Page 92 of The Summer Pass

“You can try!” That was Enu’s voice, booming out from somewhere, and it was followed by laughter.

“Can you see Vanu?” Padunu asked.

“He’s alone,” Firuduna reported. “No one’s laid a hand on him, and he hasn’t even drawn his sword.”

He looked almost relaxed, standing by the top of the dungeon stairs. If he was surprised by the number of people crowding in from the alley, he didn’t show it.

“No violence!” someone shouted. “We’re all kin here!”

“We have to stand firm against the lowlanders!” someone else added.

“Urártu will surrender to the lowlanders!” one of Darma’s supporters called, and others took up the cry.

“Isn’t that right, Vanu?” asked Darma, taking a couple of steps out into the empty space between himself and Vanu. “If I let you take command of this fortress, you’ll turn it over to the Zashians. Do I slander you? Then fight me to defend your honour.”

Firuduna gasped. For a man who’d been afraid even to face Vanu a few minutes ago, it was bold. But he was obviously counting on their years of friendship to make Vanu hesitate, maybe even refuse to fight him⁠—

It didn’t work at all. Vanu’s sword was out, so fast Firuduna barely saw it happen, and poised to strike Darma, who was still struggling to draw his own weapon. Firuduna wanted to look away. Padunu, beside him, had flinched and closed his eyes. There was a collective indrawn breath from the crowd.

Darma got his sword out, and Vanu smashed it out of his hand so hard it went flying, crashing and skittering across the paved yard. Darma doubled over, clutching his injured sword hand and cursing.

“I will not surrender,” Vanu said aloud, signing it roughly, one-handed, at the same time.

Lill had popped out from somewhere and was suddenly at Vanu’s side. He was barefoot and dressed in plain, masculine clothes, with his hair in Chiddang braids. His injured arm was out of its sling.

Vanu sheathed his sword and signed: “I have no need to surrender. I have made a marriage alliance with the royal family of Zash.”

“What?” Firuduna gasped. He heard murmurs of surprise from the other Tsuruvans at the front of the crowd, but most of the people who could see Vanu couldn’t understand hand language.

“What?” Padunu asked anxiously.

Vanu put his arm around Lill’s shoulders and looked pointedly at his old interpreter. “Say it,” he signed.

“He says … ” Darma began finally, sounding like the words were being dragged out of him.

“I have no need to surrender!” Firuduna yelled. “I have made a marriage alliance with the royal family of Zash!”

He didn’t know what it was about—Lill was a prince, apparently?—but he knew a moment of triumph when he saw one, and he wanted to be part of it.

Chapter 31

New Bridges

Artayarasha came hurrying up the dungeon stairs and took his place beside Lill with a swirl of slightly crumpled Zashian silk that made Vanu think he was used to doing dramatic appearances. The prince had tidied himself up—there was no more straw in his beard, and though his head was bandaged and he was missing both earrings now, he looked more like the impressive figure he’d been when Vanu first saw him and guessed who he was. The people crowded in the yard behind the great house gasped and murmured in surprise a second time.

Vanu held up a hand to ask for quiet. He didn’t need to take his arm away from Lill’s shoulders, because he could sign, “Seize him,” with one hand.

Darma huffed angrily, but he must have known he was beaten. He didn’t try to run. Firuduna was among the men who pushed forward eagerly to take hold of him.

Then Darma spoke aloud, sneering, like a man who thought he had nothing to lose.

“I’ve never understood what any of these fucking villagers and women and old has-been raiders see in you, Vanu. Why was it always you?” He looked around at the crowd and raised his voice: “What has he got that I don’t have? Hey?”

“Heart of the Blue Heaven,” Lill muttered, in a voice pitched only for Vanu and the others standing near them. “Where does one even start?”

That made a pleasant warmth spread in Vanu’s chest, and he tried to suppress a smile—but he didn’t try very hard.

“Take him to the dungeon,” Vanu signed to the men holding Darma. He did have to let go of Lill for that. “See he’s locked up securely, but don’t hurt him.”