Betrayer: Foreigner #12 (36 page)

“Likeliest,” Cenedi continued without even looking at him, only at mani. “Likeliest the enemy is aware your grandson’s forces have landed at Separti. They have given up holding off his force at the airport, and they are holding the intersection while a number of them make a direct run to intercept nand’ Bren, to take him as a bargaining piece. That would set your grandson’s interests against the Guild leadership’s interests. That is, one fears, their immediate objective. That and controlling access to the Esig road itself.”

“So one assumes they will open a second position at the Esig intersection, near Kajiminda,” mani said. “And they will trickle back from the Najida intersection and fold up into Taisigi territory. As if my grandson’s forces would not cross that border.”

“Just so, aiji-ma. They have become aware of the second force at Separti, and they know Guild forces are in Tanaja. But if they can find nand’ Bren and take him hostage, then they will pressure your grandson to negotiate with the Guild. That is what we fear they will try to do.”

“Get past them,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “Can we not spare a unit? While they are blowing up the grass on the hill, can we not get a unit cross country to reinforce the paidhi’s guard and move him into Kajiminda?”

Please,
Cajeiri wanted to say, but mani did not favor that word. He looked at Cenedi, wishing hard.

And Cenedi said: “We shall try it, aiji-ma.”

“Do so!” A sharp wave of mani’s hand. “Let us do something useful! The Guild can stay out of our way until we have recovered the paidhi-aiji. They chose to press things. They might have waited!”

“Send my guard, too, Cenedi-nadi,” Geigi said.

“Nandi,” Cenedi said, to both, apparently, and left without another word.

But there was no guarantee it would work. Mani was angry. Lord Geigi looked worried. Those were his closest associates nand’ Geigi had just sent to get past the enemy; and Great-grandmother was sending men, too. It was dangerous. It was terribly dangerous to try to slip behind the enemy, and the field that ran up to the ridge overland was just tall grass and brush: it did not offer very much cover.

“One most fears,” Lord Geigi said somberly, “that nand’ Bren is stalled, trying to get to Kajiminda.”

“If our Edi allies do not mistake him for the enemy,” mani muttered. “One understands the Guild’s distrust of civilian assistance.”

“But,” Cajeiri began, dangerously getting mani’s sudden full attention.

“Who
is
nand’ Bren?” mani asked. “And why do you have this angry tone with us? You seem quite distressed, Great-grandson.”

Who was nand’ Bren? That made no sense at all. Nand’ Bren was nand’ Bren. Nand’ Bren was his favorite association.

But he suddenly, and with a sense of panic, understood exactly what mani was asking him.

“Nand’ Bren is
mine,
” he countered angrily, “and everyone has treated him very badly. No one cares now if I am offended. But they
will
someday.”

“Threats, do we hear? One would have thought nand’ Bren belonged to your father, young gentleman. But he has been mine. And currently he says he belongs to Lord Machigi. He has a very fickle charm.”

“Well, but he is
ours,
and
you
sent him to Lord Machigi, and now he is out there with our enemies, and we are upset, mani! We are upset with this!”

“Never assume, Great-grandson,” mani said, holding up a forefinger, “never assume that your enemy has done what they have strongly forecast doing. One imagines the enemy would be quite satisfied if all sorts of forces went running over to reinforce nand’ Bren. Then they would move in this direction and try to take
us
as hostages, not to mention nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. That is their purpose here, or they could have stayed in the Marid and tried to fight off the Guild from within their strong places. This is a risk for them. This is a desperate risk, and they will spare nothing and stick at nothing. This is life and death, and
finally
we have gotten them to commit forces in an exposed position.”

He understood, then. He thought he did. Great-grandmother was
happy
the enemy was here. She was happy there was fighting going on, because she thought they were doing exactly what she wanted them to do.

He was thinking that when he heard a strange buzzing and roaring sound go right over them, and then go off to the south.

He jumped to his feet. He would never forget that sound. He looked up as if he could see it right through the floor and the roof above.

