Betrayer

“Nandi,” Lucasi said with a lowering of his head. “One understands the depth of trouble I have caused.”

“Banichi has told you that your sister is safe, along with Barb-daja.”

A nod. “Yes, nandi. One is deeply grateful.”

“Banichi may have told you. You are in Taisigi district, and that post up there is not Taisigi.

The Guild is moving on a nest of renegades of the Guild, from the years of the Troubles. And this will not be a safe place once they arrive. Can you possibly attempt to stay with us, or can you go to ground and stay there?”

“I wish to go with you, nandi.”

“Make the safest decision, for your own sake, whether to try this or to go to ground. I wish very much to present you to your partner safe. But we cannot have you endanger this mission.”

“I can do it,” Lucasi said. “I can, nandi.”

Bren walked back to Banichi. “I have told him the importance of our mission. He believes he can stay with us.”

“I have my own orders for him,” Banichi said, and he went over and said about two words, which Bren did not hear; but he saw the boy, who had risen to stand on one foot, nod emphatically. Twice.

They gathered up their gear then—or Banichi and Jago did. Tano and Algini were suddenly not in sight, and since Banichi and Jago started off, it didn’t seem a good thing to ask too many questions.

Guarding their backtrail, Bren thought. They had to make speed and still avoid running into allies or enemies in the dark, and with dawn coming on.

Then he realized the boy was not with them. Banichi had, he thought, outright ordered the boy to stay put and wait for them to come back for him once they had this mess sorted out.

Which was as it was. Banichi was thinking about the mission, he had no question of that.

About the mission and getting through this. He was glad if Banichi was doing what was necessary in spite of help from him.

He just hoped to hell Tano and Algini would get back to them soon.

They were about half an hour on, on a delicate climb downward, in the earliest of dawn, when all of a sudden the ground heaved and rocks fell, bounding hollowly down from the height.

Bren leaned back against a man-sized boulder and stared up in startlement at the source of the explosion, a cloud billowing skyward above the ridge.

He didn’t say anything. But that hadn’t been any weapon he knew about.

It was, however, Tano and Algini’s specialty.

And now that explosion and that cloud was a beacon for the neighborhood. It was going to upset any enemies in the area, who would probably run to see what had happened.

The renegades had certainly been stirred up from the hour Jago had fired the first shot. He had no doubt of that. But that towering cloud above the ridge was a magnet for an ambush.

The other side would know it—and maybe blame Machigi’s forces, which actually lay in the opposite direction. The combination of misdirections was not a bad thing—unless it brought action down on their heads.

Just hurry up and get back to us, he thought; and he hoped Tano and Algini didn’t stay to do any more damage.

And he hoped to God the kid back there just kept his head down and melted into a hole in the rocks before their enemies came swarming out and around the area.

He—he just had to get down this slope, carefully, quickly. Safety was ahead of them, not behind. Banichi and Jago might have left the kid out of practicality, but they were held to the progress hecould make, and the only thing he could do to help them was to watch where he put his feet and just do better, longer, farther than he thought he possibly, humanly, could.

He got down to flat rock. Banichi moved on, and he kept going, with Jago’s help under his arm.

“Bren-ji,” Jago said at one point, “go more slowly if you must!”

“For my sake or yours, Jago-ji?” he panted as he went. “If for mine, trust I can do this. I shall live, I assure you.”

They went at the increased pace, Banichi in the lead, Jago close by him, being sure he didn’t step into a hole, so he had one less thing to worry about. Staying upright. Moving. That was his job.

The sun was definitively up, now, removing the cover of darkness even to human eyes.

Breathing and walking occupied all available intellect. And he was no longer sure he was using his best sense, but he pushed a bit harder, able to see, now. He made it to the top of a rise, wavered, with the far view of hills swimming ahead of him, then realized he was wobbling on the edge of a drop-off, and he caught himself one nanosecond before Jago snatched him against her and steered him to safer route, keeping him from descending the hill in a catastrophic slide.

“One is,” grateful, he tried to say. But he hadn’t the wind left. The whole world went fuzzy at that point. He might have been out on his feet, except Jago still had hold of his arm, and then had her arm around him.

“Here is not a good place, Bren-ji. Just a little farther. Then we shall rest an hour.”

An hour. A whole hour sitting still. He wanted it so much.

But they couldn’t afford that.

He had to tell them that. But he had to get where it was safe. He energized his legs and managed to keep going, sure, with what shred of intelligence he had left, that where Banichi was going, where Jago wanted him to go, was at least better cover, and a place where he could take just a little rest and get his wind back and then argue.

Maybe he could even take off the damned vest for a moment or two. It would be such a relief.

God, he wanted to do that.

It was still another downhill, in among rocks, and past an overhanging shrub. Banichi waited at the bottom of a steep little slope, took his other arm and steered him to a little concealed nook and a flat rock he could sit on.

Then, silently, by the time Bren looked up, Banichi had left them. Jago was alone.

“Sorry,” Bren said, trying to get his breath. “One is sorry, Jago-ji. Banichi is scouting?”

“As well we take a look ahead, Bren-ji. Use the time.”

She offered him a drink from a small flask, plain water, which they had in very short supply, he knew that. His mouth was dust-dry and he let a mouthful roll around and moisten his throat in little trickles. For not very much encouragement at all he would lie flat on the rock and stay there, but it would only hurt more, getting up, and the damned vest, once he was sitting down, at least helped hold him upright in some comfort.

“How are you, Bren-ji?” Jago asked him, sinking down on her haunches. She wanted an estimate, he said to himself, not stupid overstatement.

“I can walk,” he said, “but my judgment is question—” More breath. New try.

“Questionable.”

She pressed her fingers against the side of his neck, where the pulse rate, he thought, was probably still rather high.

“Rest,” she said. “I could give you a drug. But one advises not.”

“If it keeps me going—”

“Better to rest. You may need it later.”

“I need more time,” he said, “in a gym, Jago-ji. I am going to do thatc when we get back.”

He won a slight smile from her, and with a little bow of her head: “I shall go up to a better vantage, Bren-ji. I shall not be leaving you.”

“Tano and Algini,” he said.

“They may overtake us here. The boy will probably be somewhat behind them.”

So the boy was coming. Alone. God. He hadn’t wanted that.

“Rest,” Jago said, and stepped up onto the rock, and onto another, and left his field of vision.

At that point, it was his job just to sit there. And breathe. And let blood circulate back to parts of his brain he was sure were not functioning all that well. His feet hurt. Badly. He had burst a couple of stitches in the lightweight dress boots that were all he had with him, which was not a good situation. And he was lost. As lost as he had ever been in his life. He had absolutely no idea where they were, or even what direction they were going at the moment—

west, he thought, and then wasn’t sure, given the season and the latitude. He could judge where the sun would be, behind the rocks, but he couldn’t see it from where he was sitting. It seemed they had not aimed due northwest, which would have taken them to Targai. But that could be an accident of where they had stopped, or the route they had to take, since they had wound around so many obstacles it had seemed they were going in circles.

They were still on the Southern Plateau, he was almost sure of that. They hadn’t been descending that long. They wouldn’t be descending northeast, toward the coast—that would only put them back in danger.

If they were ever out of it.

He was dizzy, still. Orientation in the world? He was doing damned well to orient himself upright.

He still thought that if he could just get rid of the vest, and its constriction, he could go faster.

But Jago would shoot him herself if she came back and found him sitting there in his shirt sleeves.

So he sat. He sat with the spring chill of the rock working its way up his backside and the warmth of the sun and the heavy vest working its way down from his shoulders, for a reasonable meeting somewhere in the middle of him: his chest hurt and his backside was numb. He let his eyes shut, just drowsing upright. Best he could do.

He wiggled his feet to be sure they still worked. He thought about Najida, and the bath that he was going to have when he got home, and his own bed. Breakfast.

Eggs and toast. Hot tea. He could do with that.

When he got there.

15

« ^ »

All the house was supposed to be at formal breakfast, after the one they had already had and shouldn’t admit to. Cajeiri and Veijico and Antaro had been on the way, in the hall and headed for the dining room, all dressed and proper. A little toast and tea would not suffice for the whole morning, and Cajeiri had told his aishid to take turns going for a proper breakfast themselves. He was sure they had been awake long enough to be hungry all over again.

But Jegari, who had gone to the security room, intercepted them halfway down the hall, with a low-voiced, breathless, “Nandi, there is open warbroken out in Taisigi district. Your great-grandmother and Cenedi-nadi and Lord Geigi are in conference, and breakfast is delayed.

They have shut the doors to the dining room and nobody can get in.”

Cajeri took that in for a few seconds, stopped right in mid-hallway, with servants witnessing.

War in Taisigi district.

Where nand’ Bren was.

Where Lucasi also might be.

The shooting meant nand’ Bren was going to have to get out of there. It was a situation far beyond argument and finesse.

“We shall go back to the suite,” he said to them. “Come.”

So they all did. Cajeiri sat down. Everybody did, by the fire. Veijico looked more than generally worried.

“Say,” he said to Jegari. “What do you know, Gari-ji?”

“Nandi, a building was blown up in the outlying district of the Taisigi. No one knows by whom. It was a Taisigi hunting lodge. But nobody knows its current use.

“Second part of the report: Guild from Shejidan is moving in to take out the renegades in Dojisigi, in Senji, in Taisigi, all at the same time. Lord Machigi has disappeared. One of his closest advisors has been assassinated. One of his cousins has fled to the north, presumably seeking refuge with the Dojisigi. But nobody seems to know where Machigi is at all.”

People were moving all over the place. It was chess with Great-grandmother. You had to remember who was where and watch out for pieces that jumped squares.

Only it was no chess game, and it was nothing as limited as a chessboard. It was scary, and nand’ Bren was right in the middle of it.

“Here is what I know, besides,” Jegari said. “There is some sort of trouble at Targai—one suspects the Senji have attacked. Your great-grandmother is discussing this in the dining room, with Cenedi-nadi and the rest, and Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, and even Ramaso-nadi.

Nawari told me it is likely that the same people were behind a lot of mischief in Kajiminda, and even Lord Geigi agrees. The Marid would stay at odds with your father, and that would keep the whole district of the Marid a safe refuge for the illicit operations. That was their plan. And it was not the Taisigi. It was almost certainly not the Taisigi. It was renegades. It was Guild who supported Murini.”

Cajeiri drew a deep breath. He was getting a report. It was a real report, serious business that heactually knew something about. A lot of people had run south when his father had come back and taken the capital. And because they were in the Marid, which was not a lawful place anyway, nobody had much troubled about them being there.

“But they either went too far,” Jegari said. “—Nawari said some could have been low-level tactical operatives given too broad an instruction, or they wanted to start a war. They wanted to take over Lord Machigi’s western operation—and then when nand’ Bren threw them out of Kajiminda, they decided to get Machigi assassinated, because they believed he was going to come down on them. That was when your great-grandmother sent nand’ Bren to warn Machigi and make him an offer.”

“She had Lord Machigi in a corner she could control,” Veijico murmured, sounding impressed. “He was in trouble from both the renegades andthe Guild.”

A lot fell into place—scarily so, because everything these renegades had been doing could have worked, except mani was smart, once she was onto them. Just the fact that Machigi was talking to nand’ Bren was going to scare the northern Marid and the renegades.

Cajeiri recalled all his study of maps. “Machigi’s allies are the two smallest clans in the Marid.”

“Yes,” Veijico said. “And now the two largest may be in the hands of the renegades. The Guild thinks so. But the Guild is moving in.”

And they were blowing up things over in Taisigi territory. The Taisigi were under attack.

He saw things, now. Banichi had told him once, on the ship—to make the enemy use the door you really want, lay down fire on all the others. It was the same thing mani had said to him.

“Mani is very smart,” he said.

And then out of nowhere the worrisome thought came to him that if the legitimate Guild was all concentrating its fire on the Marid, then the only open door for their enemies was here. At Najida. Where an attack could threaten mani and try to get hostages, which was the onlything they could do.

He hoped mani was going to ask his father for a lot of help, fast, none of this waiting around.

Mani would not like to do that, because she hated to admit there was anything she could not settle herself, but it really seemed to him it might be a good idea, very soon, because if all the fighting came their direction, Najida was wide open.

Wasit the deliberately open door?

It was pretty stupid of his father to have left mani and him sitting in it, if it was.

Except his father and mother were having another baby.

He really did not like that thought. The stupid rebels had robbed him of his birthday party on the ship. He really, really looked forward to his ninth, which was very close now.

Dying and giving everything to the new baby was not at all what he intended to do. The renegades were very inconvenient.

“So the Senji and the Dojisigi are going to try to make the Guild come here,” he said, “And they are not going to fight by Guild rules.”

“One believes you are very right, nandi,” Veijico said.

He was not as much scared as he was mad. The renegades were interfering with him, and they were hurting bystanders, and aiming at mani and nand’ Bren, and everybody. And if his father was not already sending help here, then he was going to be very mad at his father, because his father was not stupid, and it meant bad things if his father failed to do that.

“My father will send help,” he said firmly.

But then he had an even scarier thought, and he wished he were more confident his father could actually make the Assassins’ Guild move where he wanted them to move, right now.

***

Jago stayed gone. Tano and Algini hadn’t shown up. Banichi was off looking for a way out of here. It was a very lonely wait.

And it had gotten to that hour of the morning when the small life of the high plateau had just begun to stir into the sun’s warmth. Bren watched a living-leaf crawl up the branch of a shrub, among last year’s leaves that looked just like it. He heard a clicking that was a rockhopper greeting the day.

Then a movement scraped the rocks above him, and a booted foot and a plummeting body landed right by him.

Jago. Landing on her feet, as if it had not been that great a drop.

Time to move, then, was his first thought. They’d overtake Banichi, who’d be waiting for them.

“Tano and Algini are coming,” she said and added, frowning: “They have the boy with them.

Stay down, Bren-ji.”

Thatwasn’t as arranged. It wasn’t what Banichi had told the boy to do.

He stayed where he was and waited, letting Jago guide the others in.

And sure enough, Tano and Algini came in from around the stony shoulder of the hill on the same track they had used. And just behind them was Lucasi. Lucasi was moving under his own power, limping, with a fairly substantial splint around the afflicted leg and leaving, one was certain, a clear trail behind him, even on the rocks.

Maybe it was pity that had made them bring Lucasi with them—but he didn’t believe it. Tano might have a soft heart. Algini wasn’t so inclined.

“Nandi.” Tano arrived a little out of breath. “One apologizes. The place was being overrun.

The boy knows too much.”

Cancel any thought that things were going smoothly back there. Whatever they had blown up, the explosion had drawn in more trouble, and they’d diverted themselves back to pick up a liability who would spill a dangerous truth: that there was a high-value target wandering around out here, in convenient reach.

“One apologizes to you, nadiin-ji,” Bren said. “We should have taken him with us in the first place.”

“By no means,” Algini said. “Nor will we slow you and Jago. The boy leaves a clear track.

They will surely find us.”

Lucasi looked mortified, head mostly down. “One asks,” the boy said, “let me hold this place.

One will notbe a liabil—”

Algini gave him a single, hard shake, and didn’t have to say a thing. Lucasi bit his lip and ducked his head.

“Jago-ji,” Tano said. “Go. We are not now in the path of incursion, but we are much too close to it, and our trail is so obvious they will be cautious following it.”

“Yes,” Jago said, and, businesslike: “Bren-ji.”

Move, that meant. Now. And Bren didn’t object. Their best chance, under the circumstances, was his doing exactly what Lucasi was finally learning to do: shut up when Algini expressed an opinion and stick very close to whichever of them had him in charge at the moment.

What they hadn’tsaid, doubtless out of politeness, was that Jago already had her hands full and didn’t need two problems.

Jago headed out, and Bren followed.

And he was sure beyond any doubt that the area and the enemy had more to worry about in tracking Tano and Algini than Tano and Algini had in being tracked.

***

Things were beginning to stir around the house now that the conference was over. Mani and Lord Geigi and Cenedi had had their breakfast, so Jegari reported, which had turned out to be more of a lunch. But nobody was interested in talking to a boy.

So Cajeri, having thoughts of his own about what needed to be done, and with nobody listening to him except his aishid, said, “We shall go downstairs, nadiin-ji. We have business of our own.”

He led the way straight down to the basement from the vacant dining hall, not caring whether or not the servants reported it, since both Cenedi and mani were too busy to bother with him.

He had his excuse, besides: nand’ Bren had told him to take care of nand’ Toby, and by a slight stretch, he was still doing that.

He led his aishid straight to nand’ Toby’s door, and Antaro knocked.

Barb-daja answered the door. The smell of sandwiches and spiced tea wafted out. She and nand’ Toby were having lunch in their room. That was a little disappointment.

But humans had different manners. He traded on that.

“Sorry,” he said with a little bow. “Can we talk, nandi?”

“Come on in,” nand’ Toby said, past Barb-daja’s shoulder. Nand’ Toby was looking immensely better today, now that Barb-daja was back. He was still wrapped up in bandages, of course, and he was having breakfast with his shirt unbuttoned, but, then, nand’ Toby was not on mani’s orders, was he? Cajeiri edged into the room. Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja had a little table with only two chairs, but there was the bed to sit on, and Barb-daja quietly relocated onto the edge of the mattress, collecting her tea and her plate, motioning for their guest to take her chair. “There’s plenty, if you want, nandi,” she said. And more doubtfully, as his aishid slipped quietly into the room to stand along the wall and he remained respectfully standing: “Or I’m sure we could send for more.”

“We ate, nandi.” They had, twice, actually. And using nand’ Toby’s name in the human way just was not right, and ship-speak sirwas too general, besides hard to say. Cajeiri settled for a mix of ship-speak and Ragi.

“So what can we do for you?” nand’ Toby asked.

“You can hear news, nandi.”

“Tea, Barb,” Toby said, and Barb picked up a spare cup from the little service—it was a seven-cup set—and poured.

Cajeiri sat down and took the teacup with a proper little nod/bow-in-place. Nand’ Toby offered that atevi courtesy, too, being polite and proper, so one had to take at least three sips before saying anything. Mani had thwacked that into his skull.

And he ought to wait. It was terribly rude to discuss serious things over somebody’s food.

And in proper manners he needed to wait until they were through with their lunch.

Humans did not observe such customs, however. Even adults thought it was perfectly fine to talk business over food. At least that was true on the ship. He cautiously began to break mani’s rules.

“Mani and Lord Geigi and Cenedi-nadi have talked. A message came. The Guild is attacking enemies in the Marid.”

“A message from Bren?” nand’ Toby asked.

“Not from nand’ Bren, no, nandi. I think it came from the Guild to Cenedi.”

“I think,” Barb-daja said, “I’m sureBren was doing all right with Machigi.”

“This isn’t going to make the man happy, Barb!”

He had been talking in ship-speak, and nand’ Toby and Barb-daja spoke in Mosphei’, which they used on the Island, but it was close enough they all understood each other.

