Red Hills
Dathomir

0400 Hours (local time)

Lashing in ceaseless fury, rain swept Dathomir for the third time in the same night, spilling the soil of Red Hills in a bloody testimony to what was swelling between the clan of Frenzied River, and their rivals, the Nightsisters. On the horizon, the encampment of the Red Hills clan lay dormant, her fires no longer burning nor smoking. They would not play witness to the coming clash by way of virtue; they were still neutral in this broiling conflict. In time, they too would likely find war where war was not wanted, but in the meantime, they were happy to lease their land to both sides to settle their dispute, and remain loyal to neither.

A small child scurried through the sludge, nimble despite the slop that sucked at her bare feet. The rain had turned the ground into a minefield in its own right, swelling mud pits until they were indistinguishable from the pool of mud flowing from the hills. It was a bad night to do battle, but there was no longer an alternative. The indecision of the Red Hills clan had led to the Nightsisters learning of the pending ambush by the Frenzied River clan, and as such had spent the night weaving their spells to bring downpour, rendering the assault site all but impassable.
Except Nefari had found a route. A girl of ten years, she had come to Dathomir under strange circumstances; her mother, Evayne, still remembered clearly the way she was herded from a freighter, bound by the neck to two other children, forced into line with electro-pikes to be surveyed by some filth of a man. The ship had landed not far from the banks of Frenzied River, its pilot ignoring the native village as an inconsequential dwelling.
They hadn't counted on the ferocity of those natives.
Before an exchange could be made, the Dathomiri witches attacked, rescuing the children and enslaving the slavers; a poetic end, if ever there was one. Two of the children had been returned to the nearest trading port, where contact was made with their homeworlds, and rescue ships sent to retrieve them. The third, a young girl with no hair and pale skin, had no way of returning. Her homeworld was rarely privy to operational vessels, save for those that arrived to trade slaves for treasures. And so, Evayne had taken in the girl, named her Nefari, and began teaching her the ways of the Frenzied River clan.

As chance would have it, the girl proved adept at learning and performing their magic. The possibility that she possessed Allyan magic opened up new doors for the girl, and soon she didn't only travel with the clan on its hunts, but she was encouraged to participate.
And so, on the gloomy evening in which their Nightsister foes weaved the powers of torrential hell against them, the Frenzied River clan were thankful to their forebearers for flinging their magical spores far and wide, to bring them a child who may have solved their problems.
"You found a way through" Evayne stated. She needn't pose it as a question; if Nefari had failed in her scouting, she wouldn't have returned. Already they'd lost three sisters to the mud pools.
"I memorised it" Nefari said, pride entering her young voice. "The Rancor's are too big though. They'll need to go around".
"Then go around they shall" interrupted Grinda, the clan Mother. "Perhaps if we send them on ahead, they'll arrive behind the Nightsisters as we launch our attack, no?" she smiled down at the child. Then, with a severe look to Evayne, she asked "Was the child seen?"
"I'm too small to see in the darkness" Nefari pouted, looking crestfallen that her skills were in question. Evayne patted her ontop of her head, causing rain water to fall from where it had gathered in the folds of her Rancor-leather hood.
"I sensed no alarm, and no ill intent toward her" Evayne assured the clan Mother. "She was not seen".
"Good" Grinda nodded, and withdrew a small pouch from beneath her bone armour. She took out a handful of Kamurith teeth, and kneeling on the patchy, sodden grass, cast them before her. She studied their placement, ran a hand in the air above them, her eyes half-lidded and her lips moving in silent incantation. Nefari shifted uncomfortably in the silence, the beating downpour her only distraction, and felt her mothers hand tense on her shoulder. She abruptly stilled herself, and waited like the others.

"The time is upon us" Grinda divined. "Riders, divert around the nearest hill and use the forest as cover. Witches, when we cross the mud stretch, be wary of incoming attacks" she ordered. "The child was invisible to eyes seeking enemies. We will not be so fortunate. When we've crossed to the other side, flank our warriors and shield us from the enemies darkness" she intoned, standing upright and drawing a pair of sickle-blades carved from the bones of her former Rancor, and bound in ribbons of stained and cured animal skin.
Evayne kept Nefari close at hand as the young girl took point. She willed the child to go unnoticed by their enemy, and as her mind stilled, she felt the same will from several of the other clan women. The thought assured her greatly, and as they took to the safe route that Nefari had chosen, even the growling of the Rancors as they ambled away in their own direction didn't break her thoughts.
War was no beautiful thing, but it did have a habit of bringing out the best in people.

