Ben pointed to the suns, creeping closer to the heights of the western Jundland. He spoke in simple terms, matching the Tusken’s. “You struck. The settlers struck. The day ends. We will depart.” He nodded to the east, where hooting and hollering had commenced beyond the hillside. “We depart, and you depart,” he added ominously, “while you can.”
A’Yark looked down at the gaderffii stick in her hands. It had belonged to her father, and it had not saved him. Nor had it saved her son. It was right to plunge its point into humans, to crush them with its bulk, to grind their bones with its flanges. Hairy Face—Ben—might have the power to kill her. She would die, but the others would live, and they would exact a price.
But then A’Yark thought again of the magic weapon the man carried, and the last time she had seen one. She wanted to know more, but knowledge could not come from a dead wizard. And if the human cheers over the ridge meant the rest of the band was gone, then A’Yark and the survivors could not linger.
A’Yark turned back to A’Deen. Handing her gaderffii to another, she heaved the corpse from the ground.
“We depart, and you depart,” A’Yark said. “While you can.”
“Forty-eight,” Mullen said.
“Forty-eight!” Orrin looked down at the canyon floor as he descended the rocky stair. “That the head count?”
Mullen gave a laugh, a rare guttural thing that had always made his father cringe. “I can’t make any guarantees about body parts,” Mullen said. “Some of the Tuskies that fell hit pretty hard.”
Orrin surveyed the scene. It was truly a mess. The trail of Tusken corpses wound around the corner of the gorge and out of sight. He whistled. “I didn’t think this many hit us at the oasis!”
“There were some in camps east of the Claim that Jayla Jee saw,” Mullen said, referring to their friend in the skyhopper. “I think they were in reserve to take captives. But when the Tuskens at the Claim fled, they all went.”
Most of the vigilantes had already made their way down here, making sure none of the injured Sand People would come back to haunt them. Orrin’s daughter was here, too, trying her best to make her way through the organic obstacle course at the foot of the eastern rock face.
“Disgusting,” Veeka said, holding her nose. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before Orrin could respond, a shrill beep resounded from his pocket. “Just a second,” he said, pulling out the comlink. “How’s our recon, Sky One?”
“All clear, Master Gault,” crackled the voice of the skyhopper pilot. Orrin had directed her to complete a wide circle. “And it looks like you were right,” Jayla said. “Annie Calwell and that drifter were here—but they’ve ridden off to the west.”
The west? Orrin’s eyebrow rose. West to Ben’s place, maybe? The Claim was back to the north. He thought to go after them, but then an approaching group of celebrants reminded him of what needed to come next. Rifle-toting Jabe was among them, receiving backslaps from the older settlers. Orrin clicked off the comlink and smiled. “You get any, son?”
“I did, sir. Or I think so.”
“Well, pick out a prize so we can go.”
Beaming, Jabe stepped toward the twin tangles of metal. The vigilantes had piled the gaffi sticks and rifles separately. The boy looked back at Orrin. “You think the one that got my dad is here?”
“Great suns, boy! I don’t know. Just pick your favorite.” While Jabe deliberated, Orrin edged back to confer with Mullen. “We need any of this junk?”
“No, we’ve got plenty.”
Jabe reached into the gaderffii pile and found a silvery specimen, shorter than the others and relatively clean. Veeka laughed. “Just your size, runt.” The others laughed at the blushing kid before surrounding him, offering congratulations.
Orrin looked back at the killing ground. The Tuskens deserved every bit of this, surely. His boy Varan. Dannar Calwell. Even that Lars woman—all had gotten some justice today. But Orrin understood that squaring accounts here made for a change to the rest of the balance sheet.
“Will Zedd be ready to go again soon?” he whispered to his son.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Mullen said. “Doc Mell only had a second with him, but he said he could be out for a month this time. Maybe more.” He raised a hairy eyebrow. “Why, are you afraid this thing today will mess us up?”
“I don’t know,” Orrin said. He turned back to the crowd and locked eyes on Jabe. The boy always looked happy outside the store, but now he was positively over the suns. Jabe spotted Orrin and raised his shiny trophy, earning another cheer from the others.
Orrin smiled back. The boy was really growing up. He joined the applause.
“That’s it, folks,” he said, stepping into the crowd. “First the racers tried to ruin our good time, and then the Tuskens. Let’s get back to the Claim and show ’em we still know how to celebrate!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
WITH CARE, A’YARK PLACED one rock upon another. It was important to select the right mix of stones. The pile had to last for eternity, holding the remains of A’Deen above Tatooine’s surface. Tomorrows only mattered to the dead.
A’Yark’s clan did not bury their fallen. Nor could they, here in the shadows of The Pillars, where the ground was tough enough to snap off the end of any pick. No, A’Deen would lay atop the bed-altar, protected from wildlife by massiffs, the trained reptilians the Tuskens kept as camp guardians. His battle then would be against the suns—his spirit against theirs.
Eventually, even the most defiant warrior’s body would succumb to the wind. Then a new level would be built over his remains, the growing mound providing a tower to support the body of that warrior’s sons, or grandsons. But the graves of A’Deen’s ancestors were far away, in a different part of the wastes.