“Bren’s going to be all right,” Barb-daja said. “Machigi wouldn’t dare do anything if the Guild is moving in. He’d be a fool. If the dowager wants to talk to him and Bren is talking, then Machigi is safe if anybody is. He’d be crazy to make a move like that.”

And everybody said Barb-daja was not a serious person and was always doing and saying wrong things because she was a little stupid, but she had been with nand’ Bren, she had seen the situation in Machigi’s court, and at that moment Cajeiri really, really was grateful she could explain that.

“The Guild will guard him,” he said. “I think so. Yes. And his aishid is with him. They won’t let anything happen to him. I think.” Here was the hard thing to explain. “When we came down from the ship, Murini ran. The Guild with him ran. All to the Marid.”

“Murini’s bodyguard, you mean.”

“Lots. Lots of Guild. In Dojisigi. In Senji. The Guild in Shejidan is fighting them.”

“Them.” Nand’ Toby looked confused.

“The Guild in Shejidan says they did the bad stuff in Kajiminda. Not Machigi. They try to kill Machigi.”

“So the Guild in Shejidan is going after the ones in the Marid?”

“Yes.” He was relieved. “They can’t get Bren. The bad guys. But they can come here. Mani won’t talk to me. I don’t know what they’re doing. But I think they come here. The Murini Guild.”

“You’re saying the bad guys are going to attack here.”

“Yes! They want to catch us. We’re not safe in the house. Mani won’t talk to me. I don’t know if she called my father. But the Guild in Shejidan maybe sent everybody to the Marid.

So my father doesn’t have a lot of people, maybe. I don’t know if he can help.”

Toby looked at him soberly and finally had a sip of tea.

“Can we get nand’ Cenedi to give us guns?” Toby asked.

“You ask him. We get guns. We set booby traps in the halls, too. All sorts of things.”

“Where’d you learn that?” Toby asked him. “Booby traps?”

“On the ship. We used to make them. Safe ones. We can make bad ones.”

“I’ll bet you can.” Toby downed the rest of his tea in two large gulps. “We’re going upstairs, Barb. Help me get dressed. We need to talk with Cenedi. Cajeiri.”

“Nandi.”

“Come with me. You’re going to translate.”

***

The boot seam was giving way, a stitch at a time. That was a damned nuisance, and grit and bits of dry weed found their way in. But stopping to deal with it was impossible. Bren picked out a bush, a rock, any objective on the way ahead, and getting there, picked out another one, trying not to slow Jago down and not to cripple himself by stupidity. He planned his transitions from high ground to low, never gathering too much speed, never risking his balance. He had one contribution to make to Jago’s efforts, and that was a mobility exceeding Lucasi’s and, he hoped, enough common sense to go with it.

So he did his best. Whether they were walking into something and where Banichi was at the moment—he left that to Jago, whose senses and skills were on the alert. Tano and Algini were lagging behind them with Lucasi and hadn’t shown up in the last brief rest.

Jago suddenly held up a cautioning hand. He froze right where he was—not an advantageous spot, but at least a tenable one, in the shadow of a tall upright rock and next to a growth of scrub.

She melted backward and indicated he should get deeper into cover.

He did that, set his back against springy brush and put his hand into the pocket with the gun, just in case.

She was leaving him for a while, she signed to him. He couldn’t go where she was going or do what she was going to do.

But if Jago couldn’t handle it, he was sure it couldn’t be handled. He just needed to stay absolutely still, remembering the acuteness of atevi hearing. She was apparently going hunting.

He settled to stay where he was. His best contribution was to rest and catch his breath, in the theory they were likely to have to move and maybe move for a long distance and fast.

In the best of situations, they’d nearly caught up to Banichi, and she was going to move up on him with the appropriate moves or signals, so Banichi wouldn’t, God help them, shoot them both by accident.

In the worst—they were running into trouble, and Jago was going to have to handle it.

He mopped his face with the back of his cuff, never mind the chill in the air. He wanted to sit down, but that involved moving, and not moving in the least was just safer. He had a rock and a springy bit of brush to lean on, he had his legs braced, and he was not in pain, which was all he asked, at the moment. He was sure she’d be back in a few minutes.

He didn’t know how far they were from that nebulous transition that humans would call the three-way border, the district between Taisigi land and Maschi territory, and likewise between the Marid and Sarini Province. “Border” might be a lovely distinction for a human brain that didn’t like shades of gray, but the people who’d like to kill them wouldn’t be at all fussy about where they were when they ran into each other, and they wouldn’t be safe until they’d gone far enough to have a substantial enough contingent of allied Guild forces between them and everybody who wanted them dead.

***

It wasn’t mani nor even Cenedi they found, going up the stairs; it was Lord Geigi, with household servants carrying baggage, and headed for the stairs.

“Is the enemy coming, nandi?” Cajeiri asked.

“Not imminently, young gentleman,” Lord Geigi said. “Staff will be moving furniture. A precaution.”

“Is mani calling my father?”

“One is certain your father is aware of our difficulty, young gentleman.”

It was an adult trying to keep him from worrying. Which always meant there was something to worry about.

“Is mani calling my father, nandi?”

Geigi had intended to go on down the stairs. They were impolitely in the way. Lord Geigi said, “It is being taken care of, young gentleman.”

Nand’ Toby said, in Mosphei’, “What’s the problem?”

Geigi understood ship-speak. And he looked at nand’ Toby, looking out of breath and bothered.

“Communications,” Lord Geigi said in ship-speak. “We have transmitted a general alert to the station. Phones are notc” It was a ship-speak word Cajeiri did not know. It was not fair.

“What?” he asked. “Reli-ble.”

“Reliable,” Lord Geigi said in Ragi. “Neither phone nor radio is secure at this point. The enemy is preparing something.” And Lord Geigi said it again, in fluent ship-speak, adding:

“I’ve alerted the station, nandi. They will be contacting Mospheira andShejidan, and at that point, what they will do is up to them. The Edi, on the other hand, have contacted the Gan, and that is—” Another big word.

“Nandi,” Cajeiri said, frustrated. “What will the Gan do?”

“They will come, young lord. They will arrive in the middle of things, armed and with no connection to Guild authority. One has asked the Grandmother of the Edi to fortify Kajiminda, and if the Gan then arrive in the midst of this, one can only hope not to have complete confusion.” He changed to ship-speak, addressing nand’ Toby and Barb-daja.

“Guild action does not tend to be long, nandiin. We must hold Najida for the next number of hours, perhaps three days, before help willc” More words, involving Shejidan. Cajeiri drew a quick breath and got a question in.

“My father has nobody to send, nandi?”

The question drew a strange frown, a calculation, maybe, and a hesitation in answering.

“Your father will have received our message, young gentleman. One has every confidence he will act—or that he hasacted would not surprise me in the least. If you would assist, young gentleman, persuade your great-grandmother to move downstairs. Thatwould be to the good.”

“But what is my father doing, nandi?”

“One has no idea at all, young lord,” Lord Geigi said, and said in ship-speak: “We expect attack. Cenedi hasn’t been able to get new information from the Guild. We can send messages out, but no one is talking to us, and we only dare say what we don’t mind the enemy hearing. At this point we simply get ready.” And back to Ragi: “Persuade your great-grandmother to move downstairs, young sir. Thatwould be a service.”

Nobody was going to listen. Mani was clearly in a bad mood. And the enemy had tapped the phone lines.

“Can we get guns?” nand’ Toby asked.

“Nawari, in the security office, nandi,” Lord Geigi said. “He’s arming any staff who knows how to use one.”

***

Time passed. More than half an hour. An hour. Bren watched the shadow creep across a small knob of rock, and pass it entirely, and eventually start to decline off the rock entirely.

He heard nothing. Saw nothing move but a small creature digging roots, out beyond the rocks. He had been still enough that that shy creature felt safe to come out. His feet had gone to sleep.

The shadow crept off the rock entirely and traversed the brown dust of the ground.

He’d stood and waited as long as he could. He moved very carefully so as not to rustle the branches he’d been leaning on and sank down to one knee, and finally down to sit as far back in the rocks as he could manage.

He still refused to worry at this point. If Jago had gotten into a situation, he only hoped she would rely on him absolutely to do what she had told him to do. The last thing he wanted was for her to risk herself and Banichi because they expected him to be a fool.

And, he told himself, Tano and Algini would be arriving here, sooner or later. He hadn’t heard any explosions besides the one back at the ridge. But that didn’t mean that pair was through dealing with the opposition, and it didn’t mean that anything had happened to them.

It was entirely possible they would show up and just move him along toward Jago, relying on the signals they occasionally passed to one another. The second last thing he wanted was to be rambling around out in the countryside, either to draw enemies to himself or to get himself shot by his own bodyguard.

He didn’t know whether there was any specific Guild code for “I’ve left the paidhi in a cul de sac and I hope he stays there,” but he wouldn’t be surprised to know that his bodyguard had a code for pretty much that idea.

The one thing he was sure of was that he truly had no business even taking a look outside his hiding place, no matter what. A human just couldn’t easily judge what an atevi could hear or what one could see in near darkness. Twilight and high noon were the two times when the differences most mattered— advantage went to the human in blinding glare but to the ateva in near darkness. And he very much hoped somebody showed up before dark.

He grew hungry over the afternoon. He grew very thirsty. He didn’t carry a canteen, which he regretted. And Jago, who had had that foresight, hadn’t left it with him, so she planned to get back before he was in dire straits, at least.

Which he was not yet, only uncomfortable and with far too much time to think of things that could go wrong.

The best thing he could do to alleviate the discomfort and get ready to move when Jago got back was rest and sleep. He had his pistol, the only excess weight his staff let him carry. He had taken it out and laid it across his lap as he sat, but it was far, far better not to fire it and bring down the entire countryside—not to mention making his bodyguard scramble to get back to him and possibly risk their necks doing it.

So he had the rock to lean on. It was cold, here in the shadow, but the damned vest, besides keeping him upright, kept him warm, give or take his hands and feet.

He tucked his hands under his arms and shut his eyes.

Actual sleep eluded him except by fitful moments, but very slowly, very slowly, he noted the shadow creep across onto another rock and climb it, until the whole nook was in twilight. It grew decidedly colder. His backside was long since numb. His legs and his arms were getting there.

He was careful shifting position. But he had to, several times, to prevent his legs going to sleep. It was, thank God, not damp dirt, but it was chill. So was the rock, give or take the thin, springy brush he had for a cushion at his back.

***

It had been an anxious day. A few of the servants were armed, even if Cenedi still refused to let Antaro and Jegari carry guns; and some of the young servants were out at more distant posts, watching the roads. It was a scary feeling, and an empty feeling, as the house at Najida went on defensive alert.

Mani still refused to go downstairs. By late afternoon, various Edi and two of the Guild that had come in with the bus came in for mysterious meetings with mani and Cenedi. Cajeiri could get no reports about what they were saying, but he was sure it had to do with Guild moving somewhere: it had that kind of hush about it.

So there were at least some reinforcements, he told himself. He hoped there were a lot of them, but nobody had said anything about that where his bodyguard could overhear it—

informing nand’ Toby of what he knew and getting nand’ Toby armed had had one unintended side effect: Cenedi had found out that information was leaking out, and Cenedi had not been happy.

So now nothing leaked, not even from Nawari and not even to Antaro.

And nobody had time for supper, either. Cook made pizza for most of the staff and a country dish for mani and Cenedi and for Lord Geigi and him, too.

Cajeiri could smell the pizza. He had far rather have that. But saying so would upset the cook, and mani would call it rude. Pickled eggs and spiced fish were not too bad. He ate with mani in her upstairs sitting room, and so did Lord Geigi, who had second helpings. So did nand’

Toby and Barb-daja, who had been talking to mani and to Cenedi and nand’ Geigi—well, they had been answering what Cajeiri translated, a lot of it about Tanaja and what Barb-daja had seen. Cajeiri had been translating back and forth; but everything stopped long enough for supper. Cajeiri was glad of the break because his brain hurt, and eating was a little while he did not have to be thinking of words that had gotten away from him.

Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja got pizza right in the same room, which was just unfair, but they were specially privileged because they were allergic to the pickle spice, so mani said.

Mani, especially since the last report from Nawari, had been upset about something before supper. There was a long list of things she could justifiably be upset about. Her bodyguard picked it up: they moved especially fast when they came into the room—even during supper, which was how urgent things were getting to be; and they delivered their reports in concise order, largely to Cenedi, who still gave no hint whether the reinforcements they thought might come were coming here or not.

So supper had gone very fast, for one of mani’s suppers, just the one dish and tea, quickly disposed of.

And immediately after there was more serious talk, mani with Cenedi and Lord Geigi, while Cajeiri translated as much as he could get into his head, for nand’ Tobi and Barb-daja.

Mani’s guard, stationed on the roof and at various places nobody mentioned, had all the roads under watch. The Edi were watching the overland roads and trails.

And nand’ Geigi had left orders at Targai when he quit the area, telling the little Parithi clan not even to try to resist any invasion, but to stay under cover as much as possible and even to abandon the house if they had to. Parithi had no Guild of its own there to defend them, and in Geigi’s opinion and everybody else’s, they were not a priority for Shejidan to move anybody in to help them.

Meanwhile, the men who had come in from Tanaja on the bus had vanished again, telling nobody what they were up to.

Cajeiri tried to communicate all the detail. He had not used his ship-speak this much in most of a year. Mosphei’ had a different accent and put in pieces ship-speak left out, so he kept having to correct himself. And when nand’ Toby had something to say, he had to ask nand’

Toby several times to get things straight, and then find a time to break into what mani and Lord Geigi were saying to get it across, whispering.

Nand’ Toby had been working for the Presidenta of Mospheira all during the Troubles, and he understood just how everything was laid out along the whole west coast, and who was where, and who was allied, and who was trouble. So that at least made explaining mani’s answers easier in the other direction.

The one fact he gathered from mani and Cenedi was what they had already found out, that the Guild was acting on its own in the Marid. Guild who had man’chi only to the Guild were running things at the moment, and Cenedi was not reliably informed, the way Cenedi put it.

Cenedi was angry about that, Cajeiri thought, but even as high as Cenedi’s rank was, not to mention mani’s, there seemed to be nothing he could do to get the Guild to obey and get people to Najida. Going into the Marid and, as Toby put it, knocking heads, was probably a good idea on the Guild’s part. But mani had rushed into action, a situation neither she nor Cenedi liked, because this second power, this other outlawed Guild, had tried to get Guild action focused on Machigic which mani believed meant they were going to kill him.

Now here they sat.

And Cajeiri thought his father in Shejidan was probably doing just what mani was doing: sitting. And it was probably what even the Presidenta over on Mospheira was doing: getting his people into protective positions until it was clear exactly where the Guild was operating and what they were doing, and sitting in his office asking sharp questions and listening to reports. It was all these powerful people could do—because the Guild, which had always taken orders, was obstinately not taking orders or giving out information.

And it was not just the Maschi and the Edi and the Marid involved. Mani in fact had told nand’ Geigi that when the Edi had appealed to the Gan for help, the lord of Dur had found out; and everybody speculated that Dur, of all their allies, might do something—being far enough from the renegade’s territory that he was not directly in danger. Cajeiri was excited and encouraged to hear that; Dur was one of his father’s staunchest allies, and particularly the young lord of that district, who was incredibly brave and reckless and had an airplane. A yellow one.

Dur had boats. And planes. And if they came down, things would be a lot better.

But in either case, the bad news was that the help from the north was going to take time getting here.

And now the Guildsmen who had come in on the bus had disappeared, and Cenedi would not talk about it or answer mani’s questions, which probably meant Cenedi knew where they were.

Probably, Cajeiri thought, they had headed back into Targai district, which definitely had trouble; or maybe they had gone down into Separti Township or over to Kajiminda to give Guild help to the Edi who were protecting it. It still all added up to the fact that they might be on their own for a while, and what was blowing up larger and larger in the Marid was like a storm coming up way too fast. There just was not time, now, Cenedi said, to expect any help.

They were going to have to get through the night, and possibly a few days longer than that, on their own.

Meanwhile, mani’s bodyguard wasputting booby traps in place. A lot of them. Really interesting ones. Cajeiri had wanted to see in detail what they were, but nobody would let him.

So they were getting ready, with mani’s young men posted on the roof and elsewhere as they had been.

Nand’ Toby said, too, that if they wanted, he could phone the Presidenta of Mospheira and get help, and Geigi said that the station would provide intelligence to Shejidan.

“We shall just keep behind our walls, nadiin-ji,” she said, in that tone of voice that ended argument. “We shall defend ourselves.”

“I don’t understand why,” Cajeiri said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja, “but mani says no.”

Then Cenedi’s chin lifted, and he sent an attentive look into nowhere, as if he were hearing something from that earpiece he had.

He said, quietly, “Aiji-ma, nandiin, there is movement out of Senji, bypassing Targai. It has reached the airport. It will likely come this way.”

The airport. That was close. That was just about an hour away. Whatever was going to happen had started.

***

It was difficult to be bored to tears while being terrified, but given a whole day hiding in a hole in the rocks, it was possible, Bren decided. He shifted position to keep his legs from going to sleep, but his backside was beyond numb.

It had gotten dark. Darker than dark. Clouds had moved in, and there was not even starlight to help. And the strain of listening for hours had taken its toll on mental acuteness.

He wasn’t listening as well as he had. He actually grew increasingly sleepy and dull-witted with exhaustion, and he leaned his head back and shut his eyes, just reassuring himself with the faint night sounds—telling himself that if those creatures were stirring, nobody was near.

He came closer to sleep. Felt the slight movement of a breezec

A very light breeze. The waft of a white, sheer curtain. The smell of flowers. The shadow of the lattice.

The garden apartment. That was where he had joined up with Banichi and Jago, a different world ago.

It was the night he’d started carrying an illegal gun in the first place. If he let this dream continue, in the next moment he’d see a shadow beyond that lattice. A gun would go off.

He’d begun another life, that night, on the chain of events that had led him to Ilisidi.

And a close association with Tabini, who’d taken him target shooting up at Taiben, in days when he’d been far more innocent.

Best not sleep. Keep awake. Keep alert. He’d be embarrassed when Jago got back and scared hell out of him.

Had to move. His leg had a cramp.

Damn, he wished he’d hear from Jago. Or Banichi. Or somebody.

Was that the breeze stirring the grass?

God. The other night sounds had stopped. He just realized that.

His heart rate picked up. Calm, Banichi had told him. A rapid heartbeat never improved one’s aim. Think of the problem, not the emotional context. And Jago had advised him that it was generally wiser to watch an approaching enemy from cover and find out the number involved before doing anything, including running.

He couldn’t stand sitting in a hole and waiting, however. He wanted to get up onto his feet.

But he had to manage that without scuffing a foot or moving a pebble. Which meant deciding it was going to hurt his chest and that he was going to lever himself straight up anyway, without minding the pain.

