Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “ Tonight,” Deiso said, “tonight they will bring force in. We have other bands coming, and they may be here before daylight. But we ought not to wait for an outcome, nandi.”

  “Whatever Banichi says,” Bren stated, “I accept.”

  More Taibeni forces coming in behind them was good news; but the chance of the Kadigidi getting in and slaughtering the household—not considering the Kadigidi might have agents on the inside . . . he was very ready to go without them. He would be dismayed if Banichi counseled waiting any longer.

  “The paidhi is with us,” Banichi said.

  “No question,” Bren said, and Deiso:

  “Then we should move, should we not?”

  Ten thousand questions, a whole world he wanted to know—but certainties were not available. He went back to his mecheita. The rangers mounted up, and he did, and fell in with his own staff. The band started to move eastward, in the deepening dark, up the low rise and down again. Clouds had moved across the stars, taking away even the starlight, and a breeze-borne chill swept down at their faces, numbed his hands and made him wish, not for the first time on this trek, that he had at least remembered his gloves, and put on a sweater under his coat. No Narani, that was what it was. He had gotten used to such items turning up in his pockets. Now all he had was his gun, his useless pocket com, his pill bottle, and a spare clip.

  He ought to be terrified. He actually wasn’t sure about that, then decided what he felt wasn’t quite fear, rather a sense of fatalism, of foreboding—that he really, truly couldn’t envision their success in this operation, or more to the point, envision exactly what they were going to do once they had gotten onto the grounds and rescued the dowager, even granted their success. He doubted Ilisidi was up to a long, breakneck ride—she’d surprised him before, but she’d been out of the saddle for two years herself. And even if she could surprise him, he knew of a certainty that Lord Tatiseigi wasn’t up to it—and what were they to do to prevent consequences from overwhelming the one key lord in the middle provinces?

  Over all, he feared they were going to have to stand and fight to keep Tatiseigi and the dowager alive, hoping for their own numbers to increase, as surely the Kadigidi were going to bring in reinforcements. Which would be very bad for the Atageini house, and its fragile lilies . . . worse for its surrounding towns, and their peaceful existence. The farmers—the locals—could have their whole structure blown to bits . . . vulnerable as the porcelain lilies.

  His own affairs—he had wrapped up, leaving the next tries to Jase and Yolanda. He had delivered Cajeiri into the hands of his Taibeni relatives, to get to his father if they could. He trusted Toby was back on the island, likely hovering near the shortwave and hoping for news . . .

  God, this was morbid, cataloging and disposing of all his ties to the world. But the ruler he served seemed less and less likely to get back to power, the more blood they poured on the matter, and if it didn’t happen, the world didn’t need a paidhi whose advice had led to civil war and bodies lying in windrows. . . .

  That was the underlying thought, wasn’t it? There was a certain justice in his being here, and he had run out of remedies. If he sent his staff off to take up service with Cajeiri, in the first place, they wouldn’t go, and if he went, himself, it would bring Cajeiri association with him. Everything seemed circular reasoning. Everything led where he was . . . which left him unable to see the outcome. He couldn’t even see how it mattered, except he might kill some Guildsman who adhered to the Kadigidi, and they might kill him, and nothing, in the long run, would get fixed, not by him, would it?

  Maybe by Jase. Maybe by Lord Geigi, who could sit up in the heavens and say, you idiots, I told you so. Are you ready to stop killing each other?

  Because the kyo would show up. And somebody had to be in charge. He was sure of that, as sure as he was that the whole current enterprise was unlikely to succeed.

  Once he analyzed it that way, he began to have a roadmap of what they had to do, and what constituted a win—if only raising enough hell on the planet that Geigi and Jase got wind of his failure early, before the Kadigidi could capitalize on their win.

  At best, getting Ilisidi back to Taiben and making the Kadigidi look a little less powerful than they claimed. That would put egg on their faces . . . start one hell of a war, but it wouldn’t leave the world to Murini’s non-existent common sense. Get Ilisidi to Taiben. That prospect might even budge Tatiseigi to go, be it in that antique roadster, not to mention the Kadigidi would never be able to claim the man’chi of the Atageini populace . . . who would rally to their oldest enemies, the Taibeni, and create a very hard kernel of resistence right next to the Kadigidi.

  Damn, he was starting to think again, not on a cosmic scale, not of the politics of species, but in the dirt and sweat world of detailed politics and the knack of leaving an enemy looking less successful, while one’s own tattered cause emerged looking as if it had won something. Atevi, like humans, dearly loved a neatly carried action, an outrageous enterprise.

  He became downright foolishly cheerful, as cheerful, at least, as contemplating the necessary obverse of that coin could let him be. The wind altogether seemed a little warmer, the dark a great deal friendlier to them.

