Page 5 of The Summer Pass

Nakhana supplied a name sign that looked like a variation on “Big Lug,” and then spelled out F-I-R-U-D-U-N-A.

Firuduna was awake when Lill entered the bedroom. He looked at Lill suspiciously. He was bare-chested—he was very hairy—with bandages wrapped around his ribs and shoulder. He had already been propped up with extra pillows, probably by the shaman who had tended him, and there was a jug and cup of wine next to him which he had obviously been drinking from.

“I brought you some food,” said Lill, holding out the plate indicatively. “Nakhana’s mother made it.”

The big raider grunted and reached for the plate in a way that suggested he knew all about his aunt’s cooking.

“Who’re you?” he asked before Lill could turn to go.

“I work for your cousin in the forge. My name’s Lill.” He made the name sign automatically.

“Little snake?” Firuduna repeated around a mouthful of bread and stewed greens. “Why’d they call you that?”

“I don’t know,” said Lill, which was true, to a degree. He knew why the name was appropriate; he didn’t really know why Vanu had given it to him.

“You are little,” said Firuduna, scooping up more vegetables with his bread. “But I’d’ve thought Little Bird or something—y’know—prettier.”

Lill stood paralyzed for a moment, waiting for this to turn into something he understood, waiting for an insult or a leer, but none came. It was just a compliment. How odd.

“Well, some people like snakes,” he said, without stopping to think whether this made sense, and went back out the door.

Dinner in the front room passed mostly in silence. Nakhana never paused in the course of eating to sign if he could help it, and though Zaraz and Shan struck Lill as the type of people to linger talking over a meal, they took their cue from their host and confined themselves to a few whispered remarks to one another.

When Nakhana was finished eating, he got to his feet and beckoned for Lill to follow him.

“I guess I needn’t have taken you away from your food,” he said when they were outside the house. “That lot don’t sign. Sorry about that.”

“It’s all right.”

“I wanted to say sorry about all this. You’ve had the house to yourself, and you will again—but I’ve got to put these people up for a bit. They’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“Of course,” said Lill readily. “It will be nice to have the company.”

For a moment Nakhana looked surprised. “I thought you liked your space, like me. I guess I assumed, because you came here all by yourself … ”

“I don’t mind—it has been interesting, having a house all to myself, something I never experienced before. But on the whole, I think I do prefer having people around.”

“Good then. I can spare you at the forge for a couple of days to look after Firuduna, till he’s back on his feet. Shaman Tati can tell you what to do. And maybe figure out how to get the other two home, or what to do with them?” He grimaced guiltily. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

Lill smiled. “I’m sure.”

He watched Nakhana go back down the hill to his own small house behind the forge. The smith was a big man, with the muscular arms that his profession demanded—or gave you, if you didn’t have them already—his hair darker than his cousin’s and closely cropped, which he said was for comfort in the heat of the forge. He was a young man, in his early twenties.

Lill could understand why Nakhana had thought they must be alike in craving solitude. Lill had shown up out of nowhere, looking for work in this remote village, and giving no explanation of who he was or where he’d come from. Nakhana hadn’t asked for any, which was why the job at the forge, exhausting as it was, had suited Lill well. But he was secretive, not solitary; it wasn’t quite the same.

When Lill went out to the well the following morning, there was an argument underway. Four of the village men were there, red-faced, hands flying. One of them was deaf, so they were arguing in hand language, except when the hearing men would curse aloud at one another. It seemed to be three against one.

“Somebody needs to stand up to the invader king!” the lone combatant signed furiously. “I don’t see any of you doing it!”

“We’re farmers, not raiders! Fuck off with that!”

“They need to be smarter than that if they’re going to raise the king’s wrath against us again. Smart like our Lion was smart—this fucking Boar is a pale imitation.”

“Has he done something new?” Lill asked casually, resting his bucket on the edge of the well.

“Morning, Riru,” said one of the hearing men. When not signing, they all called him that. “No, nothing new. But Muntu will keep defending him, says he’s a hero for that damn stupid raid on the Tawa Protector’s Office.”

“Oxcarts!” the pro-Boar party signed. “They took so much loot they had to bring it back in oxcarts. Destroyed the invader king’s outpost, and they say the bodies of the men they killed were piled as high as the gate.”