He could do it.

He’d damned well betterdo it.

He did. Control the breathing, Banichi would say. Keep balanced, Jago would say.

He tried. Poking his head out of his little nook just wasn’t bright. As best he could judge, he was in deep shadow.

And there was, please God, the chance it was Jago coming back. He couldn’t just fire blindly at whatever came.

He eased the safety off the pistol, however. He looked at the ground, judged the slight difference of shadow and deeper shadow that his human eyes could barely make out, and decided it was best just to stay absolutely still and hope. He wasn’t the one to take on trouble, and his bodyguard didn’t need his warning.

Whoever it was, he had the impression they were moving on or near the track he and Jago had laid down.

The sound was coming toward his rocky nook, in all this emptiness. In grass, there was no help for it: there was the vestige of a trailc just not much likelihood of anybody happening onto it by total chance.

Closer. God, he didn’t want to have to shoot. If some stranger came in here, setting that pistol off would echo like doom, from one end of these hills to the other, and would bring all sorts of trouble he couldn’t outrun.

But no choice, he thought, hearing a step in the grass outside.

“Bren-ji,” a whisper said.

It wasn’t Jago. It was Tano or Algini, one or the other, and he felt the blood drain from his head. “Here,” he whispered back, and a shadow slipped in between the rocks.

Algini, he decided, feeling the aftermath of the adrenaline rush.

“Jago’s been gone all day,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Algini said. “We have contact.”

God, that was a relief.

“Banichi?”

“No,” Algini said, and relief plunged right back into worry.

But there was no chance to ask extensive questions. Algini moved, and he went too, out into the clear. “Tano?” he whispered, outside.

“He is coming,” Algini said, and Bren tucked the gun into his pocket and went with Algini, moving as quietly as he could, in Algini’s footprints, or as close as a human stride could make it.

He was quickly out of breath, his mouth was parched, and blisters made walking painful; Algini had to slow down, and finally to rest, hunkered down next to a line of brush.

“Tano will catch up with us,” Algini said.

“Banichi?”

“Possibly switched off,” Algini said. “Possibly out of range.”

Jago might know. Wherever she was. Bren found himself chilling in the wind and tried not to shiver. Algini was never a fount of sympathy: his mind worked otherwise, on facts and necessities, and one decided it was far better to let Algini think and listen and not to be nattering away with questions to which Algini had no answer. Whatever had happened, had already happened, and at this point they were headed, he hoped, as directly as possible toward Targai, where they could reach Geigi and, if they were lucky, signal the bus to come get them. They were on flatter groundc which could mean they had reached deep into the uplands and maybe were approaching one of the few roads that ran through Maschi lands.

“Water, if you will, nadi,” was his one request of Algini. Algini passed him a small flask, and he held the water in his mouth a long time on each small swallow. It was stale, but it was the best thing in hours. He started to hand the flask back.

Algini made an abrupt move of his hand, then held up two fingers.

Tano, and company. They were going to meet and probably part again after conferring and laying plans.

Then Algini, uncharacteristically, volunteered information. “We have now lost Jago’s contact, nandi.”

His heart sank. There was still nothing they could do about it. “Yes,” he said, acknowledging he had heard. Nothing more. He looked at the ground and tried not to think what could have gone wrong. Jago would go to help Banichi only if she were sure Tano and Algini were going to find him.

So they had found him. What else was going on out there in the dark at the moment, he had no idea, and he was convinced Algini would tell him if he knew anything more.

They waited.

16

« ^ »

Great-grandmother would not, she still said, take refuge in the basementc

“Are we to sit in a hole in the ground along with that coward and malefactor Baiji! We will not, nadi!”

Cajeiri never recalled Great-grandmother addressing Cenedi so rudely. It was late, people needed to settle to bed, particularly nand’ Toby, who was not that well; but that was not happening, not while mani held out abovestairs.

Cenedi replied, jaw set, “Aiji-ma, I will carry you downstairs myself if you will not go. Then I will stay there with you to be sure you stay, when your guard needs my presence. Live or die, they will have to get along without me, because youclearly need me more.”

Cajeiri never recalled Cenedi answering back to mani, either. He found his mouth open, and shut it, and his bodyguard, there to witness along with Lord Geigi, was likely dismayed.

“What’s the matter?” nand’ Toby asked.

It was not a good time to be talking. Cajeiri didn’t say a thing.

Then Lord Geigi said, offering a gentlemanly hand, “Aiji-ma, let us go down together for a light snack and leave our bodyguards less worry, shall we? We shall have Cook provide us cakes and tea, and we shall have my radio, and we shall keep well apprised of the situation on the grounds. Kindly do come, aiji-ma, and keep me company. Otherwise this waiting may be very tedious.”

Mani’s temper was up, for certain, but Lord Geigi bravely persisted.

“Sidi-ji,” he said. “Do join me. You know what they say about lords who ignore their bodyguards.”

“Gods unfortunate, when did youbecome mine?” she muttered, and sharply: “Great-grandson!”

“Mani!” Cajeiri said instantly.

“You will come with us. And bring our guests down.”

Finally! “Yes, mani!” Any other answer was apt to get a thwack with her cane, and not a slight one. “Please come downstairs, too,” he said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. “Get some sleep.”

“How close is the enemy?” Toby wanted to know. “I can shoot, understand. I’m a better shot than my brother.”

“This is Guild business,” Cajeiri said. “It’s going to be bad up here. Mani says come down right now, and I’ll bet she knows something. So we have to go with her. Or she won’t go.”

He looked at his bodyguard. “Taro-ji, Gari-ji, I don’t think you should be up here. Jico-ji—do whatever you decide to do.”

“I am Guild,” Veijico said quietly. “I shall be upstairs, nandi.”

***

It was also possible to be bored while worried sick, and there was nothing to do but sit and stew about the situation.

“Is there any reason they would switch off, Gini-ji?” Bren asked, desperately, finally, in their long sitting still. “Do you think they are still all right?”

Algini took a while answering. The Guild held certain information very close, and it was not likely at all that Algini would divulge method, only conclusion.

“When Guild goes against Guild,” Algini said, “yes. One might switch off.”

It was his dearest hope Jago and Banichi had done exactly that.

It had to pass for good news. Banichi and Jago were a force of two. The number of renegade Guild in the district was certainly far higher than that, even if they might have slightly reduced the odds tonight. They knew the direction Banichi and Jago had taken, at least generally, and prolonged silence and absence could tell them that there was something ahead of them they didn’t want to meet.

That would put that problem out into the far edge of Machigi’s territory, or right in the near edge of Geigi’s, neither being good news for their situation.

He began to wonder if that was the case. And once Tano caught up, they might decide that, instead of going north and trying to cross into Maschi territory as quickly as possible, they might veer off to the northwest and try to reach Najida directly. He wasn’t completely in favor of that. It would be farther. A hellish lot farther. He wasn’t sure how much he had left in him; and he most of all wanted to get back to Najida and in reach of a phone.

But if Tano and Algini said that was the best thing to do, he was going to have to find it in himself to do it.

If he could shed the damned vestc

But they weren’t going to let him do that.

Algini knocked his knee with the back of his hand, a signal to pay attention. Something was going on, but Algini hadn’t moved, otherwise, and just waited. And waited. “I have shut down my locator,” Algini said. “But Tano will find us.”

Tano was close. But there was a chance the enemy was close, too.

Moments passed.

“They are here,” Algini said, in a night no different to Bren’s eyes and ears than the last hour.

“Come, Bren-ji.”

Tano and Lucasi. He got up. Algini took a grip under his arm on the way down the slight rise, for which he was grateful, and from out of a very little cover of brush, there were, indeed, Tano and Lucasi, the latter under his own power with, apparently, a stick he was using as a cane.

“We are all going dark now,” Algini said to him in a low whisper. “We have to make time toward Maschi territory.”

Still going north, then. Going for the major road. Or close to it. “Yes,” Bren said, and he just kept up as they started off, holding the thought in his mind that Banichi and Jago might have done the same, and they all might be heading toward some mutually agreed goal, to make a rendezvous.

He walked, at least doing no worse than Lucasi, who was walking with an improvised crutch and with his ankle now professionally splinted clear to the knee. They were a hell of a group, he thought, two of them doing well to be walking at all and not going as fast as Tano and Algini could wish. Bren had one sip more of water and kept going, trying not to breathe like a steam engine on a grade and trying to keep his feet out of holes, of which there were a great many, given the rocky, graveled ground. Tano and Algini were lugging heavy packs, and they made no fuss about it, just kept going doggedly at what was undoubtedly a slower pace than they would like to set.

They were now out of cover. One really, truly didn’t like this.

There was, however, a rock ridge running in the far distance. They seemed to be going toward that.

There would be cover there. He liked that better. He decided there were a finite number of steps between here and there and he coulddo it. Lucasi, who had not said a word, was likely telling himself the same thing. Once they got there, they could surely rest for a bit.

Try not to pant. That was noisy. He couldn’t help it. He just had to hurry. The kid was in the same shape. And toward the last, Tano and Algini each took one of them by an arm and just kept them moving.

They reached the shadow. And went into it, and down to a split in the rocks.

There was a downslope about three times a human’s height, down to a dirt road.

And there Tano stopped him and let him sink down and lean against a rock just slightly too high to sit on. It was enough. He tried to collect his breath and his wits.

Algini left his bag and slipped away, out of sight. Not one more of them, Bren said to himself, regretting that departure.

But Tano didn’t talk, the boy didn’t talk, and that set the rules he was sure Tano and Algini had laid down. He didn’t talk. He just sat and waited.

And waited.

And still waited.

Tano checked the time, doubtless himself wondering how long it had been.

And then there was a faint, distant sound. Even human ears heard it. A vehicle was coming from somewhere to the north. The road ran more or less north and south.

Somebody was coming.

The sound kept up. The boy’s head was up. There was no doubt Tano heard it, and he stood there attentive to the night and their surroundings.

Trouble, Bren thought. As if they didn’t have enough. But Algini would lie low out there.

Algini might be able to see it.

He listened to the sound for several minutes. It was coming closer.

And then it changed pitch, then started up again. Shifted gears, maybe. Maybe a climb.

Definitely coming this way.

“Come,” Tano said, and led the way behind the rocks.

Apparently they were moving to deeper cover, along the same line Algini had taken. Letting the vehicle pass them.

It was definitely getting closer.

Tano led the way around the end of the ridge, onto the exposed slope, and there was a van coming fast, running with no headlights, and here they were, out in the open on the slope.

Then it ticked into his thinking that they were going toward that van, and doing so recklessly.

Tano seized him by one arm and took hold of Lucasi by the other, on his bad side, and took them down the slope, just about the time the van reached that point on the road.

It braked. Flung open a side door. Algini ducked out, beckoning them on, and Bren threw everything he had into it— damned near fell on his face, if not for Tano, coming down the last of the slope.

Two were driving. He caught the silver glint on the uniform, the profile against the faint, faint light from outside.

“Is it Jago? Banichi?”

“Bren-ji,” Jago said from the front seat as Tano seized Bren a second time by the arm and edged as far over as he could to give room to him and Lucasi—and two armored bodies between them and the walls of the van. “One regrets the long silence, Bren-ji,” Banichi said.

“We are reasonably well.”

Algini shut the door and dropped into the back seat. “Targai is too risky a run,” Banichi said, throwing the van into reverse, backing around. “We are heading straight west, for Najida.”

“One will by no means argue with that,” Bren said, feeling all the exertion of the last number of hours. He felt absolutely drained of strength, not least from sheer relief. “Is the van from Targai?”

“No,” Jago said. “It is probably from Senji district.”

“We have a little difficulty about fuel,” Banichi said. “But we are headed for a station.”

“Apai?” Algini asked.

“Yes,” Banichi said. It was a name which meant absolutely nothing to Bren. But his bodyguard knew. His bodyguard kept abreast of things that never occurred to the paidhi-aiji to wonder about and checked maps he had not, while he was deciding the fate of the east coast, thought to look at. But his aishid might have, while those atlases were on the sitting-room table. And there was fuel at a place called Apai, which was probably a crossroads in the back country. That would mean market roads, or a farm, or hunting stationc more such details his bodyguard studied and that he hadn’t even thought of when they’d diverted themselves into Taisigi territory.

It was even possible his guard had studied these things before they had ever left Najida, in case of the unanticipated. He had never even thought to wonder.

Their enemies could have studied those things too, about Najida, about the territory they were in.

Their enemies were now missing a van. And probably several occupants. The windshield was badly cracked. There could be blood on the seat he was sitting on; but at this point he couldn’t care about it. He rested his head on the seat back and just breathed and took in the fact he had all his bodyguard back, their voices, matter-of-fact about their desperate business, reassuring him that, at least for the next hour, nothing was within his power to fix but it might be within theirs. He had no complaints.

Unless—

“Have we the ability to contact Najida, nadiin-ji?”

“Safest not to do so, Bren-ji,” Jago said, half turning in her seat. “We are dark at the moment and move best that way. Our opponents use the same systems, and they know each other, likely, only by what zone they occupy. Our best hope of getting out of here is to be misidentified.”

“Understood,” he said, and he shut up, content to let his bodyguard make their own decisions without his meddling. But, damn, he wanted to make that call.

He put a hand to his chest, site of the most forceful reminder not to meddle in Guild business.

It could have killed him. It all could have ended right there, leaving more than his affairs in a hell of a mess. His bodyguard hadn’t called him a fool. But he had, every time he made an injudicious move. Every time he risked things larger than himself.

The bruise was better now than it had been, or he didn’t think he could have made it across country. He was sweaty, he was dirty, he was miserable, his hands and feet were still half frozen, he was sure he had deep blisters on his right foot, the sole had come loose on the left boot, and he had definitely picked up a bit of gravel in the failing boot to add to his misery, but the greatest immediate discomfort was the vest itself. It had to stay on, that was all, and the feet—he was sitting down now on a padded seat, out of the wind and no longer freezing, but his feet were cold.

Riding, however, was bliss. They weren’t safe by a long shot. There was a long way to go. A scary long way to go.

But going to Najida—that was where he needed to be.

That was the place he wanted most to protect, personally, emotionally. He was only upset about leaving Geigi at Targai in what could be a very dangerous situation.

Whatever was going on over at Targai, however—and an incursion from Senji was high on the list of possibilities, as well as action from the renegade Guild—there was a good chance Geigi’s bodyguard had already gotten Geigi out of it, the same as his was doing for him, the same that Machigi’s had done for their lord. Ordinary citizens were off limits as targets. If the lord wasn’t there, the Guild was supposed to cease operations. Which protected civilian lives, civilian property, and historic premises. That was the way it was supposedto work.

But they were up against people who mined public roads. Who kidnapped children. The whole district was getting to be no place for high-value targets, no guarantee for the ordinary citizen.

It was why the Guild had to win this one. The Guild had committed everything, broken with precedent, outlawed half the Marid and pulled in every asset they could lay hands on to stop this lot and restore the regulations that had always stood.

He had to trust it. Had to wish the Guild luck. Most of all, he had to rely on present company to keep him alive and be prepared to run for it, and run hard.

And he hoped to hell they didn’t, in this stolen van, draw fire from their own side.

***

There was occasional shooting outside, up above. It came and it went, and it was long after dark outside.

Mani and nand’ Geigi sat in a basement room having tea and discussing old times. Nand’

Toby and Barb-daja had gone to their basement room to get some rest. Cajeiri sat in the corner of mani’s room, teaching Jegari and Antaro chess.

And he had just made a bad move, because he had been thinking about what was going on upstairs instead of where his district lord was sitting relative to the magistrate.

Antaro made the correct move. He lost a district.

“Good,” he said confidently, as if he had been testing her.

Louder gunfire. A heavy boom that shook the walls.

“That’s out on the road,” Jegari muttered, looking up.

“I hope it was them and not us.”

“Hssst!” mani said, objecting to the turn of conversation. The cane thumped sharply. “Bad enough we are confined down here with the spare linens and the brooms. Shall we also endure pointless speculation?”

“One is extravagantly sorry, mani,” Cajeiri said, half-rising, with a little bow, and sat back down. He knew better than to chatter when Great-grandmother was upset and out of sorts.

Great-grandmother truly hated fidgeting. And probably her back hurt. They had gotten pillows for her chair, and Great-grandmother, on principle, refused to fidget with them.

They went back to their chess game. “One apologizes, nandi,” Jegari said under his breath.

“One is not concerned, nadi-ji,” he murmured, and advanced a village lord.

Great-grandmother and Geigi continued talking quietly, about anything but what was going on outside.

The rifle fire up above became more frequent, and it sounded scarily closer.

17

« ^ »

The fueling station turned out to be a farming village. “One requests you get to the floor, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “We are going right down the street as if we belong here.”

Getting down onto the floor was not a comfortable act, but Bren managed it, braced against the bench seat, familiar situation. Tano and Algini got down, too, along with Lucasi, in the theory, he knew well enough, that if enemy fire took out Banichi and Jago, it wouldn’t get all of them at once.

Little chance the villagers themselves would fire at them. Word would have gone out by radio that there was a Guild action proceeding, and it was against all common sense for a civilian to interfere in a Guild action. It was a law that kept civilians alive and kept their property undamaged. It limited return actions and moreFilings. And for what these villagers ought to know, the law applied. If the Guild wanted to confiscate the local fuel supply, the village magistrate would complain to his lord, notably Machigi or Geigi, depending on which side of the border he felt they were on, or would apply to both, and request compensation. The lord who presided would supply the fuel for their farm machinery and then send the fuel charges to the Filing party, a modest claim that was incredibly bad form to dispute and fairly bad form to pad, though it happened.

So the village was not their worry: the village would just phone Tanaja and advise them of a problem. The villagers personally had nothing to defend, no worry about action coming at them except stray bullets or somebody deciding to interdict the enemy’s fuel supply by draining the tank, the stealthy option, or blowing it up, the attention-getting one, and entailing a much larger lawsuit once the dust settled.

In any case, if things went as usual, the villagers would always get their justice. And Guild in the field would not have to worry about some desperate and innocent amateur with a gun.

They stopped, Bren judged, somewhat apart from the pumps. Algini scrambled up and out the side door, which wasn’t usual— their explosives expert looked at the pump before they pulled up to it.

Which brought really uncomfortable thoughts. There were all sorts of nasty tricks that never should be used where civilians might stumble into them. And he worried about them until Algini thumped quietly on the fender, had them move up, and unscrewed the cap.

No booby trap. No explosives, no shots fired. Fuel was flowing. They could get out of here.

They were within lands where law still applied.

Algini came back to the door while the fuel was running and put his head in. “We may get a full tank, Nichi-ji, but by no means certainly so. The last of it may be foul, and I hesitate to put it in. Local maintenance seems slipshod.”

“We should not risk it,” Banichi said. “Cut it off short.”

