Page 83 of The Summer Pass

“I’m waiting by the gate with the main force. They’ll let us in when they’ve taken the place.”

“That’s a change of plan!” Darma spoke as if it wasn’t Vanu’s right to change his own plans.

“It is.”

He could have explained why he’d changed it, how one of his most trusted hearthmen had suggested they should send a smaller force into the temple complex first, lest the disappearance of too many men into the tunnel roused suspicion. But Darma was behaving badly, and Vanu didn’t feel like rewarding him with explanations.

He said, “It doesn’t change what you’re doing.”

“I want to lead the tunnel group,” said Darma. “I want my own command. I’ve served you longer than Akhanu. You’re dishonouring me by giving me a fake mission, under your own eye the whole time. I won’t be dishonoured like that.”

It was so stupid, a childish complaint, but he wasn’t wrong. Vanu would effectively be taking Darma’s command away from him by remaining outside the walls himself and leading the real invading force. He would have thought twice before proposing it if someone else had been leading the ladder assault, probably talked to that man first, got him to feel it was an idea they’d come up with together—he was pretty good at that, when he wanted to be. He hadn’t bothered to do that with Darma, and that was showing him dishonour. It was dishonour Darma had earned, but Vanu didn’t want to get into that argument now.

“Fine. You lead the tunnel group.”

He hated himself for saying it as soon as his hands had formed the words—he knew it was a bad decision—but it was done. He swore to himself it would be his last mistake with Darma, and later, when he remembered that, he felt as if he’d killed Darma with that oath—because yes, it was his last mistake. But that was fanciful. He’d really killed Darma by giving him command of the tunnellers, although he’d known better. That secret guilt kept him from being as angry as he should have been at what Darma did to his elegant plan for taking Alazani.

The tunnelling party had been reduced to the bare minimum. All they were supposed to do was secure the temples and open the gates, while the soldiers on the walls were distracted by the assault from outside. Instead they rounded up the priests and killed them in the forecourt, set the temples on fire, and would themselves have been killed by the guards on the walls if Vanu’s force outside hadn’t battered down the gate and come to their rescue. Alazani was taken, but it was a blasphemous slaughter, not the elegant strike Vanu had imagined. Darma disappeared in the flames, and Vanu wondered why he didn’t miss him more.

“They have probably found their way back to the wine cellar by this time,” Gurti said. “We should do the same.”

They stood on the edge of the gathering place, near the well house. The sounds of the assault on Tagra Degra continued to echo through the streets. Gurti could hear the thumping of the ram against the gate and the crash of stones being dropped from the ramparts, followed by shouts from the men. Arrows flew over the wall now and then. Many more must have been aimed at the defenders when they showed themselves in order to heave rocks over at the attackers.

Listening to that, it was hard not to feel that you should be doing something, helping with the defence somehow. Gurti could tell Otoni was feeling it. She was a skilled archer and must think she could be useful on the wall. Padunu—well, he looked more anxious than Gurti to be back underneath the great house, but he was keeping his mouth shut.

“They have plenty of people to defend the walls,” Gurti said. “We’re two women, one of us with child, and a shaman. Our best course is to get ourselves to safety.”

“Yes, indeed, you are very wise, Na Gurti,” said Padunu.

“But you said yourself that you were supposed to meet Barda and Firuduna at the well here,” Otoni reminded him.

“Yes.” Padunu shifted from one foot to the other. “We indicated—or rather, Tirtu made plans with them, but under the circumstances—” He flinched at another loud crash from the gate. “I do not think it advisable for us to linger in hopes that they may join us.”

“I’ll stay and wait for them,” said Gurti, and then thought: Did I say that? “After all, Barda is my son.”

And Tirtu is the man I was cuckolding my husband with … but it was hard to know how that fit in.

Padunu looked at her with a pained expression, and she imagined she could see his conflicting thoughts: Should he draw out the argument by saying no to her, when he knew she wouldn’t listen, or would he look completely cowardly if he agreed right away without a fight?

“I’d feel better about it if you would, Na Gurti,” said Otoni. “It’s not that Barda isn’t very steady in his way—and probably Firuduna is too, though I hardly know him, but⁠—”

“One can certainly imagine them deciding to wait for us, perhaps to their own detriment,” said Padunu.

“It wasn’t a very good idea for anybody to promise to wait for anybody,” Otoni retorted. “Under the circumstances.”

“Quite so, and it was not in fact my idea—though certainly I could have objected to it at the time, and I now regret that I did not.”

“Get going,” Gurti suggested. “Both of you.”

She sat down by the well after they were gone. It was a terrible place to have arranged a meeting: exposed to view in the gathering place in front of the great house, where Darma or his men would be sure to see them if they came by. Her only protection was the crowd of other people who were in the gathering place now, rushing back and forth between houses and camps and asking each other anxiously about the noises from outside.

Gurti remembered hearing as a girl how Tagra Degra was the fortress that could never be taken. It was perched on the mountain like an eagle on a branch, they said—there was poetry about it—and the invader king would never pluck it down. He’d never tried before, that was all.

They knew how to do these things in the lowlands, and they had such armies at their command that they could attempt it. Their noblemen’s sons gave years of their life in service to the crown, training to fight obediently together. They’d forded the river, set up their camp, and begun building a big ramp of wood and earth so they could roll their siege towers up to the walls and get over them. In the meantime they were battering the gate, maybe just for something to do. Such was the way of war in the lowlands. Gurti knew well that what Lord Vanu had done, when he mustered an army from the length of Hawakhurta to oppose the invader king, was impressive because it wasn’t the way of the mountains. She hoped he could make some such miracle happen again at Tagra Degra.

“Gurti?”

She looked up to see Tirtu in front of her.