After a moment, the worm eeled up a bit more, began rolling in the mud, sniffing for more liquor. Still, it looked pretty big, and there wasn't much to grab on to. Han waited for three minutes, till the worm got up enough courage to ooze farther out of its hole, heading for the bucket of liquor. Han figured it couldn't hurt to let the thing get a little drunk, so he let the worm stick its orifice in, begin draining the bucket accompanied by slurping sounds. The worm had long segments to its skin, no eyes. Han reached down and grabbed it with both hands, afraid he might break it.
The worm jerked back so hard and so quickly it pulled Han to the ground, but he didn't let go. "You're mine!" Han shouted, and suddenly everyone rushed around him, waiting to help, children leaping in delight and crying, "Whuffa! Whuffa!"
The worm twisted in Han's grip, turned its orifice toward him and spat a pitcher of liquor into Han's face, then began wheezing and hissing.
Han held on tight. He could feel the worm tensing, using the friction of the ground to pull itself back, but after a couple of minutes the worm exhausted itself, and Han pulled it forward a meter. Still, there was more in the ground, so he grabbed another handful and pulled. Sweat was running down his face, down his hands, making his grip precarious, but after another three minutes he got another meter of the whuffa up. Behind him, other men had grabbed the thrashing head of the thing and held it.
Han worked for half an hour before he realized that this was going to be a long jobhe had twenty meters of whuffa out of the ground, and the thing hadn't begun to taper down or anything. Yet now he was developing a system. When the whuffa fatigued, he pulled out as much as he could as fast as he could, tugging up two or three meters at a time before the whuffa could reestablish its grip.
An hour later, Han was reeling from fatigue when he yanked on some whuffa and found that, miraculously, it seemed, he had reached the end. The force of his tug knocked Han down. Every kid and man in the village had a hold on the whuffa, which had now gone quite limp down near its head. Han estimated that it must be two hundred and fifty meters long. With great fanfare, the villagers paraded the whuffa down to an orchard. Old men clapped Han on the back and whispered their thanks, and Han followed them.
The villagers began draping the whuffa in a bare tree, and Han saw other whuffas there, drying in the sunlight. He went over and touched one. It felt dead, almost rubbery, but the supple leather of its skin felt good in his hand, strong, even elegant. The chocolate color was nice, too. On a whim, he tried to see if he could tear itbut the stuff wouldn't snap, wouldn't even stretch. He looked over at the women on their rancors, saw that saddles on the rancors' necks were tied in place with whuffa hide.
Great! Han realized. So I caught a rope. But the villagers here seemed to think it was a big deal. They were all ecstatic. Who knew what kind of reward they might give him? If they executed offworlders, maybe being Han Solo, the heroic Whuffa Grabber, had just saved his life. And even though it was just a rope, Han had to admit that it was a darned good rope. You could probably sell it offworld to fashion designers, and maybe there was more to it than just rope. What if it had medicinal properties? These people were at war. Maybe they applied whuffa hide to their wounds as an antibiotic, or boiled it to make antiaging drugs. Why, once Han thought about it, there was no telling what you could do with a whuffa!
"Han?" a woman called. He turned. A dark-haired woman sat astride the neck of a rancor at the edge of the orchard. "My name is Damaya. You will follow me." She tapped the rancor's nose with her heel, turned the beast.
Han's mouth felt dry. "Why? Where are we going?"
"Your friend Leia has been pleading your case to the Singing Mountain clan for the past two hours. She has won your freedom, but now your future must be decided."
"My future?"
"We of the Singing Mountain clan have chosen not to be your enemies, but that does not mean we will be your allies. We understand that you have a sky ship that may be repairable. If this is true, the Nightsisters and their Imperial slaves will want it. And, since you are a man of power in the outside world, they may want you . Our clan needs to know whether you want our protection, and if so, what you will pay for it."
