Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  Now Taiben came onto land they historically, before the clearing of these meadows, regarded as their own—bitter, bitter pill, the dowager’s insistence on Tatiseigi’s putting his seal to that letter. Tatiseigi would have an apoplexy if he knew the Taibeni had come in without it.

  But Tatiseigi could pitch his fit. It was another thought he was chasing through the underbrush, beyond the Kadigidi-Atageini affair: another old, old association: the woodlands, the highlands, the long sweep of surviving woodland that swept right around the flank of the Kadigidi, woodland toward the west, outflanking the lowland association, serving as a barrier against lowland expansion. Come into that forest, and die.

  Richness of game. Cover for movement . . . Atageini towns, historically, more afraid of those woods than they were of the plains-based Kadigidi. They would not go into the north. Would not intrude there. Would not poach that land, only appealed to their lord in Tirnamardi when game herds spilled over and damaged their crops . . .

  Dusty papers, books, research in his cramped little office, the week he had succeeded Wilson-paidhi, all those years ago. Sunlight slanting through the window of the single room, its shelves piled high with books, facts obscuring truth in sheer abundance of paper . . .

  Blink. Hindbrain made conclusions. Realized they had traveled northwest, away from the road. Were going due east from their meeting-spot, aimed at that long, long hedge and fence. They weren’t going in the gate.

  Blink, again. Tabini had stopped on Atageini land, paid his visit, played his politics; and the Atageini had stayed firmly bound to the aishidi’tat, not falling in with the Kadigidi, not trusting, so long as Lady Damiri stayed bound to Tabini-aiji, any blandishments of the Kadigidi—because the Kadigidi would never rely on the Atageini lord, not with Damiri mothering Tabini’s heir, Tatiseigi’s kinsman . . .

  Taiben had reason to think the Kadigidi would push the Atageini and that the old man ruling at Tirnamardi would have no choice but to play politics, having no force, no great establishment of security and weaponry such as Taiben had built during Tabini-aiji’s rule.

  That mathematics went on in the dowager’s head, no question. No question his staff had understood it in all its permutations, with no word said among them. He began to have his own gut feeling that maybe his suggesting Taiben had never been a bad idea, that the dowager had been inclining in that direction and hadn’t seen quite how to do it . . . until she pounced on Cajeiri as the key part of the equation, necessary to tip the old man into compliance. Atevi, he had long suspected, didn’t always logic their way through such calculations at etherial distance: they felt the pull of clan and house and influence, they moved, they acted in a peculiar symmetry, and, cold and logical as the dowager could be—she might have had a piece snapped into place for her, thanks to him. Or had she, damn her, forced a move?

  Gut-sense said their little band was going in the right direction now, if not before. Safety was behind them. Chaos was swirling around Tirnamardi, trying to destroy the dowager, to suck the lord of the Atageini right down into it—damned right, the dowager had known the hazard, known that a very key player would be tottering, the more as their arrival onworld shoved hard at the situation—what was Tatiseigi going to think when they came back, if they didn’t come to him and expect his help?

  And what, conversely, were the Kadigidi going to assume as fact, when he hosted the dowager? Every atevi involved in this mess had to feel the swing of that internal compass: man’chi. Man’chi applied even to him, as clearly as he had ever had that sense, and the dowager pushing every button she could reach . . . setting herself right at the crux of the matter and demanding extravagant action. Come and save us—move, if you have any disposition to move, and the hell with waiting for it.

  Atevi weren’t given to fighting wars. Not often. But one was certainly shaping up here. Not just the usual skirmish, the usual Guild action, the fall of critical leaders: this was in one sense a small skirmish, but it happened on the dividing line between two forces, and the Guild, such as it was, had begun to engage—his staff, on this side. Kadigidi, on the other . . . and the only thing Ilisidi hadn’t foreseen was the boy, of all her resources, kiting off to Taiben, following his own developing instincts. Cajeiri had forced every power in play to readjust position . . . the boy had been under intolerable pressure, seen the situation, and, being his father’s son, he’d moved, damn his young hide, seized power of his own, without consulting his great-grandmother.

  Atevi mathematics. Calculations he had to logic his way through. And now the fool human was riding the wave back again, having gathered force enough, he hoped to God—force that looked, by cold daylight, a little less precise, a little more weather-worn, Jago’s hair for once straying a few wisps out of her braid, their uniforms, even their faces smudged with pale trail-dust, frown-lines appearing that did not exist, otherwise. Exhausted. All of them, Deiso and the rangers as well, not to mention the beasts that carried them. It was a dangerous condition, and logic had nothing to do with what they were doing now, except evolutionary logic—mass movement of the forces across the continent, politics on its grandest scale.