“That,” he said, excited, but not knowing quite what
that
plane was doing here,
“that
was an airplane, mani-ma!”

 

There was sure as hell something big and noisy going on over to the north, and Bren’s best guess put it somewhere close to Najida, which didn’t help his state of mind in the least.

All he could do was sit on a cold rock under a hot sun and have a sip of water from the canteen Tano had given him, and share it with Lucasi, who looked grimly off to the north.

The two of them were stuck, was what, and Lucasi was the worse off, having a splinted ankle that was swelling against its bandages. Bren had the misery of the vest and the bandages about his ribs, not to mention a wider and wider split in his boot, which picked up the occasional piece of gravel along the side of the sole. But blisters were a worse misery; he didn’t want to take either boot off to find out what couldn’t be helped . . . he feared if he took either boot off for a few minutes, he might not be able to get it back on.

The bruising and the bandages about his ribs that had been misery a day or so ago had begun to diminish. The sore spots he had from nonstop wearing of the damned vest had begun to be an issue, but at least he was breathing with less pain. He climbed. He had done that.

Which didn’t mean he was running any foot races if a problem showed up.

And he kept hoping that Lucasi’s occasional check of the locator bracelet would get a signal from the rest of them.

It hadn’t. And didn’t.

And then something caught Lucasi’s attention. He looked northwest, and kept looking.

“Do you hear something, nadi?” Bren asked him.

“A motor, nandi. Several more of them coming down the road.”

The road was a distance off. They couldn’t see it from where they were sitting, which also meant someone down on the road couldn’t see them up here.

“Coming from the north, nadi?”

“Yes, nandi.” Lucasi looked a little doubtful. “Can you not hear it?”

“Human hearing is less keen,” he said. “So is our sight after sunset. You are my ears, day and night, nadi. What do you hear?”

“One would guess several heavy vehicles, nandi,” Lucasi said in a very low voice, and all the while they could hear intermittent booming and thumping from the north. “One would say a force of some strength is moving.”

That was good news and bad.

And after a glance toward the west, and with a second worried look: “Forgive my lack of experience, nandi, but one fears worse trouble than trucks. There may also be a general and much quieter movement overland if they are too many for the transport available and if they have chosen to scout out a retreat. We need to find a place to lie very low.”

“But Banichi and the others must still be able to find us, nadi.”

“One will try to assure that they can do so, nandi.” Lucasi set his hands against the ground, a three-point stance, and hurled himself to his feet, dragging his crutch with him—the benefit of a young body in good shape. Bren made a slower, more pained try, and Lucasi gave him a hand and a gentle pull to help him up. “One will try to work back—”

Lucasi stopped suddenly, looking to the north and aloft.

Bren began to hear, faintly, both the heavy growl of engines to the west and an engine far more high-pitched, faster moving, up above.

“Small plane,” Bren said, and followed Lucasi, still carefully, footprint for footprint, in a quest for a hiding place, a grassy low spot, anything that might conceal them from aerial observation. Lucasi was heading for a clump of berry bushes, thorny, but the only cover there was close; and by now the plane was close and maybe following the road for navigation. Its elevation would lay out the entire dome of rock like a map.

All of a sudden the pitch of the sound shifted. It was coming at them. Bren looked up and saw it.

“Nandi!” Lucasi urged him, and came back for him.

It was yellow, bright yellow, that little plane. And Bren knew that plane, that noisy little engine, and the pilot, right down to the white sun-blaze on the nose. He raised a hand and waved as the plane roared by.

“Nandi!”

“That is Dur, nadi!” he said, his spirits soaring, as that plane flew on a departing diagonal toward Kajiminda, waggling its wings and swooping low as if to taunt the convoy on the road. But it was not for the convoy, that signal, that wild risk of ground fire. “He has seen us! Dur has come in! He cannot land for us, but what he sees, he will report to Najida.”

“Then one is glad, nandi!” Hope was all but a stranger to Lucasi’s face these last few days. But his look wandered from confusion to a glimmering of understanding. “He will get us help, from Najida or from the airport.”

