against her foot and strung it. Jules and Neila turned to look at her first with curiosity, then with surprise. They had seen her come in with the wood, but apparently, they had not paid enough attention to her to see what else she carried.
Wordless, Alanna looked around for a place to hide the bow and quiver. She wanted it near the door where she could reach it quickly, but there was no piece of furniture near the door that was large enough to conceal it. She had to settle for the cabinet that contained Neila’s few dishes. It was across the room from the door and the window, but it hid the bow and quiver completely.
“That is not a good place,” observed Diut.
She shrugged. “I know.”
He leaned back, pushed his plate away. “I put the bow in the wood days ago when I thought there would be fighting here. I hope you will not need it. But if you do, you must use it.”
She looked at him steadily, not caring what Jules and Neila might read in the look. “I will not need it.”
“I think you are right. I am not here to sacrifice myself. But this obligation is my own. If I fail to fulfill it, the others must be free to act in spite of my failure.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Jules.
“I am to kill him,” said Alanna softly, “if he is clearly defeated and… used as a hostage to gain his people’s surrender.”
“Oh my God,” whispered Neila.
“It is a precaution,” said Alanna. “Only a precaution.” She turned to Diut quickly, fending off thoughts she did not want to think. “Exactly what is happening outside now?”
“The Garkohn trappers are being caught in a trap,” said Diut. “Jeh is coming from the west with one group of fighters. Kehyo has circled wide around and is coming from the east. To the north, there are nonfighters secreted in trees, waiting to drop stones and paint.”
“Nonfighters!”
“So that we seem more numerous than we are. But all will be quiet for some time now. Jeh’s fighters and Kehyo’s will kill silently tor as long as they can—making our numbers more even. The noise and light will not start until the Garkohn start it. And the Garkohn are bus> wondering what the Tehkohn Hao is doing inside the Mission settlement.”
Alanna managed a smile. “With Natahk in here, perhaps they will panic when they find themselves surrounded.”
“Some of them will surely panic. And they will panic others. We must keep Natahk here until that happens. When we hear shouting, the victory will be near for us. The more shouting, the better.”
Alanna knew he was right. Kohn fighting, even in war, was normally silent. That was part of the reason why the guns of the Missionaries had been so effective in alarming the Tehkohn and herding them into a trap earlier. Now, the Garkohn would be the ones making the noise, and the ones panicked by it, as they tried to warn each other that they were infiltrated and under attack.
“Tehkohn Hao.” Jules sat watching Diut with strange intensity.
Diut looked at him.
“I have a question that I don’t want to ask. But I must ask it. Too much is wrong. What connection is there between you and my daughter?”
Diut glanced at Alanna.
She shrugged. “I tried once to tell him, but the time seemed wrong, the risk too great. Now… he must know.”
Diut flashed white agreement and spoke to Jules. “Your daughter is the reason why you are still alive, Verrick. And she is the reason why your people will have their chance to escape this valley soon. She is my wife.”
For a moment, Jules sat staring at Diut as though he had not heard. Finally he closed his eyes, shook his head slowly. “Like the Garkohn,” he muttered. “No better than the Garkohn.”
“No!” said Alanna sharply.
Jules looked at her.
“I’m not his prisoner, Jules, I’m his wife. I’m glad to be his…”
“My God, Lanna!” The words seemed to explode from Jules like a cry of pain. Alanna stopped uncertainly, looked at Neila. Abruptly, Neila got up and ran into her bedroom.
“Oh hell,” muttered Alanna in English. “I’d hoped that now that they were committed, it wouldn’t matter so much.”
Diut switched to his own clear but strangely accented English. “In one way, it will not matter. Everything is arranged. If they want to live, they will follow the arrangement.”
The sudden switch to English caught Jules’s attention. He spoke to Alanna. “You taught him English?”
“Yes. He wanted to learn.”
“What else did you teach him?” The question was heavy with accusation.
“That we were rational people, Jules. That we could think and learn. That we were not animals!” She thought the irony of that might reach him even now, and it seemed to. He stared at Diut for a moment, then faced Alanna again.
“You have a child?” His voice had dropped to a whisper.
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I had a child. My daughter was killed in the raid.”
