Destroyer

They drew up to a hard-breathing halt in front of that barrier, and a number of the rangers slid down and took equipment from their saddle-packs. Some of them bodily forced the hedge aside, one attaching a rope to his saddle and urging his mechieti to turn and pull, which bent two ancient parts of the hedge aside. Then men set to work with hand-axes, others spelling the effort in quick succession, so that the rhythm and strength of the blows never flagged for a moment. The center of each bush began to give way, and once they gave, another ranger pressed into the gap and set to work on the chain link fence, sharp, quick snaps of a wire-cutter: Lord Tatiseigi’s fences and the Taiben rangers seemed, by what he saw, an old, old matter. Bren sat his saddle, shivering alike from anticipation and from the chill breeze that ruffled the grass even in the hedge-shadow. Thunder rumbled out of the west. Lightning was not their friend, not in terms of being the tallest items in the landscape, and not in terms of secrecy in this invasion.

But the fence, thank God, was no longer carrying a charge… the house had ordered defenses lowered. But had they ever gone up again? He thought of the Atageini gatekeeper, alone out there. The man might not have survived the night.

Not to mention the destruction that might have fallen on the house itself. He saw Banichi check the pocket com for information, detected nothing unexpected in Banichi’s demeanor—it had told them nothing it had not told them before.

The wire-cutter meanwhile did its work. Rangers forced their way into the gap and pulled, and the fence, gleaming faintly metallic in the dark, peeled back on either side of the missing bush, and now Deiso quirted the herd-leader through the gap, breaking brush and probably losing a little hide off him and the mechieti in the process.

Bren grabbed for a hold on the saddle as the whole herd decided to go through that atevi-sized gap at once, his own fighting to get ahead of others. Brush broke. Bren had a chaotic view of chain-link bent aside and flattened, and then his mechieti scraped through, dragging his right knee painfully past an unyielding broken branch and ripping his trousers in the process.

They were onto the estate grounds, then, with a single mechieti’s wounded protest. The rangers still afoot had scrambled to the saddle and come through, joining the moving mass. Bren found Banichi on one side of him and Tano on the other, with, he was sure, Algini and Jago just off to their respective sides, in a breathless confusion of mechieti sorting out their traveling order and broadening their front. A peevish toss of a head, tusks gleaming in the dark, an answering snort and head-toss, riders maneuvering as they picked up the pace.

They were on Lord Tatiseigi’s land, now, concealed by a clouded dark, and coming in at a thirty-degree angle to the front door of the house, the opposite side from the stables Bren had at least the glimmering of an idea where they were, a kilometer or so yet to go; and a remarkably clear notion of what they were going to do once they got there, which was to get as close as they could, dismount, and conduct a Guild-against-Guild operation around the house hedges, a sort of conflict in which one human with a sidearm was not outstandingly much help.

Deep breath. The mechieti hit their traveling pace. Too late for second thoughts. His gun was safe in a fastened pocket, so it wouldn’t fall out. Extra clip in his inside pocket. He hoped against all instinct that the core of Tatiseigi’s questionable staff was loyal; he hoped the dowager was still safe, and that Cenedi was.

Over another low rise, and now the house itself showed on the opposing ridge, a dark lump amid dark hedges, not a glimmer of light.

Then a sullen glow, like an illusion. “A light,” he said to those nearest, and Banichi:

“Clearly, nandi.”

Not clear to his eyes. But the house was not deserted. Something was going on in an upper window.

The land pitched. They lost sight of the house on the downslope.

Then gunshots racketed through the dark, four, five, a volley so rapid there was no separating them.

Up again, into full view of the house, that looked no different than before.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “this sort of action will be no good place for you. Pick deep cover and get into it. And get back to the hedge and out before daylight, if we fail.”

“One hears, Banichi-ji.” It was not advice to ignore, no matter how it stung his pride.

An explosion and a gout of orange fire shattered the night. Two explosions, three. More fires started.

“Near the stable,” Banichi said, which Bren desperately took for hope that that light in the house window had not been an invader, that there was still force holding out, deliberately provoking enemy action to get a bead on them. A spatter of gunfire racketed out, echoing.

And suddenly the leader hit an all-out pace and every mechieti followed. Bren grabbed for the saddle and recovered his balance, held rein and saddle with one hand, letting the quirt dangle as he unfastened his pocket and pulled out his pistol.

Safety off. He didn’t make that elementary mistake. The landscape, the blazing fire with its rising smoke, the figures around him were all a jolted blur in the dark. The gait was that breakneck, ground-devouring run that humped the mechieti’s back and knocked the rider against the rear of the saddle—flung him all the way off, if the rider didn’t keep his center of gravity forward and his leading leg locked around the mechieti’s heaving shoulders. The back had to give, thus, to the sway inherent in the motion. He wasn’t a novice, just a long time out of practice, and this beast had a scary habit of crashing around obstacles at the very last moment—nearsighted, he swore; but it was more than following its leader. The damned creature had suddenly taken ambition into its brain, and wanted further forward, carrying lighter weight and being suddenly full of charge-ahead enthusiasm.

Up the final rise onto a mown lawn, and the rattle of gunfire ahead seemed to have nothing to do with them. He hadn’t enough hands for the quirt, the gun, the rein, and a good grip on the saddle: he had to pick the gun and the rein and trust his balance.

The house hedge showed ahead, a black wall against a red-tinged haze of smoke, and the herd leaders were undaunted—vying with one another, jostling for position, they plowed through the low obstruction like so much scrub, flattening it as they poured onto the drive and the whole herd hit the cobbles, a footing they loathed, and scrambled to get away from.

The leaders dived into the stable-lane, beside the house, but a rider rode athwart his beast’s head—Tano, heading him off from that charge. Then Banichi himself rode across his path, jostling his mechieti, forcing it to a complete stop on the drive.

“Get down!” Banichi yelled at him, and he questioned not an instant. His mechieti was stamping and head-tossing at Tano’s beast, trying to get to the lane, and he simply flung a leg off, kept hold of his gun and slid down next to the house hedge, controlling his fall with a grip on the mounting-strap until his feet hit uneven cobbles and exhausted legs tried to buckle under him.

An atevi arm grabbed him around the ribs and one of his staff hurried him against the building, down into the hedge, an atevi hand pressed his head down—and then was gone, his staff—all of them, having left afoot, armed, and with definite intent.

Damn, he thought. They’d gotten down primarily to get him to cover. Now they were dismounted, the mechieti having followed all the others around the corner toward the stables, and he was stuck here beneath a hedge, behind a stone corner and a second, facing hedge that didn’t let him see what was going on.

He ought to stay put. He knew that. But he didn’t like being near the house, which could be a target of explosives and grenades. He was in possession of one gun, of their few. He was in concealment and the hedge was as good as a highway. He wriggled behind the thick central growth of the hedge, crawled, assassin-fashion, on his elbows and belly. Gunfire rang off the stonework, and the ruined arch above the stable hedge lit with fire and smoke. His staff was doubtless in the thick of it.