Star Wars - Kenobi by John Jackson Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

him with concern. “They said it was Plug-eye.”
    Orrin spoke softly. “Yeah. They got old Lotho and the Bith farmhand. But we took out a few.” He paused. “Our people didn’t chase far.”
    She stared keenly at him. “And Jabe was never in danger?”
    “Everyone lives with danger here. You know that. But if you try to turn that boy into a clerk like his daddy, you’re gonna lose him altogether. You need to trust me.” Orrin tapped her on the shoulder. “Now, if both your children are accounted for, I think we’ve got about thirty heroes waiting for their drinks in there.”
    “On the Fund’s tab,” she said, with what he took for mock sternness. Then she nearly smiled.
    Yes, we’ll be all right. Orrin grinned as he held the door open for her. This would turn out to be a good day after—
    A loud crack resonated from the other side of the building, followed by a feral yelp. A young woman’s indecipherable yell came a second later.
    Now what? Puzzled, Orrin rounded the building. There, in the side yard, he saw smashed corral fencing—and a cloud of dust heading toward the dunes to the southwest. He could just make out the blond figure amid the whirlwind, hanging on for dear life.
    Annileen appeared beside him. “Tell me it isn’t!”
    “Can’t lie to you,” Orrin said, peering into the distance. “That would be your Kallie running off on a crazy dewback.”
    “Snit!”
    Orrin sighed and shrugged. “Well, you did tell her to go do something …”

CHAPTER FIVE
    A’YARK JABBED THE KNIFE again into the warrior’s arm. Black streamed from the cut, fouling the young Tusken’s wrappings. The shrapnel was buried deep, too deep for A’Yark to reach.
    The survivors of the raiding party had been glad to reach The Pillars, a jagged cleave into the Jundland where the settlers and their vehicles could not follow. But the wastes had taken offense at being used for cowardice—and the young Tusken had paid. The injured warrior had evaded the settlers’ gunfire, but not the accursed grenade and what it had done to the rock wall. The arm would grow diseased, the hand unusable. If something happened beyond that, the Tuskens never knew. It wasn’t a thing worth knowing.
    A’Yark gave the blade to the warrior and spoke the words. They were the words known to all of them, the words that separated a Tusken from the other creatures that lived in the dust.
    Whoever has two hands can hold a gaderffii.
    The warrior stared at the weapon but did not question his duty. Another would take his bantha; the band could no longer afford to lose warrior and beast both.
    A’Yark gave the warrior his solitude and made a mental note to send someone over for the body. The important work was with the others, now. The morning’s raid had been a risk—perhaps too great a risk when their numbers were so small. And yet A’Yark had been certain that it was necessary. The settlers had grown too bold. The Tuskens needed to be bolder.
    What remained of the clan now hid, like the coward sun, among The Pillars. Legend held that a giant had repeatedly struck the mountains with a dagger here; some said it was the younger sun himself, flailing against his brother. Whatever the explanation, the landscape was unreal. Natural stone columns and crumbling obelisks climbed to the sky, some topped by precariously perched boulders. A maze of narrow passageways crisscrossed among the towers. Some led to caverns, some led nowhere. A clearing amid the towering rocks provided enough room for a cramped campground around a sacred well; banthas and Sand People alike clumped in the craggy stomach of the Jundland.
    No one said anything as A’Yark passed through the camp. The dozens who had remained here during the raid knew that many weaklings had fallen. There was no time to mourn the unworthiness of kin. Those names, those voices, belonged to the past. The Sand People had to survive today.
    The Tuskens had a word for “tomorrow,” but it was seldom used.