Chapter 18.

After lunch, Teneniel led the group down to their mounts. Though the noon sun did not seem particularly warm, the rancors were already bathing in the ponds below the fortress, wading around on the bottom with only their nostrils showing.

Some of the boys from the village were shouting orders to the rancors, and soon four of them came up out of the water. The boys put breastplates on the rancors, hauling up the heavy mail made of pieces of bone and bits of armor all tied together with whuffa hide. Once they got the armor on the rancors, the boys climbed up on their bony headplates and tied on the saddles. The saddles were situated in a shallow depression just in front of the headplate, and were held in place by means of ropes tied to the beast's fangs, then strung back between its nostrils to the th.o.r.n.y bones at the top of its head plate. Two saddles were put on each mount.

Leia chose to ride an old sow, a herd leader named Tosh, who had pale green lichens and moss growing in her warty brown skin. Han gave her a boost up on the rancor so that she could climb up its k.n.o.bby arms to the bony plates on its shoulders, then leap over to the saddle. Then Han helped Isolder and Luke lug the droids up onto one of the mounts and tie them in. Taking the droids was difficult, but they needed Artoo's sensors.

Once they finished, Teneniel climbed up on one of the mounts and Chewie on another. Han came to Leia's mount and started looking for a foothold to climb up, but Luke hurried over.

"Say, uh, Han," Luke said softly. "I was sort of hoping to ride with Leia. It's been a long time since I've seen her, and I sort of wanted to get caught up on a few things." Leia could feel an unusual tenseness in Luke.

"No way, buddy," Han said. "She's mine. Why don't you ride on that rancor over there?" He nodded toward Teneniel. "That Teneniel is definitely hot for you."

"Her?" Luke said. "I wouldn't know about that." Luke blushed, and Leia suddenly understood: Luke was feeling shy, and yet she could feel that he was pulled in two directions. He liked the girl but didn't want to get close.

"You can't tell me you haven't noticed her," Han said. "I mean, that woman is definitely put together just right."

"Yeah, I've noticed." Luke smiled weakly.

"So, what? You're telling me you don't want her?" Han asked in disbelief.

"We're just from such different worlds," Luke said.

"But you've got so much in common. You're both from strange little backwater planets. You both have odd powers. You're male and she's female. What more do you need? Believe me, buddy, if I were you, I'd go right up there and ask her if she wants to ride on my rancor."

"I don't know," Luke said. Above them, Leia could feel some of the tension ease out of him. Han had nearly talked Luke into it.

"Okay, if you don't want to ask her to ride with you, maybe I should ask her to ride with me," Han said, glancing up at Leia.

"Oh, you're so juvenile," Leia shot back, "trying to make me jealous.

Well, it won't work."

"Hey," Han said, "I'm the jilted lover here. If you want to ride with His Highness Isolder, that's your prerogative." He waved toward Isolder, who was standing over by Teneniel's rancor. "But if I go looking for some lovely young lady to comfort me while I'm on the rebound, why should you care?"

"I don't care?much," Leia said. "It's not you I'm worried about. I just don't want you using another woman that way!"

"Me?" Han said, throwing his arms wide and shrugging in a gesture of disbelief. He turned to look at Teneniel, but Luke was already climbing the rancor to sit next to her. Isolder had sneaked back around Leia's mount, and he scurried up in that instant, leaped in the saddle beside Leia.

"Too bad, General Solo," Isolder said, patting Leia's knee. "It looks as if you will have to ride beside your hairy Wookiee friend. But I know that won't bother you, since you two are so close."

Han glared up at Isolder, and Leia definitely did not like the look in his eyes. The day didn't get much better from then on.

