Page 123 of The Boy Bride

“We’ve told you about her, remember?” said Barda. “She’s the one who taught us all about traps and how to stalk deer properly? Also it turns out she and Khatu were, uh … ”

“Oh, her. Yes, Khatu told me they were sweethearts ages ago. He said it was a secret because your da wouldn’t approve. Does everybody know now?”

“Yes,” said Vanu aloud. “What happened next?” he prompted Barda.

“Right. Well, I found Otoni at home—she lives outside the village, in the woods—and I told her what’d happened, and she believed me. She has this bolthole—it’s a hunting blind, really—and so we took Nomi—that’s her kid—and went up there to hide. I stayed with them for a bit, but we didn’t hear anything from the village, and we started to think maybe it was a false alarm, so I went back to see what was going on. And that was when the raiders from Dukka struck.”

He was silent for a moment, looking lost in thought—and as if the thoughts he was lost in were not pleasant. It occurred to Lill to wonder whether, for all his swagger, Barda really had much experience of combat or raiding or real violence. He was Lill’s age, but he’d spent the last three years cocooned in Umtúshta and prowling about peacefully on the mountain.

He went on, briskly enough. “They came from the south, so they must have gone around Sakka in the dark to take the villagers by surprise. And also because the granaries are over there, and they set one of them on fire. People started running to put it out, and they ran right into the raiders. It was a big party—I wish I could tell you how many, but it was dark and there was so much going on, I just know there were a lot of them. I heard people shouting that they must be from Dukka because somebody named Arakhu Something-Something was leading them.”

“Arakhu Vinu,” Padunu supplied with distaste from the shadows beyond the candlelight. “I am … familiar with him.”

“Some of them were breaking into houses to take loot, and some of them were dragging off women and girls … Khatu came running out, yelling that Da had been hurt and he was going to find Otoni. I was afraid he’d lead the raiders to her house and go blundering around looking for her in the woods, and what if they found her first? So I tried to stop him—I was just thinking of her, he’d have thanked me afterward if I’d had a chance to explain. But this big fucker from the raiding party came up behind him, and I heard somebody yell, ‘No, take him prisoner!’ and the fucker walloped Khatu on the head and knocked him down. He wasn’t out cold, just stunned, but then the fucker’s friend says, ‘He’s one too,’ or something, meaning me, and they came at me, the two of them, and I … ran. I didn’t stop until I got in the caves. Then I, uh, fell and twisted my ankle.” He looked appropriately sheepish.

Vanu rubbed the scar on his cheek, frowning. “They must think Khatu is worth ransoming. You say they were mostly taking women prisoners?”

Barda nodded.

“But they thought you and he were valuable enough to capture. If that’s because they believed the story you put about and think you’re soldiers in the king’s army … ”

Another possibility occurred to Lill. “Or wanted men,” he said.

Vanu looked at him. “That could be worse,” he signed grimly.

Chapter 33

Down the Mountain

The entrance to the caves behind the great house did not have stairs; it was a long, dark shaft with a rope ladder dangling down into it. They had to descend one at a time. The rock walls of the shaft felt close and cold on either side.

There had been much discussion about who would go. Vanu was going, and Tirtu seemed to feel it was obvious that he should go with him.

“You’ve only been down there a few times, my lord. You’ll need me to show you the way.”

Padunu had given Tirtu a doubtful look at that and asked when the last time was he went through the caves.

“Do you know the song?” Barda asked earnestly.

“No,” Tirtu admitted. “I don’t know the song, but⁠—”

“What’s the song?” Lill asked.

The song was a catchy mnemonic that Barda and Khatu had invented to remember the route through the caves. It was scatological and irreverent, and that was only the part that Barda got through before his mother shushed him. There was, it turned out, another mnemonic, a much more sedate rhyme that Padunu knew and primly recited for all of them.

“Guess you’d better come with us, then,” said Vanu.

Padunu, who clearly hadn’t thought that through, went pale.

Halza didn’t know what they were talking about; he hadn’t picked up any Hawada in the weeks since arriving in Umtúshta. Lill asked Vanu if he should explain what was going on, and Vanu nodded.

“Caves?” Halza repeated, eyes wide. It turned out this was the first he was hearing about them. Then of course he wanted to come too.

“Besides, if I say I want to stay with the women, Lord Vanu will think I’m trying to take advantage of the situation to spend time with his daughter.”

“Halza … you know that Vanu speaks Zashian, right? And can hear perfectly well? And is … right there?”

Halza looked up at Vanu with an expression of comical horror. “I didn’t—of course—what I mean, my lord⁠—”