Added (26 Dec 2010, 12:41 PM)
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The flat land was deceptively calm, despite the heavy rains pounding their soil and flooding their patchwork grasses. More to the point, it was perilously open land, with no cover or shelter save for the overhang of rock jutting out from the edge of the large hill which the Frenzied River clan now clung to.
"How are they maintaining this downpour?" Evayne called over the noise of the storm, placing a hand on Nefari's shoulder to slow her while she addressed the Clan Mother.
"The Nightsisters know magic we do not, and will not" Grinda replied, her voice serene and calm, yet louder than the storm in Evayne's mind. "Powerful though it may seem, the dark magic they possess comes with a price, one of consumption and grief".
"Pray that they are grievously consumed by the time we arrive" Evayne mutter blackly, turning to resume their journey.

The parade of Dathomiri ambled along the route Nefari had picked out for them, and without their Rancor riders at their flanks or a clear sight of destination, many were feeling demoralised. And so, when the first bolt of lightning arced from the skies, striking into the heart of their ranks, screams rent the air and chaos ensued.
The charred husk of what had once been a human male slave - a load bearer, carrying their surplus weapons - rolled to the floor, and was swallowed instantly by the sodden earth, red soil bubbling up where he had once lay.
Lightning struck again, and this time the Dathomiri at the rear began to scatter, some stumbling from the track and into the mud pits, others heading back the way they came, only to find their path blocked by a tangle of thorned vines growing rapidly from the hills above and out of the swirling mud below.
"Stand firm!" Grinda called, but to little avail. The vines had begun snaking toward the clan, twisting and constricting as if a physical manifestation of the dark magic threatening to overcome them.
"We're not far!" Nefari insisted, tugging on Evayne's sleeve, finally catching her attention. "Look! I can see the ridge up ahead!"
Evayne squinted through the rain and the strobing of the lightning, ignoring the screams which were coming closer and closer... and she saw it. The ridge leading up to the Nightsister encampment. Shadowed on the horizon were three figures robed thickly, their arms and hands waving at the heavens and grasping at the air, weaving their horrific spells against the Frenzied River clan.

"Onward!" Evayne roared, to the approval of the Clan Mother, and as one the group surged forward. Lightning struck among them, but they did not slow. Roots and vines snatched at their feet, their bodies, and their heads, but still the clan were unharried.
Finally, as they cleared the rocky overhang and the pools of sinking mud, the clan dispersed into formation just in time to take the ridge. The three Nightsisters were swept up in the flow, put to rest by decisive blows from clubs and glaives, and as the Frenzied River warriors and witches poured into the Nightsister encampment, a welcome noise was heard above the dying rain; the roaring of Rancors, emerging from the treacherous forest that ran the Eastern perimeter of Red Hills.
Nefari immediately found cover among the load-bearers, hiding behind a large crate overflowing with spears, bone swords, glaives and clubs. She kept an eye on things as they proceeded, but so far there was no sign of battle. The Frenzied River clan had the encampment - more of a village, now that Nefari had time to study it - and all that had stood in their way were three Nightsister spellweavers.