  They rode, leaving the mecheiti that had carried them outward to graze, rest, and wander on their own logic back to Taibeni territory, or to trail after them if they were so inclined. The sun rose. The landscape passed in a haze of autumn grass, low scrub, the rolling hills. No one explained or talked or wondered. They all knew. Even the human did, now. Bren shut his eyes, locked his leg across the beast’s neck, trapped under his other knee, wrapping his arms as close to his center of gravity as he could, and for a few moments at a time he found he could rest, waking in a kind of daze, with no coherent thought beyond a realization that, yes, check of the internal compass, they were still headed east, to Tirnamardi, and, no, he hadn’t fallen off. No one spoke, which suited him, and the thunderous quiet began to seem the whole universe, closer and closer to an armageddon that wasn’t going to involve humans—except this one. There was some solace in that.

  Eyes shut again.

  Opened. The world had hushed. Stopped moving. He was still in the saddle.

  “Nandi.” A ranger was standing beside his right leg, offering him up a canteen and a stick of concentrate. He discovered hunger he hadn’t known he had, wolfed the small bar down, barely a bite for an ateva, and drank deeply before he gave the canteen back.

  Awake, this time, fugue-state never having produced specific information, only a general centering where he was, in what course he was taking. He had no interest at all in dismounting and having to climb up again. He was settled. He might die on mecheita-back, somewhere across that intervening distance. At least he wouldn’t have to walk there to do it.

  Banichi rode alongside for a moment, inquired how he fared.

  “Well enough,” he said. “Well enough, Banichi-ji.” He asked no opinions. In the headlong rush of elements in this chaos, there was nothing orderly at all. Jago was near him. Tano and Algini were behind him. That was what he needed. That was what they all needed. It was an atevi sorting-out, as necessary to them as the mecheiti moving with their leader. He was the one with the illusion of absolute choice. And where was he? Where his heart led him. Going to get the dowager out of a mess. End of all questions.

  And having discovered that, shortly after they set to moving again, he let his head droop and honestly fell asleep—waked, suddenly, as balance changed, his heart skipping a beat. They had hit a long downward slope. A dark bar crossed the meadow ahead, and, bewildering him for the instant, the sun had somehow sunk well down the sky—

  God, how had they gotten this far, this late? He both wanted to be closer, and was appalled that they were this close, choices, if there ever had been, steadily diminishing. Was there a better political answer? The paidhi was supposed to find them, if they existed, and he was bereft of other ideas. Was there better than going along that fence, or finding the hunting gate Lord Tatiseigi had said existed? His staff had that expertise, if there wa
s a way.

  A smell wafted on the wind, faint scent of disaster, urging they had no time for alternatives, that maybe they were already out of time.

  “Smoke, nadiin,” he said. It was not a strong smell. It was wind-scattered, but he was very sure of it, and he was sure they had caught it, too, and drawn their own unhappy conclusions.

  “There will have been plenty of it, one fears,” Banichi said. “But there has been no more sound such as last night. Scattered gunfire.”

  “They are still shooting?” He took that for hope.

  “Sporadically so, nadi,” Banichi informed him, and he cherished that thought as they rode the long slow roll to the crest of the next hill.

  From there they had that view they had had on a prior evening, with Atageini farmland to the north, in the distance, and their bar, mostly arrow-straight, resolved as one part of the considerable hedges and fence of Tirnamardi’s grounds.

  They rode closer. There was no visible smoke rising, but the smell persisted. Banichi listened, with the com unit, and shook his head, riding ahead to confer briefly with Deiso and his wife.

  There was no view of the house at this distance. It lay behind a roll of the land. The hedge grew more distinct in their view, with no variance. He wished he had binoculars.

  The conference between Banichi and the rangers continued. Their pace slowed, and came to a halt just off the crest of the hill, down in a low spot where they wouldn’t present a hilltop silhouette to observers near the hedge. The whole group bunched up, mecheiti sorting into a lazy order, dipping their heads to catch a mouthful of volunteer grain that had strayed from farmer’s fields into the the meadow grass.

  A glance westward showed color. The sun had begun to stain the sky at their backs.

  And the conference continued.

  Shots, Banichi had said. Sniping. They were coming in to overset whatever balance had been struck.

  Towns existed north and south of here, and some further east. There was no sign yet, of a wider conflict, of farmers and craftsmen drawn into what still remained, thus far, a matter for lords and Guild. That might yet happen. If passions were too far stirred, it could well happen, common clansmen against common clansmen of the neighboring province—that was what they had to avert. It was the lords’ job to prevent it.

  And that—the scattered bits from his musings began to try to gel—the lords had to get provocations away from the people. If they had not lost the dowager already, their own last and best chance—with Cajeiri safely committed to Taiben—was to snatch up Ilisidi and veer around Tirnamardi and the Kadigidi, north-eastward, through those forestland corridors and toward the mountains, where his best guess said he might find Tabini, or at least find help. Those mountains, hazed in twilight, floated above the landscape where they waited, a vision distant as the moon in the sky, and seeming downright as difficult to attain, bone-weary as they were.

  He could, if he were a coward, draw off his staff, even yet, pick up Cajeiri, get back to the coast and try to raise support in the north, maybe even back off to Mospheira and make another try from there. His mind was awake. Alternatives were spinning through the attic of his thoughts, none viable.