“Yes,” Algini agreed.

The local fuel delivery hadn’t been made; they were evidently on the short end of the month, a bit of bad luck, pure chance. Baji-naji.

Bren rested his forehead against his hands, on the floor. They might end up hiking the last bit to Najida. He didn’t look forward to that in the least. But he’d do it without objection. Getting safely out of Taisigi territory was absolutely paramount. If they could cut over to the airport or the train station—but those were likely targets.

Damn the luck that had moved the Shejidan Guild onto the offensive before they got clear.

But it was not luck. It was a reaction to the dowager’s move. He had no doubt about it. And Ilisidi was probably having a quiet fit about the situation. And planning next actions.

Which the paidhi-aiji hoped to God wouldn’t involve sending him immediately back to Tanaja to mop up and settle what the Guild had upended, but he was relatively sure either she would or Tabini would. He had that to look forward to.

One bath, a good supper. A day to rest up. Thenhe’d go. Once the shooting stopped.

If Machigi was still in charge.

Likely Machigi was on a boat somewhere—maybe headed out to Sungeni territory, in the Isles, allies he could rely on.

The nozzle was withdrawn; the fuel cap went back on. Thump. “How much do we have?”

Jago asked, and Banichi answered: “Three quarters. Our next source is the airport, if we go that direction.”

“Dangerous,” Tano said.

“We have one choice,” Banichi said, as Algini joined them and shut the door. “There is the hunting lodge.”

A small silence. That evidently was not a popular choice.

“We could divert toward the township south road,” Jago said. “Time taken, but safer. There is that fuel stop midway.”

“One can walk if need be,” Bren said, from his position on the floor. “If we have to, nadiin-ji, I shall do it. Or one can take cover and wait.”

“We shall attempt the airport, Bren-ji,” Banichi said as he put them in gear. The dialogue was truncated, dropping courtesies, the Guild in mid-operation. “From these roads, there should be an indirect approach.”

For now. Depending on what they met. If they could once reach the airport road, it was a straight shot to Najida.

From Lucasi, throughout, there had been not a sound, nor any now, as Banichi restarted the engine. The young man, lying on the floor opposite Bren, was the picture of exhaustion, head pillowed on his arm. He actually slept while the van sped through the village and onto rougher road.

There was something to be said for being horizontal, even on a dirty floor mat. Bren stayed put, and Tano stretched out on the seat, doing much the same above him, eyes shut; Banichi was driving as fast as the roads allowed. In places grass had grown up and whipped the undercarriage—lying with his ear near the floorboards, Bren was well-aware of the ground under them. In places they scattered gravel, and once they drove through water. A road on the continent and especially near an uneasy border region, was an approximation of a driveable route, not a guarantee. In disputed territory, particularly, nobody did road maintenance.

It suited their purposes, so long as the wheels and tires held out.

But his bodyguard were still discussing the route and a branch in the road ahead. He caught the edge of it, which involved passive reception of some signal and the possibility of encountering legitimate Guild at the airport. Or the enemy. Legitimate Guild would, the consensus was, move on the airport and the train station. They would take those as a priority.

“But,” Tano said, “we cannot produce the right codes for either side.”

That was a problem, Bren thought, beginning to grasp the nature of the debate. He had been halfway to sleep like Lucasi, but now he slowly levered himself up to a sitting position in the aisle, against the seat.

“Perhaps, nadiin-ji,” he said, resting an arm on the seat edge, and speaking above the engine noise, “perhaps Ishould be the password. My voice is reasonably distinctive on the continent, is it not?”

“Far too great a risk, Bren-ji,” Tano said.

“As great a risk if we are all shot at because we have the wrong codes?” he said.

“That is a point,” Tano said.

There was silence from the front seats.

“It is, however, illegal for you to use Guild communications,” Algini said, from the other side. “We are almost certainly within a Declared zone.”

Rules. Regulations. It happened to be what the fighting was about. Guild communications were Guild communications.

He couldn’t say it wasn’t important. “Then youtell them. The Guild would hesitate. Our enemies would not. They would come after us. That would sort it out.”

Banichi said, “We do not have fuel enough or speed enough to outrun a pursuit.”

Silence from the front seat.

“The hunting station,” Tano said then. “There will surely be some local communications. As well as fuel.”

“Dead-reckoning to Najida low on fuel is not my preference, either,” Banichi said, and suddenly turned the wheel, waking Lucasi, who sat up in alarm and grabbed at the seat back ahead of him to save himself from sliding under Banchi’s seat. “The middle road. There is no connection here to there but a hunting plain. We are about to start some game, nadiin-ji.”

If our suspension holds up, Bren thought, holding on to the seat. If our steering holds out.

“Where are we going?” Lucasi asked faintly, getting to his knees and up to the seat.

“There is a hunting station,” Tano said, “and another road. The place may be shut down for the season. It maybe in hostile hands.”

Comforting thought. Bren had the most confused notion of which direction they were going, but it seemed to be generally away from Najida—not due south, which would have backtracked, but southwest.

There had been a road on the Taisigi side of the border. There was some sort of road that led down through the hunting ranges. He wasn’t even sure it continued to the border. If it did cross the border, it would do so nearest Kajiminda.

Except—

“The renegades staged their operations against Kajiminda from somewhere, did they not, nadiin-ji?”

“There is that possibility,” Tano said.

“We shall need to find out,” Algini said.

***

The shooting had died down for a while. Cenedi came downstairs to inquire how mani was getting along and to report that there had been contact with intruders but no casualties on their side, except one villager who had reported in for medical treatment for a cut from a rock chip.

Mani and Geigi had both slept, and Cajeiri had, too, at least a little nap before Cenedi came in. Now it felt like breakfast time, and Cajeiri’s stomach was empty.

“Well, well,” nand’ Geigi said, when he mentioned it, “do not wake Cook at this hour, but is there anything in the kitchen?”

“There are sandwiches and tea, nandi,” Cenedi reported, in the dining room. “Shall I have staff bring it down?”

“Staff has enough to do,” mani said. “If we are quiet, let these young rascals bring us a tray.”

Something to do. In great relief Cajeiri instantly got to his feet, and so did Antaro and Jegari.

Mani snapped, “Not you, young gentleman.”

“But three of us can bring enough down for everybody, mani.”

“Then no diversions. Go straight to the dining room and straight back. No nonsense! Do you hear?”

“ Yes, mani-ma!”

One lost no more time for fear Great-grandmother could change her mind. Cajeiri headed for the door with Cenedi, and Jegari and Antaro came right behind him.

It was down the hall and up the servant stairs. Cenedi took the door to the dining room hall, but they kept going the back way to the kitchens and on through to the dining room, where it was spectacularly true: There were stacks of sandwiches, and an urn of hot water for tea, and and tea sets and carrying-trays. They piled up good helpings on three trays, filled a big teapot that had seven cups and then took the route out into the hall, because the kitchen, with its ovens and cabinets, was a cramped space to be carrying big trays through.

There was a sudden strange sound, far off from the house, hard to figure.

It seemed to be an engine, a powerful one. And all of a sudden there was shooting from off the roof.

Cajeiri stopped. Antaro and Jegari stopped. They were in a hallway right in the heart of the house, with thick walls between them and any trouble, and Cajeiri delayed to look around the corner to the main hall, to find out what was happening— thinking maybe it was his father’s men coming in and that that was covering fire he heard.

The vehicle was coming right to the front door, right under the portico. And the shooting was still going on. Somebody was trying to reach them, Cajeiri thought. Trouble outside was trying to stop them.

Then an explosion banged through the main hall, like thunder breaking, and a wind came with it, and things were breaking and splintering, and the wind threw him sideways, with trays and hot tea and sandwiches spilling everywhere. Cajeiri hit flat on his back and hit his head, and before he could get up, he heard shooting going on in the main hall, just a few feet away.

Then shooting came back from the garden hall, near the bath, and there they all were in the middle of the dining room hallway, and his head really hurt.

“Nandi!” Jegari scrambled over to him through puddles of tea and started helping him up, dragging him to his feet. Antaro grabbed his other arm.

The tea, Cajeiri thought foolishly. They had broken one of nand’ Bren’s teapots and most of the cups. He was on his knees in the hall, and his ears were still ringing so it was hard to get his knees under him.

“Enemies,” Antaro said, pulling at him, “in the house.”

Cajeiri struggled up and had no chance even to catch his balance. Antaro and Jegari dragged him through the door back into the dining room.

They had no guns. Cenedi and all mani’s guard and Lord Geigi’s and even Veijico were up here, involved in the fighting. They could not have enemies coming downstairs and finding mani and Lord Geigi with no protection.

“Downstairs,” he said, out of breath, his head pounding. He had never been so scared in his life. He was ahead of his guard, blind headache and all, on his way to the kitchen stairs and down them.

But when they got to the foot of the stairs, there was fat Baiji, barefoot, in a night robe, running toward them in panic, from the end of the downstairs hall.

“Stop!” Cajeiri yelled, and just then gunfire broke out in the hall, just around the bend, out of their sight. “Get him!” he yelled at Jegari and Antaro, as Baiji tried to break past them and get up the stairs. They grabbed him and threw him on the hall floor at the foot of the stairs, Baiji howling and protesting at the top of his lungs.

The fight had spilled into the downstairs, from the garden hall stairs, from around the bent end of the hall. Mani’s guard never would have let Baiji loose, and Baiji was too stupid to get loose on his own, which meant something had happened to one of mani’s young men, on guard down there.

And mani and Lord Geigi were in danger if the fight came around the corner and headed this way.

Shots rang out from that direction.

“Come on,” Cajeiri said. It was not far to mani’s door, and they could get there. They could protect mani from inside until Cenedi could get down here.

“Move!” Antaro told Baiji, dragging him along. Baiji was shouting curses at them, protesting he was not to be handled. Jegari got his other arm, and he started howling in pain. Cajeiri did not look back. He ran straight for mani’s door and tried to open it.

They had it locked. Of course. And when he looked back, he saw Veijico down by the bend of the hall, with a gun. “Get in a room!” Veijico shouted, running toward them.

“Mani!” he shouted, pounding on the door. “Let us in! Let us in!”

Lord Geigi opened it, and they started to go in, all but Veijico. She stood against the wall, her pistol aimed back toward the bend of the hall.

“Lock it after you!” Veijico said, and they were still trying to get in, but Baiji tried to resist in the doorway and blocked them. Lord Geigi took a fistful of Baiji’s coat and spun him into the room with a fearful crash of furniture. Baiji went stumbling backward over two chairs and up against a table before he hit the floor.

Geigi shut the door. Veijico was still out there.

“Get over here,” Mani said to them sharply, from where she sat. “They may fire through the door. Here is better protected.”

They all did what mani said, except Baiji, who huddled on the floor in the corner whimpering about assassins.

“Have you decided now, fool, who is trying to keep you alive?” Geigi snapped at him from across the room, and Baiji, on hands and knees in his corner, launched into a new theme, how he had never meant any harm and had been scared by the Taisigi and had been all alone, considering his uncle Geigi was in space and he had not been certain if the aiji was going to be able to stay in powerc

“Silence!” mani snapped, “or Ishall have you shot!”

Baiji swallowed the rest of it, looking as if he were going to choke.

And all of a sudden there was shooting in the hall right outside.

Veijico, Cajeiri thought in distress. Veijico was all alone out there, and the shooting stopped, and there were footsteps in the hall.

Then somebody tried theirdoor.

And none of them had a gun.

There was nothing they could do. Just—

He took the slingshot out of his pocket. He had his several choice bits of metal.

Fire came through the door, and the lock blew in. The door flew open, banging backward, and a foreign Guildsman with a rifle swung it straight toward them.

Cajeiri fired the hardest draw he had ever done, and the man fell backward into the door, slamming it back. Two other men were coming behind him, and Cajeiri loaded another shot just as gunfire broke out, and the men turned around, firing rifles back down the hall.

The nearer of them lurched into the room, and all of a sudden the inward-opening door slammed back into the man from Baiji’s corner. Jegari flung himself past Cajeiri, Antaro trying for the other man, who turned, swinging his rifle toward her. Cajeiri fired.

His last stone hit the man and made the rifle jerk as Antaro tried to shove it out of line.

But all of a sudden a shot from outside hit the man, and hit the door behind him, and there was blood everywhere. Veijico heaved herself into view on the hall floor outside, grabbed the doorframe with a bloody hand, and pulled herself halfway up as footsteps rushed closer.

“Nandiin!” somebody yelled, and uniformed Guild showed up in the doorway, helping Veijico, standing over the three attackers. It was Cenedi and mani’s bodyguard, and they held the hall out there, and they were all safe.

Cajeiri started shivering. He didn’t intend to. But he was out of ammunition; and everybody was all right, and he just wanted to sit down.

Mani did sit down, her cane braced before her. “ Well,” she said.

Baiji crept out from behind the door on his hands and knees.

“Do not attempt to run,” Lord Geigi said to him, “or they will have no patience.”

“How is Veijico?” Cajeiri managed to ask as, Jegari and Antaro having disentangled themselves, mani’s young men dragged the attackers out. He tried not to let anybody see he was shaking all over. “Cenedi-nadi, how is Veijico?”

“And how are you, Great-grandson?” mani asked sharply, from his left.

“We broke the tea set,” was the first idiotic thing that came out of his mouth. He had never sounded so stupid, and his voice did shake.

And there was still gunfire going on somewhere above, but distant.

“They used a grenade at the front door,” Cenedi said. Cenedi was bleeding all down his left arm, red dripping from his fingers, but he had a rifle in his right hand. “It blew out both ends of the hall, nandiin, regrettably. They used a truck to get under the portico, blew the door, and then got in through the front. Our people stationed on the roof got in through the back to stop them, but some of the intruders got down the garden hall stairs and let Baiji loose, doubtless while looking for higher-value targets. One apologizes profoundly for letting that happen.”

“We will have to apologize to the paidhi, when we get him back,” mani said dryly. “One supposes the house is now open to the winds, and we are sitting in an unfortified sieve, while my lazy grandson has still not managed to get hisforces out of the airport.”

“That would be correct, nandi,” Cenedi said. “They are still pinned down.” Cenedi then added wryly: “We do, however, have the enemy securely pent up between us.”

Mani laughed. Actually laughed.

Cajeiri was amazed. Shocked. He just stood there shivering. And Cenedi’s men dragged out the man he had hit with the slingshot, who had not moved at all.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said, as Antaro and Jegari edged close to him. “See how Veijico is. Help her.

We havehelp coming.”

His father’s men were trying to come in. Cenedi said so. But they were stuck. And there was no front door any more, and there were still enemies.

The whole place smelled like gunpowder. And there was cold air blowing through the halls, taking that smell everywhere.

***

At one moment Bren was sure they had driven off the edge of a ditch and in the next, the van, hitting the full compression of its shocks, and grinding something on its undercarriage, bounced. Bren, sitting on the floor, held on.

Then, surprising him, they leveled out onto a defined, mowed road, gathering speed.

They were clearly not conserving fuel now. But they were making time. Lucasi had gotten up on the seat again at Tano’s order, without a word. It was one more armored body between the paidhi and trouble, but Lucasi didn’t object.

The floor was not, however, a good vantage point, and after they had run on gravel for a while, on an unexpectedly well-maintained road, Bren got onto his knees and carefully levered himself up onto the seat, with Tano’s help.

He still couldn’t see anything but grass and a little trace of previous wheel ruts beyond the foglights and what might be a few sprinkles of rain on the windshield. He sat still, not asking pointless questions, composing what he could say if they did get him a civilian phone. It probably, he thought, didn’t matter that much what he didsay: the reaction his voice got was going to get them protection or it was going to bring every enemy on the west coast howling in pursuit.

He didn’t know what they were going toward, but he hoped for luck—baji-naji, when it got down to it, blind luck to hold out just a little longer. There was less of value out here in a hunting preserve to encourage hordes of enemies to set up roadblocks. There was scant reason for the occupants of a hunting station to expect an armed invasion.

But there was no reason for an ordinary hunting-range road to have been well maintained, either.

And a hunting station probably constituted the most heavily armed, resourceful sort of citizen populace they were likely to meet, well, give or take the Edi.

That meant hemight have to get out, talk to the locals, risk another shot to the torso or worse—he could hardly contemplate it without flinching—and look like the degree of authority that private citizens had no business shooting at. Even if the locals viewed him as trouble, or an outright enemy, they would most likely just want him to get out of their district as fast as possible and not have him draw fire or damage their property.

He felt his collar lace and straightened it, straightened out his cuffs, which were a disgrace—

he had to pick grass seeds out of the lacework.

The road climbed, then descended. There was a little flickering of lightning out the south side of the van.

“There,” Jago said, and Bren saw nothingc which by no means surprised him.

“Let us out, Nichi-ji,” Algini said, and the van immediately slowed.

The sound of one lonely engine out here might catch someone’s attention. And he knew what Algini and Tano were doing, even before Banichi slowed to a stop and those two got out.

They were exhausted. All of them were exhausted. They sat a time with the engine pinging in the chill night air, waiting.

Look it over, figure what they were dealing with. Signal. One of them had to go off passive recept if they were going to do that. That was a risk.

So was driving blindly into an enemy outpost.

It was a long wait. Jago slept, catnapping. Lucasi slept. Bren tried to and succeeded intermittently. At his third or fourth waking, Jago was awake, and Banichi was catching a little sleep, his arms folded on the steering wheel.

Tano and Algini were out there somewhere on a cold, increasingly rainy night, looking the situation over.

“Ah,” Jago said suddenly and nudged Banichi. “A come-ahead,” she said.

Banichi just started the engine and drove, not breakneck but at a fair clip, with the fog lights on.

It was about a kilometer farther on that the lights picked out a distant set of log buildings at the edge of a stand of trees. An open-sided equipment shed: There was the tractor and mower; a small open-bed truck, and a fuel tank. Thatwas what they were looking for. A few buildings, one the typical barracks for the seasonal commercial operation of the center, one the manager’s residence, one larger building—a processing center, again, for use in its season.

Banichi pulled into the center of the cluster and parked near the porch of what looked like the manager’s residence.

Jago opened her door and stepped out. Bren clutched his gun in his pocket and watched as Jago went up the steps.

“Attention the house!” Jago called out as she rapped on the door. “Assassins’ Guild, on other business!”

No shot came. That was encouraging.

A machine growled out of the dark. Bren’s heart jumped. But it was a generator cutting on.

Floodlights slowly brightened. A light came on inside the house.

The door opened. A man wearing only trousers came out into the cold and spoke to Jago, quietly. Bren couldn’t make it out. The man’s stance looked anxious. But unless he knew someone, an angry ex-wife or business partner, had Filed Intent on him, a citizen should have nothing to fear from legitimate Guild.

Lucasi waked, sat up, looked around him. And asked no questions.

Jago walked back toward the van, down the short steps. Then another figure, in Guild black, showed beside the house.

