Page 87 of The Summer Pass

That was always going to be the danger of hiding in here: it wasn’t an out-of-the-way corner where they could lurk undisturbed. Sooner or later, someone would try to come get wine.

“I guess we have a miniature assault on our gate to go with our miniature siege,” Lill remarked.

Vanu gave him a pained look.

“Sorry.”

The party trying to get wine gave up after a while, or were called away to do something else, and the banging at the door stopped for the time being. At about the same time, Padunu came back through the upstairs room with Otoni to report that they’d left Gurti in the gathering place waiting for Barda and Firuduna. Tirtu they’d lost altogether. Then Gurti arrived and explained that Barda, Firuduna, and Tirtu were all on the walls helping to repel the siege.

“I don’t need them on the walls,” Vanu signed angrily. “I need them down here.”

No one had any idea where Nakhana was.

“My plan was to lure Darma into the upstairs room with a message from the women—but I need someone to carry the message,” Vanu told Lill. “Either Firuduna or Nakhana could do it, as Darma doesn’t have any quarrel with either of them. None of the rest of us can.”

Lill drew a breath to reply.

“None of us,” Vanu repeated fiercely.

“I know I can’t do it,” said Lill, “but couldn’t I go find someone who could? Enu or somebody else from Tsuruva?”

“Do you know where they are?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

Lill nodded. That seemed fair. But he hated to feel useless.

“Shall I debrief Padunu?” he suggested.

Vanu looked at him with a smile, as if he’d said something amusing. Which, Lill realized, he had.

“Uh, talk to him. Should I talk to him, and you can talk to Gurti and Otoni.”

Vanu slung an arm around Lill and kissed the top of his head. “I know what ‘debrief’ means.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you didn’t, I just … ”

“It’s a good idea. Go talk to him.”

Firuduna ducked down below the parapet and drew a deep breath. He glanced over at Barda.

“You all right?”

Barda rubbed a hand over his face and unstoppered the bottle of local wine that was propped against the wall next to him. “Yep. We’re holding our own, right? That’s the main thing.”

It was the main thing, he was right. And if this was his first experience of real warfare, as Firuduna suspected it was, he was doing well. He looked a little shaky, but he was doing his part.

The defenders had managed to keep the Zashians from making more than a few solid hits on the gate with their ram. Firuduna felt proud that he and Barda had done their fair share in that effort. At first their job had been heaving rocks down onto the wicker covering of the ram. Some bounced off, but others had succeeded in making holes in it and injuring the men inside. Then someone had come by to press a bow and a quiver of arrows into Barda’s hands, and he’d dutifully started shooting. He wasn’t as good a shot as Lill, but then he didn’t have that frighteningly stony, faraway look in his eyes when his arrows hit their target, either. The first time he hit a man who fell and stopped moving, he froze, eyes wide, and Firuduna could tell he’d never shot anything other than game on the mountain before now. When his arrows ran out, Firuduna didn’t suggest he try to find more right away. Let him take a break—he looked to need it.

Vanu’s hearthman Tirtu was acting as a runner on the wall, carrying supplies and relaying messages. Who was back in headquarters, then? Surely they shouldn’t all be up here. It was a little late to think about that now.

Then Firuduna saw Darma coming up on the wall, trailed by a knot of older men who must be his hearth circle. They were getting in the defenders’ way rather than doing anything useful, as far as Firuduna could tell.

“Fuck, he’s going to give some dumb order, isn’t he?” Barda muttered. “‘Strangle all the women,’ or some shit. Did you know they were talking about doing that?”

“That’s a story from the siege of Ungara. I don’t think that ever really happened.”