Destroyer

Tracks of the girl and the escort were plain on the road, tracks that by now involved five mechieti—and now their own mechieti, catching the notion of what they were tracking, entered hunting-mode, the leader lowering his snaky neck to snuff above the ground as they went. It was an unsettling move at a run. Bren’s mechieti followed suit, an instant in which he feared the beast would take a tumble under him. He knew exactly what it was doing, and dared not jerk the rein.

Up came the head with a rude snort and a lurch forward of the beast’s own accord, and it loped ahead, coming nearly stride for stride with Banichi’s beast, which drew a surly head-toss… mechieti were not averse to hunting others of their kind, with malice aforethought, and this sudden taking of a scent was not a happy situation, not safe, and not good for the ones being tracked.

And, my God, Bren thought, recalling where they had borrowed these creatures… these were hunters of more than game. Mechieti were stubborn creatures, and these with uncapped tusks, that they had gotten from Taiben, from the rangers peculiarly charged with Tabini’s security—what would this band do, he wondered, when they overtook their Atageini-bred quarry?

“One fears they are hunting,” he said to Banichi.

“That they are, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “and they will need a hard hand once we come in range.”

Last night’s rain had left a lingering moisture in the grass, particularly on the shaded side of hills, where the track showed clear even to human eyes. Mechieti snatched mouthfuls of grass on the run, rocked along at that rolling gait they could adopt on the hunt, trailing grassy bits. They clumped up together, the herd-leader foremost, along with the young female

Bren rode, and the unridden retired matriarch who had been their trouble back at the stables, all bunched in the lead. Low brush stood not a chance where the herd wanted to pass. When the leader moved, hell itself could not stop the rest… willingly headed, Bren began to add it up from the mechieti’s point of view, for their own territory, for Taiben itself, now on the trail of the others that their dim mechieti brains might reasonably think of as interlopers in that territory.

Trouble, he had no doubt. Trouble, and Lord Tatiseigi’s prize stock, those likely with tusks capped… and what can I do to hold this creature?

Banichi reined back as they reached a trampled spot, a space where a handful of mechieti had waited and milled about, grass flattened. Algini pointed to the side, and sure enough, even to a less skilled eye, a small track came in there, a line coming across the hill as one track, then diverging into two, and coming right up on their location.

“The boys joined them here,” Tano said, but even the paidhi had figured that out—knowing the boy in question, if not how to read a trail.

“And got their mechieti back,” Jago said.

Their own mechieti, milling about and getting the scent from the ground, had obliterated any finer tracks. Banichi started them moving again, and by now the whole herd had the scent clear, and moved with unanimity… willing to run, willing to spend energy they had not used on their way toward Atageini land.

A pop of Banichi’s quirt and the leader lurched into a flat-out run, a pace the Atageini would not reasonably have adopted on their way. They were using up their own mechieti’s strength, and even considering the beasts were willing now, that would fade quickly.

We have a slim chance of finding them before dark, Bren reasoned to himself, yielding to the rock and snap of the gait, less sore now: numbness had cut in, and nothing mattered at the moment but the hope of seeing five mechieti somewhere in the distant rolls of the pastureland.

The sun sank, and sank toward the horizon. The Atageini and the youngsters would almost certainly stop for the night. They entered dusk, and the trail grew dim, but the scent would not.

“Nadiin.”Algini rode to the fore and pointed toward the hill. Bren saw nothing. He hoped it was the youngsters and their escort, but their mechieti gave no sign of having spotted their quarry.

“Converging with their trail,” Algini said ominously.

“What?” Bren was constrained to ask.

“Another track, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “Game, maybe, but one fears not.”

Something had moved along that hill and veered toward the party they were tracking. Either it was an older game track, that the youngsters’ party had crossed, or something was following them… and no four-legged predator in its right senses would stalk several mechieti.

Only other mechieti would come in like that. And none that they knew would be here just ru

Not good, Bren thought, and said nothing. His bodyguard knew the score better than he did. Banichi used the quirt and took them up the hillside, veered over onto the intersecting trail and there reined to a slower pace and to a stop, letting the herd leader get that scent clear before it joined the other trail.

Tusked head came up, nostrils flared, head swinging to that new trail like a needle to the magnetic pole.

And they started to move again, fast, with several pops of the quirt.

We could just as well run into ambush at this pace, Bren thought, but he no longer led this expedition: Banichi did, and the paidhi dropped way, way back in the hierarchy of decision-making. Jago had moved up beside Banichi, in front of him, pressing her mount to defy the ordinary order of proceeding, and Tano and Algini moved up on either side to keep the paidhi in their close company, leaving Banichi and Jago free to make more aggressive decisions.

Up and over the ridge, Tano riding athwart Bren’s path to prevent his mechieti following Banichi’s too closely at this point… they pressed along the trail that now was merged with the youngsters, or overlay that track, moving as hard as they could go, across a brook and up the other bank. The incoming riders had taken no pains to disguise their track.

Dark was falling fast now. And Banichi reined in just short of the next rise of the land, slid down and handed the herd-leader’s rein across to Jago, but the creature pulled at the restraint, wanting to be let loose, eyes rolling, nostrils flared, and the rest of the herd trembled with eagerness, not that even the unridden matriarch would go past the leader. Banichi said something to Jago too low for Bren’s ears, passed her his mechieti’s rein and suddenly moved, slipping off along the top of the ridge with eye-tricking speed. He didn’t crest the hill—he melted over it, and was gone. And Jago had clambered down and up to the other saddle, taking the herd leader for herself, her own left riderless with the rein looped up for safety.

Bren sat still and kept the rein wrapped desperately around his fist, giving up no slack. He felt a skin-twitch shake the mechieti’s shoulder under his foot, as it gave a soft, explosive snort of sheer lust for combat.

He dared ask nothing. He guessed too much already. The herd leader was trying to break Jago’s control, and she hauled back with all her strength, pulling its head away from the direction it wanted to go, forcing it in a circle. It stopped, stood rock-steady.

Not a sound, except the small movements and breathing of the mechieti under them and around them, the whole herd held with Jago’s grip on the leader.

A gunshot, a single, horrendous pop and echo.

“Head down, Bren-ji!” Jago drove the leader forward and the whole herd lunged after her, up over the hill, down the other side in the dusk.

Bren ducked as low to the saddle as possible, tried to see where he was going. More shots echoed off the hills. Jago and two unsaddled mechieti ran in the lead, one on each side of her, and suddenly they veered, plunged into a ravine. Mechieti stood in the dusk ahead of them, whose mechieti or how situated he had no time to reckon. The mechieti he was on gave a squalling challenge and charged through prickly brush, raking his leg, catching his jacket, breaking off bits against his trousers on its way to murder. They hit, another mechieti ripped a head-butt at his, and he plied the quirt desperately, getting it away. Two surges of the body under him and they were in the clear again, charging uphill after mechieti in retreat.