“Banichi,” Bren said in alarm.

“Tano,” Banichi said calmly, and as Jago walked up to the van, he rolled his window down.

“There is a radio in the office,” she said. “We have agreed not to drain the tank. The manager has a wife and children, one an infant.”

“Let me go out, nadi,” Bren said quietly and got up, no one hindering him this time. Lucasi opened the side door, and Bren climbed down as the man came down off the low porch.

“The paidhi-aiji,” the man said.

It was hard to be mistaken in that point of identification. Bren gave a little nod.

“At the moment, nadi,” Bren said, “I am on official business. Is your man’chi to Lord Machigi?”

“Yes, nandi.”

A second nod. “Have you had news from Tanaja?”

Hesitation. An answering nod.

“Would you be so good as to inform us, nadi?”

“One hears there is a Guild action in Tanaja,” the man said. “There are five of us here, two children. This is our livelihood, nandi.”

Bren bowed. “My aishid operates under strictest Guild rules, nadi. Be assured you will have compensation. We need fuel. Is there a key for the office? We need the radio.”

“We have no keys here. The door is unlocked.”

Tano had come into view. Algini hadn’t. Tano stood by him, rifle at rest, while Jago went up onto the other porch and carefully opened the door.

The inside light came on and brightened. Bren gave a courteous bow to the manager, then went over to the other porch, all the while feeling extremely exposed in the floodlights that bathed the yard.

He went in. Jago flipped switches and initiated their call to Najida estate.

It took a bit. “Stand by,” she said, then handed Bren the microphone and the headset, which Bren held to one ear.

“This is Bren-paidhi;” he said. “Who is speaking?”

“ Nandi?” came the answer.

“Is this Nawari?”

“ Yes. We are under attack, nandi. So is the airport.”

Just a little uncharacteristically rattled, for Nawari. It was a good thing, he thought, that Banichi hadn’t taken them down the main road past the airport. But he couldn’t ask questions that might betray Najida’s situation.

“We are about to enter into Sarini province.”

“ Nandi, one begs you observe caution!”

“How is Kajiminda faring, nadi?”

“ Kajiminda has not come under attack, nandi. Najida and the airport are both under assault.”

“Call Shejidan,” he said. “Advise them I am on the border and on my way toward Najida.”

“ Yes, nandi.”

He nodded to Jago. Jago flipped off the power, rifle in the crook of her other arm, and led the way out, where Tano waited.

The manager still stood on the porch, shirtless in the cold wind.

“Nadi,” Jago said to him. “If anyone asks you where we went, do not hesitate to tell them we are headed toward Kajiminda. And tell them we toldyou to tell them.”

“Nadi.” The man looked as puzzled as he should look, as Banichi manuevered the van around the corner to the fuel pump and Tano moved to do the fueling.

Bren boarded the van quickly once it stopped by the fuel tank, getting his pale conspicuous civilian self out of view. Lucasi welcomed him in with a pistol in hand, and Tano took the van’s fuel cap off. In a moment, fuel started flowing, the van sinking under the weight.

God, Bren thought, with a prickling up and down his spine. Let us get out of here. Soon.

Algini had to be out there. The man on the porch had to figure there might be more of them.

Jago got into the front seat, arranging her rifle between the seats as she did so. “That man on the porch claims he is Taisigi. He has served Guild traffic coming through here, to and from Kajiminda. He assumed they were from Tanaja and kept the road mowed.”

Could a Senji accent pass? Maybe. Could Machigi have hedged the truth in a major way?

That was always a question.

Just as there might or might not really be children in that house. The same way Algini was off in the little woods, there could just as easily be a partner with a rifle aimed at them at this very moment from that front window and more trying to get out the back door. They could start a small war here if someone took a signal wrong.

It seemed forever until fueling stopped and the fuel cap went on. Lucasi climbed back in by the side door. Tano climbed aboard and left the side door open.

Banichi started the engine and backed them around as Tano worked his way past Bren to take a rear seat.

Algini? Bren wondered. They were still moving. It was not a surprise, however, when near the trees that bordered the road, they slowed for the turn, and an armed shadow appeared in that open doorway, climbed aboard, and shut the door, breathing a little heavily.

Algini made his way to the rear and sat down. “Cold,” was all he said.

They were leaving behind them a functional generator and a radio, not to mention fuel. And if that was a local Guild operation, the man had everything he needed to make them serious trouble.

Except for Jago’s instruction: I want you to tell themc

The man had gotten news by radio. Likely, the moment he had seen a human step out of the van, he had known all the names but Lucasi’s. He’d know that they were from Shejidan’s Guild, and Tabini-aiji, andCenedi and the aiji-dowager. With him shining in the floodlight, they were far from incognito.

If the man was local and honest, he might be of the same mind-set as Machigi’s aishid, worried about their own lord’s situation, upset about news of a Guild action in Tanaja. But—

God, this man must have been at least in some wise a forward observer on what had gone on at Kajiminda. He had to have occupied an uneasy post if he had seen more and more suspicious sorts heading that direction. He might have sent back reports to Machigi, which might have gotten no farther than Machigi’s bodyguard, reports that had made Machigi’s bodyguard fear for his life and try to keep the situation quiet—assuming the best about the man who’d at least made a strong move to protect them and get them out of Tanaja.

At least they’d gotten fuel. They’d gotten a message out so at least their own side—and every enemy within a hundred kilometers—knew they were out here. Their allies were warned now not to shoot them by mistake, and if their enemies diverted themselves away from current objectives—Najida and the airport—to chase after them, that could upset drawn battle lines.

If there was an airport attack ongoing, then somebody was stuck in the airport, and it wasn’t likely the renegades.

Tabini’s forces were most likely. Tabini would move to protect his grandmother, his son, and Lord Geigi, all of whom had helpfully stationed themselves in a war zone.

It would be very nice if Tabini had force enough to spare and could come get them out of this pickle. But he had no desire to divert them from their main job, which would be to get reinforcements over to Najida. That was earnestly to be desired.

The tires spat gravel as Banichi turned them out onto the road again, and by what Bren could figure, they were heading due west. The border could not be that far away by now, if they were not already in it. They were on a line to intercept the Kajiminda road, and from there—

From there either head to Kajiminda, or turn left to Separti Township, not a safe place, or turn right and head for Najida, hoping for the best.

He didn’t want to draw an attack down on Kajiminda, which had been safe, thus far. More, he didn’t trust that short, flat, wide-open road to Geigi’s estate. He didn’t know why: the feeling bordered on superstition. He had a bad feeling about it— less so about heading for Najida.

They needed to move fast.

Because if trouble turned away from the airport and headed for them overland, he’d really like to be close to some sort of shelter.

***

It was nand’ Bren who had just called, and he was not in Tanaja, he was most of the way home. Cenedi had brought that news downstairs. Nobody could mistake his voice, Cenedi said. And when mani heard it, mani actually laughed, though shortly. “Clever fellow,” was what mani said about it. “Are we surprised? We are not.”

But, Cajeiri thought, but what can we do to help him? There were enemies all over, and nand’

Bren was going to try to get through? They should help him.

“So what will we do, mani? Shall we go after him?”

“One is quite certain the paidhi will have good advice with him, young gentleman,” Cenedi said. “When he gets near enough, we may; but in the meanwhile we can only attract attention toward him and open yet another action. That would not help.”

It was not the answer he wanted. But at least Cenedi had stopped to listen to him.

And nand’ Bren was smart. And he had Banichi and Jago with him, and Tano and Algini, who were no one to ignore, either. They would not let him do anything risky.

It was a scary situation. There was a lot of hammering going on upstairs, and some staff had made a dangerous run out to the garage to get boards, which now were going up to reinforce the front doors and the broken window. They were not going to be open to the breeze for much longer. Baiji was locked up in his room again. Cajeiri had no idea where they had taken the three intruders or whether the one man was dead. And nand’ Siegi had transfused a lot of blood into Veijico, who was down the hall along with two of mani’s guards who had been shot and one of the household staff, a girl who had been near the front door. She had been hit by a piece of shrapnel. She was only fifteen, and everybody had been very upset about that.

Veijico was doing all right, Antaro said. But Cajeiri would feel better only when he saw her for himself—and mani had told him firmly to stay out of the physician’s way while he was working; and then when Antaro said nand’ Siegi was through, mani had said he should stay out of the halls and not be running about until they had repaired the doors.

So he was trapped in mani’s room, under mani’s direct supervision, and he had to do what he was told.

He was at least where he could protect Jegari and Antaro as well as himself and mani. That situation he agreed with. He had complained they should have a gun, but Nawari had stationed two of mani’s young men in the hall, and they had guns enough, mani said.

Mani had actually said he had done the right thing. She very rarely paid compliments, so he was very proud of her saying so. Lord Geigi said the same. And except for a very few casualties, they had come through the attack fairly well, except nand’ Bren’s beautiful stained-glass window: Cenedi said that was gone.

It should have been exciting. But with people hurt and nand’ Bren out there trying to get home, it was just scary.

Staff had brought them breakfast, because he had scattered the last breakfast all over the upstairs hall.

But his stomach was too upset to enjoy it.

Nand’ Bren could not possibly make it here in the way he indicated he was going to do. But, he thought, with a tasteless bite of toast, nand’ Bren could be very clever, and maybe what he had told them he was going to do was not at all what he was going to do.

He dared not ask, however. Credit with mani went only so far. He just sat and ate tasteless toast, so tired his eyes were trying to shut.

But every time they did, he saw the man pushing his way into mani’s room, and he saw the man turning to look at him and aiming the rifle. Over and over and over.

He was not going to sleep, no matter he had been up all the night and was shivering he was so exhausted.

Not on thatkind of dream.

***

The sky lightened under a spatter of rain, and the van’s right-hand windshield wiper wasn’t working but halfway. The road passed near a small forest as the rim of the sun came up under the cloud. Morning light cast long shadows, picking out every clump of grass and lump of dirt, while rain fell down as a fine mist.

Banichi slowed the van to a stop, said something to Jago, and got out.

Break for necessities in a relatively secure place, Bren thought. Tano got up and opened the door, and Algini got out, and then Lucasi followed, and Bren did.

It was more than that, however. Banichi and Algini talked for a moment, Tano added himself to the conversation, and then Jago did, a close conference in which Lucasi hung back, sensing himself not included, perhaps, until Banichi said, “Guildsman.”

Lucasi limped forward with some speed and quietly joined the conference.

That left Bren, the civilian, leaning against a young tree, resting, and with the distinct impression there was some discussion going on that Banichi didn’t think he would necessarily approve of.

Like leaving him behind again. He saw that coming. But it made a certain sense. If it contributed to their safety, he would hide in whatever hole he had to and just wait.

None of them had had any significant sleep except Lucasi. Banichi had been driving nonstop, refusing Jago’s offer to take the wheel, and by now he had to be exhausted.

And now they proposed to go do something desperate and didn’t think he needed to be part of the planning—as if he could penetrate the code or get more than a handful of the signs they were using even if he were standing over there in the middle of it. There were things they needed to say in Guild context, with meanings an outsider wasn’t going to grasp without a half hour of explanation, and even so—probably wouldn’t like. He was increasingly sure he was not going to like the outcome.

There were nods. “Yes,” Jago said, and Tano, and then Lucasi nodded, too, so Lucasi was in on it.

Bren waited, glumly. And it was Banichi who came to him.

“Beyond this point,” Banichi said, “there will be difficulty, Bren-ji. The van is far too noisy, far too obvious a target to bring straight down the Kajiminda road. We would do better to leave it, get a rescue party organized from Kajiminda—not taking for granted it is still in allied hands—and you cannot keep our pace, either getting there or getting out, if need be.”

“You want me to stay here,” he said.

“You will have Lucasi,” Banichi said, “and he will be armed and equipped with a locator. He is young. He will, however, suffice for a simple mission. We expect the Edi will have camped around Kajiminda, that this is a force the renegades have not wanted to take on, adding one more enemy to their difficulties— and that they have remained unengaged. But equipped.

The difficulty is that they will be looking for Guild and not expecting us to be on their doorstep. We are going to have to get through and make a careful approach. If we can, we can get back here, bring you to Kajiminda, and then make a little noise.”

“To draw the renegade attack away from Najida. To bring the renegades under Edi fire.”

Banichi nodded. “Your own excellent notion, Bren-ji, somewhat reworked. Considering your recent negotiations with Machigi, you directly threaten them, perhaps more, to their perception, than the aiji-dowager. Be patient and stay hidden. The van would be more comfortable a place for you to wait, but we advise you put as much distance between yourself and the road as you can. The trees in the other direction are an obvious line of retreat and an obvious ambush for anyone who sees the van as bait. We intend that they be cautious and slow in their investigation should they come here. Lucasi has instructions. You may listen to his advisements—up to a point.”

“Yes,” he said. “Just—” One could argue that it might be safest of all for them allto retreat into the wild and stay there until the Guild finished its business in this district. But that didn’t help their allies. He’d offered an idea, sleep-deprived and exhausted; and they, likewise on no sleep, had taken it. Which worried him. “Be careful, Nichi-ji. I want you back. I want you all back. One is quite adamant on that point.”

Banichi said: “We always are careful, Bren-ji. Rely on us.”

And then Banichi left him, headed into the trees. Jago, departing, gave him one backward glance. Algini didn’t—just picked up their gear. Only Tano, at the last moment, came back and gave him his canteen, then went off to catch up with Algini, the lot of them making, one suspected, a cautiously obvious trail.

Banichi had parked the van, however, on a small dome of sandstone, and it was clearly up to them to get out of here without laying down obvious tracks in the other direction.

Bren looked in Lucasi’s direction. “We should go, nadi.”

“One will try not to leave marks,” Lucasi said. “But kindly walk atop my track, nandi.”

Lucasi settled his makeshift crutch and limped off around the van, passing over an area where there was a muddle of footsteps in a patch of dirt that overlapped the sheet of buried rock atop which the van was parked.

He understood the game clearly enough. Walk on the rock, leave no track, while Banichi and the rest laid down just enough trail to be followed—and believed—by experts.

The one they laid down had to be far, far harder to find; he understood that. Lucasi was walking without his stick, hobbling along, probably in considerable pain, on what rapidly became a climb toward the rocky heights, the rugged upthrust of the plateau, on the edge of the coastal lands. On that steep climb, Lucasi stopped now and again and plotted his path; he finally found a place where the occasional rock became a lower, flatter spot and where a straggle of brush grew from the underside of low, body-sized shelves of rock.

Lucasi sat down, immediately bent over and struggling with pain. Bren sat down. They had climbed well out of view of the road—either road, since the Kajiminda to Separti road crossed that same patch of woods to the south.

He wished they had the strength to keep going just a little higher.

But they had to stay findable, didn’t they, by their own side? Lucasi’s face was running with sweat. He didn’t speak, he didn’t complain.

Hadn’t he sworn never to interfere with his bodyguard or get in their way? This whole stratagem had started with his idea. Granted, four very astute bodyguards had accepted the notion, but it still had his fingerprints on it, and he’d sworn, while being picked up off the floor at Targai, never, ever to interfere with his bodyguard again.

Thatvow hadn’t lasted long, had it?

He sat. He had a tiny sip of water and offered some to Lucasi, who silently accepted it and nodded thanks, handing the canteen back.

This wasn’t the brash young man who’d repeatedly caused them trouble. Lucasi was quiet and very sober, his eyes, once he’d caught his breath, scanning the area constantly, his ears doubtless on the alert. Which of his aishid had personally gotten to the young man he wasn’t sure, but someone had—maybe Banichi, possibly Algini. But it had evidently made an impression.

And now the kid had an assignment from them, the biggest assignment they could possibly hand the boy—namely him—and he didn’t plan to make it harder for the young man. He sat still and silent, not to distract him, trusting atevi hearing to pick up anything moving out there, any sound of a motor, or any gunfire.

All he personally heard was the wind, whispering in the brush. The gray, scattered clouds intermittently shed a little rain, spots that grew thick on the stone, then slowly evaporated.

Lucasi turned his head sharply, as good as a screaming alarm. The young man lifted his hand slightly and quietly got to his feet.

Bren stood up.

Come, Lucasi signaled, and Bren followed him, treading as carefully over gravel, taking care not to scuff the stone or break a weed stem. They kept going for what felt like half an hour or so before Lucasi found another stopping point and offered him a place to sit down.

“What did you hear, nadi?” Bren whispered as faintly as he could.

“Trucks, nandi,” Lucasi said. “Three or so. Coming toward us from the north.”

From the direction of the intersection near Najida, and generally toward Kajiminda. It could be their enemy reacting to that call he’d made from the hunting station. He hadn’t heard a thing. But he didn’t doubt Lucasi had heard it.

They sat in utter silence for about a quarter of an hour.

Then he did hear something, a heavy boom. That also came from the north.

Something bad was happening over in the direction of Najida. And they sat here listening to it as if it were some distant weather report.

“Can you tell where Banichi and the others are?” he whispered.

“One is not supposed to discuss the equipment, nandi.”

The kid was following the rules. Any of his own aishid would have just answered the question.

But the kid, he noted, had one of those locator bracelets— whose, he wasn’t sure; but he didn’t think the boy had had one before. And the answer probably was that they were operating with the locators’ send function switched off, as they had done all along. He could surmise that when things were safe, or if they wanted to lay a trap, they would switch on; and whether there was any special equipment that could pick one up if it was switched off, he hadn’t a clue. One didn’t know if all Guild locators worked the same way or how sophisticated was the information they could pass. It was a complex code, individual to the group. He knew that much about it. And Lucasi not being part of his aishid, it was well possible that Lucasi couldn’t interpret their signals and that the only reason he had that bracelet was to pick up any signal out there.

But something was going on with those booms and thumps and that sound of trucks moving.

Somebody was active out there and not being stealthy about it. It could be Edi, even. Or somebody hot on the attack, or desperate in flight.

Banichi and the rest had had time enough to be into trouble by now if they had tripped any alarm.

They’d need to be sure, first off, that it wasthe Edi in control of Kajiminda.

And then they had to convince a force of Edi hunters and fishermen and farmers that this particular set of black uniforms was on theirside.

Meanwhile, if those passing trucks took the north branch of the road, where it intersected, they were going to find the abandoned van and realize somebody was out and about in the landscape.

God, he didn’t like this. He wished now they’d opted to head down to Separti Township and hoped to pick up reinforcements from the Guild Tabini had stationed therec but that might be a pipe dream. Anybody Tabini had stationed anywhere might have shifted position under direct Guild orders—not Guild serving as bodyguards but Guild forces that Tabini-aiji might ordinarily use.

So Separti wasn’t a sure thing, either. Nothing was.

Boom.

He didn’t jump. But his heart did.

“Are you supposed to listen to my suggestions, nadi?” he whispered to his young guard. “But not to be led into anything stupid?”

