Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Nadi.” Keimi was an older man, in country clothes, with scratches on his face and graying hair straying from its queue. But there was no country accent. “Welcome. Welcome to the aiji-dowager, and to the paidhi.”

  “Nadi.” Bren gave a nod of his head. More watchers had appeared, women and men, even a couple of children. The woods was populated.

  “Along with ourselves,” Cenedi said, “we have brought trouble. This bus, for which our opposition will be searching by every possible means.”

  “We should get away from this area,” Keimi said. “And will. Is the dowager able to ride?”

  “Able to ride?” That small stir in the aisle of the bus at their backs was not another of their security, it was Ilisidi herself who forged her way to the door, above the steps, with every intent of descending. “Able to ride?” Ilisidi said indignantly. “Bury me, the day I am unable to ride. Have you mecheiti?”

  “We have sixteen, aiji-ma, scattered about for safety. Sixteen, and their gear, and can get others.”

  “Excellent.” Ilisidi wanted to descend, and lowered her cane to the steps. Cenedi reached to assist her, and when he had her in reach, lifted her by the waist and set her on the ground, where she planted her cane and, leaning on it, surveyed the gathering that had materialized out of the dawn woods.

  “Nadiin-ji, where is my grandson?”

  People looked at one another in dismay, and Keimi bit his lip.

  “Say it,” Ilisidi snapped with a thump of that cane. “Is he dead, or is he alive?”

  “We by no means know, nand’ dowager. The aiji was here when the trouble began at Shejidan, and there was some talk of going back to the capital, but he sent the paidhi—Mercheson-paidhi—to Mogari-nai, and then followed, and came back. But he left.”

  “He came back from Mogari-nai,” Ilisidi said. Bren’s heart lifted. There was news. “And where did he go?”

  “He refused to say, nand’ dowager. His guard said it was for safety.”

  “He had his guard with him.”

  “He had Deisi and Majidi, nand’ dowager. He did not have the other two. One fears—”

  “And my mother?” Cajeiri asked, pressing forward. “Was my mother with him?”

  “Cajeiri-nandi?” Keimi asked. The boy had been four when Taiben last saw him. “Nandi, Damiri-daja was with the aiji, in good health. And we do know they left eastward, with Deisi and Majidi.”

  “Alone?” the dowager interrupted sharply.

  “We wished to send a larger guard, aiji-ma. We all would have gone. We could not persuade the aiji your grandson. He said he would move more quietly.”

  “Toward the east,” Ilisidi mused, and Bren drew a deep breath, thinking: either into Damiri’s home territory, Atageini land, relying her great-uncle Tatiseigi’s having stayed on Tabini’s side in this mess—or past the Atageini and past Kadigidi territory, into deeper wilderness.

  Or straight at Kadigidi borders, to strike at the heart of the enemy, Bren thought with a chill. On one level it would be like Tabini, not to depart without retaliation—but, God, against tremendous odds, and refusing Taiben’s offer, and with Damiri.

  Instinct said no, that wasn’t what he had done, not with Damiri on his hands, not with the ship due to show up with answers, with the dowager, with his heir. He’d want to minimize damage, want to keep his losses low, his strength intact, and organize.

  “Then we shall assume he is waiting for us,” Ilisidi said, echoing his own estimation. “We have committed the coastal association at Desigien. Now we have contacted you. Attack will surely follow in both instances, if the scoundrels setting up in Shejidan have begun to track us. We were approached by one of their people in Desigien territory, and we assume there are others of his ilk in other villages. We have brought you this ungainly bus, laying tracks all the way, which we had rather not have done, but we had little choice—we have come in from the rail station, with an unfortunate lot of racket, and we fear they will follow.”

  “It will not find us, dowager-ji. We are never where it comes. And those they send here do not come back.”

  Historic guerilla war, the way atevi had fought from the dawn of time, before the Assassins’ Guild had risen up to make it a conflict of professionals. These were not of that guild. They were foresters. They were there, they were not, they scattered and they reconverged on a timetable that had nothing to do with clocks. Bren had no idea what their capabilities were, and he would put his money on the Assassins, in a contest, but tracking them—the edge was with the Taiben folk.

