Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [180]
The exiled Raider heaved himself to his feet again. Sand trickled from his flowing cloaks, but still he marched ahead, not looking back. A few of the banthas bellowed again. The sound was swallowed up in the empty vastness. The outcast’s drab garments soon made him fade into the landscape.
The lead Raider turned and, with a single energetic leap, mounted his bantha. The other Sand People climbed into their saddles. The banthas snorted and stomped on the loose sand.
Han got back to his seat. Luke was the last to balance himself again, and by that time the lead Raider had already turned the hairy beast to the side and began to plunge down the shallower slope at the back of the dune. The other Sand People followed, marching closely in line to mask their tracks.
Han risked a glance behind him. He could just make out the single exiled Raider dwindling in the distance, moving with slow determination as ripples of heat blurred his tiny figure. Soon he was swallowed completely by the unforgiving jaws of the Dune Sea.
The heat of the day seemed to last forever, and Han rode in a fugue state, barely aware of his surroundings, self-hypnotized by a litany of rocking footfalls. Ahead, Luke continued to sit upright on the bantha saddle, though he wavered from time to time. Han wondered what sort of energy the Jedi Knight was tapping into.
The group camped in a thick maze of rocky badlands punctuated by pockmarked stone needles rising out of the windblown sand. Darkness fell quickly with the double sunset, and the temperature plummeted. For a while the rocks continued to throb with stored heat, but they quickly cooled.
Grunting and chuffing to each other in their baffling language, the Sand People pitched camp. Each knew his or her own duties—Han could not tell whether the individual Tuskens were male or female. Luke had said that only assigned mates were able to see each other with faces unwrapped.
Two of the younger people encircled a flat area with smaller rocks, and piled bricks of what Han realized must be dried bantha dung, the only fuel source available out in the barrens.
Han and Luke moved about, trying to appear busy. The banthas, not corralled or tied in any way, were simply led to a side canyon where they could rest for the night. Other Raiders broke out packages of stringy dried meat. Han and Luke took their share and squatted on boulders.
Carefully, Han lifted his metal breathmask and jammed a piece of the meat into his mouth. He chewed and wasted several drinks of water as he tried to make the jerky palatable enough to swallow. “What is this stuff?” he muttered into the voice pickup.
Luke answered without looking at him. “Dried and salted dewback flank, I believe.”
“Tastes like leather,” Han muttered.
“It’s more nutritious than leather … I think,” Luke said. He turned his metal eyetubes toward Han, who could detect no expression on the wrapped-up face. Han became disoriented if he swiveled his head too fast while looking through the small holes in the eyetubes.
As the Sand People finished their meal, they gathered around the blaze as a tall Raider hunched near the brighter part of the fire. From the careful way he moved, the slow placement of limbs—not to mention the silent reverence the other Tuskens granted him—Han got the impression that this was a very old person.
“The storyteller,” Luke’s voice said in his ear.
Other Raiders brought out long poles and unfurled bright clan banners marked with jagged slashes, some sort of violent written language. These must be totems, symbols not seen by the outside world at all.
A young, wiry Raider sat next to the storyteller. Others came back from their bantha saddles with trophies, visual aids for the story. They held out scraps of rough cloth, a bloodied banner. Han saw battered and cracked stormtrooper helmets like the skulls of fallen enemies;