But where is he?
The Hang house . . . the headquarters. The gold would be there and not the camp—and he's dead without funds. No troops, no prospects—
And Beijun, in Ghita's hands—Ghita's sole claim to legitimacy—
"M'lord, —"
"I need a handful of men. You stay here and keep looking! If you find her—" He reined around to the open, where he had his choice of Reidi's attendants, and called back: "—find me at their headquarters!"
* * *
It was more than a handful of men that went with him, black and white banners about him, safe-passage through the streets at a wild pace that racketed echoes off the walls and scattered isolated groups of rioters from their path. "It's Hoishi!" people yelled from balconies. "It's the rebels!"
And from the streets: "Down with the Regent!"
Lungan shook the beast from its back. Lungan smashed wine-shop doors and made its own kind of beast, dancing in lantern-light, in the wreckage of neighbors, chaining down rock-littered streets and arming itself with dead men's weapons.
"Drop it, drop it," someone shrieked from above, "it's the rebels!" And a rope stretched across the street fell slack in front of their horses, trampled underfoot as they went through. They turned onto the street that led from the market north. There were dead men and dead horses, arrow-shot; and Shoka took them by the alley, quickly, and drew up there.
It was Reidi's lieutenant who had come with him, at Reidi's quick insistence—Reidi's lieutenant and a squad of Reidi's guard with their unit captain to lead the way and find out the situation, for Reidi himself to follow as he got his main forces organized and came in their wake—a more practical understanding in that old gentleman how to set up a fast response than there was in all of Kegi's books. Two names from Reidi and they were off, no questions, no delay, and no confusion then or now in these men.
"It's the Lieng house," Shoka said, "any of you know it?" No, evidently. "—Outside this alley, half a block north, lane cuts off to the west to a small scullery entry, dead end alley, main street goes past the gate. I don't know what we're going to run into. If it looks good I want a chase behind me and some shots aimed close enough to look convincing. Understand? If it looks like it's too stiff going, get the hell back and get Reidi here. They can't ride out the scullery gate, the court there is only good for a hand-cart or two and there's no way they can gather there in strength enough—too much chance of getting penned up in the lane outside. It'll be the main gate and a run for the north if they try to break out. But I'll try to get that scullery gate open. Tell Reidi that. You can guide him here, with no mistakes. Can't you?"
"Yes, m'lord," the lieutenant said—Reidi's men all in their proper colors, with their individual pennons—
—and himself, in mercenary's motley.
He reined around and kicked his horse hard, startling it into motion, as far as the end of the alley and the turn onto the street before he heard the company thundering after him.
There were bonfires in the street, heaped up debris that threw a garish light onto close walls, and enough dead in the street to warn him.
So he crossed the street as Reidi's men passed him and reined in against the wall of the estate next to Lieng, deaf to the hiss of arrows in the clatter of hooves on cobblestone as Reidi's men charged the main gate down the street and then shied off again, leaving a man and two horses down—
Dammit. While he delayed—
Stiff resistance—no question. They had men enough in there, whether they were saving their own necks or defending their lord.
Low wall, a simple affair for a rich man's garden, defended from the mansion's balconies, from men set on terraces and in the high windows.
If Ghita himself was inside those walls and not well on the road to Cheng'di he had risked getting himself into a trap—the mob around him, the southern lords advancing through the city—The estate could burn, Ghita, the Emperor, everything in one bonfire—
But Ghita had powerful reasons to retreat here in the chaos—to grab the mercenaries' payroll and gather up the remaining members of his staff and the core troops of his personal guard, that trusted number which would have guarded the headquarters during his processional.
Damn right Ghita dared not desert those troops—or the money. The hand-picked commanders of the Imperials and money for the mercenaries had put him in power, money had held him there, that and Gitu's Angen officers and the elite of Gitu's hire-ons. And if they had to, if they could hold out long enough, or break free—there were the large mercenary garrisons at Anogi and at Cheng'di, garrisons that could come in on two sides of Lungan. . . .
If there were a Regent alive to rally to, and pay promised.
Shoka bit dry, stubbled lips and stared at the corner where the road cut back to the scullery access. Try the same thing twice?
Gods knew what Taizu would do.
Or whether she had come this way or could ever have gotten through the ambushes in the streets.
But damned if he could afford the chance she was in there, if it came to a siege. This was where the killing would surely be, the Emperor held hostage, if Ghita was in there, and the odds were more than even that he was—
Not that the southern lords wanted Beijun back. But there were the priests, there were the northern lords, tied by blood to the dynasty and enjoying their prerogatives, were the political repercussions against whoever caused the death of the Emperor. There was a certain war,of succession—more blood, more craziness, while the barbarian kings sent their mercenaries into the heart of Chiyaden and grew more and more necessary, with the army pinned down in border skirmishes against those kings' enemies—
The damned, self-indulgent fool . . . Help me, Shoka. . . .
He was alone on the street—just himself, the dead, and the waiting archers, of whatever side. But a new sound echoed through the streets—a distant thunder of cavalry.
Reidi? Or Meijun or Kegi, sweeping in from the east?
