Page 44 of The Summer Pass

Finally the unit-commanders, or whatever they were, left Vanu’s tent to return to their own. Vanu dismissed Khatu, who sat down by the low fire in front of the tent, stiff-backed and cradling his sword in his lap, as if he intended to watch all night. Vanu came out of his tent after a little while, said something quietly to Khatu—probably reminding him not to try to watch all night—and retired to his own bed. He was hidden from Lill’s view now by the tent cloth.

The moon rose. Khatu, rather to Lill’s surprise, had not fallen asleep. Another guard came to relieve him, and after a token protest that he was not sleepy—he was clearly sleepy—he relinquished his post. The camp was now very quiet.

Lill thought about how he would do it, if it was his mission. He would want to wait until he was sure Vanu was sleeping, so he would have to be positioned roughly where he was now. But suppose he hadn’t thought of that. Suppose he was more concerned with not being seen by the guard at the fire. Then he would be in a tree on the other side of the tent, a good place to approach from if your main concern was the man by the fire. He would slip down from the tree and circle around from the back of the tent; he might even try cutting his way through the tent cloth from the back, a nice manoeuvre if you knew the occupant of the tent was asleep, which of course you wouldn’t if you were back there.

He stretched his stiff arms and legs and climbed carefully to a lower branch of his tree, paused to make sure he had not alerted the guard—he hadn’t—then made his way down to an even lower branch, an easy distance from the ground. Here he was hidden only by the deep darkness; he couldn’t have watched from here while it was still daylight, but at this time of night, with everyone asleep, he was reasonably safe. He slipped a knife out of his belt and held it ready.

Some time passed. Another change of the watch would be coming soon. A cloud slid in front of the moon, and a dark figure moved out of the shadow of the trees behind the guard by the fire. Lill dropped from his tree branch, landing lightly on the carpet of fir needles. His target had not moved, had paused a moment too long behind the guard. The light of the fire caught his profile, the strong, distinctive nose tenting the black scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face, a hank of pale hair falling over his forehead.

Lill knew that profile. He had trained beside its owner countless times. If it had been someone else … But that was Deru, one of the Hawa brothers who had taught Lill their language, who had been the closest thing he’d had to friends in the Order.

Lill threw from a crouch under the tree. His knife caught the assassin in the thigh; Deru staggered and gasped but did not fall. The guard whirled around and scrambled up with a yell. Lill bolted out from his hiding place and sprinted across the distance to the fire, drawing his sword. If only it had still been Khatu at the fire—he could have shouted, “Leave him alone!” or something, and Khatu would have listened—but this man was a stranger.

He was one of Vanu’s men, so Lill wouldn’t hurt him, but the man didn’t know that. At this moment, stealth was no longer possible; they had to try for intimidation and surprise. Lill gave the battle cry of the Sworn Defenders, a wordless howl, as he ran. The guard, who was twice his size, fell back, eyes wide and terrified.

Lill got hold of Deru’s arm to support him. As he turned, he had a glimpse of Vanu at the opening of his tent, tousled and blinking, sword in hand. For a moment, before Lill hauled Deru back into the forest, his eyes met Vanu’s.

Chapter 18

The Little One

The darkness under the trees was thick and concealing. Lill dragged Deru to a halt behind a rock that angled out of the ground between the trunks, and they crouched there while Vanu’s guard crashed past. Deru was panting and clutching his bleeding leg, but he managed to remain silent. He nodded when Lill pointed out a route downhill through the dark camp. They set off, darting from one pocket of shadow to the next. The moon remained cooperatively behind the clouds, and although the camp was stirring around them as they ran, men waking and asking what the commotion was about, an organized search for the assassins did not materialize.

Lill judged they had made it far enough from the camp for safety by the time Deru collapsed against a tree, whimpering in pain, and muttered, “I can’t go anymore. I can’t.”

Lill dropped to a crouch beside him. “Give me your scarf,” he instructed.

Deru unwound the black scarf with shaking hands.

“And your sash,” Lill added, and Deru obediently set to unknotting it.

Lill tore open the slash in Deru’s trousers, folded up the scarf, and used it as a pad to press over the wound as he removed the knife. He wound the sash around and knotted it tightly. Deru managed not to faint; Lill remembered that he had always been tough. Lill had refilled the flask of water he had with him and there was still some left—he hadn’t drunk any while he’d been up the tree—so he offered it to the injured man. Deru drained it gratefully.

“I don’t know who got me with that,” Deru said, waving at the bloody snake-handled knife on the grass.

Lill gave him a look of surprise. Had that not been clear to him? “I did.”

Deru tensed and reached for his sword. For a moment they remained frozen, as the moon came out from behind the clouds, revealing their faces more clearly to one another.

“Fuck, Lill,” Deru groaned. “I always knew you were crazy, but—fuck. What’s this about?”

Lill shuffled backward on his knees and held up his hands. Suddenly he felt too tired to begin explaining anything. None of it mattered, anyway. Vanu had seen him. Vanu had seen him running to Deru’s aid, supporting the wounded assassin who had been creeping up on the guard outside his tent. If only Vanu had remained asleep a few moments longer.

Deru let go of his sword warily. “There’s all kinds of stories about you in the Order, you know. About why you really left. The masters never said, but at first they didn’t try to stop the talk, either. That gave people the idea that they didn’t know any more than we did. Some people say you’re on a mission, something so secret even the masters don’t know about it. It’s true, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not true. I was expelled from the Order.”

Deru gave a short puff of laughter. “You were not. You lived and breathed that shit. You were a legend. They wouldn’t expel you.”

What a peculiar thing to say, Lill thought. Was it Deru himself who was crazy?

“I was expelled because Yellow Adder wanted to fuck me and got caught trying.”

Deru stared. “Shit. I … really? I never thought—nobody ever thought it was something like that.”

“Well, that’s what it was. I’m not on a mission from the Order—I don’t belong to it anymore. I make my own missions now, and I will stop you killing Vanu Urártu if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You know you probably saved my life, Lill. I didn’t expect to succeed—fuck, I didn’t want to succeed. I’m Hawakhaba—in spite of everything they say, I can’t help thinking of Lord Vanu as a hero.” Deru’s voice dropped low as if it was hard to get the words out. Lill remembered well the way they talked about Vanu in the Order: a fiend, a monster, chief enemy of the Divine King. “Anyway, everyone knows he’s unkillable. I didn’t expect to survive.”