Page 125 of The Boy Bride

He couldn’t say that he was cheerful because it felt so wonderful that his husband had specifically included him in this mission. Because he’d wanted to see these caves, yes, but he’d wanted especially to see them with Vanu. Because he’d already found a subtle way to help by making Halza do his fussing in a language Vanu didn’t understand.

They reached the bottom of the stone stairs, where the water running through the gutters on either side joined up with some other water trickling in from another tunnel to become a fully fledged underground stream, gurgling along surprisingly fast through its rocky channel.

“Don’t tell me we have to swim!” Halza whimpered.

They didn’t have to swim, or even to get their feet wet, because there was a dry ledge along the side of the stream where they could walk toward the exit. The final stage of the journey involved climbing up a ladder through another vertical shaft, to emerge at the back of a narrow fissure in a cliff face, where they could feel the night air on their faces and see the shapes of trees in the moonlight ahead of them.

Padunu had shuttered his lantern before they climbed out of the tunnel. Silently, single file, they walked out into the forest.

“We’re out,” Lill whispered to Halza. In spite of everything, it did somehow feel like an achievement.

* * *

Barda had given them directions to Otoni’s house, which lay between the cave exit and the village, just off the trail that led down the mountain to Sakka from the string of villages higher up. Once on the trail, they no longer needed to go single file, so Vanu slowed his pace to walk beside Lill.

“We’re not trying for stealth now, are we?” Lill signed.

Vanu glanced back at the others. They were walking quietly enough, but they clearly weren’t being stealthy by Lill’s standards. That made Vanu think about what they were doing. If Otoni saw a party of strangers approaching her house in the dark, she would be frightened. And she was an archer; she would probably shoot at them.

“Need to go openly,” he said aloud. “Light again, Shaman.”

Padunu obediently opened the side of the lantern, spilling warm light onto the trail and the trees on either side. Vanu felt an odd lurch like dizziness. He had not come so far down the mountain since he was walled into Umtúshta three years ago.

Otoni’s house stood in a clearing, screened by the trees and easy to miss in the dark, except that there was light glowing inside. It was a small, round house with a thatched roof, like some of the humbler houses in Umtúshta.

“That’s a good sign, that she’s got a lamp lit,” said Tirtu. “Must not be hiding anymore. Maybe the trouble in Sakka is past.”

It wasn’t a good sign. Vanu heard Lill’s soft gasp as he realized it, at the same moment that Vanu himself caught the scent of smoke, saw the flicker of orange. The light wasn’t from a lamp. They had arrived moments after the house had been set on fire.

Vanu lunged and grabbed Lill’s arm, harder than he meant to, but he managed to stop Lill taking off across the clearing. There were three men outside the house, dark shapes against the light from inside. A fourth, who had been setting the fire, ran out to join them. As they strode away from the house, an arrow whistled across the clearing. Lill stiffened.

“I have her location,” he said crisply.

It took Vanu a shameful, stupid moment to grasp that Lill meant he had seen where the arrow came from. Behind him, Halza and Tirtu were hissing at Padunu to close the lantern. In the clearing, the remaining men were running toward them, swords drawn.

Three years was a long time—too long—to spend letting his fighting instincts wither.

“Do I go find her, si—” Lill caught himself with a little shake. “I know where she is. I can get to her and tell her we’re here to help. The rest of you can take these men. Yes?”

More arrows were flying across the clearing, but there were still three men on their feet.

Vanu nodded. “Yes. Go.”

Lill was off, gone in an instant like a shadow among the trees.

Vanu tried to pull himself together. They were in among the trees, where they’d stepped off the trail to approach the house. They couldn’t fight effectively here—they had to retreat to the trail. He had no interpreter to shout orders for him.

“Back to the trail!” he barked, at a volume that tore painfully at his throat, to be heard over the sound of the asses still arguing about the lantern.

“I am not permitted to shed blood!” Padunu wailed, crashing through the undergrowth with the lantern, still fucking open, flapping from his hand.

“What did he say?” Halza shouted.

“He said get back to the trail!” Tirtu shouted back, shoving him between the shoulderblades.

“Who’s there?” called the men who had set fire to the house. “Are you with Arakhu Vinu?”

“Yes, yes,” Tirtu hissed frantically over his shoulder to Vanu. “Say we are!”