  Give the Kadigidi a surprise? Maybe. His backside had passed the tingling point, far past pain, where the jouncing and jolting of the mecheita’s gait was concerned; he could ignore discomfort, now. The darkened landscape passed in a shadow-play of his own staff riding near and then past him and back again, the rangers tending to the lead, in a territory they seemed to know much better than Lord Tatiseigi might like—down one long slope and another, and finally toward a dark line of shadow that his eyes began to resolve as artificial, the hedge that would conceal a fence, the estate boundary.

  It came closer and closer until it barred off their forward progress, an ancient hedge more than head high to a mecheita, thick and tangled and stubborn—and how they could possibly pass it, he had no idea . . . but their scout had.

  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 mecheita 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 mecheita 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 mecheita scraped through, dragging his right knee pai
nfully past an unyielding broken branch and ripping his trousers in the process.

  They were onto the estate grounds, then, with a single mecheita’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 mecheiti 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 mecheiti 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 mecheita 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 mecheita’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 mecheita’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—near-sighted, 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 mecheita, forcing it to a complete stop on the drive.

  “Get down!” Banichi yelled at him, and he questioned not an instant. His mecheita 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 mecheiti 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.

  More gunfire. The hedge across the stable path offered better advantage, a short crawl in the open, and he scrambled for it, forcing his way in. He came up against a metal stake that must be some of the surveillance equipment—which, God knew, might be telling the house at this very moment that there was an intruder in the brush. He felt for wires, found a conduit, wondered exactly what it led to, but there was no cut-off point, no switch available.

  Not a place to linger, in any case. From his new vantage, wriggling further, he saw the stable yard, its rails down, mecheiti milling about against the skeletal ruin that had been the stable itself.

  And he saw atevi moving down the drive, coming from that direction—not his staff, he feared.

  Then he saw half a dozen atevi running in his direction, down the drive, toward his former hiding-spot at the corner of the house.

  Not his staff, a dim judgement said, and he whipped up his gun and pasted a single shot at the house corner.

  The movement halted, spun about, flattened, and now fire flew in earnest, shots chipping the stonework, ricocheting off the ruined arch over his head. He’d been right—he hoped he’d been right, that his shot had warned Banichi, that he hadn’t aimed at some of Deiso’s men by accident. Or—a sober second thought—Tatiseigi’s.

  A shot whisked through the branches above him, clipping evergreen, giving off a strange vegetative pungency in a night air choked with fire and gunpowder. He flattened himself all the way against the dirt, and heard the men who’d taken cover at his one shot now attempt to move. He sent a second shot toward the brickwork, and then, remembering what Banichi and Jago had taught him, slithered as silently as possible back along the hedge to a changed perspective, down among the roots, a much smaller target than atevi would generally be aiming at, and he had possible hiding-places an ateva wouldn’t fit into.

  Electric shock jolted his arm, right to the roots of his teeth. He jumped—he couldn’t help it. But he didn’t cry out.

  He’d found the only damned live wire in the hedge.

  He eased back, nursing a numb arm, and tried to
figure out where that loose wire was, and what it was connnected to, which seemed to be a junction box, a little down from his position, not particularly well-protected, and cut, at this end. Deliberately disabled, and not by someone inside the house, who controlled the master cutoff.

  What had been cut could be rejoined. He wondered what would happen if he did. Wondered whether it was sensors or lights connected to this line. Lights could expose his own people, as well as the other.

  But there was a buildup of hostile force in his area, which was exposed, and likely nervous, hesitating to move into chancier cover where Banichi and his crew waited. He reached through the brush another few meters and located what he’d crawled over. Pulled it gently, rolled on his shoulder while shots continued to go off and uselessly chip the pale stonework near the corner.

  Hell, he thought. Whatever was going on around the house, if Cenedi and the dowager were still holding out inside, they couldn’t know what was going on. One thing would tell them, encourage them, give them the notion things weren’t all to the attackers’ liking. He dragged the wire back. Touched it to the live one.

  Snap! The lights popped on and a siren blared for about a second before he jerked the wire away.

  Gunfire spattered through the hedge. He hoped to God he’d not gotten anyone on his side killed. But Banichi wasn’t easy to surprise. Neither, he hoped, were the Taibeni.

  Then he heard a whistle he knew. Once, twice. Fortunate three.

  He reconnected the wires. And all hell broke loose above his head, shots going every which way. Mecheiti squalled, and all of a sudden one broke through the hedge, catching the wire, jerking it right out of his hand.

  He didn’t know where it had gone. He couldn’t find it. He didn’t know which way his own side was. The firing kept up, and a concussion went off against the corner of the house, sending a shockwave right over him, deafening him for the moment, in a small fall of leaves.