  “Come, nandiin,” Keimi said, and moved a branch aside. Others held the brush back, making a hazy path through the thicket, one that the dowager followed, with Cenedi, with Cajeiri, and all of them followed, baggage hauled out of the bus, ported along. Bren carried his computer, and Jago carried her duffle and his just behind him, the men taking two bags apiece, their bulk a hard load in the thicket, and the rangers helped, holding branches aside, making a corridor for them, leading them by ways that became, imperceptibly, a trail, broad, free of branches.

  Brush ahead of them cracked, however, with a noise that left no doubt of a presence in the woods, and at a distance, a mecheita made that soft, disgusted sound that, once heard, one never forgot.

  Mecheiti. Four-footed transport that left far less trace in Taiben’s wide lands than a stolen bus. In a moment more, around a bend of the trail, a rider sat waiting with a number of saddled mecheiti, tall, rough-looking beasts, golden brown to sable, and possessed of two hand-span long tusks that ordinarily were capped, in domestic mecheiti, for safety of bystanders.

  These were not. The tusks were bare, and dangerous, and all the herd went under saddle, reins simply lapped about saddle rings, but they were not led—and would not stray off, not even if shots were flying. It was all follow-the-leader in a crisis, the impulse that made a charge of these beasts so formidable.

  The sole rider slid down off that leader, a scarred, ear-bitten creature, and, maintaining a careful hold on the halter, he bowed to Ilisidi and offered her the rein.

  She can’t, Bren thought in dread. She hasn’t the strength, and, dammit, she won’t admit it.

  “Sidi-ji,” Cenedi said, offering his hand.

  Ilisidi ignored him, took the rein and the quirt, administered a whack to the impervious red-brown shoulder, a second whack, and a tug at the rein. The mecheita swung its tusked head around, snorted, stopped short by the handler while it inhaled the scent of someone strange, a diminutive someone who tapped its foreleg, now that she had its attention, tapped it hard behind, and took no nonsense.

  Second snort. It had the scent, it had the signal, and that foreleg obediently shot out, the shoulder dipped, and, with Cenedi’s slight boost, Ilisidi grasped the saddle ring with the quirt-hand, got her foot squarely in the mounting-stirrup, and used the momentum of the mecheita’s sudden rise to land astride, not to pitch over the other shoulder—thank God, not to pitch off, as the paidhi had so notoriously done on one occasion. Ilisidi was up, she had the rein in one hand, the quirt in the other, and she was secure. More, she no longer struggled to walk: she had four fast legs under her. The mecheita in question gave an explosive sigh, acknowledging an expert hand in charge, no showy moves, just little taps of the quirt at the right time and an unfamiliar mecheita circled out of the way under complete control.

  It was a knack the paidhi oh, so wished he had—because the next matter at hand was for him to get up on one of these beasts, and not to be ripped up by those tusks or pitched onto his head.

  “Nand’ paidhi?” Keimi had loosed the rein on a smallish mecheita, pulled the requisite quirt from its secure place, and offered him transport.

  He took the offered rein and the quirt in hand, and had no shame at all in using Banichi’s help to get up, no need for the beast to make violent moves or even to kneel: Banichi threw him upward, he landed astride, did not pitch over the other way, and settled. He had the rein, and the creature turned its head on its snaky neck, on
e limpid, treacherous eye measuring its likely chances of unseating him. The ivory tusks gleamed in the forest shadow.

  Timidity with these beasts was lethal. He resolutely tapped its shoulder, took his chance and tapped the hindquarters, to make it swing back out of the way. It answered his signal, wonderful beast, and even stood still while Jago passed his computer up to him.

  That was as far as he had to manage. The beast need not move until the leader moved, would not stray, and he settled the strap over his head, as secure as he could be. His personal duffle he saw loaded onto another mecheita, baggage lashed to the saddles of three additional mecheiti, before all was done. When their company was all settled aboard, there were still left five mecheiti for the oldest and the youngest of Keimi’s party—and those five mounts turned out to accommodate seven, since children doubled up. Adults clearly meant to walk—wherever they were going.

