Page 127 of The Boy Bride

“I hear fighting ahead.”

In fact, the sounds of fighting stopped after she said that, and for a moment there was nothing to hear but the crackling of the fire behind them. Lill beckoned again, and they headed for the trail, abandoning stealth. They stepped out of the trees to see Tirtu, Halza, and Padunu standing on the trail looking useless. A moment later, Vanu strode out into the lantern light with blood on his sword blade.

“Did you three leave him to take on all the enemies by himself?” The words burst angrily out of Lill.

“He’s Vanu Urártu,” Otoni murmured urgently behind him, as if she thought Lill might not know. “I don’t think he needed help.”

That wasn’t the point, Lill thought as he looked at Vanu. The point was that Vanu had spent three years in Umtúshta not having to kill anyone, and now he’d had to cut down three men by himself, no one standing with him, even—because he was Vanu Urártu, and he didn’t need help.

“He turned back without requesting aid,” said Padunu. “Not that I would have been able to assist in any case—my vows as a shaman, you understand … ”

Tirtu muttered something about it being difficult to fight in the forest.

Vanu wiped his sword on the loose end of his sash and slid it back into its sheath. His face was expressionless.

“They can’t go back to the village,” he signed, indicating Otoni and her daughter. “Those men were from the village.”

Lill looked at Otoni. “He says the men who set fire to your house were from Sakka. Is that true?”

She nodded. In the light of Padunu’s lantern, Lill could see her clearly for the first time. She was very pretty, with rosy cheeks and blue eyes and black, curly hair escaping from under her red kerchief. Her daughter had the same dark hair, but her eyes were dark too, with folded eyelids like Lill’s. Their appearance told a clear enough story. Otoni might have had one parent who didn’t come from the mountains; her daughter certainly did. They were outsiders, and the villagers distrusted them accordingly.

“Those men were from Sakka?” said Padunu, catching on.

“Why I went back and killed them,” said Vanu.

“But why would they do such a thing? Did they blame her for the raid?”

“They blame me for a lot of things,” said Otoni with a shrug. “I didn’t have anything to do with this, though.”

“Is there a well or a spring nearby?” Tirtu asked. “We need to put out that fire.”

She looked back through the trees at the burning house, eyes wide as if she’d forgotten all about it. Her little girl whimpered, and Otoni hugged her close.

“There’s a cistern, but I don’t think it has enough water in it to put that out. The stream is down this way, but the bucket for fetching water was inside the house. Shh-shh, honey, it’s all right. We’re going to find a new place to live.” She looked back at the men. “I wouldn’t worry about trying to put it out. The walls are stone, and it’s built far enough from the trees that they won’t catch. The thatch will just fall down inside as it burns.”

Lill wondered whether that counted as bee-fuckery, standing there calmly comforting your baby while your house burned down behind you. He thought it should.

Tirtu and Halza didn’t seem sufficiently impressed by it, whatever you called it, and still wanted to go get water from the cistern or the stream and try to put out the fire. They began discussing the best way to go about it.

“Stop,” Vanu signed, and it was another one of those signs that needed no translation. “Let the house burn.” He looked at Otoni. “You know who I am?”

She looked at Lill when he translated.

“I don’t know who you are, and I was just about to—oh, I see, you’re translating for him. Yes, I know who he is. Yes, I know who you are, my lord. Everyone knows who you are.” She raised her voice when speaking to Vanu, maybe because the signing made her assume he was deaf or hard of hearing, maybe just because he was a larger-than-life figure of whom she stood in awe.

“You’ll come back to Umtúshta with us,” Vanu signed.

It was an order—he wasn’t going to leave her out here now that she had seen him and knew who he was—but it was also an offer of shelter, and that was how Lill made it sound when he translated it.

Her relief showed clearly on her face. “Thank you, my lord. I didn’t know where we were going to go.”

“Tirtu, Halza, with me—we’re bringing those men’s bodies out from the trees so their people can find them. Padunu, take the lantern and go gather up Otoni’s arrows.” When Lill had translated all that, Vanu gave him his own orders. “Take Otoni and her child and start back up the trail. We’ll catch you up.”

Lill nodded, remembering not to turn it into the formal salute of the Order. He turned to Otoni and explained that she should come with him.

“Is there anything you need to go back for?” he asked as it occurred to him. “Anything that—wasn’t in the house?”

“We took a few things with us to my blind up in the north woods, but it’s too dark now—we can come back in daylight. I mean, can we?”