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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; a luminous milky gem the size of his fist, which Han recognized with a start as a krayt dragon pearl, one of the rarest treasures ever to come from Tatooine.

The old man raised up his bandage-wrapped hands and began to speak. The other Raiders sat enraptured as stories spilled out in low grunts and barely recognizable sounds that might have been words.

Luke translated for Han. “He’s telling of their exploits, how they took an entire stormtrooper regiment many years ago. How they slew a krayt dragon and took the pearls out of its gullet. How they defeated another Tusken clan, slaughtered all their adults, and adopted their children into the clan, thereby increasing their numbers.”

The storyteller finished his tale and squatted lower, gesturing to the young apprentice who glanced around. Two Tusken Raiders stood on either side of the boy, holding their gaffi sticks with the axheads pointing down at the apprentice. The storyteller raised a trembling hand and turned it sideways like a knife blade. The apprentice hesitated for a moment and began to speak slowly.

“Now what?” Han said.

Luke answered. “That boy is being trained as the clan’s next storyteller. The Tuskens believe very much in inflexible tradition. Once a story is set down as an oral path, it must remain forever unaltered. This boy has learned the story: he is now telling about a raid on a moisture farmer who attempted to bring peace between humans and Jawas and Sand People.”

“But why the weapons?” Han said. “Looks like they’re ready to snuff the poor kid.”

“They will, if he makes so much as one mistake. If the boy alters a single word, the storyteller will chop down his hand, and the Raiders will kill the apprentice immediately. They believe that speaking the stories in any manner other than the way they were originally told is great blasphemy.”

Han said, “Not much room for mistakes, is there?”

Luke shook his head. The other Tuskens were concentrating completely on the boy’s speech. “The desert is a hard place, Han. It allows no room for mistakes. The Sand People are a product of that environment. They have harsh ways, but such harshness has been forced upon them.”

The boy finished, and the old storyteller raised his other hand in a congratulatory gesture. The young apprentice slumped with trembling relief, and the other Sand People muttered their appreciation.

After a while, the fire was banked and began to burn low. The Tusken Raiders settled down for the night.

“I’m going to get some rest,” Han said. “You haven’t slept in two days, Luke. Can’t you wait until they all go to sleep, then catch a nap yourself?”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t dare. If I stop monitoring their thoughts, if I release my hold on their minds, they might