Han followed Damaya, still panting, sweat dripping down his back. After nearly a day without sleep, his eyes itched and his sinuses burned as if he were allergic to something on the planet. The messenger led him up toward the fortress, and just before they reached the landing where the stone stairway diverged into three paths, a group of strangers came up from outside the valleynine women, humanoid, with strangely blotched, purplish skin. They did not wear exotic helms like the warriors, but instead wore only dark, shaggy, hooded robes crudely woven from some plant fiber and covered with trail dust. He wondered nervously if these women had been called in to be his judges.
But Han watched the warriors guarding the trail and knew that the hooded women were enemies. The rancors growled and fidgeted, scraping the stone walkways with their huge palms. The warrior women held their blasters at the ready, unblinking, though the leader of the nine carried a broken spear, probably as a sign of truce.
Damaya got off her rancor and led Han up the steps toward the fortress.
The nine women hesitated at the landing to watch them pass, studying Han intensely. Their leader, an older woman with graying hair at her temples, had glittering green eyes, and the hollows of her cheeks were a sickly yellow hue. She smiled at Han, causing him to shiver.
"Tell me, offworlder, where your ship is," she said to his back.
Han's heart hammered, and he turned. "It's, uh, over" he started to point, and the messenger Damaya spun violently on her rancor.
"Tell her nothing!" Damaya commanded, and her words were like a knife slicing through some invisible cord that held Han's throat. He realized suddenly that the old woman had used Luke's Jedi trick of commanding those with weak minds.
His face must have reddened, for Damaya said, "There is no need to be embarrassed. Baritha has a powerful gift for forcing minds."
The old woman, Baritha, laughed at him, and Han turned away, angry. She followed him two steps, then swung the haft of her spear up from behind, tapping his crotch experimentally.
Han spun, fists clenched, and the old woman whispered under her breath, chanting, and held her hand out in a clutching gesture. Han felt both of his fists caught in an invisible vise, and joints cracked under the pressure.
"Don't be so quick to anger, you morsel of a man," Baritha cackled. "Respect your betters, or next time, it will be an eyeor something equally as valuable to youthat I crush."
"Keep your filthy hands off me!" Han growled. Han's guide, Damaya, casually pulled out her blaster, aimed it at the old woman's throat and said something in her own language.
The old woman released her grip on Han. "I was only admiring your prisoner. From behind he looks so . . . tasty. Who could resist?"
"We of the Singing Mountain clan suffer your presence here," Damaya said, "but our hospitality has limits."
"You of the Singing Mountain clan are weak-minded fools," the old woman croaked, sticking her head forward and raising her eyebrows so that her face unwrinkled somewhat. "You couldn't throw us out if you had to, and so you will suffer our presence, and submit to our demands. I despise your pretensions of civility! I spit on your hospitality!"
"I could shoot you in the throat," Damaya said longingly.
"Go ahead, Damaya," the old woman said, pulling open her robes, revealing a shriveled breast, "shoot your dear aunt! I don't love life anymore since you cast me out of your clan. Shoot me. You know how much you want it!"
"I won't let you goad me into it," Damaya said.
The old woman cackled, said in a pouting voice, "She won't let me goad her into it," and the robed sisters behind her laughed. Han found himself unreasonably angry, wishing that Damaya would raise the blaster and plug a few of them. Instead, she holstered the blaster, and tapped Han on the shoulder, urging him to walk ahead of her so that she placed her
self between him and the nine hooded sisters.
The fortress turned out to be even more hammered than Han had seen from below. Everywhere around the patchwork of blast shielding the rock was cracked and pounded. Many of the cracks had been patched with some dark green, gummy substance so that the basalt took on a marbled appearance. Chunks of red sandstone lay scattered on the walkways outside, and Han wondered where the sandstone had come fromall the mountains nearby seemed to be volcanic in origin. Someone had to have carried the stones several kilometers.
Two guards at the door to the fortress peeled from their posts and led the way. Han glanced back A dozen Singing Mountain warriors followed on foot, guarding the robed women. They entered the dark chambers of the fortress, which was honeycombed with halls and stairways. The walls were covered with thick tapestries and lit by sconces. They quickly turned to a room carved into the corner of the fortress so that windows opened on two sides.
