Page 30 of The Summer Pass

He heard Arsha’s running footsteps on the path before long, and Arsha caught up to him again.

“Tell me who we should have been revenged on. Who set them up?”

Lill shook his head. “He’s already dead. He’s been dead for years. His name was Darma—he was one of Lord Vanu’s henchmen, and he didn’t want peace between Zash and Hawakhurta because, I don’t know, he was a fucker. But he’s dead.”

Arsha made a frustrated noise. “Are you sure? Are you sure it was him? Are you sure he’s dead? Can you find out? Go on another mission for me, Lill! I have plenty of property back in Torakand—I can pay you. And you’d know the truth—you want revenge on him too, don’t you?”

The quality of intelligence available to the remnant of the population left in Tsuruva was astonishingly low. Lill hadn’t reckoned with that. They survived on scraps of information and gossip from travellers and returning raiders, and they weren’t really a raiding village, so there were few of those.

No one seemed to know whose troops were advancing into the pass, where they were coming from, or when they might be expected. Perhaps they had a better idea in Tagra Degra, but there was surprisingly little exchange of people or news between the village and the stronghold; for all that they stood in direct sight of one another on either side of the pass, they were really quite far apart, and not on the best terms.

By good fortune, though, it happened that a gem-cutter from Taskhabara came up to see his sister in Tsuruva shortly after a momentous piece of news reached his village. It had been nearly two weeks since the departure of the men for Tagra Degra by that time, and people were beginning to wonder why the attack hadn’t come yet or whether it was coming after all. There was a certain amount of smugness among the people who had thought there was nothing to worry about, and supplies that had been stowed in the towers in preparation for a siege were being taken out again.

Firuduna was down at the gathering place when the gem-cutter got in, and he arrived back at the house out of breath and leaning heavily on his walking-stick.

“Tremendous news,” he gasped as he sank down onto the bench by the door.

“Take your time,” Lill admonished him.

Firuduna signed instead of speaking aloud, and that seemed fitting, because what he said was, “The Lion is back.”

For a moment, Lill thought he meant in Tsuruva, and in spite of everything his first impulse was to drop the basket of laundry he was carrying and go tearing down the hill into the village to look for Vanu. In another moment he realized that probably what Firuduna meant was just that Vanu was out, back in the world, no longer even pretending to be confined in Umtúshta. That … Lill wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“How do they know?” Lill asked when Firuduna had caught his breath sufficiently to answer.

“They don’t, but I do—and so will you when you hear it. He’s the reason the king’s men haven’t come up the Summer Pass yet. He delayed them down at the Tawa River with a trick. I can tell you the whole story—I rushed back here to tell you. Your husband! He’s back, and he’ll be coming up here to get you next!”

Lill felt sick to his stomach. Vanu hadn’t wanted to leave Umtúshta. Now he was down in the Tawa Valley facing the king’s army. He wasn’t coming to get Lill, and Lill couldn’t go on lying to these people; he would have to leave. He couldn’t leave. He had given Nakhana his word he would stay.

He went to get Firuduna a cup of water, as an excuse to delay hearing the story. Yet he wanted to hear it; he knew it was going to be good, the way Vanu’s exploits always were.

“So,” said Firuduna, when he’d drained his cup of water, “it seems that when the Boar of Hawakhurta made his raid on Radish, or whatever the village down there is called, he didn’t realize that the Protector of Akramarra was in the neighbourhood with his personal guard.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah. He was lucky to get away, but as we know, he did, and they made it back up to Tagra Degra and started taking down the bridge.”

“You know who the Protector of Akramarra is?” Lill interrupted. “Prince Artayarasha, the Great King’s younger brother. His personal guard is … they’re solid. Heavy cavalry, professional troops.”

Firuduna nodded, comprehending. “Not to be messed with.”

“Not if you can help it. So they were down there when the Boar made his attack? My guess is Artayarasha ordered them not to pursue the raiders because there wasn’t much mystery about where they were going, and he needed his men to stay and put out the fires and help the people of—what did you say the place is called?”

“Radish.”

“That can’t be it … Ladish? Latish? I think there’s a place called Latish. That might be where Artayarasha has his outpost. But that’s why when you ran into those soldiers on the Torakand road, it was only a small party. Did you happen to see if they had a device on their shields or anything?”

“Eagles. Or one of those things that’s half-eagle, half-lion.”

Lill nodded. Winged lion guardians were carved above the doors of the Order and stamped on some of their weapons.

“That’s a device of the royal family,” he explained, “so they were probably Artayarasha’s men. They’d have been scouts coming up to survey the area.”

“That’s right, they had a couple of unarmed fellows with them, not prisoners or dignitaries, but like they were there to do a job.” Firuduna waved a hand impatiently. “We’re getting off the trail. The point is, Arta … what you said, the Protector, he’s camped outside of Radish with his men, and there’s a dense forest nearby. The Ghost Wood it’s called, and it’s got a reputation for being haunted.”

“All right.”

Lill thought he could guess the direction this story would go. It was strange to be hearing about a raid by the Lion of the Summer Pass, as he had so often in the past, and picture not the monster he used to imagine but the real Vanu, with his devastating smile and piercing light eyes.