They started by taking a back trail over Singing Mountain so that the rancors had to climb down a hundred-meter cliff. They proved to be terrible mounts in many ways?when a rancor looked around, the creature's entire head plate shifted right and left or bobbed up and down, depending on its line of sight. If it walked upright, its awkward gait tended to be jarring enough so that an inattentive rider could easily get thrown, and when it dropped to all fours and loped through the thick brush, just staying mounted became an incredible feat. All in all, riding a rancor proved to be as physically demanding as any task Leia had ever undertaken. Yet by nightfall she was convinced that a person could never travel in these mountains without one.

Twice they came to great canyons a trained climber would be afraid to scale, yet the rancors dug their huge claws into ancient handholds and toeholds carved in the cliffs, and shin-nied up and down the stone.

During one such incident, Han's rancor knocked free a stone that barely missed crushing Isolder. The prince glared up at Han, and Han smiled down weakly. "Sorry."

"Perhaps not sorry enough! If you cannot steal her from me, do you think to murder me?" Isolder said, jaw clenched.

"Han wouldn't do that. It was only an accident," Leia a.s.sured Isolder, but the prince scowled up at Han nonetheless.

Isolder remained quiet for a long time, but when their rancor was marching well ahead of the others, he said, "I still don't understand why you came here with Han so abruptly." He did not say any more, did not pry, but his tone spoke of his frustration, demanded an answer, an answer that she did not want to give.

"Does it really seem so odd that I would run off with an old friend like Han?" Leia asked, hoping to change the subject.

"Yes," Isolder said rather vehemently.

"Why?" Leia asked.

"He's rather abrasive . . ." Isolder said, cautiously, as if thinking.

"And?"

"Oafish," Isolder concluded. "He's not good enough for you."

"I see," Leia said, trying not to let her rising anger show in her voice.

"So, the prince of Hapes thinks that the king of Corellia is an abrasive oaf, and the king of Corellia thinks that the prince of Hapes is slime. I can see that you two won't be forming a mutual admiration society anytime soon."

"He called me 'slime'?" Isolder said, shock evident on his face.

A moment later, in heavy brush where a man would have spent hours cutting his way through even with a vibro-blade, the rancors simply crashed through the foliage. As Isolder's mount pushed through some trees, Isolder held a branch to keep it from scratching Leia, then let it swing back, whacking Han and Chewbacca. Han shouted, "Hey! Watch it!"

Isolder flashed a smile. "Perhaps, General Solo, you should watch out for yourself. This is a very dangerous planet you've led us to, filled with all manner of dangerous species of slime."

Han's face darkened. "I'm not worried!" he said. "I can take care of myself."

They rode on for most of the rest of the afternoon without incident, perhaps too weary to fight. Leia listened to Luke and Teneniel talking softly, Luke instructing her in the ways of the Force, the girl telling of hunting a horned beast she called a drebbin in these mountains.

Apparently the creatures preyed on rancors, though Leia found that hard to imagine.

When the party came to a mountain river in the late evening where floodwaters roared, the rancors leaped in and swam with long strokes, only their nostrils showing above water, their tails floating behind them. Leia began mindlessly humming a tune, then realized she was humming, "Han Solo, / What a man! Solo," and she stopped, embarra.s.sed.

Han brought his rancor up beside Leia and Isolder, smiled at Leia broadly. The rancors swam side by side for a moment, then the current pushed Han's rancor so that it nudged theirs. Isolder responded by turning his rancor into Han's so that for a moment the two rancors swam shoulder to shoulder jostling one another.

Leia glared at Han and Isolder and shouted, "Cut it out, both of you!"

"He started it!" Han yelled, and Isolder slapped his reins into the water, splashing Han.

Behind them, Teneniel began singing lightly and a water spout rose from the river, carrying twisted sheets of brown foam forty meters into the air. It whirled toward the group, then collapsed, drenching Han and Isolder. Luke and Chewbacca broke out laughing, and Leia smiled back at the witch.

"Thank you," she said. "Maybe someday you can teach me that spell."

Leia felt a sudden sense of bliss and desire, realized she had touched Luke's emotions. He'd seldom felt that way about a woman before, she was sure. Leia winked at him.