  Folly, riding in there, blind and possibly much too late. He contained so much knowledge—but, ironically, it was knowledge an eight-year-old boy had, that Jase had, the star that was the station and the ship not yet apparent, but he knew it was there, and that thought held like an anchor. For once in his life he had backup, of sorts, and he could afford a risk. He could be a total fool, charging into the situation, as if he could rescue the two oldest, canniest connivers in all the aishidi’tat . . .

  Ilisidi wouldn’t call him a fool. She’d bet on him showing up. Probably so would Cenedi, who wouldn’t have gone throwing his life away on an attack against the Kadigidi. She would be thinking about those mountains, too, and yet still stood by a pivotal old politicking fool, to be sure he didn’t collapse and cave in the belly of the aishidi’tat—

  Forcing the issue, damn her. Forcing all of them. Forcing the Guild itself, from its perch in Shejidan, to have a look at the escalating chaos . . . and to face a new fact: that Murini-aiji didn’t control the middle lands or the north.

  Banichi rode back to them, swinging his mecheita in close. Jago moved near, companionably. And a movement in the tail of Bren’s eye advised him one of the rangers had gotten down, and now left afoot, running.

  “Toward the hunting gate?” he asked his staff.

  “Not that far, nandi,” Banichi said. “Get down. We shall, to rest here and wait. He should make the fence about twilight.”

  Half an hour or so. Banichi himself dismounted, while his mecheita resumed interest in the scattered heads of grain. Bren experimentally slung both legs over the side, his mecheita likewise occupied, and slid down. Banichi caught him under the arms and set him down gently as if he were Cajeiri.

  “There,” Banichi said gently. “Go sit down, Bren-ji. Your staff has business with the Taibeni.”

  “If I have a regret, nadiin-ji, it is ever bringing you into this situation.”

  “The paidhi-aiji’s company is usually interesting.” A wry smile from Banichi. He couldn’t help but laugh, however thin and soundless it came out, and however upset it left him.

  “Go,” Jago said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Rest, Bren-ji. Your company may be interesting. But our talk will be dry detail.”

  A stray civil servant, indeed, wasn’t highly useful to Guild at this point, particularly Guild trying to think of all possible eventualities. He took Banichi’s advice, walked over to a spot where it seemed little likely that mecheiti would step on him. There he sat down, knees drawn up, head on hands for a moment. He seemed to have filled his quota of sleep, such as it had been. Rest seemed unlikely. Clear thought was not producing any comfort. Seeking some occupation for his hands, then, he unloaded his gun, checked its condition and blew out a little lint before he reloaded, all the while trying not to think more than five minutes ahead of him.

  He never had mastered that knack.

  13

  Wind blew the grass, clouds moved with incredible slowness, the mecheiti grazed, one of them always head-up, watching the surrounds. And a close band of atevi sat laying plans while the sun went down.

  Bren wished he could sleep. He couldn’t. He sat, rested his knees together in front of him, feet apart, and his arms against him, not a graceful position, but one that kept him mostly off the cold ground, and kept the wind at his back—since wind there had begun to be, now, a brisk wind that equaled the chill of the ground, against which his jacket was no defense at all.

  The sun slipped past the edge of the world, and he rested his head down, aware that his bodyguard had come back to him and settled down to rest. He wouldn’t make them go through it all again for his information—he wouldn’t rob them of the sleep they’d won, and pursued, while strangers watched over them.

  He did drift, waked in total disorientation, still sitting up, conscious of complete night, of movement around him, and for a single panicked moment not knowing what mecheiti were doing in his cabin.

  Atageini land, a hellish mess, the dowager somewhere beyond that ridge, and Banichi and Jago up talking to people who were, yes, Taiben rangers. Tano and Algini were with him, one on a side, and everything was, considering the presence of a couple of dozen mecheiti, very quiet, very hushed. He didn’t want to chatter questions. But he tried to get his legs to move. It took a couple of efforts and finally Algini’s help to get up. He stood, a little embarrassed, rubbed numb spots, not an elegant process.

  “Our spy is back,” Algini told him.

  “What do we know?”

  “The house remains protected, and inner defenses are still live, nandi,”

  Supremely good news, and it represented a great risk on the part of the ranger that had gone in to find out.

  “The estate perimeter fence is inactive,” Tano said. “One believes they have taken the house as the sole point
of resistence, and the stable burned, which was likely the light we saw, but overall the house is still a point of resistence, and one believes now the neighboring towns may feel it necessary to intervene.”

  Not good news. Townsmen who elected to get involved in a Guild action were as likely to create confusion for their own side, and the Guild on the other side would not spare them.

  “We are moving in, nadiin?”

  “One believes so,” Algini said.

  Time he did talk to Banichi and Jago. He walked, still massaging a stiff leg, over to the conference.

  “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 unneighborly move. That means secondary force is involved, and one perceives they were tentative, not committing great force.”