Page 45 of The Summer Pass

“No one’s unkillable, and you may yet die for your failure if you’re not careful. Are you here with a team?”

Deru nodded. “Tasin came up from the valley with me and is waiting at our camp.”

“He’ll go in tomorrow night if you don’t return?”

Deru nodded again. “So I’d better go back, you’re thinking?” His eyes darted warily to the snake-handled knife again.

“Have you ever thought of deserting?” Lill asked.

“Joining Lord Vanu, you mean? I can’t—Rami would suffer for it if I did.”

Lill felt stupid for not thinking of that. Of course the masters would split the two brothers up and use one as hostage for the other’s good behaviour. Of course they would.

“No,” he said firmly. “You’re not going back. I’ll take care of Tasin. You get yourself captured by Lord Vanu’s men. Tell them I was the assassin and you were trying to stop me—I wounded you because you got in my way, but you escaped from me.” He paused. “Vanu himself may not believe that,” he admitted. “If you get to talk to him privately, you may want to tell him the truth. Either way, you can ‘escape’ from Vanu’s men in due course and go back to your mission leader—I suppose he’s camped somewhere down below in the pass?”

“At that deserted village—that’s where we met up with the regular troops.”

“Good. So you can go back down there when you’re fit enough to ride, and you and Rami will both be all right.”

Deru looked puzzled. “Why are you doing all this for me?”

It must have seemed like a reasonable question, given his view of Lill.

“‘Don’t leave a comrade behind.’ It’s in the Twenty-One Martial Virtues. You and your brother were my comrades. You were some of the only people to be kind to me, actually. I understand that better now. You said you met up with the regular troops—where did your orders come from?” He wondered who knew that Vanu would be coming up here.

“Our orders changed. Or at least, the mission leader decided to change them. We were going to infiltrate Tagra Degra and open the gates to the Great King’s troops. Those were the original orders. But then someone reported seeing Lord Vanu’s men heading up into the pass, and we followed them instead.”

“I see.”

“So you work for him now? Lord Vanu?”

“No. I do what I want. I don’t work for anyone.”

“Oh. But then … ” Deru frowned, but he seemed to decide not to pursue the question. “I’m grateful to you, Lill. I owe you. I’m … glad you thought we were friends. I’ll do as you say, I give you my word.”

Deru described the location of the most recent camp, the place where he was supposed to meet Tasin, giving a lot of helpful detail because he was from the mountains and understood this landscape in a way that Lill could only envy. Lill said goodbye and set off in the direction he indicated.

When he’d told Deru that he would “take care” of Tasin, of course he’d meant that he’d sneak up on Tasin and kill him. But a different plan was taking shape in his mind now. He thought it was the sort of plan Vanu would like. And it gave him something to focus on, a way to keep his mind off what had happened in Vanu’s camp.

He’d left Umtúshta because he’d thought Vanu would never be able to trust him, that there were too many lies and concealments between them. And what had he done now? He’d dropped into the middle of Vanu’s camp in the dead of night, armed and dressed for stealth, and rescued an assassin, and Vanu had seen it.

Lill was tired and hungry, and for what he was planning to do now, the cover of darkness was not absolutely necessary. He should stop and sleep, but the idea of lying still while these thoughts were circling in his head was unbearable. He pressed on.

“Go back to sleep,” Vanu growled for the third or fourth time. “They were coming for me, I’ve doubled the guard, and they won’t try again tonight.”

The headman of Tawakhura nodded reluctantly. “Well, it was a near miss, my lord, all the same.”

Vanu went back into his tent, wishing he had a door to slam instead of flimsy walls of cloth that didn’t even close at the front. He stretched out on the camp bed and pressed both hands over his eyes. Go back to sleep? That was not likely tonight.

It wasn’t the shout from Urtu at the watch fire that had woken him, but some smaller sound preceding it. He had been awake, staring into the darkness, when he heard the guard shout and rolled out of bed, grabbing his sword. The first thing he’d seen was Lill, sprinting past the watch fire, yelling like one of the souls of the unblessed dead at Urtu. Poor Urtu had given way, as well he might, and that was when Vanu had seen the other figure in black, with a familiar ivory-handled dagger lodged in his thigh.

He’d wanted to shout at Lill to stop, don’t run, there’s no need to run. If only he could shout. He knew what Lill would think, roughly. Lill would think he’d looked guilty, like he’d been part of the assassination attempt. Maybe he had been, officially—fuck, what situation had he got himself into if that was going on?—but it was clear to Vanu that he’d actually stopped the real assassin.

So he’d called off the search as best he could without seeming ridiculous, helping Lill get away when really he wanted to rouse the whole camp in an attempt to catch him. But he couldn’t do that without risking Lill getting hurt.

Where was Lill now? He’d rescued his wounded comrade, or whatever he was. What would he do next?

As the sky was just beginning to turn pink above the mountains, Lill reached the postern gate of Tagra Degra through which he had exited the previous night. He pushed at it experimentally, though he didn’t expect it to open; but it did. They must not have replaced the bar that he and Shan had removed. He peeked through, and seeing no obstacles, slipped inside.