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It read,

To the Sisters of the Raining Leaves

Kill, enslave, or drive forth the men with you and we will have no further quarrel with you. Do not, and you will die with them.

So swear we all, the Sisters of the Night.

Ben showed it to his father. “Not too bad. No misspellings. I think they used a ruler to keep the lines straight, like a first-timer in school.”

Luke cast an eye up the hill. “How are they doing?”

“Lots of injuries, lots of deaths. I think we’re losing the morale war.”

“Do what you can to keep that from happening. As much as your fighting skills, that’s what they need you for.”

“I guess.” Ben rolled the hide around the spear butt, tied it fast with the leather thong that had held it originally, and gave his father a quick hug before ascending the slope again.

At its summit, he offered the note to Kaminne and Tasander. They and some of the subchiefs gathered around could read, and news of the note’s contents spread throughout the camp.

Kaminne pondered. “What’s an elegant way to say No, and we hope you die in misery?”

Tasander shrugged. “My father used to say, May the stinging insects of a thousand worlds seek out your moist places.”

Kaminne laughed. So did several of the subchiefs, both Raining Leaves and Broken Columns. “Yes, say that.”

Tasander lay the note facedown on the rock and, with Dyon’s paints, wrote that response in a beautiful, flowing calligraphic hand. Once the paint had dried to the point it would not smear, he tied the note to the spear and handed it to Drola.

The others opened up a lane for the warrior. He started well back along the hilltop, ran forward, and hurled the spear with an athlete’s skill. The gleaming shaft sailed out far past the hill, burying its head in the soft soil partway back to the tree line. A few moments later a silhouette emerged from the trees, retrieved the spear, and returned to the shadows.

A little while later, Ben felt the familiar twinge in the Force net above him. He didn’t have to warn the others. Olianne was the first to raise a voice. “They’re coming!”

Ben was surprised to see the same number of rancors as before emerge from the tree line and race for the hill. All eleven seemed fresh, unhurt.

“Fire at will.” That was Tasander, and blasterfire joined arrows to hurtle against the rancors.

The beasts reached the hill’s base and, as before, clambered up with terrifying swiftness. This time, though, the central rancor of the five on the southwest slope stopped when it reached Luke, not ignoring him as the others had, and began grabbing at him as the other four swept up around him on both sides.

The spearmen braced themselves. But as the four rancors came almost close enough to receive their thrusts, they halted. Instead of surging up to the crest, they began digging and prying at the boulders toward the top of the slope.

Ben didn’t understand their tactic until it was too late. Tons of boulders, ranging from the size of a human head to the size of an air-speeder, dislodged by their efforts, clattered and rolled as a broad, deadly curtain toward Luke Skywalker.

“Dad!”

Luke, caught up in combat with a curiously defensive rancor, did not hear. Perhaps he felt a touch of Ben’s alarm, but he did not recognize it as applying to himself. He did not look up, and Ben saw the curtain of stone sweep across him and the rancor, carrying both down the hillside with it.

Then, and only then, did the four other rancors clamber up to the top of the hill.

Below, Ben could see Luke’s lightsaber, gleaming but now still, at the base of the hill. And four figures, women glowing with blue energy, raced out from the tree line toward his father.

Ben crouched to jump—not at any of the four rancors now clambering to their feet to his right, but down the slope, toward his father.

A hand fell on his shoulder, restraining him. He looked up to see Dyon shaking his head.

It played out like a conversation but with no words being spoken, the entire exchange one of understanding, transpiring in a fraction of a second