North. My gods. The mercenaries have cut around north, back to their headquarters—some captain worth his hire—
Or Gitu. With the gold to pay them here, at the headquarters—
He urged his horse forward, trusting to that distraction, slipped over to the shadowed side of the saddle before the corner and kept low, hoping that if anyone was looking his way, what was visible from above and from across the street was simply a riderless stray.
It got him across the street. He put his feet down and led the horse along the wall, keeping it between him and the outside, himself constantly in its shadow. He tried to remember the other side, where the terraces and the trees were.
No cart to help him over the wall this time. He stopped the horse, climbed up into the saddle and got a knee onto its back.
It moved. He tugged back on the reins, centered his weight, and got it stopped and mostly steady for the moment. Not so high a wall. Not so impossible, if the damned horse would quit edging forward on him.
Stand, dammit!
He looked up, tugged the rein again and figured on a single instant of stability.
He tucked up further in the scantly flexible armor, got his foot braced, damning the shin-guards, and reined the horse to a momentary stop again.
And thrust up on that foot and jumped from a startled, shying horse, for a belly-down landing on the top of the garden wall.
He rolled off, fast, and plummeted. Not the same distance down. He knew that the instant he had gone. Further.
Thump!
Onto a paved terrace, between two potted pines.
He lay still a moment getting his wind back and finding out if his shoulder was broken. Then he got himself up on his hands and knees and stood up quietly, taking his bearings on the house across the paved terrace, the way down to the scullery access.
There were dead men down there, like puddles of shadow.
He crept gingerly down the slope, keeping an eye to the scullery and the sheds there, and edged along the wall to reach for
the gate-latch.
It was already unlatched.
The damned little bitch!
Chapter Twenty-two
Shoka crept back along the wall, up to the next terrace, familiar territory. Beside the potted pines and up again, but not toward the house itself, with its terraces and its archers. The main court had to lie near the main gate, and in his mind Shoka could see the front gate from the inside, men running for horses and for defensive vantages the moment the watchmen advised them of movement up the street.
The defenders might well, then, choose to vacate the headquarters and break for the north gate with a weight of numbers that might force a passage to the Cheng'di road—with the gold, with the Emperor, with their alliances to foreign kings—every asset that would mean disaster to the Empire.
And a fool of a girl was loose somewhere on the grounds trying to assassinate one of the two men on whom everything depended.
Curse the decision that had left Taizu with his bow and Wengadi and Panji with the other two, and his own short-sightedness that had not even thought about equipping himself to do more than pull a fool out of a death-trap—
Ill-thought, ill-prepared, ill-done from the start. He was bruised and exhausted and confounded by the erratic moves of his own allies. His wits were fraying, he was tired, dammit, and people on his own side made him move again and again and again—there was a limit. He knew he was beyond it.
How in hell did she get through the streets?
How in hell did she get in here without raising an alarm? She's too short to do what I did.
If I knew where she got in I might know where she is.
No, no need to wonder. Find Ghita, find Gitu, that's where she is.
If they haven't found her first.
No bow, none with the dead men back there; so the work had to be close-in, and that meant mixing in with the mercenary guard around the house.
Close-in enough to reach Ghita, who knew his face as well as Beijun did, damn right he knew it; and he had to beat a fool kid to it.
He kept low as he crossed the terraces, and dropped off the wall of the highest to a soft slope under the shade of pines, slipped down a path and around the meanderings of a hedge. He heard horses, beyond the shoulder of the house, and where the hedge ended he saw lanterns, the front gate, and the great courtyard of the estate, where the gate let in on a paved expanse large enough for the hundreds of horses that were gathered there, and up onto the delicate garden-slopes—everywhere an animal could stand.
Men were running to the gates. Whoever had come in to join them had arrived at the front with a great deal of commotion in the street, but no attack. There were too many horses inside to admit more riders, but the gates opened a crack and they began to file inside all the same, riders crowding up into the gardens on this side of the courtyard.
Staying mounted, most all of them. Preparing for an imminent breakout, then.
Dammit, no sign of Reidi. Ghita's lot were organizing, doubtless moving on the street to clear the buildings nearby of rebel archers who might have made things difficult and given Reidi and his men some help—and the group which had gone back after Reidi had no idea what else had come in. If Reidi came with only his own company—
Where in hell is Feiyan and Hainan? Chewed to rags in the streets, pinned down? Chasing some damn ragtag down the east road? How did they let a whole damn wing loose to come back here?
Dammit to bloody hell, where are they? They should have been chasing up this company's backside.
Kegi. Bloody hell, Kegi's probably haring off to Cheng'di, Ghita's set him a lure and he's probably hot on it. Ghita's damn good. Set up an easy fight and a retreating enemy all the way down the bridge street and out the north gate and the east—
While he retakes Lungan from a sweep up this street and back to our lighter forces at the bridge, take them out, and get across to hold south while the Cheng'di garrison and Anogi come in to catch us three-sided—
Not damn bad, old fox. But you're discounting the people's tolerance for you.
Or gambling foreign threats will make you the lesser of evils.
And that the Emperor will be your safety with the priests and the north.