So here, in the evening shadows of this misbegotten place, A’Yark silently built a solitary bier for a boy who had been warrior for less than a week. No descendants would join his tower, but his spirit would last as long as the stones of his resting place did. A’Yark chose carefully. It was the work of a mother.
A’Yark was that, and a warrior, as well. The traditional divided roles of the past were a luxury the clan could not afford. There simply weren’t enough to fill them. All had changed after a single dread day fourteen cycles earlier. Today’s losses had been bad, but they were nothing compared with what had happened the day the clan battled the Hutts.
The day Sharad Hett died.
A’Yark stopped sorting and wondered. It was safe, now, to pause and reflect—as safe as it was going to get. She thought about Ben’s weapon, and visualized the owner of the other she’d seen. Sharad Hett was the ootman, the Outlander of local legend—but to A’Yark, he was a real being. He was, in fact, family, because of a different human A’Yark had met first: K’Sheek.
A’Yark had been born as K’Yark, the youngest of six children. When three of her siblings died from plague, her father Yark repopulated his household through a time-honored practice: abduction. K’Sheek, so named by the Tuskens who kidnapped her from a local settlement, was nearly an adult when she came to live with A’Yark’s family. A’Yark, still a child, was granted the privilege—too often, a chore—of bestowing on K’Sheek the ways and words of the Tuskens.
In so doing, A’Yark learned some of the soulless breathings the settlers called words. She remembered them well, evidently, as the one called Ben had understood her today. K’Sheek had spoken many human words, most of them sad. Over time, A’Yark realized her new sister had been living as a slave of the humans. Life with the Tuskens was not freedom, because the Tuskens were not free—bound and cursed, as they were, to inhabit the blasted lands. To K’Sheek, pale and miserable, it was almost more horrible than death. A’Yark often expected her to vanish into the wind.
But as a long chain of Tusken torturers had found, whe
re humans were concerned, fragile bodies often contained durable spirits. Yark allowed both A’Yark and K’Sheek to learn the ways of the warriors. He had assumed, correctly, that K’Sheek would learn their ways faster—and had defended his daughters against all criticism. There will come a day when all must fight, he had told the elders. We are too few.
While K’Sheek learned the Tusken words, both sisters learned combat. A’Yark saw that humans had great potential, as K’Sheek’s talent continually amazed. But something more startling was to come over the horizon from the cities and into the Tusken camp.
A volunteer.
Sharad Hett had ventured willingly into the wastes, bent on suicide—or, rather, on joining the Tuskens, which was much the same thing. A settler taken by force could enter the tribe, as K’Sheek had; but there was an important difference. The Tuskens had chosen K’Sheek. Sharad Hett had presumed much, and had to be broken.
A’Yark’s people certainly tried.
But Sharad had survived the punishments and emerged stronger. The elders whispered he had been part of some ancient and foreign army, suffused with powers from angry spirits. And Sharad carried a great and magical weapon, something no common settler carried. A shining green blade of energy.
In time, Sharad earned the garb and gaderffii of a Tusken, showing his face to the sky for the last time. He took fellow human K’Sheek as his mate—a match not of convenience, but affection—and together, they had a son, A’Sharad. But K’Sheek had not lived to see their child grow. Might against the enemy was one thing, but Tatooine posed threats of its own. Not long after her son’s birth, K’Sheek disappeared into a sandstorm.
Vanished into the wind—but A’Yark had not grieved over the loss of her sister. The presence of the child had bound Sharad to the Tuskens for life. Freely using the terrible powers and weapon at his disposal, Sharad became a war leader, training his son alongside him.
A’Yark saw little of the humans in those times. With her permissive father dead, her lot became that of any other female in the tribe. She took a spouse; she bore children. The group swelled as survivors of other clans joined, and for a time the Tuskens were strong. Under Sharad, structure had replaced chaos. Leadership, something every Tusken defied on principle, seeped into practice as Sharad could have his sway on any issue.
They feared him, yes. But they also followed. Sharad had never believed the Tuskens were a cursed people. With such a warrior—a wizard, really—the Tuskens could escape their curse and become mighty indeed.
But that, too, was presumption. For other forces existed on Tatooine, more powerful than any single warrior. The greatest of the Hutts, Jabba, had for some reason manipulated Tusken tribes across the Jundland into an all-out war with the settlers—a fight that had claimed the life of A’Yark’s oldest son, just six cycles old. An answer had to be given, and Sharad had led her clan and others into battle against the Hutts. But Jabba brought many thralls to battle that day, and countless Tusken warriors died, including her spouse, Deen. Sharad had died, too. Even Sharad’s son vanished, although no Tusken ever found the body.
A bad omen, and it told true. The makeshift Tusken alliance forged by Sharad collapsed, with the surviving clans melting away into the hillsides. A’Yark, a mother holding two little children, found herself forced to hold together what remained of her tribe. The few warriors that had survived were damaged, physically and spiritually; able to hold gaderffii, but unable to command others. Sharad had left no successor.
