the Tuskens would do.
They would raid. They would pillage. They would strike more places, areas once under the shaman’s protection. Not because they coveted anything there, or hated Ben, or sought revenge—but because that was what they were.
Indeed, that was all they were.
And they weren’t going anywhere.
Some believe the desert to be barren. This proves only that they do not know the desert.
Deep within the dunes dwell small insects that weave nets to trap one another, and burrowing snakes with scales the color of stones so that no hunter can find them. Seeds and spores from long-dead plants lie dormant in the warmth, waiting for the rainfall that comes once a year, or decade, or century, when they will burst into verdant life as brief as it is glorious. The heat of the suns sinks into the grains of sand until they glow, containing all the energy and possibility to become glass the color of jewels. All of these sing individual notes in the one great song of the Whills.
No place is barren of the Force, and they who are one with the Force can always find the possibility of life.