“Yes, nandi, that is the instruction. But your aishid did not at all say stupid.”

“One is gratified. But one instructs you, nadi, that you explain to me what we are doing sitting here and what my aishid is doing. It would be useful in deciding what I would suggest.”

The kid looked confused, caught between general orders, Guild teaching, and specific orders.

“Nandi, one is simply instructed to keep you as far away from the enemy as possible. One has a general route to follow that circles somewhat; and one hopes we are on it, so your bodyguard can find us at need. But we are under no circumstances to go back to the van, and we are not to go across the road into the woods, and we are not to make any noise at all.”

“And what are theydoing, meanwhile? Did they explain that, nadi?”

“They are taking Kajiminda, nandi.”

Taking Kajiminda. If it were only that simple. Which meant the kid didn’t know any more than he did.

Boom. Again, toward the north. The train station, maybe; maybe Najida itself.

God, what was going on?

18

« ^ »

It was increasingly noisy up there. And something serious was going on. Mani was cross because she had been trying to take a nap, so had nand’ Geigi, and the booms and thumps, which had been only occasional, now just went on and on.

“The Guild,” Mani complained, “is not usually so inconveniently loud.” She adjusted a shawl, folded her arms, and tried to go back to sleep. Nand’ Geigi did, his chin sinking on his chest.

Cajeiri just sat, aching from want of sleep, and played chess with Jegari and tried to make the time pass faster. His concentration suffered. He was distracted, trying to picture the land out there and locate the booms. The east-west road to Kajiminda and the north-south road to the train station and the airport crossed just east of the house and a little uphill. And there was a huge open field opposite the house that ran on up the hill to where the crossroads were, and uphill after that, on and on, he supposed. He wished he had paid better attention in that direction when they had driven in from the train station.

And for a while the shooting had sounded as though half of it was coming from directly across the road opposite the house, but lately there was a lot more of it and it seemed to be coming from the intersection farther away, or maybe farther east than that. Echoes made it hard to tell.

But nobody up on the roof was shooting right now. Which he supposed meant the fight had moved off.

He would have liked to ask mani or nand’ Geigi, but they were pretending to sleep again.

And he was afraid to talk too loudly. If he annoyed mani, he might have to stop the chess game and just sit and think about what could go wrong. And he did not want to sleep, or have dreams, right now.

So he whispered to Antaro and Jegari: “One wonders what is going on, nadiin-ji. Slip upstairs and find out.”

“I shall,” Antaro said, and left very quietly.

“The fighting is up on the hill by the crossroads, nandi,” Jegari said in a whisper. “One is far from sure, but one might hope some of your father’s force has gotten here from the airport.

One cannot believe any of our own people would have left the grounds, even if they were successful in driving the attackers off. There are too few of us.”

“Can Cenedi tell who it is?”

“Easily,” Jegari said, then: “Under some circumstances.” And then he added, “But I am not supposed to tell you that, nandi.”

That was irritating. He wished hecould go apprentice with the Guild. He really wished it right now. Right now his father was sitting in Shejidan signing papers and making phone calls and could not personally come to rescue him and mani. His father had sent the people at the airport. And being able to send people had something to recommend it. If people would do what you told them. But it was not the same as getting into a plane and going there.

Antaro came back downstairs in a hurry and entered without knocking.

“There are allies on the hill!” she said. “One is not sure whether they are from the Guild or directed from your father, nandi. But one understands they are not Edi and they are not the renegades.”

“About time,” mani said, arching a brow. “Deliver your news, nadi. What is going on up there?”

“Cenedi-nadi is coming downstairs himself, aiji-ma,” Antaro said with a bow, and in fact there was the sound of someone on the stairs. “But by what I know, aiji-ma—”

It was a good thing that she went on to answer. Cajeiri had held his breath, knowing mani’s mood.

“Our allies, of whatever sort, have gotten out of the airport,” Antaro said, a little out of breath, “and they are attacking the renegades up at the crossroads, and the renegades cannot come closer because there are Edi on the hill across the road from us and our own defenses on the roof.”

She said that much to satisfy mani before a knock at the door announced a presence, and Cenedi himself came into the room, not, however, looking that much happier.

“Aiji-ma. The siege at the airport is broken. Your grandson’s forces are in possession of the airport, and the enemy is attempting to cover their retreat to the south. But we fear they are going toward the paidhi’s position.”

That was terrible news.

“Where is the paidhi at the moment?” mani asked. “What is he doing?”

“He has taken the Esig road out of Taisigi territory toward Kajiminda, but he has not gotten there. Nand’ Geigi, what do youknow of that terrain?”

“The Esig road,” Lord Geigi said, “would be a route our enemies could use back into Taisigi territory—if they try to fall back from the intersection.”

“Can they reach it overland?” Cenedi asked. “The maps indicate no track within that section, and rugged land.”

“It is, nadi. It is very rugged land, with hardly even game trails. It would make far better sense for nand’ Bren to go to Kajiminda. Certainly not to attempt to come here.”

“Yet they have not arrived at Kajiminda. Phone lines are cut. We have radioed the Edi to be aware of allied forces in the area. We dare not be more specific.”

And that was where nand’ Bren was supposed to be? Cajeiri wondered. But he was lost somewhere?

If they were stuck somewhere, there was that thick woods that ran down all the way to Kajiminda’s walls. He remembered that very well. One could not see an ambush in that woods.

“But,” Cajeiri said, risking all manner of displeasure, he knew it, but he could stand it no longer. “But can the Edi look for him, nadi?”

“Likeliest,” Cenedi continued without even looking at him, only at mani. “Likeliest the enemy is aware your grandson’s forces have landed at Separti. They have given up holding off his force at the airport, and they are holding the intersection while a number of them make a direct run to intercept nand’ Bren, to take him as a bargaining piece. That would set your grandson’s interests against the Guild leadership’s interests. That is, one fears, their immediate objective. That and controlling access to the Esig road itself.”

“So one assumes they will open a second position at the Esig intersection, near Kajiminda,”

mani said. “And they will trickle back from the Najida intersection and fold up into Taisigi territory. As if my grandson’s forces would not cross that border.”

“Just so, aiji-ma. They have become aware of the second force at Separti, and they know Guild forces are in Tanaja. But if they can find nand’ Bren and take him hostage, then they will pressure your grandson to negotiate with the Guild. That is what we fear they will try to do.”

“Get past them,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “Can we not spare a unit? While they are blowing up the grass on the hill, can we not get a unit cross country to reinforce the paidhi’s guard and move him into Kajiminda?”

Please, Cajeiri wanted to say, but mani did not favor that word. He looked at Cenedi, wishing hard.

And Cenedi said: “We shall try it, aiji-ma.”

“Do so!” A sharp wave of mani’s hand. “Let us do something useful! The Guild can stay out of our way until we have recovered the paidhi-aiji. They chose to press things. They might have waited!”

“Send my guard, too, Cenedi-nadi,” Geigi said.

“Nandi,” Cenedi said, to both, apparently, and left without another word.

But there was no guarantee it would work. Mani was angry. Lord Geigi looked worried.

Those were his closest associates nand’ Geigi had just sent to get past the enemy; and Great-grandmother was sending men, too. It was dangerous. It was terribly dangerous to try to slip behind the enemy, and the field that ran up to the ridge overland was just tall grass and brush: it did not offer very much cover.

“One most fears,” Lord Geigi said somberly, “that nand’ Bren is stalled, trying to get to Kajiminda.”

“If our Edi allies do not mistake him for the enemy,” mani muttered. “One understands the Guild’s distrust of civilian assistance.”

“But,” Cajeiri began, dangerously getting mani’s sudden full attention.

“Who isnand’ Bren?” mani asked. “And why do you have this angry tone with us? You seem quite distressed, Great-grandson.”

Who was nand’ Bren? That made no sense at all. Nand’ Bren was nand’ Bren. Nand’ Bren was his favorite association.

But he suddenly, and with a sense of panic, understood exactly what mani was asking him.

“Nand’ Bren is mine,” he countered angrily, “and everyone has treated him very badly. No one cares now if I am offended. But they willsomeday.”

“Threats, do we hear? One would have thought nand’ Bren belonged to your father, young gentleman. But he has been mine. And currently he says he belongs to Lord Machigi. He has a very fickle charm.”

“Well, but he is ours, and yousent him to Lord Machigi, and now he is out there with our enemies, and we are upset, mani! We are upset with this!”

“Never assume, Great-grandson,” mani said, holding up a forefinger, “never assume that your enemy has done what they have strongly forecast doing. One imagines the enemy would be quite satisfied if all sorts of forces went running over to reinforce nand’ Bren. Then they would move in this direction and try to take us as hostages, not to mention nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. That is their purpose here, or they could have stayed in the Marid and tried to fight off the Guild from within their strong places. This is a risk for them. This is a desperate risk, and they will spare nothing and stick at nothing. This is life and death, and finallywe have gotten them to commit forces in an exposed position.”

He understood, then. He thought he did. Great-grandmother was happythe enemy was here.

She was happy there was fighting going on, because she thought they were doing exactly what she wanted them to do.

He was thinking that when he heard a strange buzzing and roaring sound go right over them, and then go off to the south.

He jumped to his feet. He would never forget that sound. He looked up as if he could see it right through the floor and the roof above.

“ That,” he said, excited, but not knowing quite what thatplane was doing here, “ thatwas an airplane, mani-ma!”

***

There was sure as hell something big and noisy going on over to the north, and Bren’s best guess put it somewhere close to Najida, which didn’t help his state of mind in the least.

All he could do was sit on a cold rock under a hot sun and have a sip of water from the canteen Tano had given him, and share it with Lucasi, who looked grimly off to the north.

The two of them were stuck, was what, and Lucasi was the worse off, having a splinted ankle that was swelling against its bandages. Bren had the misery of the vest and the bandages about his ribs, not to mention a wider and wider split in his boot, which picked up the occasional piece of gravel along the side of the sole. But blisters were a worse misery; he didn’t want to take either boot off to find out what couldn’t be helpedc he feared if he took either boot off for a few minutes, he might not be able to get it back on.

The bruising and the bandages about his ribs that had been misery a day or so ago had begun to diminish. The sore spots he had from nonstop wearing of the damned vest had begun to be an issue, but at least he was breathing with less pain. He climbed. He had done that.

Which didn’t mean he was running any foot races if a problem showed up.

And he kept hoping that Lucasi’s occasional check of the locator bracelet would get a signal from the rest of them.

It hadn’t. And didn’t.

And then something caught Lucasi’s attention. He looked northwest, and kept looking.

“Do you hear something, nadi?” Bren asked him.

“A motor, nandi. Several more of them coming down the road.”

The road was a distance off. They couldn’t see it from where they were sitting, which also meant someone down on the road couldn’t see them up here.

“Coming from the north, nadi?”

“Yes, nandi.” Lucasi looked a little doubtful. “Can you not hear it?”

“Human hearing is less keen,” he said. “So is our sight after sunset. You are my ears, day and night, nadi. What do you hear?”

“One would guess several heavy vehicles, nandi,” Lucasi said in a very low voice, and all the while they could hear intermittent booming and thumping from the north. “One would say a force of some strength is moving.”

That was good news and bad.

And after a glance toward the west, and with a second worried look: “Forgive my lack of experience, nandi, but one fears worse trouble than trucks. There may also be a general and much quieter movement overland if they are too many for the transport available and if they have chosen to scout out a retreat. We need to find a place to lie very low.”

“But Banichi and the others must still be able to find us, nadi.”

“One will try to assure that they can do so, nandi.” Lucasi set his hands against the ground, a three-point stance, and hurled himself to his feet, dragging his crutch with him—the benefit of a young body in good shape. Bren made a slower, more pained try, and Lucasi gave him a hand and a gentle pull to help him up. “One will try to work back—”

Lucasi stopped suddenly, looking to the north and aloft.

Bren began to hear, faintly, both the heavy growl of engines to the west and an engine far more high-pitched, faster moving, up above.

“Small plane,” Bren said, and followed Lucasi, still carefully, footprint for footprint, in a quest for a hiding place, a grassy low spot, anything that might conceal them from aerial observation. Lucasi was heading for a clump of berry bushes, thorny, but the only cover there was close; and by now the plane was close and maybe following the road for navigation. Its elevation would lay out the entire dome of rock like a map.

All of a sudden the pitch of the sound shifted. It was coming at them. Bren looked up and saw it.

“Nandi!” Lucasi urged him, and came back for him.

It was yellow, bright yellow, that little plane. And Bren knew that plane, that noisy little engine, and the pilot, right down to the white sun-blaze on the nose. He raised a hand and waved as the plane roared by.

“Nandi!”

“That is Dur, nadi!” he said, his spirits soaring, as that plane flew on a departing diagonal toward Kajiminda, waggling its wings and swooping low as if to taunt the convoy on the road. But it was not for the convoy, that signal, that wild risk of ground fire. “He has seen us!

Dur has come in! He cannot land for us, but what he sees, he will report to Najida.”

“Then one is glad, nandi!” Hope was all but a stranger to Lucasi’s face these last few days.

But his look wandered from confusion to a glimmering of understanding. “He will get us help, from Najida or from the airport.”

“I think he will try to guide them, nadi. I do. One has no idea how long it will take, or who will be in a position to come here, but he may be able to spot the situation at Kajiminda and report that, too. He is no amateur observer. He may not understand the whole situation, but he will be accurate. And he can land that plane in amazing places!”

“Then I must get you to cover, nandi,” Lucasi said. “He was clever about his path, but one is anxious all the same. Let us go down the slope a little. The brush is not enough.”

They moved along a distance, then, as Lucasi pointed out a likely spot, Bren ended up helping Lucasi on the steep, bare stretch of rock, and below that descent there was indeed the kind of thing Bren had been hoping for, a flat space of scrub and eroded dirt, and a shattered sandwich of upthrust pale sandstone that offered shelter from most sides.

Better. A lot better. He only worried now about his bodyguard being able to find him: but if the plane got to Najida and Najida called Kajiminda, that was no problem.

All they had to do now was to avoid attracting unwanted attention until his bodyguard was able to pick him and Lucasi up and get them safely within a defensive perimeter.

And a moment when their enemies might be in retreat right down the Kajiminda road was not the time for them to go looking for him. His aishid would trust him to use good sense. He should stop worrying.

But he couldn’t.

***

The whole house was in an uproar. The new barricade at the front door was being taken down, admitting a gust of cold wind up and down the halls, because the young lord from Dur was trying to land right on the road near the village, and the Edi on guard on the hill were shooting at him. The guards on the roof reported it, and the moment they had a gap in the barricade, Ramaso sent one of the young men running out to talk to the Edi.

More, Great-grandmother insisted on coming upstairs. “One is extremely weary of sitting in a box,” mani said, and they all agreed with that, but notwith mani risking herself, coming upstairs when people were shooting.

But no, if young Dur was landing his plane right on the road, and if young Dur was trying to land to confer, mani would not meet him sitting in a basement, no, absolutely not, it would not do.

So Lord Geigi and mani headed upstairs to mani’s sitting room, and Cajeiri followed.

It was upsetting—mani being stubborn, and the Edi shooting at their ally. Cajeiri, for his part, was having trouble even putting on a clean coat, he was so tired. His own bed was only a step away as servants helped him dress, and he wanted just to sit on it—it was the first time he had been back in his own rooms since the shooting had started; but he had to stand up to be helped with the coat, and he had to hurry or miss something, and he was so incredibly tired; and so, he knew, were Jegari and Antaro.

But there was so much going on that he could hardly bear it. When he gathered up Jegari and Antaro and went out into the hall again, the barricade was down and sunlight was coming in the front, and whoever was supposed to go talk to the Edi must have gone; but the plane was still circling: he could hear it in the distance. He so wanted to see it again—he remembered the yellow plane as one of the most wonderful machines he had ever seen, as good as the starship in the heavens, and he was furious that the Edi were trying to shoot it.

Servants were out and about, too, and Ramaso was by the open doorway, giving orders. He went to the security station, but nobody was getting in there, and Cenedi was in the way.

He stayed and he listened, and Cenedi was giving orders—they were talking to the Edi and talking to the young lord from Dur, actually in the plane, and very hard to understand.

But then he heard Dur agree to something, and he thought that probably the plane was coming back. He went to the area of the door, and listened, and listened. The portico beyond the gap where the barrier had been was busy with mani’s young men, who were setting up another barricade, dragging panels into place.

“You should not go out there, young gentleman,” one of the servants said.

It was better than Cenedi noticing him. He drew Antaro and Jegari with him, back out of the immediate vicinity of the door, which everybody was so anxious about.

He was so tired and frustrated he sank down against the out-of-the-way part of the wall, where they had put some of the boards from the barrier. He watched out for nails, and sank down on his heels, and rested his head on his arms, and just—

—drifted off, still waiting for the young lord of Dur.

***

The convoy or whatever it was had long since ground past them, though Lucasi said he could hear it to the south of them and thought it might have stopped. It was possible they had reached the abandoned van and had a little delay figuring out whether it was rigged with explosives.

It might berigged, for what Bren knew. Tano and Algini could do that very quickly, and he couldn’t remember if they had come near the van while they were discussing what to do.

But they heard no explosion.

And it was highly possible that their enemy, failing to be blown up, was trying to figure out now where they had gone.

They might follow his bodyguard to Kajiminda, which would bring the enemy under Edi fire and complicate Banichi’s situation trying to get into Kajiminda.

Or they might decide right away that the track toward the woods was a decoy and go casting about for where they were, figuring a high-level hostage might save their situation.

Lucasi checked the locator at irregular intervals, just a fast look.

He did pick up something.

“It is not our associates,” Lucasi said. “We could be picking up Najida.”

“What about the enemy, back where we left the van? Can you tell direction?”

“One is not authorized to say.”

Damned Guild regulations, Bren thought.

And then Lucasi added, looking worried: “It may be our enemies, trying to draw a response, figuring we could take them for our allies. I must admit, nandi, that I am not an expert with this.”

At least Lucasi was not overestimating his abilities. That was actually comforting.

But the signal apparently stopped.

There had been the plane. Allies knew where they were. Or would know. Things could start to movec which itself could be a point of danger.

The sun had passed zenith. The temperature was a curious mix of cold rock, where they were sitting, and a potential for sunburn, where heat beat down from overhead. They hoarded their water, shared it very, very cautiously, and kept absolutely still.

There had been no repeat loop by the airplane. It was likely on the ground somewhere, either at the airport or at Najida, if not headed back to Shejidan airport, hours away, or down to Separti, or, God knew, some convenient patch of grass where Dur could report to somebody who could do something about the situation. One could hope things were going on, and that plans were being laid in detail—

Plans that involved the whole west coast and peace or continued war, not to mention lives saved or lost.

And here he sat, holding a good many of the keys to the situation in his head, and he wasn’t in shape to do anything. Lucasi had wilderness skills and a weapon, but he couldn’t walk far.

