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“When we get to a spot where we can camp, Ben and I will get to work.”

Kaminne, absently rubbing her wrists, moved up to them. “We will see to the injuries sustained by our rancors, then we can move out.”

Luke gave her a smile. “That sounds good.”

“You know, from all the stories told of you, I thought you would be taller.”

Han’s speeder was a lost cause, trampled by the rancor it had hit, damaged beyond any hope of repair. Yliri’s was functional, having suffered only minor damage to a rear panel. Luke, mindful of the status and prickly nature of his new Dathomiri associates, elected to ride in the cargo speeder. Its seats and generous cargo bed accommodated the Skywalkers, the Solos, the other offworlders, Sha, and the Sihn sisters. Yliri piloted it at a pace that would not leave the remaining Witches and their rancors behind.

“This gathering is, in a sense, your doing,” Kaminne told Luke.

He gave her a surprised look. “How is that? I haven’t been here in years.”

“But when you did come here, you changed things. That is what they say of Luke Skywalker. Wherever he goes, things change.” There was a touch of sadness to Kaminne’s voice. She did not look at Luke or even at the rising, hilly terrain in the direction she faced, but into some distant region of the past. “I was a baby when first you came to Dathomir, and your deeds were often spoken of around the fires. Some of the clans experimented with new laws, freeing their menfolk. Later, when you commanded that a Jedi school be raised here, it accepted any who were strong in the Force, not just girls, which was a very different way of doing things.”

Luke nodded. Traditionally, the clans of Dathomir were matriarchal and matrilineal, with the males often slaves or little more. “So change came.”

“Yes. Not evenly. Not predictably. Sometimes not peacefully.”

Luke felt a little prickle of danger, of hostile intent, as a raising of hairs on the back of his neck. He turned and caught Olianne in the act of glaring at him from the rear of the cargo bed. He had the sense that if she had the opportunity to creep up on him with her knife, she’d not just kill him, but skin him as well.

He forced himself to ignore her.

Kaminne, apparently unaware of the exchange of glances between Luke and her sister, continued, “With some clans, the bolder and stronger men would escape and live in small groups out away from the women. This had been going on as long as there have been people on Dathomir, but their numbers increased in the years after your visit. Some of these men would make raids on the clans, striking when there were few or no Witches about, stealing supplies … sometimes even stealing mates from among the women who had no powerful arts.”

Luke offered her a sympathetic expression. He’d had reports of such events cross his desk in the years when there was a Jedi school here. “You’ve had reason to suffer from raids like this?”

“Worse. The Raining Leaves remained traditional, old-fashioned, through these times. But ten years ago, there was an uprising by our men. Not all of them, but many. They struck with cunning and ferocity, cutting down the most experienced Witches during the deepest hour of night. No Witch still in our caves survived that night. My mother, my aunts, my oldest sister … Some of us were away from the caves, out hunting or on distant errands. Returning, we got wind of the uprising. We used our arts and attacked, cutting down the men. Not one over the age of ten years survived. My father fell, too, even though he was blameless. In a week, we had lost two-thirds of our people and all of our most experienced Witches.”

Olianne’s voice, mocking and harsh, floated forward from the rear of the speeder. “So what is it like to be a hero, Skywalker? Shall we name our boy-children after you, in your honor?”

Luke turned to regard her again. “I’m sorry for your losses. But I don’t teach that sort of violence. The Force doesn’t encourage it. It was a desire for vengeance, a dark emotion, that prompted