Horsemen rode close to the hedge, the crowding becoming that thick in the yard. Concealing what they do have in here, in the case an attack does come.
Keeping as many men as they can off the street while they get the gold loaded and the records—I'll bet there are records Ghita doesn't let out of his sight—names and lists, blackmail material—or work for his assassins. He wouldn't separate himself from those. He's too good and too careful.
Reidi, for gods' sake, scout it out before you come in.
He stood up. He walked out, a shadow afoot, he trusted, among the shadows of horses and riders, just one more soldier wandering around, possibly one of the first-arrived out designated to keep the perimeters. He slapped a soldier's horse on the rump to let it know he was there, walked past it and on down the slope.
If Reidi came down that street now he would see a comparatively small cavalry force holding the street outside. He might mistake it for the Regent's forces, drawn up to defend the headquarters . . . chase it past the gate and then discover himself attacked from the rear and the front.
No damn time to wait. Reidi was due, any time now, depending on how fast he had been able to muster a force and pass necessary orders to other companies.
Right into a trap.
He walked the high part of the slope, trying for a clear view over the backs of the horses, worse now that men were mounting up. No sight of Ghita or Beijun, which might mean that they were not—
But there was a wagon near the terrace at the main house doors. A good sturdy wagon and a double yoke of horses. That was where something had to come—the records, the gold, and likely not far off, the officers and the staff who had to make sure that wagon stayed safe. The elite guard, the Imperials, or the native Angen troops would be watching that, damn sure no random lot of mercenaries who might take it into their heads, considering all that had gone wrong, to pay themselves all at once and the hell with the commander and Chiyaden.
"That's the gold down there," he muttered to another man afoot. "Damn bet it is. Wouldn't y' like t' guard that?"
"Ain't a chance," the man said wistfully, and spat. "You come near that, you're dead."
"Where's the commander?"
"Ought to be out. Don't know what they're doin' in there."
"Waitin' for th' rebels. I had a bellyful of waitin'. I lost m' tent, lost ever' damn thing—"
"Me too." Another spit. "Not that it was much."
"Lot of gold down there."
"Don't say it. You can die for thinkin' it."
"I ain't. I ain't thinkin' a thing. If I was thinkin', I wouldn't be here."
He walked on, sauntered down the slope, down among the horses—looked up as the doors opened and light flooded out, with the shadows of Imperial guards and a number of official types coming out onto the terrace.
"Clear it back!" an officer yelled, and Imperials moved down to clear a space around the wagon, and to bring certain horses in close to the steps. Moving fast now. Shoka edged his way closer to the line the Imperials were making, and kept an eye to the porch.
Plan your retreat, master Shoka.
Up the steps, cut a few throats and run like hell down the terraces for the scullery gate—if the leg still has it.
Damn scullery lane's a dead end. Got to make that streetside corner in a hurry.
Where are you, kid? For gods' sakes, where are you?
He looked up to the porch as more men came out, one smallish man in robes being hustled along by others. And one tall, lank one in plain armor, with a gilt-embroidered robe thrown over it, and a helmet fancier than the armor.
None of that mattered. He knew Ghita's face, every nuance of body movements.
"You!" a voice snapped from the height of the steps, and he looked, alarmed, straight into an Imperial's face.
"Get him!" the guard yelled. And Imperials poured off the porch as soldiers scattered—as Shoka drew and took out the first and second to come at him, and charged for the porch, hell with anything but the target, who was retreating behind his guards.
Horses screamed of a sudden and wheels cracked into the terrace steps, splintering wood, then jerking forward. Shoka cleared himself a space about him and staggered back as a horse bolted between him and the guards, horses scrambling every way in mortal terror, over the terraces, breaking down railings, crashing through hedges—
He whirled clear of pursuing guards and reeled under the buffet of a horse's shoulder, dived into the general chaos of bolting and rearing horses and struggling riders and saw the fire burning, saw a fiery trail come through the air and rebound off a horse's rump, to fall and panic others as it burned under their feet.
"Taizu!"
He saw the outer gate opening, saw men running out into the lantern-lit street. Horses escaped that way. From somewhere high in the air came a booming, echoing voice.
"Damn you, Gitu!" it howled, female and huge. "Damn your cousin too! You pack of thieves, I'll have your eyes for pig-food! I'll roast you in hell and have your bones for a necklace! And anyone with you, I'll lay diseases on him, I'll give him the plague and the pox, I'll curse you with cold beds and cold feet and cold in your bones all your life, till you die and I carry you off to hell for my dinner, every one of you!"
Men ran in the firelight, crazed as the horses, bolting for the gate, the terraces, the gardens, grabbing onto horses and escaping as they could.
Ghita stared, looking up at the balconies, and Shoka jumped for the porch, vaulted the rail and sliced his way through startled guards and staff, two blows dealt before Ghita realized where he was and backed up to shelter behind clerkly men who wanted no part of it.
"You damn dog!" Shoka yelled, and took his head off while staff ran for the inner halls and guards rushed to defend a dead man.
One, two, and three died, before the quick-thinking fourth assessed the situation and somersaulted backward over the terrace railing, out of his way.
The Paladin Page 34