So they were stuck on this damned hilltop. Plans could have gone to hell. The situation was changing, with that plane involved. One hopedhis bodyguard had seen it, and had seen the convoy, and had drawn conclusionsc but if they changed plans, they couldn’t advise him, either, without advertising their presence.

He thought wildly of just taking out on his own and hiking to Najida, hiding in ditches and behind rocks, getting there any way he could, then getting on the phone there and raising hell with Shejidan until he could get them to send his bodyguard some help over at Kajiminda. If he were Lucasi’s age and had two good feetc

But he wasn’t. And the kid wasn’t in shape for it, either.

He thought of a lot of things, none that were practical, and most of which were rash in the extreme, and he knew, sensibly speaking, that a stray, pale human in run-down boots and a pale dress coat wandering through the lines of fire was just not going to end well.

But, damn it! There were a lot of entrenched opinions out there about to bump into each other and in need of the paidhi to knock heads togetherc Edi mistrust, Ragi mistrust, Marid mistrust, several clans who didn’t like each other, the Guild itself fragmented, and the Marid under attack. People were going to get killed, people he intensely cared about were in the middle of it, and he needed a damned phone.

Which—he swept a careful hand back over his hair, trying not to look any more disreputable than he already did, unshaven and dusty as he was—would ironically make a cell phone a very handy thing, except such a call could be intercepted, and he would bring the whole damned renegade force down on him and Lucasi.

So what good was that? What the damned Guild locator couldn’t do, it couldn’t do either. His ideas were running up against two facts: he wasn’t in shape to run for it, and going against his agreement with his bodyguard was far too risky. Getting shot by the Edi was no better than getting shot by the renegades.

Lucasi leaned close and indicated direction with a move of his hand. “Someone is coming, nandi.”

From the south. From the direction his people should come— but from the direction the heavy firing had come earlier.

He drew a deep breath. And Lucasi flicked the button on the locator he wore.

Green light flickered twice and went out.

Lucasi cut it off fast and looked at it as if it had been a bomb.

“Get to deep cover, nandi. Quickly!”

“What did it say, nadi?

“That was the wrong signal, nandi. We are in serious trouble. Go. Quickly.” Lucasi lurched to his feet and seized Bren’s arm, pulling him along, but it was a question who was helping whomc a damned sad situation, Bren thought incongruously, and with it came the hope the next shot he took didn’t land in the same spot.

Upon which, in between protecting his balance and Lucasi’s and trying to prevent them both from breaking their necks, he tried to think what to do, how to work their way out of this.

If he had to fall into hostile hands, the best thing was to stay alive, and keep the kid alive, and try to work his way out of it with words—a far better defense than a gun in his hand. The damage he could do Tabini—he could, Banichi’s word, finessethat. That was his job. Get him to a leader he could talk to, he could find somechink in the opposition’s armor, somethingto bargain with.

Brains. And a plan. A plan only happened if he had a situation in front of him.

He wasn’t doing damned well with Banichi’s kind of work.

They skidded, leaving a track. It was a wonder both of them made it to the bottom of the sandstone shelf in one piece, but they hadn’t been quiet about it. He caught Lucasi by the sleeve to keep him from pitching over, while Lucasi, with his bad ankle, was trying to balance the heavy gun in the crook of one arm, having unslung it from his back, and manage his makeshift cane with the other; it was not an outstandingly successful combination.

“Please do not attempt to shoot anyone even if you get a target,” Bren said. “It will only get us killed, nadi. I can talk to them.”

“This is my fault,” Lucasi said. Both of them were panting for breath, and bits of rock crumbled under their feet and slid downslope, rattling all the way. “Hide, nandi, and I shall lead them off.”

“You shall do nothing of the kind, nadi!”

“Forgive me, but Guild cannot accept civilian orders in a combat situationc”

“This is not a combat situation unless—” His foot skidded on the sandstone dome. He recovered, and Lucasi rescued him from pitching over in the other direction. “—unless I say it is, nadi!”

“One begs understanding, nandi. Banichi left me in charge of your safety.”

“ Banichicould have taken a rifle to the halls in Tanaja, and he refrained, because there are other answers in this world than Guild policy, nadi! At this moment I am at the end of my patience with Guild policy, when it would be perfectly possible—” Another difficult sideways step. “—to settle this directly with the lords involved—” Slip. “—without blowing things up.”

“The lord of the Dojisigi only thinkshe is using the Guild who have taken residence with himc”

“The paidhi-aiji, however, is better-served, better-protected, and less a fool than the lord of the Dojisigi, who is probably deceased, nadi. I tell you that you are not to fire that rifle!”

“But,” Lucasi said.

“This is an order, nadi! If you fire, we shall both be dead, instantly. If I have my way, I can at least gain us a day. Obey my order!”

“Yes, nandi.” A desperate maneuver for balance as they hit level ground. “But best hide and not be in such a position in the first place.”

“Just—” Bren half-turned to assist Lucasi, and caught movement at the top of the ridge.

Three uniformed Guild appeared at the top, an instant before one of them yelled,

“Halt!”

“Obey them,” Bren said, and held up empty hands. “Put down the rifle, nadi. Let me deal with them.”

There seemed to be four of them. Their enemies came down the sandstone slope in better order than the two of them had just done, and Lucasi held his rifle aimed at the ground.

“Nadiin,” Bren said, keeping his hands in sight. “My bodyguard is under my orders, so you may rest easy; and I trust you know—”

He didn’t know what had hit him. He went sideways, and fire sprayed the sandstone and came back. The whole world flashed black and red, and he was lying on the ground under Lucasi’s weight with an automatic rifle going off just over his head.

“Get to cover, nandi!” Lucasi yelled, over another three-shot burst, and got his weight off him. “ Go!”

“Nadi,” he protested, outraged, but there seemed nothing for it. There was a lump of rock half a body length away, and he rolled downslope to get there, tangled in the damned long dress coat and trying to get all of him into cover. Lucasi aimed another burst up the hill, on which there was one man down and no sign of the others. In the next second, Lucasi came rolling downhill into the same inadequate shelter. Lucasi, being considerably larger, needed more of the rock, which Bren tried to give him.

There was a moment of no-sound, which made Bren think he had gone deaf; but he heard Lucasi moving around. He heard the scrape of a rock under his knee.

“Nadi,” he began, exasperated.

“He would have fired,” Lucasi said. “Forgive me, nandi, but he moved to fire.”

And did the civilian second-guess Guild instincts? If it had been Banichi, he never would have questioned the judgement. It wasn’t Banichi, by a long shot. And he had lied to that dead man about having control of the situation. Clearly. He was upset about that.

But the fact was, they were alive and under cover. He didn’t know how they were going to get out of this nook, and he didn’t know how many rounds Lucasi had left. He could hope maybe the pair who had fled back up over the hill were waiting for reinforcements, but he had the unhappy suspicion they were just working around to a better vantage, to come at them from behind their rock.

“He would have fired,” Lucasi said again.

“One believes you, nadi.”

“One regrets shoving you so hard.”

“Since I am alive, I by no means take offense. You have actually done very well, nadi.”

It was a young face, struggling with distress and imminent failure. And they were in one hell of a mess.

“I have a gun,” Bren said. “One rather expects they will come around the hill and up. Might one suggest you bring the rifle to bear on that situation, and I will watch for anyone to come over the hill, at a range that will give me time to miss at least once.”

“Yes,” Lucasi said, and shifted about to do exactly that, while Bren took the pistol from his pocket and tried to still his racing pulse. He had, unfortunately, their precision weapon, and he was long out of practice.

They waited. There was a sound at one point, a thump, the shift of a light rock from somewhere over the hill. And then a rock sailed over the crest and rolled down the sandstone dome.

Do them both credit, neither of them was fool enough to fire at it. They sat pat.

They waited.

Then after a considerable time, a second sound, from their right. The rock they were hiding behind obscured the source of it.

“They are coming downhill,” Bren said.

“I have a signal!” Lucasi whispered, suddenly twisting about to show him the blinking green light. “Nandi, oursignal. Your bodyguard is out there.”

From the certainty of disaster to a different kind of fear. They’d made enough racket and had enough guns going off to alert the surrounding countryside. His bodyguard knew he was in trouble and had surely gone from a stealthy approach to a desperate haste, maneuvering to take the opposition out.

But how many were there on the other side? Were they the advance guard of the whole damned force that had been banging and thumping away over at Najida? There could be a hundred or more in that convoy.

“What is my bodyguard doing?” he asked in the faintest whisper.

“They are coming in,” Lucasi said. “Nandi, do not fire.”

God, somebody with a correct code was moving up on their position. He took his finger deliberately off the trigger and curled it around the guard, for fear he might squeeze the trigger in sheer terror; but he wasn’t letting his finger stray far from it, either.

Then he heard the best sound in the world.

“Bren-ji?” Jago’s voice.

“Yes,” he said to the empty air. “Yes. Kindly get under cover, Jago-ji. One believes trouble has gone downslope to get around us.”

A little sound, the whisper of a leather-clad body moving, and with scarcely a piece of grit disturbed on the rock, a lithe, large shadow came around the rock and settled between them.

Bren just leaned back against the rock in relief. “Is everyone all right, Jago-ji?”

“Yes,” she said. “But this is a moderately difficult situation you have here, Bren-ji. We believe there are nine to thirteen of the opposition, perhaps more, scattered about.”

He carefully put the safety back on the gun and inserted it into his pocket on the second try.

“Are you injured?” Jago asked him.

“Perfectly fine,” he said. God, he was notgoing to shake like a leaf. He reminded himself they were a long way from out of this, which kept up a moderate draw on spare adrenalin.

“Lucasi has kept me in one piece.”

“Credit to him,” Jago muttered, keeping her head down. “Algini has gone downslope to reconnoiter and see if he can give us names.”

“Did you reach the Edi, Jago-ji?”

“No. They are shooting at everything that moves, and Tano caught a richochet.”

“Is he all right?”

“Minor, but nuisanceful in operations. We suspected that the situation over at the airport had changed, and we became concerned for your immediate safety.”

“You saw the plane.”

“We did see it. Dur, one believes. We have no knowledge where he is based.”

“He saw us. He will have reported our position, Jago-ji. If we can hold out, if the airport has opened up—”

“The convoy clearly saw the plane, too. They immediately attempted to penetrate the Edi perimeter. That set the Edi firing at every movement. We were making no progress there.

And we were concerned—” Jago shoved another clip into her pistol. “—that you might be in trouble from the shift of positions. We knew they would not come west of the road. That left the east as a safe route for them, and youin considerable difficulty. We thought we should hurry about it.”

“One is very grateful,” he began to say, and then heard shots from downslope. He utterly lost his train of thought, thinking of Algini, and Tano, who would be with him.

“Where is Banichi?” he asked.

Jago gave a nod vaguely upslope. “Up there.”

Bren did begin to shiver, just slightly, and stopped it by resting his arm on his knee. He was, he found, chilled to the bone and dry as dust. He still had a little water in the canteen, but if they were pinned here any length of timec it was no time to be profligate with that resource.

A click of rock on rock upslope drew his attention. He looked around on reflex, but the rock cut off his view of anything but Jago, who had looked upslope, and Lucasi, who had flattened himself atop his rifle and tried to get a look up above.

“Banichi,” Jago said, and about that time there was a hurried movement on the slope, and Banichi added himself to their group.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, settling in, and threw a hand signal to Jago and Lucasi. “We need to move around this rock, Bren-ji. Our opposition is maneuvering from the other direction, and there are a number of them. This position will not suffice.”

Not out of the soup yet, that was clear.

“Yes,” Bren said, and he pushed himself toward his feet with a hand on the rock, trying to stay bent over. Jago took his elbow and steered him around the rock and down to a new position.

“I am going back upslope, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “Keep your head down.”

They were in tight quarters. Bren found himself sandwiched between Jago and Lucasi and the rock. But it might give Jago a better vantage on what was coming.

Jago said something in Guild slang; Lucasi said, “Two clips.”

“Banichi,” Jago said, and something else.

“Yes,” Lucasi said.

Which left the civilian completely underinformed, but there was enough bad news to occupy his mind. He kept waiting for gunshots, and then Lucasi called attention to another blip on his locator.

“Tano and Algini are setting up,” Jago said, Bren was sure, for his sake. She was watching her own wristband. And it flashed.

“There is—” Lucasi began to say.

Gunfire broke out downslope, and it went on.

“They will be moving,” Jago said calmly, and when Bren drew the pistol from his pocket, Jago said, “That will be little help to us, Bren-ji. Stay under cover.”

She had her rifle ready, a heavy pistol laid carefully by her foot; Lucasi set up flat on his belly, this time with his rifle aimed down slope.

Jago said something to him again, and he said, “Yes,” and inched a little closer.

“Cover me while I reload,” she said. “Save your shots, nadi, unless you have a definite target.”

“Yes,” Lucasi said.

The gunfire downslope went on, with momentary pauses. Then a shot came from behind them and over their heads.

“Ready,” Jago said, aiming downslope.

Bren pressed himself close into the rock, trying to give Jago and Lucasi as much room as possible. She fired a burst, a second, and a third.

Fourth and fifth, then. Fire came back and knocked chips off the rock and the sandstone slope beyond them.

Damn, Bren thought. Lucasi fired. Jago reloaded, quick, accurate movements; and fire came over their heads from Banichi’s position.

“Save your shots,” Jago repeated to Lucasi, with iron patience, “unless you see targets.”

“Yes,” he said. “One apologizes, nadi.”

Jago put herself back in position and waited, grim-faced.

It was quiet for a moment. Lucasi’s locator flashed.

“Locator,” Bren said, figuring that neither of them had attention to spare for it; and Jago took a look, then pushed a button on her own several times.

“Watch downslope,” Jago admonished Lucasi.

“Yes,” he said.

Tano and Algini might be in trouble down there, Bren thought; and then Jago said,“The dowager’s guard.”

“Here?” Bren asked, one sharp question, and then all hell broke loose on the slope, shots going off and echoing off the heights, and Banichi was shooting over their heads.

Lucasi let off a shot, simultaneously with Jago’s.

“I claim the next, nadi,” Jago said. “You are down to three shots. Reserve them.”

“Yes,” Lucasi said, and wriggled back a little.

Another burst of fire from below. Bren just tried to make himself part of the rock. He had his hand in his pocket, holding his pistol. He had remembered to take the safety off.

Then amid it all, a flurry of light from Jago’s bracelet, three times repeated.

Jago cast a look upslope, braced her rifle against her body, and tapped one button three times.

Three flashes came back, and Jago pressed the audio plug in her ear.

“Lord Machigi’s guard,” Jago said, “is entering the vicinity.”

Good God, Bren thought, feeling a cold chill. “On what side?”

She held up a cautioning finger, listening.

“They likely do not expect to find us at close range with them. Depending on their objective—which may be, opportunistically, Kajiminda—our presence here may startle them.

We have no word indicating Lord Machigi’s whereabouts.” A moment more of silence.

“Banichi believes they are presently on the road we used. On our track.”

The silence from downslope persisted—until a single shot from below added one more quandary to the debate.

What in hell were Machigi’s forces doing—if not chasing them? They had a damned war going on in their district, and Machigi decided to make a grab for Kajiminda? Damn him!

Or could a coup have put somebody else in charge of Machigi’s guard?

“Can you contact him, Jago-ji?” Damn the rules on Guild communication. “Tell his guard to stand off. We have enough going on here!”

“Banichi has the communications.”

Twice damn it.

“Can you signal him to contact them?” he asked. “Tell them to stand off.”

“Yes,” she said, and relayed something in verbal code, and nodded.

“Nawari signals presence,” she said with a deep and relieved sigh.

That was the dowager’s guard.

And early. They had been on their way before Dur had shown up. Thank God.

The area was quiet, now. They were hearing nothing from the enemy.

But they had one shiny new problem.

Machigi.

And he’d promised to represent the man.

Where did thatcome in?

They could hike back to the van and deal with Machigi. They could hike to Kajiminda and have the Edi—

God. The Edi.

The Edi were holding Kajiminda. Machigi was on a road in a direct line with the spur to Kajiminda, with a likelihood of going there.

Do what? Go back to the van? Hope Machigi didn’t open fire— hopethat he could get Machigi to turn around and keep away from Kajiminda. Hope that it was even Machigi in charge of that lot of Taisigi—if they were Taisigi?

He didn’t know if he could walk that far. The blisters had gotten bad. He wanted to take the damned boots off, but he knew the rocks and dry weeds would finish the job. He wanted to shed the damned vest, but this was certainly no place and no situation in which to do it.

Damn, he thought, weary and hurting. Just damn.

Things were going rapidly to hell.

Jago, however, had remained in active communication with Banichi. She took a look downslope and then urged them to move out.

Down. Into the open.

God, he thought. They were going to get shot. He levered himself up, however, and did it, with Lucasi holding his left arm and limping on the slope, and Jago holding Lucasi on the other side. It was a long, long descent toward the rocks that had sheltered their attackers. One lay dead there. A bloody trail led off to the east.

Something moved, a dark figure from around that corner that scared hell out of him. Algini had joined them, and Jago had immediately taken position by a towering rock, rifle aimed upslope.

Someone was coming down. But Jago just held her position. Banichi, Bren thought, and he was right. Banichi arrived as Jago turned her back to the rock and let him past—Banichi carrying a heavy lot of gear with him.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said pleasantly, as if they had met in the house. And then, utterly businesslike: “Nawari has sent for the bus. He will intercept it for us and hold it. But we have our other difficulty. Which direction, Bren-ji?”

A ride. Instead of a walk. But the question remained.

And not a question. Not with the whole west coast settlement in jeopardy.

“Both the Edi and Machigi know that bus,” he said. “With it, we stand a chance, nadiin-ji, of getting their attention.”

“And others’,” Tano said grimly.

“Dare we contact Machigi’s forces? Do you know if Machigi is actually with them.”

“We have spoken to Tema,” Banichi said.

Machigi’s senior bodyguard. Then that question at least had an encouraging answer. Or at least a surer direction.

“Is there any clue,” he asked, “what they want?”

“We have asked,” Banichi said, “and they have—”

A distant rattle of small-arms fire came from beyond the rocks. To the south.

Machigi’s position.

Dammit.

“What do they want?” Bren reprised the question.

“They say, to test the proposed treaty.”

Right into an Edi district. With gunfire breaking out.

“A renegade convoy went that direction,” Bren said. “Can you call them, Banichi? Can you find out who is firing?”

Banichi opened the bag he had brought with him and rapidly plugged his short-range communications into the larger unit.

He made the call. Or tried to. No response. Then something did get through. Banichi gave back a set of code words.

“They are engaged with the renegades,” Banichi said. “But report a second direction of fire, indiscriminate.”

The Edi. God. “They should not come farther west,” Bren said. “Tell them to hold where they are.”

Damn!

And they had to stop it.