The huge room was nearly triangular in shape, with six openings looking out to the prairie. Blaster rifles lay stacked near each window, flak jackets had been tossed in piles on the floor, and a solitary blaster cannon poked out toward the mountains to the east. A huge dent showed where something had smashed its housing, so that green liquid coolant lay puddled beside it on the floor. The cannon was useless. In the center of the room a cooking pit was filled with bright embers. A large animal roasted above the coals while two men basted it with a pungent sauce and turned the spit.
The room was filled with a dozen women in glittering robes of reptile hide, all in helms. Near the back of the crowd, dressed as one of the warriors, Han saw Leia.
One of the women stepped forward. "Welcome, Baritha," she said to the old crone, ignoring Han. "On behalf of my sisters, I, Mother Augwynne, welcome you to the Singing Mountain clan." The greeter stepped forward, and despite her kind words, her face was cold, somewhat guarded. Augwynne wore a tunic of glittering yellow scales, a hide robe with black lizard shapes sewn around its hem. Her headdress was made of smooth golden wood and decorated with cabochons of gleaming yellow tigereye.
"You needn't bother with formalities," Baritha said, and the old woman tossed her broken spear to the floor, the purple veins in her head throbbing. "The Nightsisters have come for General Solo and the other offworlders. We captured them first, and by all right they belong to us!"
"We found no Nightsisters with them," Augwynne answered, "only Imperial stormtroopers trespassing on our land. We killed them, and have offered their prey sanctuary among us as equals. I'm afraid we can't honor your claims to ownership."
"The stormtroopers were our slaves, working under our direction, as you well know," Baritha answered. "They were bringing the offworlders to prison for interrogation."
"If you only want to interrogate General Solo, then perhaps I can help you. General Solo, why did you come to Dathomir?" Augwynne's eyes flashed to the pouch at Han's belt, and he took the cue.
"I own this planet and everything on it," Han said. "I came to check out my real estate."
As one, the Nightsisters began hissing, shaking their heads, and Baritha spat, "A man claims to own Dathomir?"
Han fumbled in his pouch for the deed, found the box and pressed its switch. The holo of Dathomir appeared in the air above his palm, his name clearly registered as owner.
"No!" Baritha shouted, waving her hand. The box flew from Han's grip, tumbled to the floor.
"That's right," Han said, "I own this world, and I want you and your Nightsisters off my planet!"
Baritha glared at him. "Gladly," she said. "Provide us a ship, and we will leave."
He felt an odd tugging in his mind, fought the urge to divulge the location of the Falcon .
"Enough of this," Augwynne said. "You have your answer, Baritha. Tell Gethzerion that General Solo will remain with the Singing Mountain clan, as a free man."
"You cannot free him," Baritha breathed threateningly. "We of the Nightsisters claim him as our slave!"
Augwynne answered calmly, "He has won his freedom by saving the life of a clan sister. You cannot claim him as a slave."
"You lie!" Baritha said. "Whose life has he saved?"
"He saved the life of clan sister Tandeer, and earned his freedom."
"I have never heard of a clan sister by that name," Baritha argued. "Let me see her!"
The women of the Singing Mountain clan parted, revealing Leia in the shadows. She wore a tunic of shimmering red scales, a helm of black iron decorated with small animal skulls. Baritha studied her face doubtfully. "Have I seen this one before?"
"She is new to us, a spellcaster from the Northern Lakes region, and an adopted clan sister. Speak the words to the spell of discovery, and you will know that all I say is true."
Baritha glared at the women in the room. "I do not need the spell of discovery to tell me what is true," she said. "You base your arguments for General Solo's ownership upon technicalities!"
"We base our arguments upon laws that you and your kind have never respected," Augwynne countered.
Baritha growled, "The Nightsisters dispute your right to these slaves. Release them to us, or we will be forced to take them!"
"Do you threaten bloodshed?" Augwynne asked, and suddenly the room filled with humming, dozens of women all around Han mumbling with half-closed eyes. The Nightsisters retreated into a circle, backs to each other, and held hands, chanting, eyes closed, heads half-concealed in the shadows of their robes.
