Page 32 of The Summer Pass

“How did you know all that about the army in Masseta?” Firuduna asked.

That wasn’t even a hard question to answer truthfully. “I was just living in Torakand and paying attention! It’s not secret. The rebellion in Masseta was talked about everywhere. Except here, I guess.”

“Mm. Sukiyan mercenaries are no joke.”

Lill opened his mouth to say, “Oh, I don’t know—I’ve heard they’re weak on siegecraft, and they sacrifice manoeuvrability on the battlefield with all that armour … ” and then thought better of it.

“We can hope they’ve gone home already,” he said instead.

Chapter 13

10,000 Strong

About a month after Lill left Umtúshta, a document arrived in Sakka addressed to Vanu. Khatu brought it back to the stronghold after he was down in the village. It was sealed with Madurasha’s seal, the chipped one which Lill had brought with him to Umtúshta and taken away when he left, and the writing looked the same as the letter from the “Friend and Well-Wisher” warning Vanu that Lill had been sent to kill him. Except for Vanu’s name, written on the outside of the folded parchment in straight, bold Hawa characters.

It wasn’t exactly a letter. It was a confession, beginning with an oath by the Zashian god and the “hounds of the Dark Valley,” whatever they were, and ending with the name Arsha Son of Madurasha Son of Dasha of the Clan Kuro. It said that Arsha, Madurasha’s youngest son, had hired an assassin to get his revenge for him, after his three elder brothers had failed in their attempts on Vanu’s life.

Arsha wrote that he had found a boy from the Order of the Sworn Defenders (he had written “the Snakes” and then crossed that out and written out the full name) who looked a bit like him, paid him to take his identity, and sent him to the Spring Pass to become Vanu’s bride. The idea had been for Vanu to die betrayed by his beloved wife. Arsha had obviously thought Vanu wasn’t getting any news from the outside world, so he’d imagined he could control what Vanu learned and when. His hired assassin was supposed to reveal his identity as Madurasha’s son only after Vanu was obviously attached to him. Apparently Arsha had imagined Vanu gloating over having his enemy’s son in his power. Building him up, like, so the final betrayal would be all the bitterer.

It was a foul little plan, and it was all Arsha’s. He emphasized that several times. Arsha arranged all this. Davanu had nothing to do with it. The letter saying he did was a lie. Arsha was responsible, and Arsha had killed Davanu.

That was repeated and underlined to make it clear that it was the real point of the letter. Lill’s name was not mentioned. Vanu could picture him standing over Arsha, toying with one of his knives, making him write out “Order of the Sworn Defenders” and underline “Lord Davanu knew nothing of this.” That was the message Lill had wanted to send to Vanu, the assurance he’d wanted Vanu to have.

Lill hadn’t brought the confession to Sakka himself—Vanu had asked after the messenger—and it had arrived several weeks after the date that was written at the top of the parchment, so the trail would have been cold by that time. Probably on purpose.

Vanu hadn’t shown it to anyone in Umtúshta. They’d all made up their minds about Lill by then, and it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. There was no way to prove Lill had anything to do with it, after all. Vanu wondered whether Lill had even thought that he would know.

Ara Tawa was much as Vanu remembered it: a stronghold larger than Umtúshta but not as impregnable as Tagra Degra, its walls built of the grey stone of the lowlands and topped with wooden walkways and watchtowers. It felt good to be behind walls again, Vanu couldn’t deny that.

They stabled a portion of the herd of stolen horses at Ara Tawa and sent the rest on to pastures below the Summer Pass. Ara Tawa was crowded with residents from the surrounding villages, the fields outside full of the tents of men who had come in from all across Hawakhurta in response to the word that had gone out: the Lion was on the move and needed troops. Vanu asked for a reckoning of how many they were and was told they were 3000 strong. Prince Artayarasha’s men, though they might have been reduced to foot soldiers, numbered 5000. And that was without reckoning with Pantaresh’s army, whose size they didn’t know.

Vanu and Mikhi were busy all day after their arrival, arranging the residents of the stronghold into contingents to guard sections of the walls. He didn’t think they would find themselves under siege, but he wouldn’t leave anything to chance if he could help it. There had been no word yet from Masseta. Miro hadn’t had time to get there and back, and the drunk brother-in-law had disappeared entirely.

Vanu’s plan, when he came down from the Spring Pass, had been to dig in at Ara Tawa and put on a bit of a show for the Zashian king. Fly his banner from the walls, let it be known that he was a captive no longer, and slowly amass an army larger than the one he’d had before he was imprisoned. Let the Zashians wonder what for. Eventually he’d hoped he could negotiate with the Protector of Akramarra. The men from across the mountains had begun arriving sooner than expected, but it was the Boar’s attack on Latish that had changed the timeline drastically. They weren’t ready to march again, having only just arrived in the valley. It was a week’s journey from Ara Tawa to Tagra Degra, they could start only after several days’ preparation, and there were only 3000 of them.

Vanu and Mikhi sat in the moonlight in the gathering place of Ara Tawa, a broad, paved square in front of the great house, a couple of nights after their arrival.

“So we’ll ride to the Summer Pass when the army’s ready to leave?” Mikhi signed.

“No, we will stay here. I’ll send some of my troops to assist Tagra Degra—I can’t let it fall, or I lose my strong position for negotiating a treaty with Zash. But I don’t want a pitched battle in the Summer Pass, either. I wish this Boar, whoever he is, had left well enough alone, but since he’s got himself into this, I need him to withstand a long siege—long enough for the king’s men to give it up as a lost cause.”

“Too bad there’s no caves under Tagra Degra like at Umtúshta,” Mikhi said wistfully. “I suppose there aren’t?”

“Not exactly, no. There’s an underground stream that runs through the dungeons, but you couldn’t use it to sneak out of the fortress. You’d go over a waterfall as soon as you were out. They use it to torture prisoners.”

Mikhi shuddered.

“It’s very well fortified,” said Vanu. “Shouldn’t have trouble standing up to a siege. We did it when I was your age, beat off the king’s men and killed the last Protector of Akramarra, too.”

“Of course,” said Mikhi, smiling. She knew the story well, had grown up knowing it. She cocked her head to one side with a curious expression, as if she’d just thought of something. “Who’s the lord of Tagra Degra now, though?”

“I am! It’s my father’s stronghold—I inherited it when I was sixteen.”

“That’s what I thought. But we never lived there.”

“No, I don’t like it as a place to live. It’s dreary. And we were never in one place for long, hey? Travelled about like the Zashian king and his court.” He grinned.

She laughed. “Yes, you always used to say that.”