***

There was racket outside. Cajeiri thought it was the yellow plane landing.

But it was not the plane. And he was not sitting in the hall any more. He was lying on the couch in Great-grandmother’s sitting-room, and Antaro and Jegari were standing nearby.

And the young lord of Dur, very impressive-looking in his brown leather coat, which Cajeiri so wanted—was standing on the other side of the room talking to Great-grandmother and Cenedi.

The plane had landed, and the young lord of Dur was here, and here he was, waking up on mani’s couch looking stupid.

He got up, fast.

“Is my ribbon tied?” he whispered to his bodyguard, since he had been lying on it.

“Yes, nandi,” Jegari said.

He knew his coat was wrinkled. He tried to put it to rights. Antaro and Jegari helped him, and he went very quietly over to where the young lord was talking to mani.

Mani was, however, in a cheerful mood.

“We shall retire for a while,” mani said, “since my great-grandson has now come back to the living. Cenedi, you are to go off duty for a while. That is an order. Lord Geigi is abed and has not roused. Dur is surely exhausted.”

“It has been a long day, aiji-ma,” the young lord said. “But a good day. Excellent news.”

“Nandi,” Cajeiri said with a little bow. “Mani-ma. News?”

A gentle thump of the cane, which rarely left Great-grandmother’s hands. “We have just dispatched the bus up from the village—where it has sat out this nuisanceful day. Nawari has called for it. He is in contact with nand’ Bren’s guard. There is another inconvenient circumstance reported, but we demand sleep before we deal with it.”

“The bus is going to pick up nand’ Bren!”

“That it is, young gentleman,” Cenedi said. “But say nothing yet to nand’ Toby. We do not have him back.”

“May one ask?” he began, feeling wobbly on his feet. “May one ask, mani-ma—?”

“We do not yet have him back,” mani repeated. “Do not trouble nand’ Toby with what we cannot answer. But Nawari has called for the bus. He is in contact with the paidhi’s guard. Go find your bed, young gentleman. It is not over. Sleep when you can.”

“Mani,” he said, bowed, and managed to walk decorously to the door and let Antaro open it for him.

He walked outside. So did the young lord from Dur, who politely bowed. And one had to apologize. One was embarrrassed, and distracted with worry, and full of questions nobody would answer.

“Nandi,” he said to young Dur, remembering the yellow plane, and his father, and other scary circumstances. “One was waiting to see you.”

“One understands so, nandi. One will be extremely honored to renew the acquaintance at leisure. Nandi.”

Young Dur was clearly on another mission. And in a hurry. With a second bow, he headed down the hall toward the doors.

Everybody knew everything, and he just stood there feeling foolish and upset. “Nadiin,” he said to Antaro and Jegari.

“Dur-nandi spotted nand’ Bren,” Antaro said, “and his aishid has just gotten to him. Nawari has not gotten there yet, but he has called for the bus; and your father’s men are landing at the airport right now—we shall have help very soon, nandi.”

That was good news. That was a great relief, on that matter.

“But the Taisigi followed nand’ Bren,” Jegari said. “And they are about to run right into the Edi. And the lord of Dur’s plane is on his way, and some of the Gan people are with him.

They are coming in at the airport, as soon as they are clear to land; and young Dur is just now on his way to the airport to explain the situation with the Edi when his father gets here—

hoping the Gan people with his father can keep the Edi from attacking the Taisigi.”

He was too tired. Things all jumbled up together. “So what is anybody going to do?” he said.

“How can mani go to bed?”

“One doubts she actually will, nandi. One suspects she and Cenedi are going to be on the phone with your father.”

“And tell him he should dosomething?” He was in favor of that. “We shall go to the security station.” He could hardly walk, he was so tired. But walk he did.

And the first thing he heard was something about the bus.

They had just changed its orders. His father’s men had intercepted it at the intersection, and they were sending it to the airport instead.

The security station contacted Cenedi. While they stood listening, Cenedi ordered the village to send the truck out; but that was evidently at Kajiminda.

They stood there very quietly, trying to be inconspicuous.

Then Cenedi showed up, not happy, no; so something was going to happen. Fast.

***

It was as fast as a human could walk, in deteriorating boots, with blisters, and the effects of bruised ribs, but Bren put on the best effort he had in him, wading through tall grass and forcing a path past obstinate, reaching brush. Guild leathers shed the burrs and stickery seeds.

His clothes did not. He had a collection of them, of every available species.

He had had a drink of water, at least, from the canteen. Lucasi, with cracked lips, declined to share it, which won points with Jago: Jago shared her canteen with Lucasi, to the last, and that meant they were now entirely out of waterc but in prospect of it once they intersected with the road, once they met up with the busc they would be all right.

Fire was intermittent in the far distance. There seemed to be no separation of direction. It could be their angle on the situation. It could be that forces had closed on each other. They did not stay now for information.

Close call on a hidden hole; watch his damned feet, was what he most needed to do right now, and he’d been wit-wandering. Pay attention. Business at hand. He had to make it to the road, had to—

They had one locator going now, Jago’s. He saw it blip occasionally. Damnable situation.

The Guild jealously guarded its equipment, its communications, in particular. But the one contingency it hadn’t reckoned with was a schism in its own ranks, equipment compromised all up and down. Nawari was risking his neck using the thing; Jago was on passive reception, he thought; but still only one of their units was on at all, for whatever reason. They had just that one assurancec and the promise of the bus, once they got to the road.

Until Banichi, carrying the communications long-distance unit slung from his shoulder, suddenly reached for his com and listened while he walked.

Then stopped, said something in code, and stood there listening for a very brief moment before he issued another string of code and shut down.

“The aiji’s men have diverted the bus.”

“Tell them that poses a problem,” he said.

“One has said so,” Banichi said. “And Nawari objected to the move. But the aiji’s men have pulled rank.”

Higher-ranking problem. God. An order from the dowager? A direct threat to her or to Cajeiri that they were not talking about, even on Guild channels?

They were stuck. They were damned well stuck without transport. Just the van, parked back on the road in the middle of the trouble.

And the shooting was still going on back there, faint in the distance.

“Damn,” he said, and thought. “Can we get Najida?”

“One will try to arrange something,” Banichi said, and made the call, in a string of code.

They stood there, on the slant of a grassy hill, stalled, while Banichi talked in code. Guild business. Guild communications.

Damn, Bren said to himself. Damn. Damn.

“Nadi. This is the senior of the paidhi-aiji’s aishid. One requests a person in authority on an urgent matter.”

Banichi clicked off, exhaled, then indicated downslope. “We should keep going, Bren-ji.

Nawari has contacted Kajiminda, trying to get them to send word to persons in the field.

Meanwhile, he is calling Najida to ask for the village truck.”

It was going to take time. But it was hope.

Bren just started walking. So did they all. Lucasi struggled hindmost, doing his best. Tano was lagging a bit, in God knew how much pain. Algini was carrying Tano’s gear, and Jago had Lucasi’s rifle.

A few blisters? Damned well nothing. If someone had the foresight, they might bring water.

Maybe a medical kit, but they had that.

The truck. It wasn’t going to be bulletproof. It wasn’t going to have any aura of authority. But it had wheels. Wheels were better than—

Damn! Hole. He’d wrenched his ankle, not sprained it. Banichi seized his arm and kept him steady.

“One could carry you, Bren-ji.”

“Only if I slow you down,” he said, panting for breath but still going. “One can walk, Nichi-ji.”

Damn, he said to himself. Damn. Damn.

And the firing was still going on, with, suddenly, a loud thump. Something had blown up.

He kept walking, kept walking. One hill was like another, and he trusted Banichi and Jago knew where they were going. They kept him between them, occasionally half-dragged him over a gap, which hurt the ribs, but it kept them going.

Finally, finally they had to half carry him down a steep slope, and Lucasi slipped and skidded a fair distance down the gravel before Algini overtook him, hauled him to his feet and got him moving, then climbed halfway back again to steer Tano down the same steep face.

But beyond the rocks, beyond a ridge of scrub, a moving column of dust in the distance marked a vehicle coming down an unseen road.

They forged ahead, around a thorn thicket, up a little gravely, rock-centered rise, and then—

Then they saw the Najida truck coming at all the speed it could muster.

It was too good, too fraught with possibilities for things going wrong, and Bren made a desperate effort to hurry. He made it down last the gravelly slope with help from Banichi and Jago and waited by the pebbled roadside, where dusty grass struggled to survive, edge of a sparse meadow on the flat far side of the road.

The feet hurt. God, they hurt.

But the truck came on and rumbled to a stop. It was a flatbed with removable sides, and, thank God, the sides were in their sockets.

And Nawari was there with two of his unit, and Lord Geigi’s bodyguards—all of them. The driver was one of Nawari’s men—whoever had gotten the truck to Nawari was not with them.

It was all Guild, all in dusty black leather and armed, a formidable force on the Guild scale of things.

“One is glad to see you, Wari-ji,” Bren said, “one is very glad. This is no safe venture. We have to get to the crossroads, next after the Kajiminda road—” His voice cracked. Banichi took over and gave orders with more precision, he was sure, and Jago pulled him around to the other door of the truck.

“Tano should ride in the cab,” he said. “One can manage back there.”

“Hush, Bren-ji,” Jago said, opened the door, and shoved him inside. “Is there water, nadi?”

she asked the driver.

“A can in the back,” the answer came, and Bren thought to himself, Just hurry. But he could hear everybody climbing aboard behind, and then Jago came back immediately with somebody’s canteen and gave it to him.

He didn’t argue. He drank two good gulps and a third, and was going to pass it back, but she was gone, climbing aboard, as the driver took off the brake.

The truck rolled forward, accelerated.

Bren had another sip of water and wiped his mouth. His hand came away smeared and gritty, and he rubbed his face. No razor. Stubble he never let show. His clothes had taken on the color of the landscape and were stuck together with burrs here and therec he presented no sane-looking figure, he was sure. He had another, more conservative drink, dehydrated, lips cracked, sunburned, he could feel it, and too rattled, now that he sat on a padded seat with a canteen in his hand, to manage a coherent thought or lay any sort of plan for how he was going to approach the situation ahead.

Najida truck. The Edi at least knew the truck.

The Taisigi didn’t.

“We shall go to the Edi side,” he told the driver, one of the dowager’s men. And asked, “How were things at the house?”

“Holding, nandi,” was all the man could tell him.

19

« ^ »

The driver asked for all the speed the old truck could muster, raising dust from the graveled area and traveling brushy meadow road at the risk of its suspension. Bren had no way to communicate with his bodyguard. They were back there laying their own plans; he had no idea what those plans were or whether they were able to communicate with Najida and with Machigi.

He grew light-headed from sheer exhaustion. He was braced bolt upright in his seat by the cursed vest, without which he would not be coming home at all, and he could feel the foot in the split boot swelling. His body wanted just to shut down for a few hours, and he couldn’t afford that. He had to be mentally sharp. Had to talk to the Edi, for starters, and there was no guarantee the Edi had any sort of unified command.

God, he had to get his wits about him.

Fuel was going to hold out. They had enough. That was a positive.

But the brain was going.

Parts scattered when he tried to analyze them, irretrievable.

But out the windows, the land looked familiar. He began to know when they were nearing the Kajiminda intersection by the shape of a solitary evergreen, the grass, and the pale color of the stone. They were getting near. The gunfire—he couldn’t hear. The truck rattled and thumped.

The intersection came in view, where trees were in greater evidence, a small woods in the distance, which here covered both sides of the road.

And now the driver was talking to someone on short-range.

Then gunfire was audible, even over the racket of the truck. The driver made the turn on a track through the woods and suddenly blew the horn. Repeatedly. It scared the hell out of him—he wasn’t expecting that. But it wasn’t the kind of move enemies would make, blowing the horn like fury while blazing down the middle of the road.

People came out of the woods onto the road ahead of them, carrying rifles pointed aloft, not aiming at them, thank God. The driver pulled up short of them, and Bren opened his door.

Banichi was faster, reaching him before he had to jump to the ground; and Jago was right there.

So were Lord Geigi’s men. They came up even with the door, and one of them shouted out in another language—the Edi language, Bren realized suddenly. It must be. The attitude changed, visible surprise. And he walked out near them.

“Nadiin, neighbors! Cease fire! Cease fire! We have news!”

He was unmistakable on the mainland. He traded on that. He was their neighbor. And Lord Geigi’s men spoke the language. That was beyond an asset. It shocked the four Edi and got the rifles aimed at the ground. It got them face to face in a far calmer mode.

Talk was hot and heavy for a moment between the Edi and Lord Geigi’s bodyguard. Bren heard his own title referenced, and the dowager. And Lord Geigi.

There was objection, and Machigi’s name figured in it, angrily.

Geigi’s men answered, in strong terms.

“Neighbors,” Bren said. “Neighbors, listen to me. There is more than one forces involved.

One is a renegade Guild force, one you see here, and there is, yes, Machigi, who is here to stop the renegade Guild.”

“Who are these renegades?” they wanted to know.

“Murini’s men.” He had a succinct answer for that one, that ought to tell them everything.

“They have committed crimes. They have laid the bloody knife at Machigi’s door, but of recent offenses, he is not guilty. At the dowager’s request, he is attacking them, with Guild regulars at his command.”

“He is in our territory!”

“He is killing yourenemies. He is killing the people who bombed the road and kidnapped one of your children, nadiin-ji! Let the Grandmother of the Edi and the Grandmother of the Ragi solve it. This business has too many sides. Let the Grandmothers have the say! You have to stop shooting!”

“We will not let him on our land!” one shouted.

Geigi’s men said something in the Edi language, then, that involved the Grandmother, and heated words went back and forth, not one of which he could understand.

The guns here stayed still, but the firing beyond the curve of the road, farther into the encroaching woods, was still going on, echoing off the rocky heights to the left.

“Nandi,” Geigi’s Guild senior said then, in a low voice, “go. They will not be persuaded. Get back to the truck.”

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, meaning business.

Damn, he thought. His bodyguard wanted him out of here. Geigi’s did. He took a step toward the men, hit a sore angle with his foot and limped inelegantly.

It hurt, damn it. Several things did.

Not least, the prospect of seeing the whole situation gone to hell. “Neighbors,” he shouted in Ragi, and pointed toward the road. “Off in that direction you have the sort of Guild who has done you immeasurable harm over two hundred years, the same element who backed Murini, the same element who fled Tabini-aiji, ran into the Marid and encouraged the Senji and the Dojisigi to actions against you. At their backs, beyond that woods, you have one Marid lord who is as angry with them as you are and who, if you stop shooting for an hour, will obligingly push these renegades right into your laps, after which time you can open fire to your hearts’ content. If you want to settle with your realenemies, listen to your neighbor, who has talked with the lord of the Taisigi and gotten his cooperation. You have heard the facts from me, you have heard them from Lord Geigi’s guard, and you four do not have the authority to decide life or death for the Edi people! Go as fast as you can and tell the elders in charge exactlywhat I said, and we will hold this road for you. Tell the elders come back here and defend thisplace, and let the Guild with Lord Machigi drive your enemies this way, do you understand me? Does this make sense to you? And then you will kindly oblige me by notshooting the Taisigi, while your elders and the aiji-dowager work out an agreement that will save your land! Do you hear me?”

There was a small space of silence. One said something in his own language, but it sounded like a question; and Lord Geigi’s men answered in that language in no milder tone, something involving Najida, Kajiminda, and the paidhi-aiji. Then they shouted an order, and the young men took off running, back into the woods, guns and all.

God, it was all he had in him. He was spent. He wanted to sit down right where he was.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You have done what you could do. At this point youare the person the renegades would most like to lay hands on. More to the point, the word is going out that you are here. The Edi are not a disciplined force. Some may fall back. Some may panic. We shall hold this place, up on the heights. Can you drive the truck?”

“I shall not,” he said. “Not leaving you here, no.”

“The renegades have failed to get past Machigi,” Banichi said. “They have the Edi between them and Kajiminda and somewhat between them and Separti Township. And then there is this road, back the way they arrived. The Edi will not take orders in any organized way, and if they start to take losses and panic, we are too few to hold what comes behind them.”

“I can make them listen.”

“You have no experience of this situation, Bren-ji. Your bodyguard advises you abandon this area, and fall back. If we have to, we will draw back to Kajiminda.”

“Afoot?” he shot back. “No, nadiin-ji. If you have to leave here, you will need a little speed, will you not?”

Banichi looked exasperated.

“Tell Machigi I am here,” he said. “Tell Machigi to push them if we can’t organize the Edi to do it. The Edi will shoot what shows up first, am I right?”

“We can hold that,” Banichi said, with a wave of his hand toward the rocky side of the road, and went to instruct the driver. The truck started up, pulled over near the rocks, and backed in, positioning itself for a run for Kajiminda. Everybody aboard the truckbed began getting off.

Bren found a small outlier of those rocks, next to a stand of brush, and sat down with a wince from the damned vest. His bodyguard was off giving directions. Geigi’s men positioned themselves off in the brushy outskirts of the woods, Nawari and his crew off in the rocks near the truck.

He just sat, and he wished he had the canteen he’d left in the truck, but he was not inclined to walk after it.

He was done, utterly done. He rested his head on his hands and was so dizzy he thought he might fall asleep where he sat. Three forces were going to collide and start shooting, and he could just sit here on his rock, undisturbed, unnoticed. That would be good. Just no one to notice him for at least an hour. He could sleep.

But the fire kept up, sporadic, even lazy. God, how long could they keep at it without running out of ammunition? They’d get down to throwing rocks at each other. Damned fools.

He came very close to sleep.

Then a whistle sounded in the woods, and a voice, calling out in accented Ragi, told him something had changed.

He started to get up. It wasn’t graceful. He grabbed hold of the brush one-handed and hauled himself up to a wide-legged brace before he got his balance.

A group of Edi, five in number, in hunting camoflage, came down the road, calling out and stopping where one of their side had planted three stacked rocks.

Good idea, those rocks. They got attention. And Geigi’s men went to them and talked to them, and guns were in safe carry when they came in, properly quiet and respectful.

Bren started in their direction, but Geigi’s men waved them off again, a little back up the road.

Sit there, that was. And talk to anybody coming in. A welcoming committee. It was amazingly genteel.

One only hoped they got their information straight—a whispering game, one to the next. But it was what they could do.

He was on his feet. He limped over across the road to the truck, opened the door and got the canteen.

Jago came around the end of the truck. “Best you stay with the truck, Bren-ji. We are organizing.”

“Yes,” he said. “One will, Jago-ji.” He hoped Banichi wasn’t mad at him. He couldn’t even figure out whether he deserved it. If they were going to get killed, he really didn’t want anybody mad at him.

He climbed up to the seat of the truck and sat down, closing the door mostly, and very quietly, and had a small drink of water.

He was too damned tired, he thought, to be properly scared. He was scared in a numb sort of way that was not much different from acute terror. But he was here, and he had to be here.