"We can camp soon," Teneniel said when the rancors climbed out of the stream. Artoo had his antennae dish extended. "The caves are nearby."

"Artoo isn't picking up any Imperial signals," Threepio said, his golden eyes shining unnaturally bright against the dark foliage of the forest.

"Though he is getting a great deal of radio traffic above us."

"What's going on?" Luke asked, and Artoo began twittering and beeping.

"Apparently, sir," Threepio informed them, "several Imperial Star Destroyers just jumped out of hypers.p.a.ce above us. Artoo is trying to get a count of the ships now. So far, he's detected signals from fourteen ships."

Leia glanced up nervously at the sky even though it was still far too light to make out a s.p.a.ceship, and Isolder said, "I shouldn't have brought in a Hapes Battle Dragon. After our little attack, they've got only two choices?reinforce or bug out. It looks as if they plan to reinforce."

Leia almost asked, "What are the chances that Zsinj's men will figure out that we're down here?" but decided she'd better not say it. She didn't want to cause the group any concern, just in case no one else had thought of it. But she looked at Han, knew by the frown lines what he was thinking. The guards from prison had already broadcast his name over the air. It was a good bet that Zsinj's men knew Han was alive down here. And like all good New Republic officers, Han carried a price on his head. The only question was, did Zsinj want him badly enough to break his own interdiction order and send a ship down?

Leia looked back at Isolder. "I think you're right. I don't like the idea of having all those destroyers above us." The chances that the ships'

sensors could detect the droids' electronics was remote, but still there was a chance, so she added, "Let's get to those caves and hide for a while."

In less than ten minutes, Teneniel led them up a hill through the thick trees, till they came to a yawning hole in the ground half-concealed by twisted red vines with pungent white flowers. Teneniel got down from her rancor, went to the cave mouth and shouted, "Barukka? Barukka?" But no one answered. She stood for a moment, nervous, then closed her eyes and began to sing softly. When she opened her eyes, she said, "I can't feel her anywhere near."

"If we don't find her," Threepio said, "how will we get any information about the prison? Artoo, scan the area for human life forms!" Artoo whistled and began aiming his antenna dish along the horizon.

Teneniel peeked inside the cave, walked in. A moment later, she came back out. "There are some clothes there, some pots. It looks as if she may have left several days ago."

"Great," Han said. "Where would she go?"

"Hunting for food?" Teneniel guessed. "Or maybe she has rejoined the Nightsisters. This is a dangerous time for Barukka. As one who is forsaken, she is supposed to remain here in the wilderness, remain alone and consider her past, her future. But often the loneliness becomes too much."

The sky was beginning to darken as the sun set. "Let's camp here," Luke said. "We can wait for her."

He urged his rancor into the dark, and Teneniel began setting stones in a semicircle around the cave's mouth, apparently to signify that it was occupied. Somehow, the whole idea of going inside bothered Leia. She felt as if she were violating Barukka's privacy.

Isolder urged his rancor forward into the shadows. Once inside, the caves proved to be a glimmering wonderland of stalact.i.tes and stalagmites encrusted with garnet in hues of pale citrine streaked with metallic green and ivory. It looked like seawater splashing all around, and Leia understood why the witches had named it Rivers of Stone. The roof of the cave reached high enough so that the rancors could have stood on one another's shoulders. Water flowed through the caves in a shallow stream.

Teneniel dragged some logs in from a cache by the door, and Han started them afire with his blaster. During the day, the group had remained quietly alert while riding, keeping a lookout for scouting parties from the Nightsisters. Now that they could talk, Leia found she was too tired.

The rancors, however, seemed not to be tired. They hunched around the fire in their gruesome breastplates of bone and stormtrooper uniforms, and warmed their knuckles near the fire, growling softly. Tosh spoke to the younger ones, gesticulating with her claws, the firelight playing over her teeth and the warty bone plates on her shoulders.

