Fate of the Jedi: Backlash by Aaron Allston

manipulation on his part.
    Kaminne nodded, decisive. “I so decree.” She fixed Luke with a stare. “You may untie us now.”
    “Thank you. Please continue.” Luke made no motion to rise.
    “You are now part of this meeting of clans. As counselors, you bear some responsibility for its success or failure. It would not do for you to show up with the leaders of the Raining Leaves in bonds, in your custody.”
    Luke considered. He sensed no duplicity in the woman’s words. She was clearly jockeying with him for power in this situation, but if he kept her as a prisoner, he might do more harm than good.
    He looked up at his companions. “Sha?”
    Sha moved behind the line of prisoners and, one by one, cut their bonds. While she was about that task, Luke rose and moved a few steps away with his comrades. “You know what I like about coming to worlds so backrocket that no one watches the news broadcasts?”
    Han shook his head. “What?”
    “No one ever says,
You look taller on the ’Net
. Say, you didn’t bring any tools, did you? Replacement circuitry, soldering gear? Our lightsabers are out of commission.”
    Han nodded. “There’s a kit in what’s left of my speeder, and I think Carrack, the Friendly Giant, has a kit.”
    “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