"Search the camp" Grinda was ordering her warriors. "Witches, on me. Evayne, stay close, you're my best glaive fighter" she snapped, as Evayne made to join the others in searching. Something was off. Something was very, very off.
A single Rancor ambled over to the Clan Mother, its rider jostled back and forth in her seat. She pulled back on the reins, though the action was unnecessary; with a thought alone, she could have halted the beast.
"We encountered no resistance on our journey, Clan Mother" the rider said. Lyzea was the leader of the riders, and her scars paid testament to the number of Rancors she'd tamed and the conflicts she'd endured. She'd have been beautiful once, but now she was a visage of mauled flesh and ravaged sinew. She wore her skin dyed blue, and had tattooed black and white streaks across her exposed breasts, shoulders and thighs, a pattern repeated in paint across her ranks of riders and their mounts.
"That is... unusual" Grinda conceded, before Lyzea had chance to express the same thought. "They'd have known we'd bring our riders, and that the only path less dangerous for you would be through the forest".
"There were tracks. Rancor tracks. Someone else had been there recently" Lyzea added. "There are no wild Rancors that populate this area" she stated, as Grinda began to ask the question. She didn't argue; Lyzea was the best of her kind, and if she said there were no wild Rancors, then there were none.
"I find it irregular that the Red Hills clan would ride out, knowing there is a conflict about to happen with which they wish to take no part" Evayne observed. "Which means..."

"Riders!" someone shouted. Lyzea spurred her beast back the way she'd come, just as boulders began to rain down into the encampment.
"But I don't see..." Evayne began, but barrelled out of the way, dragging Grinda with her, as a Bull Rancor pushed itself out of a hole in the ground - a hole that hadn't been there before - and made a swipe at her. It turned its tusken head toward her, and let out a frustrated bellow, its black skin contorting with rage as it heaved itself fully out of the ground and straightened up.
Evayne fixed the rider with a baleful glare, and the rider licked her blackened lips, cracked skin stretching over bone and twisting her bruised visage into something of a playful leer.
The Rancor advanced, with purposeful delay, and Evayne could see other Rancors now swelling from concealed exit points in the ground and confronting the Frenzied River clan. But they weren't all that emerged, as Evayne discovered, suddenly finding herself in close combat with a pair of blade-wielding Nightsister warriors that had climbed out after the Rancor.
Orders and battleplans were put to waste, as the Dathomiri of Frenzied River fought for their lives, striking at will against the Nightsisters, throwing Grinda's strategies to the wind.

Nefari cowered behind her crate, blessed with the power to be great but lacking in the discipline to contribute to her clans' survival.

Added (09 Jan 2011, 7:18 Am)
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22 BBY

Nightsister Stronghold
Dathomir

0320 Hours (local time)

Something stirred unexpectedly, and by the pale green light cast from the nearby font of luminescent water, a lone figure snapped upright on her cot. Despite having been lost in deep sleep only moments earlier, the lithe young woman was alert now, the memories brought forth by dreams fading to the back of her mind. Long had she been troubled by them, but over the passage of time, she'd learned that to dwell on the past, and on what might have been, would lead to little providence and only failure. The battle at Red Hills, some ten years ago, had changed her life. She'd never witnessed nor heard of the outcome, for not long after the rise of the hidden Rancors, she'd been snatched and smothered into unconsciousness, only to awaken somewhere alien to her. Alien and unfriendly, though she soon learned to adapt, much as she had done when first brought to Dathomir as a child.
What had become of Evayne, Grinda and the others... that was no longer her concern.

Admonishing herself for allowing such thoughts to invade her waking mind for even this short an amount of time, Nefari returned her awareness to whatever it was that had awoken her. A presence... that was it. The room was as it had been when she'd retired for the night, everything exactly where it should be. Everything except the fine filament she'd strung across the slim vent carved through the cavern wall, to provide ventilation when the door was closed. Someone had entered via that route, unaware of her methods of detection, though they'd known enough about her to realise she'd have booby-trapped the door.
She rose as casually as possible, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, feigning fatigue and disorientation from a dream which no longer concerned her. She didn't probe with her senses, for that would give her awareness away, if the intruder were sensitive to such things. Instead she took up an empty cup and moved to the font, scooping until the cup was full and looking at her own reflection in the water. Her pale face stared back at her, dark tattoos accenting her eyes and mouth, and wrapping around the bald skin at the sides of her skull. A shock of white hair swept back along the middle of her head into a tight tail, never allowed to hang free and obscure her vision.
On the ceiling above her, in the shadows, there was a faint glimmer of reflected light. In the ripples of the water, it was hard to discern whether it belonged to a weapon, or if it was a distraction meant to draw her attention away from the attack which was coming... from behind.