Baritha shouted, "Gethzerion, we have found the offworlder. He has a starship, but the clan sisters will not give him to us!" Han could hear a humming in his ears, almost as if a fly buzzed within his skull. The hair raised on the back of his neck, and he knew for a certainty that no matter how far away this Gethzerion was, she had heard Baritha's call and was now giving the woman instructions.
Han started to back away from the Nightsisters, seeking shelter, but Baritha lunged from her circle and grabbed Han's arms, her purple-skinned fingers biting into his shoulder like claws. He twisted and tried to pull free. One of the warriors of the Singing Mountain clan raised a blaster and fired at Baritha's face, but Baritha merely released her grip, muttered a word, and used her hand to deflect the blaster bolt into the ceiling.
As one the Nightsisters turned and leaped through the open windows, their black robes flapping. Han's heart skipped a beat at the thought of those bodies smashing on the rocks two hundred meters below. But for a moment Baritha hovered in the air, twisted to sneer at them.
"We will have blood!" she roared and the sound of her threat filled the room so that the very stone trembled. Then she let herself fall.
Han ran to the window, looked out The Nightsisters lightly dropped to the ground, scurried off like insects into the cover of the underbrush.
Several clan sisters reached for blasters, but Augwynne said softly, "Let them go."
She came up behind Han and touched his shoulder lightly, looking at the blood that ran from his wounded biceps. "Well General Solo, you should consider yourself fortunate that Gethzerion wants you alive. Welcome to Dathomir."
Chapter 15
Teneniel Djo watched her offworld spellcaster struggle at his bonds. She'd placed his hands in a wood stock, then tied them with whuffa leather. The stupid offworldersboth menstruggled secretly when they thought she was not looking, and this pleased her. The handsome one, he was no more than a commoner, beautiful but unable to cast spells. But this male witch, he was a catch to prize.
She herded them through the foothills, unconcerned about whether her captives might try to escape. She had not bound their little machine , their droid. Oh yes, Teneniel knew what a droid was, though she had never seen one close. She feared its escape least of all. Like her other prisoners, it did not need a close guard.
Instead, she watched the brush on the hills to both sides, often stopping to turn her head as if listening for pursuit. Something bothered her, a tingling feeling at the back of her scalp, a coldness that clawed the pit of her stomach.
She whispered the spell of discovery and felt the dark ones stirring all across the wilderness. For four years she had sojourned in this waste, knowing that she was too close to the Imperial prison, yet she had never felt so many of the Nightsisters stir at once. She concentrated only on the nearest. She would need all her energy to keep from getting caught.
She led her captives up to a thicket of short trees so that she could survey the trails ahead. She climbed out on a rock. The mountains here were nearly impassable, and Teneniel dared not take her captives on the rougher trails. The machine person would never be able to make it under any circumstances, and the men would need their hands free. Teneniel sang the discovery spell again. She could feel Nightsisters to three sides of themone was two kilometers to the south, another three kilometers to the west, and one a kilometer straight ahead to the east. To the north, you could not climb the mountain unless you knew the spells for levitation, and Teneniel doubted she could persuade the others to let her levitate them. She whimpered softly.
"They're hunting us, aren't they?" the male witch whispered.
Teneniel nodded, studying the landscape. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead.
"Free me!" the male witch urged her. "Whatever is out there, I can help you." She glanced at him doubtfully. She had never met an offworlder she could trust. But if he did not even know what was hunting them, then maybe he did not know of the Nightsisters and their lackeys at the Imperial prison. Or maybe he was in league with the Nightsisters and only feigned ignorance.
"If I free your hands, do you promise not to run away?" Teneniel asked. Nearby, the handsome slave twisted his head around, listening to them.
"If I stay with you, what will you do with me?" the male witch asked.
"I will take you to my clan," Teneniel said honestly, "and all of my sisters will witness that I have caught you fairly. Once you are registered as my property, you will live in my hut and sire daughters on me. Do you agree to this?" She held her breath. She was offering him a good deal.
Star Wars - The Courtship of Princess Leia Page 16