“I think he will try to guide them, nadi. I do. One has no idea how long it will take, or who will be in a position to come here, but he may be able to spot the situation at Kajiminda and report that, too. He is no amateur observer. He may not understand the whole situation, but he will be accurate. And he can land that plane in amazing places!”

“Then I must get you to cover, nandi,” Lucasi said. “He was clever about his path, but one is anxious all the same. Let us go down the slope a little. The brush is not enough.”

They moved along a distance, then, as Lucasi pointed out a likely spot, Bren ended up helping Lucasi on the steep, bare stretch of rock, and below that descent there was indeed the kind of thing Bren had been hoping for, a flat space of scrub and eroded dirt, and a shattered sandwich of upthrust pale sandstone that offered shelter from most sides.

Better. A lot better. He only worried now about his bodyguard being able to find him: but if the plane got to Najida and Najida called Kajiminda, that was no problem.

All they had to do now was to avoid attracting unwanted attention until his bodyguard was able to pick him and Lucasi up and get them safely within a defensive perimeter.

And a moment when their enemies might be in retreat right down the Kajiminda road was not the time for them to go looking for him. His aishid would trust him to use good sense. He should stop worrying.

But he couldn’t.

 

The whole house was in an uproar. The new barricade at the front door was being taken down, admitting a gust of cold wind up and down the halls, because the young lord from Dur was trying to land right on the road near the village, and the Edi on guard on the hill were shooting at him. The guards on the roof reported it, and the moment they had a gap in the barricade, Ramaso sent one of the young men running out to talk to the Edi.

More, Great-grandmother insisted on coming upstairs. “One is extremely weary of sitting in a box,” mani said, and they all agreed with that, but
not
with mani risking herself, coming upstairs when people were shooting.

But no, if young Dur was landing his plane right on the road, and if young Dur was trying to land to confer, mani would not meet him sitting in a basement, no, absolutely not, it would not do.

So Lord Geigi and mani headed upstairs to mani’s sitting room, and Cajeiri followed.

It was upsetting—mani being stubborn, and the Edi shooting at their ally. Cajeiri, for his part, was having trouble even putting on a clean coat, he was so tired. His own bed was only a step away as servants helped him dress, and he wanted just to sit on it—it was the first time he had been back in his own rooms since the shooting had started; but he had to stand up to be helped with the coat, and he had to hurry or miss something, and he was so incredibly tired; and so, he knew, were Jegari and Antaro.

But there was so much going on that he could hardly bear it. When he gathered up Jegari and Antaro and went out into the hall again, the barricade was down and sunlight was coming in the front, and whoever was supposed to go talk to the Edi must have gone; but the plane was still circling: he could hear it in the distance. He so wanted to see it again—he remembered the yellow plane as one of the most wonderful machines he had ever seen, as good as the starship in the heavens, and he was furious that the Edi were trying to shoot it.

Servants were out and about, too, and Ramaso was by the open doorway, giving orders. He went to the security station, but nobody was getting in there, and Cenedi was in the way. He stayed and he listened, and Cenedi was giving orders—they were talking to the Edi and talking to the young lord from Dur, actually in the plane, and very hard to understand.

But then he heard Dur agree to something, and he thought that probably the plane was coming back. He went to the area of the door, and listened, and listened. The portico beyond the gap where the barrier had been was busy with mani’s young men, who were setting up another barricade, dragging panels into place.

“You should not go out there, young gentleman,” one of the servants said.

It was better than Cenedi noticing him. He drew Antaro and Jegari with him, back out of the immediate vicinity of the door, which everybody was so anxious about.

He was so tired and frustrated he sank down against the out-of-the-way part of the wall, where they had put some of the boards from the barrier. He watched out for nails, and sank down on his heels, and rested his head on his arms, and just—

—drifted off, still waiting for the young lord of Dur.

 

The convoy or whatever it was had long since ground past them, though Lucasi said he could hear it to the south of them and thought it might have stopped. It was possible they had reached the abandoned van and had a little delay figuring out whether it was rigged with explosives.