She spun on her bare heel, throwing the full cup of water at her would-be assassin, and a muffled grunt told her that the attacker was female. No... not attacker. Attackers.
Somersaulting forward, Nefari missed being landed on by a second assassin by mere inches, and as she rolled to her feet, she grabbed the first attacker by the throat and drove her head down into the floor. Crouching and still holding the unconscious woman by her throat, Nefari looked back over her shoulder in time to see the second assassin drawing a knife from her belt; the object which had glinted in the reflection in the water.
Using her own body to shield her actions from view, Nefari slipped an identical blade from the belt of the first attacker, then kicked out as she rose, hitting the advancing warrior in the sternum, and finishing her with a spinning slash to the neck.
It was over in a heartbeat. As the body of the second assassin slowly bled out on the floor, she silently rolled the first attacker over with her foot, then stepped on the back of her neck, breaking it in her stride as she returned to her cot.

The Next Morning...

"I see you are still alive".
Nefari opened her eyes, this time allowing herself the luxury of a slow rise, enjoying the brief comfort that came after rest. The voice that had stirred her was a welcome one, though it had not always been so. A decade earlier, the sound of that voice meant torment. It meant anguish and suffering. But she'd been a silly little girl back then, unable to see what was best for her, until Mother Sari had shown her the way.
Finally getting her bearings, she sat up and looked at the Clan Mother. Predictably, she was holding the poisoned barb which had been triggered to fire at anyone that opened her door. Each morning, Nefari found new ways to defend her private lair, and each morning, Mother Sari defeated them, just as Nefari defeated every test that Sari sent her way. Sometimes she'd be set upon by male slaves upon entering her room, other times she'd be confronted with another Nightsister first thing in the morning. It didn't matter; she was stronger than any of her sisters, and the slaves were of no consequence. Men, no matter how large or brutal, were beneath her. And in the hierarchy of Mother Sari's favour, none could surpass Nefari.
"They barely interrupted my sleep" she replied, her sultry voice sounding dry. "You warned them about the door" she added, stating rather than questioning.
"No, child" Mother Sari corrected her, handing her a cup of water. "They worked that one out for themselves".
"Then they weren't as sloppy as I'd thought. Still, dead is dead" she said with finality, putting the question of the dead attackers' competence to rest.
"Indeed" Mother Sari agreed. The Nightsister elder placed the poisoned barb on the plinth next to Nefari's cot, and held out her hand. Nefari took it, and rose from her cot, coming eye-to-eye with Sari. Both regarded each other; Sari's experience with the so-called 'dark ways' showed in her face, blemished and bruised as it was. She, like Nefari, bore facial tattoos, though she had considerably more. And there was something in her eyes which gave fire to the aged wisened face, a passion founded by desire to rise above the other Dathomiri clans.
Nefari sensed it; this was it. The day she'd trained for. The Nightsisters were going to war.
Then, a deceptively gentle smile crossed Mother Sari's face, and the elder shook her head almost piteously.
"No, child, now is not the time. We will slake our thirst for dominance soon enough, but not today". Nefari didn't hide her disappointment, for her hunger for blood pleased the Clan Mother to no end.
"Then what is it you want of me?" she asked, sulkily.
"A band of outsiders has arrived on our homeworld, and wishes to do trade with the Dathomiri clans. They may have valuable resources, and I want you to ensure our people get the first pick of their wares" Sari instructed. "You know the lay of the land better than anyone, so you will be leading a Rancor party to the trade outpost".
"I shall see to it we get all we need" Nefari promised, gathering up her clothing, eager to be going.
"You shall do it fairly" Sari warned. "If we can establish a rapport with these traders now, it will make things much easier in the future. No bloodshed where it is not needed".

With that, Mother Sari left Nefari to prepare. Nefari stared after the Clan Mother, resentment pouring from her in waves. Adept at hiding it while in Sari's presence, Nefari had long become wearisome of the Clan Mothers reluctance to go to war. She respected and even loved Sari, but even the wisest had their flaws. While she was busy building relations with offworlders and gathering resources, the other clans were uniting and growing stronger for it.
She'd become too old, Nefari thought. Admired though she was, and as much as Nefari loved her, perhaps it was time to ease her decline into obscurity, before she led the Nightsisters to their downfall.