Destroyer

Whistle. Banichi’s. Or Jago’s. He held his breath, tried to judge where it had come from, and he thought it was near him. He hunched down, face down, for a moment, to ease his position, arms under him, then looked up.

Straight at a pair of boots.

He didn’t move. Scarcely breathed.

Eventually the owner of the boots crouched down and moved off. His own, or the other side, he had no idea at all. He stayed still, breathing in controlled ins and outs, listened to occasional shots, and finally, strange in the dark, heard whispers, someone discussing the situation, but faint and far. They were talking about Lord Tatiseigi, about his security arrangements.

“The old cheapskate will never afford a wire,” one said, to his strained hearing. “And the power is down. Get in, take the dowager, take the heir and the paidhi, and what they do out here has no effect.”

There was indeed a wire. Or two. They misjudged, and it could be messy, if the lights had been deliberately turned out and if the house still had power.

But letting them try it—was too great a risk. He moved an elbow, eased his whole body over, and saw a knot of skulkers over beside the porch. He hated to let off a shot. He was ru

“Look out!” one yelled, looking his direction and moving, and he let off one shot and two and three and four at that knot of shadows, then ducked back among the roots, catching sight of a ground-floor window opening, but no one near it.

Then a couple of bodies dropped from the window down to the ground. Someone from inside the house.

He had the pocket com. He was in a position to see something. He drew a deep breath and risked turning it on for a second, adjusting it with his thumb in complete dark.

“Banichi,” he whispered. “Banichi. Someone has exited the house.”

Tatiseigi’s men had mixed themselves into the affair.

“Stay down,” the answer came to him. “Shut it off.”

He turned the unit off, stuck it back into his pocket, hoped not to hear from it again until there was reason for Banichi to want to find him. He stayed there, face buried, listening, listening. A twitch started in his shoulder muscles.

It was quiet for very, very long after that.

He changed position, half-numb, muscles shivering from strain. He moved very, very carefully. He wiped a little mud over his face and hands and ventured a look out.

A flurry of shots ensued, and a squall of mechieti.

He ducked back. Stayed absolutely still, relaxed, finally, except for shivers from the cold. Minutes turned into half hours, and half hours to an hour, at least. He had absolutely no sound from anything but the restless mechieti and the crackle of the ebbing fire over in the stable area.

He moved enough, finally, to rest his cheek against his left hand, which warmed both. The Guild could be very patient. They could stay like this for hours, waiting for something to change, and what would change was the planet turning on its axis, and sunlight coming over the horizon.

Daylight would come. At dawn things might begin to move again.

White light flared, ran across the cobbled drive. He lifted his head, peered up through the branches, seeing a spotlight glaring from an upstairs window. It played over the hedges, and off over the lawn.

Then it went out.

More waiting. He relieved the stress on his neck by dropping his head to his hand again, and wondered what was going on in the house. It had gotten ungodly complicated. If Cenedi was inside, Cenedi couldn’t just shoot at whatever moved out here.

But Cenedi could just toss pebbles into the pond, looking to raise a ripple, to force whoever hadn’t taken good cover to do so. That light might represent such thinking.

Or possibly Cenedi did as he had done, and signalled his rescuers that they were still alive, still in control of the house upstairs and down. He hoped that was the case.

Long, long wait. Then the spotlight flared out of another window, playing on the hedges, and ru

The com vibrated. Bren laid his pistol on the ground and dug the device out of his pocket, pressed it to his ear.

“We are on the grounds, on your trail,” a voice said, and one he thought was Banichi’s:

“One is advised, nadi.”

The transmission cut off. If the enemy had intercepted it, that news could only make them more anxious. Day was coming. Help was coming in, from Taiben. The odds were begi

Then a voice from somewhere far to the right, Banichi’s, loud and clear.

“Kadigidi. Our allies are moving in. Atageini forces are coming in. Clear the grounds. Guild truce. Recover your wounded and go.”

Bren moved his hand to his gun, slipped his fingers around it, lay there, expecting a volley of shots to pursue that voice.

“Guild truce,” a clear voice came back.

And thereafter small movements began, one very, very close at hand. Bren lay hardly breathing as a shadow left the hedge, evergreen whispering, oh, so quietly. Small movements went on, increasing in the vicinity of the stables, and mechieti took exception.

Further and further away, those sounds moved. He had heard of such things, that the Guild, being a professional brotherhood, would limit damages, that there were mechanisms to prevent the waste of lives, among those who, in the Guild hall, might share a pot of tea.

Then silence, long silence. If Banichi wanted to move out and trust it was safe, Banichi would move, but Banichi did not, nor was there any sound at all but the mechieti milling about. Bren lay there, chilled through, his fingers no longer feeling the gun. He didn’t know if anyone ever agreed to, then violated Guild truce. A very great deal was at stake, and if no one ever had done such a thing in the history of the Guild, it still might not mean safety. There were non-Guild who sometimes mixed into these affairs—like him. It had all been stealthy—thus far.

The next round… who knew? Airplanes. Bombs. He didn’t like to think what the day might bring.

But if they went that far, if it got beyond Guild, then the farmers and the shopkeepers would take a hand. And it would be bloody war, with farmers on this side attacking farmers on the other. Utter disaster. Everything they had done last night was one thing. They never wanted it to get to the utmost.

Long, long wait. He took up the com unit in his left hand, rested his chin on that wrist, waited.

It vibrated, and he had it to his ear in a heartbeat.

“Bren-ji? ” Jago’s whisper, blessed sound.

“I’m fine,” he whispered back.

“Are you in a safe position?”

Amazing that Jago had to ask him. He’d learned a few things in his career. One of them was not to blurt out his position on a compromised communications system. “Are they gone?” He had heard no mechieti leaving.

“We think so. But we shall not trust them. Work your way toward the stable path. Algini will meet you. Our allies will be here in moments.”

He shut down, pocketed the com and wriggled forward, following the curve of the drive. He could only think of Taibeni allies inbound, and the fact that he didn’t know the sort of signals the rangers passed, or the Guild, either, for that matter. He slithered among the roots, beside another wire, another co

He stopped, frozen, the instant he realized that shape.

“Bren-ji?” it asked.

Algini. He moved again, as far as the path that divided them.