A’Yark hadn’t sought the role of war leader. There was enough to do, simply making sure the clan ate. But when no one rose, she did. It had once been her father’s tribe, after all; they had seen her ride with warriors before. And more than ever, her decimated people understood the meaning of their creed: Whoever has two hands can hold a gaderffii.
Losses continued in the decade after Sharad’s death. A’Yark had shared in them, losing another son—and later an eye, taken by infection after a wound. The crystal that now sat in its place had been a gift from Sharad. But the greater blow was to the clan’s spirit. When a mightier band of Tuskens vanished literally overnight several years earlier, leaving just the remnants of their camp behind, her group grew increasingly timid. A’Yark had tried to revive their spirits by example and, later, by daring exploits like the morning raids. After today, though, such things wouldn’t be possible. The shaper had no more clay to spare.
A’Yark stared back between the stone towers to the tents. Her people wandered, wraithlike, as if waiting for a final blow. There was no way to prevent such a stroke. Only seven males of warrior age remained: those she had brought from the gorge. And they lived only because their cowardice had driven them to run the fastest.
Of all Sand People, A’Yark had no objections to arming the rest of the clan. But even with a rifle placed in the hands of every mother, elder, and youngling, the prospects were poor. The Tuskens didn’t train; all experience came from combat. They would die before they learned anything.
No, it was pointless to resist. The clan would dissolve, its members drifting into bands where they would have no station or standing. Unless—
A’Yark looked up, startled. Yes. When her people had been desperate before, Sharad had used his powers to give them purpose. In fact, he had brought larger groups to his side. With a similar leader, the Yark clan might become more than the rump of a once-mighty tribe. A’Yark’s group could become the nucleus of a second united front, crushing the settlers once and for all—with another Sharad.
With “Ben.”
If Ben was another Sharad, the Tuskens couldn’t afford to see him side with the settlers, to be sure. But what if he could be made to join the Tuskens? He would have to be compelled; he’d already shown violence to her people inside the oasis store. But compelled how?
Ben seemed to want to protect the storekeeper, but there was no chance of using the woman for leverage. Another foray against the compound was out of the question. Humans were odd creatures, forming attachments to irrelevant beings and things. Perhaps there was someone else Ben cared for on Tatooine that he would do anything to protect.
Even if it meant becoming a Tusken, himself.
Eye wide open, A’Yark resolved to find out. Her exhausted body coursed again with energy and will. If a pressure point existed, A’Yark would discover it—and exploit it.
But first, her youngest child had to be put to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BEN HAD SAID LITTLE on the way home from the gorge. Annileen had been the opposite, asking one question after another as their speeder bike moved into the lengthening shadows of the western Jundland.
What happened in the store with Ulbreck?
What was the name that Plug-eye—A’Yark—said to you?
And how did you recognize it, especially when you’re new to Tatooine?
He’d never answered, acting as if he couldn’t hear over the whine of the bike. And maybe he couldn’t. Annileen had driven slower and slower, hoping to disarm him of that excuse. It hadn’t worked. “You’re losing altitude,” he’d said.
Well, I won’t argue that. Annileen felt the weight of the day on her shoulders as she coasted toward Ben’s hovel.
“Here we are,” she said, activating the brakes. Earlier, near the gorge, they’d briefly debated going back to the Claim so he could pick up his eopie. But night was falling, and even with the local Tuskens seemingly at bay, it was still Tatooine. Other predators moved in the dark.
“Thank you,” he said, climbing off the hovering bike. She looked up at his house. He’d made a little headway in cleaning up the surrounding area, but not much. “I’ll run in at dawn tomorrow to fetch Rooh,” he said. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
Annileen climbed off the vehicle and followed. “You know, my offer still stands if you want to save yourself a walk. My guest room’s empty toni
ght. I’d love to have you—”
“No!” Then, seemingly embarrassed, he adopted a calmer expression. “I mean, I’m sure your family and store will need all your attention after today. You don’t need company underfoot.”
“I’ll have it, whether I want it or not,” she said, remembering the usual after-action routine of the vigilantes. Would they really expect to party in a Tusken-ravaged store?
Yeah, probably, she thought.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Ben said. He began walking toward his house. “I hope your patron is doing better.”
Annileen blanched as she recalled the sight of the injured Rodian. “Poor Bohmer,” she said. “I was thinking about him earlier, too. He always sat there, staring. I never knew why. But I just imagined such sadness in his life, to make him sit there. For him to get hurt like that—”
Ben stopped and looked back. “It wasn’t sadness.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I saw him today—and on my first trip, there, as well.” Ben clasped his hands together. “I could tell. That wasn’t sadness. That was contentment.”
Annileen stared. “How do you know?”
“It’s just a feeling,” he said, blue eyes looking off into the setting suns. “But I’ve seen sadness before, in all kinds of faces. Bohmer was content. The drink you brought him in the morning, the table he sat at—it was his place in the universe.”
“But he got hurt there—”
“Protecting the place he loved. I think he’ll be okay with that.” Ben turned and began walking again up the hill in silence.
Annileen thought back to Ben talking about loss, earlier in the day. He was struggling with something, she could tell—something pretty bad. But at the same time, he seemed so centered. Centered, in the middle of nowhere.
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