Part 14 (2/2)
Baritha shouted, ”Gethzerion, we have found the offworlder. He has a stars.h.i.+p, 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 smas.h.i.+ng 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 offworlders?both men?struggled 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 impa.s.sable, and Teneniel dared not take her captives on the rougher trails. The machine person would never be able to make it under any circ.u.mstances, and the men would need their hands free. Teneniel sang the discovery spell again. She could feel Nightsisters to three sides of them?one 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.
”I can't agree to that,” the male witch said. ”I hardly know you.”
”What?” Teneniel asked. ”Am I so ugly that you would rather be captured by the Nightsisters? Would you rather sp.a.w.n with one of them and watch your daughters master their spells?”
”I . . . don't know what the Nightsisters are,” the male witch said, yet his blue eyes opened wide with fear, and his voice was tight.
”You can feel them nearby, can't you?” Teneniel asked. ”Isn't that enough? You will be a valuable breeder. Who has ever heard of a male spellcaster? Rather than let you?rather than let any of us?fall into their hands, I will kill us all.” She pulled out one of their blasters.
The little mechanical person squealed and its metal housing rattled on its frame. Its single blue eye swiveled from Teneniel to the male witch.
”No!” the male witch said, nodding toward his friends. ”It's not them that the Nightsisters want, is it? It's you and me. The Nightsisters are drawn to us. Let my friends go. The Nightsisters will not bother them.
You and I can escape!”
”You will be my mate?” Teneniel asked hopefully. The male witch licked his lips, looked at her?not just at her face, but at her body, and Teneniel realized with a start that he thought she was attractive.
Overhead a warm wind stirred the trees, and the leaves began to whisper.
”Perhaps,” the male witch said. ”But I won't make that choice unwillingly. I didn't come to this planet looking for a wife. I'm not your property, and I won't allow you to kill anyone here, including yourself.”
The male witch's lightsaber flipped from her belt, activated itself and tumbled through the air, slicing his bonds and returning to his hand.
”I had to ask, at least,” Teneniel said, glancing away. She had been wondering all day if it was possible to keep a male witch enslaved. The ease with which he'd just freed himself answered that question, and the fact that he could cast spells without voicing them or using gestures unnerved her. Some of the sisters could do that with simple spells, but this male witch did it with even complex spells. She didn't want him to see the fear in her face, or the hope. ”Tell me, offworlder, do men on your planet have names?”
”I am Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Knight. These are my friends, Isolder and Artoo.”
Teneniel laughed. ”A Knight? You are not much of a warrior, Luke Skywalker.” He used the lightsaber to cut the bonds of the handsome prisoner.
Teneniel told Isolder and Artoo, ”Luke Skywalker and I will lead the Nightsisters away from here. As Luke Skywalker has said, they may not be interested in you. If you want shelter, then you must go to that mountain?the one that juts up like a wall.” She pointed forty kilometers in the distance. ”There you will find my clan sisters.” She did not tell them that if they survived the journey, she would take them slave again.
She was not interested in Isolder as a breeder, not with Luke Skywalker around, but she was sure she could sell him for a small fortune.
She tossed Isolder his blaster, hoping it would be enough to get him to the clan alive. He already had his pack with its food and tent.
”Come with me, Luke Skywalker,” Teneniel said.
”Just call me Luke.”
She nodded, took off through the woods at a run, heading east through a sunny glade where dewplates grew thick and green. Her discovery spell still worked; she could feel the Nightsister ahead, not half a kilometer off. Teneniel tried to form her plans, consider her battle spells, but somehow the effort of trying to run and think at the same time seemed too much. She felt confused, unsure even which direction she was running, and she wondered if she might not be under the influence of a spell herself?but the thought slipped away before she could grasp it.
Teneniel's gift was casting the Force storm, and here in the trees such a storm should be able to hide them. She hoped to meet the Nightsister head-on, then slip past her in the storm. It seemed a daring plan to Teneniel, a brilliant plan, to rush toward the Nightsister. Once the plan was formed, Teneniel felt a great sense of ease, knowing she had made the right decision.
Luke ran effortlessly. At first she thought he must have great stamina, but after a few minutes she saw that he did not sweat like a normal person. Therefore, he must have cast a spell?some spell she'd never heard of, and Teneniel had the unnerving realization that he might be more powerful than she'd imagined. Truly, she had captured him easily, and he had trudged along through the day making a show of pulling at his bonds.
But he could have freed himself at any time, and she could feel that he did not fear her. And he knew secret spells that none of the sisters had ever heard.
”Do you always use words when you cast spells?” Luke asked almost casually as he ran.
”Or gestures. Some learn to cast silently, as you do,” Teneniel gasped, sucking for air. Luke gauged her as she struggled up the hill, sweating.
Teneniel knew she did not look her best at the moment. When they got back to the clan, she could dress in clean clothes.
The Nightsister could not be far ahead, so as they ran for the top of a small wooded rise, Teneniel began chanting, eyes half-closed, preparing her spell. She stopped with Luke, and the wind above her trembled, feeling her power. She peeked over the hill into a small valley filled with young s...o...b..rk trees. Through the thick woods she saw the Nightsister dressed in purple robes, along with twenty of Zsinj's men dressed in the camouflaged armor of Imperial stormtroopers.
One trooper shouted, ”Up there!” and raised a blaster rifle. Teneniel focused her spell. Immediately the magic wind rose?storming across the ground so hard that rotted leaves and twigs rose in a maelstrom, blinding her enemies. The trees swayed and cracked in the wind.
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