Chewbacca curled up on a mat and slept; the droids went to the mouth of the cave so that Artoo could monitor the countryside with his sensors.

Han took off exploring the back of the cave with a torch. Luke and Teneniel talked softly as she put some large green nuts in the coals of the fire to roast in their sh.e.l.ls. Isolder lay against a garnet-encrusted pillar, eyes half-closed, playing with his blaster.

The rancors made a moaning sigh, and Teneniel nodded up toward Tosh.

"She's telling her children how her ancestors first met the witches,"

Teneniel said. "She says that a sickly female met a witch that healed her, and the witch rode on the rancor's back, learned to speak its tongue. By riding the rancor's back, the witch was able to spot food better with her sharp eyes that see well even in the daylight, and the rancor thrived and became huge. In time, she became a herd mother, and her herds prospered while others died out. Back then, the rancors did not know how to make fine weapons like spears or nets. They did not know how to protect themselves with armor. Because the witches have taught them such great things, she says, the rancors must always love the witches and serve them, even when we make unreasonable demands to give us rides through the wilderness or ask them to fight the Nightsisters."

Leia studied Teneniel thoughtfully, realized the girl must have felt her curiosity about the rancors. "I think Tosh loves your people," Leia said.

Teneniel nodded, reached up to scratch the rancor's hind leg. "Yes, she's very grateful that her herd is strong, but none of the rancors are happy about the Nightsisters."

"You told me earlier that the rancors will not serve the Nightsisters,"

Luke said. "Why is that?"

"The Nightsisters treat them badly, as if they were mere slaves. So the rancors always run away."

"I find it interesting," Isolder said, "that you treat your rancors as friends but treat men as slaves. You have an interesting power structure with men at the bottom, but I find it all rather barbaric."

"It's often easier to see the barbarism in alien cultures than it is to see it in your own," Luke said. "The witches have built a hierarchy based on power, as do most cultures."

Isolder nodded.

"For example," Leia said, "I find the whole concept of rule by birthright to be rather barbaric. Don't you, Isolder?"

"That's an odd statement, coming from you, Princess," Isolder said. "You come from a family that has been bred and trained to lead for generations. It is only right that you should lead, and all of your people know it. Even when your t.i.tle and throne have become little more than a token honor, your people still clamor for you to serve as the amba.s.sador for Alderaan."

"So you claim that we are leaders not by birthright, but because we inherited those skills?" Leia asked in dismay. "I think that's pretty farfetched."

"No, it isn't," Isolder affirmed. "We breed animals for intelligence, for beauty, for speed. Among social carnivores, the herd leaders often select the strongest and smartest mates. As a result, their offspring usually 'inherit' a dominant position in their pack, if you will."

"Even if I gave you that point," Leia said, "it really doesn't have any bearing on human behavior. Humans aren't social carnivores."

Isolder glanced into the shadows. "If you knew my mother better, you would not argue that particular point." Leia wondered at those words.

"Certainly many groups of humans see themselves to be social carnivores,"

Luke said. "Look at any speeder pack, and you can't help but see something of that att.i.tude. Then of course there are the warlords."

"And the Nightsisters," Teneniel said.

"Luke, I can't believe you're arguing against me on this!" Leia said.

"You're the gentlest person I know."

"All I'm saying," Luke said softly, "is that as distasteful as it may sound to you and me, Isolder might have a point. Intelligence, charisma, decisiveness?all of these traits are likely to have genetic components.

And so long as these traits breed true, then perpetuating a guild of leaders might not be a bad idea."

"I think it's a terrible idea," Leia said. "You've seen it, Isolder.

You've seen businesspeople on your planets who could lead as well as you."

Isolder hesitated. "I suspect they might serve well as leaders?they are certainly leaders in commerce?but I'm not certain they should be allowed to lead governments."

"How could you not be certain?" Leia asked.