Page 34 of The Summer Pass

They followed him out of the crowded hall into the gathering place.

“What is it, Da?” Mikhi asked aloud. “What’s happened?”

“They’re all dead!” Khatu burst out.

Vanu spun around and backhanded Khatu across the face. Khatu staggered and flailed blindly as if he would hit back.

“What?” Mikhi demanded, alarmed now. “Who?”

Vanu swung at Khatu again, this time with a closed fist, and knocked him down.

“Taskhabara and Manáshta were razed,” Vanu signed to Mikhi. “Your sisters may be prisoners, or they may have escaped to Tagra Degra—Manáshta was deserted when the king’s men arrived. Your kin in Taskhabara are most likely prisoners. Some may be dead.”

“You stupid fuck, Khatu!” Mikhi kicked him in the stomach as he struggled to get up from the ground. “If you hadn’t sent the wrong scout⁠—”

It might not have made a difference. They might still have been too late to cut off the Zashians. But Vanu wasn’t about to stop Mikhi from kicking Khatu.

“Get up,” Vanu told him when she had finished. “Listen. You know why I’m undefeated in battle?”

“Because … because … ”

He went back to signing, and Mikhi translated. “Not because of my skill as a swordsman. That only helps me personally stay alive. Not because of my skill as a tactician—that helps, but it wouldn’t be enough. I’m undefeated because I have good people around me, fighting for the honour and the freedom of their homeland. I made you my hearthman because I owed you a debt, but if I hadn’t believed you worthy, I’d have repaid you some other way. Now pull yourself together and show me I didn’t make a mistake.”

He put Khatu in charge of guarding the Zashian prisoner, and he and Mikhi went together to get the horses. The camp around the fortress walls was ringing with preparations for the march as they set out to cross the river, headed for the Protector’s outpost in Latish.

Lill had exaggerated slightly when he said the Great King’s army wouldn’t be slowed down by the lack of a bridge over the Rakhiri in the Summer Pass. They could have sent their engineers on well ahead so that they could march straight through, but they didn’t. Instead, the army began to fill up the green bowl of the valley while their work teams started digging channels to divert the river. It was almost leisurely. Lill thought the effect might be calculated to crush morale in Tagra Degra.

They could have rebuilt the bridge—though the defenders in Tagra Degra could then have made a sortie to destroy it again—but instead they were splitting the river into three smaller, shallower, fordable channels. It was what he had expected them to do, a bit of bravado, reshaping the landscape to serve the Great King, leaving their mark on the place they planned to conquer.

From the towers at Tsuruva, the villagers had a clear view of the engineering work and the massed troops: the Zashians with their colourful uniforms, pitching large tents with banners waving, and the Sukiyans, with their plumed helmets and bare arms, their big round shields and long spears visible even at this distance.

So far, no one was coming up the eastern slope toward Tsuruva, but everyone in the village was sleeping in the towers now, to be ready for when the attack came. It was crowded, and Lill was surprised not to find that more comfortable. He lay awake remembering his room in Vanu’s house in Umtúshta with longing. He listened to the children fussing and adults snoring and finally got up from his pallet and slipped out through a window to go for a walk under the stars. He climbed up the hill behind the forge and looked down into the valley. Watch fires winked among the tents, and torches glowed at the work site where teams of diggers were labouring into the night. Not so leisurely after all.

He heard a sound from the house behind him and spun around. Zaraz stood in the half-open doorway, peering out.

“Lill? Is that you?”

Chapter 14

Monsters

“Don’t you want to go on another mission?” Arsha repeated as he folded the densely written page.

Lill took the parchment from him and unfolded it to look it over one more time. Everything was there, all the details about Davanu, and no mention of Lill himself, just as he’d insisted. He took Arsha’s pen, dipped it, and underlined one of the more important parts for emphasis.

“No,” he said, “I don’t. I would not work for you again for all the gold in Smerdin.”

Arsha shrugged. “Well, suit yourself.”

Lill refolded the parchment, sealed it, and wrote VANU across the outside in Hawa characters.

“What will you do now?” Arsha asked, as if they were friendly acquaintances and he was politely interested.

Lill pushed the inkpot and pen across the inn table toward him, picked up the folded parchment, and stood.

“What will you do now?” he asked, in a tone that was not friendly at all.

Arsha swallowed audibly. “Leave Vanu Urártu alone. Absolutely. No more revenge. I think I’ll go to Bezavand. I have … I have cousins there. I might drop in on them.”