Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 02_ Shadow Academy - Kevin J. Anderson [44]
As if understanding the direction of her thoughts, Luke leaned forward again. "If we don't find them here, the Force will guide us. We are close
... I feel it."
An ululating cry rang out from the canyon rocks above them. Tenel Ka started in surprise. "A scout sounding the alarm," she said, irritated with herself for having been caught off guard.
"Good," Luke replied. "Then they know we're here."
Tenel Ka hesitated at first, uncertain of whether it was safe to continue, and then urged the young rancor forward. She looked up at the sky, which had lightened from black to predawn grayness, reminding her again of how much time had passed since her friends had been captured.
Rounding the next bend in the trail, the rancor came to an abrupt stop.
Tenel Ka looked at the path ahead of her and saw that their way was blocked by three full-grown rancors, each bearing a rider, dressed much as Vonnda Ra and Vilas had been earlier that evening.
The pressure of Luke's hand at her waist was a warning, but she already knew. Even in the dimness she could see that each of the riders held an Imperial blaster aimed directly at them.
Tenel Ka had been raised to take command, and though she rarely exercised that power, it did come naturally. She sat up straighter in the saddle and held one arm high. "Sisters and brothers of the Great Canyon Clan,"
she said, "we have heard your message as far away as the Misty Falls Clan and have traveled here to join you. We are not without skill in the Force, and we wish to learn your ways, to use all of the Force and to become strong."
Leaving the rancors at the well-provisioned stockade, Tenel Ka and Luke followed the guards toward the center of camp. She was surprised to see two Imperial AT-ST scout walkers clanking like mechanical birds around the perimeter on guard duty, near the penned rancors.
Passing between boldly colored tents made of water-repellent lizard hides, Tenel Ka noted roughly ten women and at least as many men going about their early-morning business in eerie silence, as if the warm ground mists swirling up to their knees muffled all sound. She saw no children at all in the encampment, heard no baby's cries, no sounds of young ones playing. In fact, she saw very few in the Great Canyon Clan who were even as young as she was.
Though she had known what to expect, it amazed Tenel Ka that men came and went here as freely as the women, apparently slaves to no one. She wondered if it really was possible on Dathomir that these men and women now thought of each other as equals.
At the center of camp, they came at last to an enormous patchwork pavilion that floated on the mist like a barbaric island made of furs and lizard hides sewn together. It was held up at the center and the corners by spears, three meters long and as thick around as Tenel Ka's wrists.
One of the Nightsisters raised a tent flap and motioned them inside. They entered, but the Sister did not follow. The flap dropped shut behind them, sealing out the wraithlike mists and the morning light. Waiting for her eyes to adjust, Tenel Ka tried to sense her friends; she still found no trace, but the light touch of Master Skywalker's hand on her arm reassured her.
At the center of the tent a tiny pinpoint of light suddenly flared into a bright flame, and Tenel Ka saw that it came from an oil lamp fashioned out of the inverted skull of a mountain lizard. Beside the lamp, on a wide platform covered with furs and cushions made from the hides of a variety of wild beasts, an imposing woman reclined in a massive chair made from a stuffed rancor head. The woman beckoned them forward into the flickering circle of light.
Without so much as a greeting, Vonnda Ra asked, "What is your business here?"
Tenel Ka, who had recognized the dark-haired woman instantly, said, "I have