Destroyer

“Likely we can get inside, nandi,” Deiso said as he joined them. “Getting out again—if they add forces—may be a very great difficulty. One advises your lordship retreat at this point.”

“No,” Bren said without even thinking on it. “No. If my staff goes in, I go. And we know the inside.”

Outrageous, in atevi terms. He only dimly reckoned that, after it came out of his mouth.

“Reason with him, nadi,” Deiso said.

“He is capable, no matter his size,” Banichi said, entirely unexpected, and the statement sent a little quiver of adrenaline through his nerves. Capable, he was. It was better than Lord of the Heavens.

And he had no wish, after Banichi saying that, to act the fool. He folded his arms and listened to Banichi lay out the plan, attempting dignity, and silently absorbing the simple outline, which was to go in the way the scout had: he had gotten through without problems at the fence. The rangers had wire-cutters in their collective kit, and meant to go in without need of going the long way round.

Crosscountry, from the fence to the house, trusting other defenses would be down, since their scout had met none.

After that…

After that, they approached the house—in the fervent hope they were not too late.

“A wonder they withstood the first attack,” Banichi said, “except the first incursion was a probe. Maodi is the chief of Guild that serves the Kadigidi. A ruthless sort, but not reckless, and if Murini is in Shejidan, as we have reported, that means Maodi will be there, not here—he will not want to stain his hands or his lord’s with this u

“Tonight,” Deiso said, “tonight they will bring force in. We have other bands coming, and they may be here before daylight. But we ought not to wait for an outcome, nandi.”

“Whatever Banichi says,” Bren stated, “I accept.”

More Taibeni forces coming in behind them was good news; but the chance of the Kadigidi getting in and slaughtering the household—not considering the Kadigidi might have agents on the inside… he was very ready to go without them. He would be dismayed if Banichi counseled waiting any longer.

“The paidhi is with us,” Banichi said.

“No question,” Bren said, and Deiso:

“Then we should move, should we not?”

Ten thousand questions, a whole world he wanted to know—but certainties were not available. He went back to his mechieti. The rangers mounted up, and he did, and fell in with his own staff. The band started to move eastward, in the deepening dark, up the low rise and down again. Clouds had moved across the stars, taking away even the starlight, and a breeze-borne chill swept down at their faces, numbed his hands and made him wish, not for the first time on this trek, that he had at least remembered his gloves, and put on a sweater under his coat. No Narani, that was what it was. He had gotten used to such items turning up in his pockets. Now all he had was his gun, his useless pocket com, his pill bottle, and a spare clip.

He ought to be terrified. He actually wasn’t sure about that, then decided what he felt wasn’t quite fear, rather a sense of fatalism, of foreboding—that he really, truly couldn’t envision their success in this operation, or more to the point, envision exactly what they were going to do once they had gotten onto the grounds and rescued the dowager, even granted their success. He doubted Ilisidi was up to a long, breakneck ride—she’d surprised him before, but she’d been out of the saddle for two years herself. And even if she could surprise him, he knew of a certainty that Lord Tatiseigi wasn’t up to it—and what were they to do to prevent consequences from overwhelming the one key lord in the middle provinces?

Over all, he feared they were going to have to stand and fight to keep Tatiseigi and the dowager alive, hoping for their own numbers to increase, as surely the Kadigidi were going to bring in reinforcements. Which would be very bad for the Atageini house, and its fragile lilies… worse for its surrounding towns, and their peaceful existence. The farmers—the locals—could have their whole structure blown to bits… vulnerable as the porcelain lilies.

His own affairs—he had wrapped up, leaving the next tries to Jase and Yolanda. He had delivered Cajeiri into the hands of his Taibeni relatives, to get to his father if they could. He trusted Toby was back on the island, likely hovering near the shortwave and hoping for news…

God, this was morbid, cataloging and disposing of all his ties to the world. But the ruler he served seemed less and less likely to get back to power, the more blood they poured on the matter, and if it didn’t happen, the world didn’t need a paidhi whose advice had led to civil war and bodies lying in windrows…

That was the underlying thought, wasn’t it? There was a certain justice in his being here, and he had run out of remedies. If he sent his staff off to take up service with Cajeiri, in the first place, they wouldn’t go, and if he went, himself, it would bring Cajeiri association with him. Everything seemed circular reasoning. Everything led where he was… which left him unable to see the outcome. He couldn’t even see how it mattered, except he might kill some Guildsman who adhered to the Kadigidi, and they might kill him, and nothing, in the long run, would get fixed, not by him, would it?

Maybe by Jase. Maybe by Lord Geigi, who could sit up in the heavens and say, you idiots, I told you so. Are you ready to stop killing each other?

Because the kyo would show up. And somebody had to be in charge. He was sure of that, as sure as he was that the whole current enterprise was unlikely to succeed.

Once he analyzed it that way, he began to have a roadmap of what they had to do, and what constituted a win—if only raising enough hell on the planet that Geigi and Jase got wind of his failure early, before the Kadigidi could capitalize on their win.

At best, getting Ilisidi back to Taiben and making the Kadigidi look a little less powerful than they claimed. That would put egg on their faces… start one hell of a war, but it wouldn’t leave the world to Murini’s non-existent common sense. Get Ilisidi to Taiben. That prospect might even budge Tatiseigi to go, be it in that antique roadster, not to mention the Kadigidi would never be able to claim the man’chi of the Atageini populace… who would rally to their oldest enemies, the Taibeni, and create a very hard kernel of resistance right next to the Kadigidi.

Damn, he was starting to think again, not on a cosmic scale, not of the politics of species, but in the dirt and sweat world of detailed politics and the knack of leaving an enemy looking less successful, while one’s own tattered cause emerged looking as if it had won something. Atevi, like humans, dearly loved a neatly carried action, an outrageous enterprise.

He became downright foolishly cheerful, as cheerful, at least, as contemplating the necessary obverse of that coin could let him be. The wind altogether seemed a little warmer, the dark a great deal friendlier to them.

Give the Kadigidi a surprise? Maybe. His backside had passed the tingling point, far past pain, where the jouncing and jolting of the mechieti’s gait was concerned; he could ignore discomfort, now. The darkened landscape passed in a shadow-play of his own staff riding near and then past him and back again, the rangers tending to the lead, in a territory they seemed to know much better than Lord Tatiseigi might like—down one long slope and another, and finally toward a dark line of shadow that his eyes began to resolve as artificial, the hedge that would conceal a fence, the estate boundary.

It came closer and closer until it barred off their forward progress, an ancient hedge more than head high to a mechieti, thick and tangled and stubborn—and how they could possibly pass it, he had no idea… but their scout had.