Page 30 of The Boy Bride

It was Susami who said fiercely, “Faru cannot be allowed to do things like this to us. We took the decision to make the boy part of our family, and Faru tried to have him killed. It is not right.”

That was both touching—because Vanu had thought Susami was the least certain about accepting his bride—and shaming, because he should have more control over Faru. He’d known that.

“It’s Faru’s stronghold,” Mikhi pointed out. “He’s never going to stop thinking he can do what he wants unless Da goes to war with him, and he can’t, because who’s he got to back him up? Me and Tirtu and the goats?”

“Stop it!” said Susami. “Stop it. Nobody is going to war with the people we live with. I am just talking about what is right. Da needs to marry the lowland boy right away so that Faru cannot try such a thing again.”

That wasn’t quite how Vanu had expected her to see it, but she made a good point.

They were interrupted then, as Vanu heard shouting from outside the compound. Evidently Mikhi could hear it too, because she turned to him and asked, “What are they saying?”

“Catch him and I’ve got him,” Vanu signed as he sprang up from his chair. “I’ll be back. Bar the door after me.”

He ran out into the street. The noise was coming from the gathering place. He wove between the trees by Tirtu’s house and emerged to see the scene unfolding.

They had caught the lowlander guide, the young man who had come up the mountain with Vanu’s bride and been shot in the leg by Khatu. There was no sign of the bride himself.

They’d caught the guide because the man could barely walk, and yet of course Khatu and Barda were crowing and congratulating each other about it as if it was the stuff of sagas. Barda was holding the guide down on the pavement, though it was clear he wasn’t in any condition to fight his way free. Faru had just come out of the great house, probably drawn by the shouting as Vanu had been.

“We found him hiding in a root cellar!” Khatu announced.

“He says he doesn’t know where the bride is,” said Barda. “I’ve tried hitting him a few times, but it hasn’t helped. Should I try some more?” He glanced hopefully from Vanu to his elder brother to his father.

“Throw him over the wall,” said Faru coldly. He looked directly across the gathering place at Vanu.

“I don’t think that’ll—” Barda started.

There was a startled noise from Tirtu, who was standing under the trees to Vanu’s left.

“Let him go,” said a low, clear voice that Vanu had never heard before.

The boy must have dropped down out of the tree onto Tirtu. He clung to Tirtu’s back like a monkey, and the snake-handled dagger he’d taken from Vanu’s room was poised expertly at Tirtu’s throat.

There might have been no one else in the gathering place, as far as Vanu was concerned. He barely even saw Tirtu.

The boy—he wasn’t a boy, he was a young man, and he was not dressed in women’s clothes now but in some oversized castoffs from one of the other men. The way he had caught hold of his hostage, his grip on the dagger, everything about it was so skilled, so beautiful. He knew exactly what he was doing. Vanu wished he had seen the moment when he dropped out of the tree.

He had tied back his hair, but the thong he had used must have been worn out, and it snapped, sending his hair tumbling. It was ridiculously long, past his waist, and he had to shake it out of his face, a tiny motion. That instant of distraction was all Vanu needed. He moved.

Chapter 11

Not All There

It felt inevitable, as if there was nothing Lill could have done to stop it. Vanu Urártu covered the space between them in a couple of strides. He was twice Lill’s size, but he pounced like a cat. Lill felt pinioned by his gaze, the searing blue of his eyes. The man didn’t look angry; there was no hostility in his expression, just that strangely gentle intensity.

He caught Lill’s wrist, holding the dagger away from the hostage’s throat, his grip like a vice, like something not made of flesh and bone. Lill felt himself propelled backward.

He hit the trunk of the tree behind him, hard. It jarred his bones; it knocked his breath out of his lungs. It took him a moment to register what had not happened. His head had not hit the tree.

He was sliding down to the ground, gasping, he had dropped the dagger, and his hostage was being pulled out of his limp arms. But he hadn’t hit his head.

Vanu stood looming over Lill. Tirtu, released, backed away, huffing and gasping. There was blood on the knuckles of Vanu’s right hand. He flicked the fingers of his other hand across them, brushing off bits of bark that had clung to his skin when he cradled the back of Lill’s head to prevent it hitting the tree. That was, unquestionably, what he had done. Why had he done that?

Lill lunged for White Viper’s dagger. Vanu got there before him and put a booted foot on it. He dropped to a crouch and caught Lill’s wrist in his implacable grip again. He still did not look angry. Worse. He was smiling.

Lill wrenched at his arm as if he might be able to pull off his hand to free himself. He yelled the wordless battle cry of the Sworn Defenders into Vanu’s face. Vanu rocked back on his heels, pale eyebrows rising, but his grip on Lill’s wrist did not loosen even slightly. He swung Lill around like a doll—yet not roughly—and grabbed Lill’s other wrist so that he held Lill immobile at arm’s length. Instinctively, Lill kicked. His heel hit an abdomen hard as rock, and he got virtually no reaction from Vanu.

Lill caught himself before he struggled further. It could do no good and could only serve to anger his captor. So far, through all of this, Vanu had not spoken a single word, had not even made a sound.