  Keimi led off at a brisk walk on the broad trail, branched off to the right when there was a choice and kept them moving, downhill and up again.

  No one said, even yet, where they were going, and it was too difficult to ask, strung out as they were, the mecheiti assuming their habitual order in the herd. They were heading to another of the drop points, Bren was fairly sure. On his legs’ account he hoped for a short ride: none of them had ridden in years, and even Cajeiri’s young body was going to feel it in an hour, let alone the dowager’s and Cenedi’s. But for their safety’s sake, he hoped it was a long way from the bus, which sat like a signpost in the brush. Getting the dowager clear away from it was a priority that needed no questions.

  The Taiben rangers were no fools, and as they moved out, one could suspect other, well-armed parties might well move in to watch that bus and wait for someone from the opposition to come investigating . . . and if the Sidonin authorities were no fools, they might hesitate to take the chance themselves. If the Kadigidi tried it, they could be sure their quarry was not likely to be sitting there waiting to be caught. In the upshot of the whole affair, very likely local authorities in Sidonin would, after a little show of anger for Murini-aiji’s consumption, send someone to the Taibeni under truce and negotiate to get their bus back, oh, in a few days, when the dust had settled.

  By then—by then, their party might be a long way gone from the area. Maybe by then they would have gained news of Tabini. Maybe they would be rallying supporters for a return to power and the chain of dominoes they had started in Adaran might fall here, too.

  That thought lent a giddy feeling of freedom, with the willing strength of the animal under him, with the rhythm of movement and the creak of leather, the home sun’s light sifting through bluegreen leaves above and about them.

  This was Taiben. This was where he and Tabini had started all those years ago, a simple hunting trip, the gift of a forbidden firearm. Thoughts started picking up details, old memories, people, places, connections remade. Resources. Possibilities.

  8

  Whistles began to sound through the woods, faintly carrying beyond hills and thickets—the source might have been at the next turn of the trail, or far, far off. Cajeiri looked over his shoulder, startled, when first they heard them, and then as Keimi answered with a similar whistle, Cajeiri settled in again, perhaps some deep memory of having heard those whistles before, in the earliest years of his young life.

  They were watched, but the watchers were their own, protective. Keimi’s easy attitude said he believed they were safe, and Banichi’s said he believed Keimi, so Bren felt reassured enough.

  The mecheiti hit their best traveling stride on trails well-used and clear of overhead entanglement—not forest creatures, but perfectly capable in that environment. Their party took only small breaks for rest, and at last let the mecheiti water at a small forest stream, where they themselves drank as much as they wanted, water that tasted not of immaculate filters, but of the woods where it flowed. Clear and cold, it held the slight mineral tang of stone and the slight flavor of good clean moss. Bren washed his face with it, taking in the chill and the smell of the deep springs that fed it—shivered, happy in the sensations.

  Cajeiri spat out his first mouthful in sheer surprise, but he looked around him, saw everyone else drinking, and then drank without complaint, wise lad. He, too, washed, and wiped his hair back—a long strand had escaped its queue, and, dampened, made a trailing streamer beside his face. He stuck it behind his ear and hugged his arms about him, sitting like a lump on the mossy bank, a very weary boy, not so full of questions now, not in the last two hours.

  But two teenaged Taibeni drank near him, turning shy looks in his direction, and then offered him a bit to eat, one of those little nut and fruit bars Bren would have been glad to have, remembering his own time in Taiben. Cajeiri clearly had his doubts of the irregular, much-handled roll, and Bren watched, wondering if he should say something, as, indeed, their difficult Cajeiri, whose delicate palate had balked at unprocessed water, hesitated between courtesy and suspicion. The boy of the pair held it out nonetheless, insisting with a motion of his hand and an earnest look. Cajeiri hesitantly took it, took a bite, and a bigger bite, then ate the whole sweet, and washed it down with a double handful of the despised spring water.

  “Thank you, nadiin,” Cajeiri said, and two heads bobbed in respect, the three of them crouching there, three youngsters on the mossy edge. Good, Bren thought, seeing Cajeiri relax and trust those who ought to be trusted.

  And when they were underway again, the two Taibeni, who had been walking to the rear of their column, now walked alongside Cajeiri’s mecheita, keeping the pace with strong, determined strides, looking up with just now and again a little youthful chatter, a protective attitude—they were older—and occasionally the necessity to dodge a stray sapling. Cajeiri began to ask questions: where do you live, how long have you been here, how did you find us? In Cajeiri, this flow of questions was a heartening sign.

  Considering how the saddle hurt now, it was remarkably good spirits. Bren bore his own discomfort, looking at the dowager, wondered how she was bearing up, and whether she was going to manage another long stretch of this traveling.

  He was very much wondering that, several hours on, in late afternoon, when another few whistles came from somewhere ahead. Keimi answered that whistle, and before long, in a little cleft in the wooded hill, they met other rangers camped. There was a herd of mecheiti, all under saddle, a greater number than the five rangers who waited there . . . for them, it seemed.

  Now they had mecheiti enough for all of them to ride.

  “How did they know to meet us?” Cajeiri asked his young guides, and there were answers, a conversation that strayed into the trail system—interesting to know, but by now Bren was thinking obsessively only of his backside, and wondering if it was going to be less painful just to keep going at greater speed, wherever they were going, all of them on mecheiti, or whether they might, please God, stop now, spend the night, and stop moving, never mind the hour of mortal pain when they got into the saddle tomorrow morning. He had reached the limit, legs two years unaccustomed even to long walks, let alone this abuse, and the conference of rangers afoot and mounted passed in a haze of absolute misery.

  No one had yet uttered a word about their destination, which might be here, or days off, but likely all this hurry was to meant put distance between them and the bus, and any likelihood of the opposition tracking Ilisidi and the boy. They might have been riding in circles for all appearances—at least it had been uphill and downhill and around bends and through low spots, getting only to more forest, which, in Taiben, covered half the province.

  Cajeiri, however, asked, “Are we staying, nadiin? Are we getting down now?”

  Try, “Where are we? What are we doing here?” Bren thought, but he wanted detail that wouldn’t bear shouting up and down a moving column. He thought his staff might have an idea. He hoped they did. It was beyond the paidhi’s need to know.

  They stayed stopped for a long conversation, out of earshot. Then Cenedi got
off, and began to help the dowager to dismount.

  So they were getting down, for a while, at least. With a profound sigh and a hope of at least an hour to sit on unmoving ground, Bren expertly secured the rein, slipped his quirt into its loop, slipped his leg over and slid down the mecheita’s side.

  Mistake. Bad mistake. His legs buckled, his ankle gave on soft ground, and for a precarious moment he was in that worst of positions with mecheiti, flat on his back on the ground, dazedly looking up at his mecheita’s underside. Banichi and Jago appeared out of nowhere, Banichi to seize the mecheita’s halter, Jago to haul him to his feet and brush off his clothes.

  “The paidhi is exhausted,” Ilisidi said from a distance, having witnessed his tumble, and perhaps finding in his mishap her own excuse. “We shall rest here.”

  Their guides tried to suggest Ilisidi sit and rest, but Ilisidi had her cane in hand and walked—walked in wide, aimless patterns, as far as the clear space allowed.

  Not unwise, Bren thought. He walked a bit himself, trying to keep his legs under him, trying to get circulation back to his nether regions, and not to let the ankle give. Careless of dignity at this point, he swung his arms and bent and stretched, feeling the pain already, and knowing it would be worse before it was better. He owned, he very much recalled, a saddle more to his proportions. Unfortunately that saddle was, like the mecheita he owned, off in Malguri, at the other end of the continent, and for now, and in public, the only cure he could apply was three tablets of mild painkiller, which he carried in his baggage.

  He swallowed the dose, washed it down with spring water, then sank down gingerly on a decaying log near the baggage, in the general area where the rest of them were gathering, to wait for it to take effect. The rangers had set up a small stove, and were heating water, for tea, one ever so earnestly hoped. He watched as other utensils appeared from various baggage. Food appeared.