Betrayer: Foreigner #12 (40 page)

It hurt, damn it. Several things did.

Not least, the prospect of seeing the whole situation gone to hell. “Neighbors,” he shouted in Ragi, and pointed toward the road. “Off in that direction you have the sort of Guild who has done you immeasurable harm over two hundred years, the same element who backed Murini, the same element who fled Tabini-aiji, ran into the Marid and encouraged the Senji and the Dojisigi to actions against you. At their backs, beyond that woods, you have one Marid lord who is as angry with them as you are and who, if you stop shooting for an hour, will obligingly push these renegades right into your laps, after which time you can open fire to your hearts’ content. If you want to settle with your
real
enemies, listen to your neighbor, who has talked with the lord of the Taisigi and gotten his cooperation. You have heard the facts from me, you have heard them from Lord Geigi’s guard, and you four do not have the authority to decide life or death for the Edi people! Go as fast as you can and tell the elders in charge
exactly
what I said, and we will hold this road for you. Tell the elders come back here and defend
this
place, and let the Guild with Lord Machigi drive your enemies this way, do you understand me? Does this make sense to you? And then you will kindly oblige me by
not
shooting the Taisigi, while your elders and the aiji-dowager work out an agreement that will save your land! Do you hear me?”

There was a small space of silence. One said something in his own language, but it sounded like a question; and Lord Geigi’s men answered in that language in no milder tone, something involving Najida, Kajiminda, and the paidhi-aiji. Then they shouted an order, and the young men took off running, back into the woods, guns and all.

God, it was all he had in him. He was spent. He wanted to sit down right where he was.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You have done what you could do. At this point
you
are the person the renegades would most like to lay hands on. More to the point, the word is going out that you are here. The Edi are not a disciplined force. Some may fall back. Some may panic. We shall hold this place, up on the heights. Can you drive the truck?”

“I shall not,” he said. “Not leaving you here, no.”

“The renegades have failed to get past Machigi,” Banichi said. “They have the Edi between them and Kajiminda and somewhat between them and Separti Township. And then there is this road, back the way they arrived. The Edi will not take orders in any organized way, and if they start to take losses and panic, we are too few to hold what comes behind them.”

“I can make them listen.”

“You have no experience of this situation, Bren-ji. Your bodyguard advises you abandon this area, and fall back. If we have to, we will draw back to Kajiminda.”

“Afoot?” he shot back. “No, nadiin-ji. If you have to leave here, you will need a little speed, will you not?”

Banichi looked exasperated.

“Tell Machigi I am here,” he said. “Tell Machigi to push them if we can’t organize the Edi to do it. The Edi will shoot what shows up first, am I right?”

“We can hold that,” Banichi said, with a wave of his hand toward the rocky side of the road, and went to instruct the driver. The truck started up, pulled over near the rocks, and backed in, positioning itself for a run for Kajiminda. Everybody aboard the truckbed began getting off.

Bren found a small outlier of those rocks, next to a stand of brush, and sat down with a wince from the damned vest. His bodyguard was off giving directions. Geigi’s men positioned themselves off in the brushy outskirts of the woods, Nawari and his crew off in the rocks near the truck.

He just sat, and he wished he had the canteen he’d left in the truck, but he was not inclined to walk after it.

He was done, utterly done. He rested his head on his hands and was so dizzy he thought he might fall asleep where he sat. Three forces were going to collide and start shooting, and he could just sit here on his rock, undisturbed, unnoticed. That would be good. Just no one to notice him for at least an hour. He could sleep.

But the fire kept up, sporadic, even lazy. God, how long could they keep at it without running out of ammunition? They’d get down to throwing rocks at each other. Damned fools.

He came very close to sleep.

Then a whistle sounded in the woods, and a voice, calling out in accented Ragi, told him something had changed.

He started to get up. It wasn’t graceful. He grabbed hold of the brush one-handed and hauled himself up to a wide-legged brace before he got his balance.

A group of Edi, five in number, in hunting camoflage, came down the road, calling out and stopping where one of their side had planted three stacked rocks.

Good idea, those rocks. They got attention. And Geigi’s men went to them and talked to them, and guns were in safe carry when they came in, properly quiet and respectful.

Bren started in their direction, but Geigi’s men waved them off again, a little back up the road.

Sit there, that was. And talk to anybody coming in. A welcoming committee. It was amazingly genteel.

One only hoped they got their information straight—a whispering game, one to the next. But it was what they could do.

He was on his feet. He limped over across the road to the truck, opened the door and got the canteen.

Jago came around the end of the truck. “Best you stay with the truck, Bren-ji. We are organizing.”

“Yes,” he said. “One will, Jago-ji.” He hoped Banichi wasn’t mad at him. He couldn’t even figure out whether he deserved it. If they were going to get killed, he really didn’t want anybody mad at him.

He climbed up to the seat of the truck and sat down, closing the door mostly, and very quietly, and had a small drink of water.

He was too damned tired, he thought, to be properly scared. He was scared in a numb sort of way that was not much different from acute terror. But he was here, and he had to be here. Worst was knowing he’d done everything he could do.

It got very still for a while. He heard Tano talking to someone, he thought, on com. Maybe talking to Machigi’s people. Maybe there was a code for
Watch out for our allies once you get close to them. Please just shoot at uniforms.

That wasn’t too comforting, either.

His bodyguard and Geigi’s and the dowager’s were scattered out. Lucasi and Tano were still on the truck, which argued that Banichi had taken his plan for a fast retreat, those being the two that weren’t able to sprint for it, but he wished people were a little closer to the truck.

More of the Edi showed up. Once, through the driver’s rolleddown window, he heard a scattering of whistles and began to think, they
can
communicate. They
are
communicating.

That was hopeful. That was hopeful in a major way. But he wasn’t hearing the firing nearly as often now.

Something was going on. There were just the whistles.

The Edi were moving.

Moving back.

Then a distant fire opened up.

That—that might be Machigi.

And one couldn’t damned well hear. One couldn’t get a direction on it. Bren opened the door, slid down to the step-down and held on to the door, getting down. He didn’t want to distract anybody.

He just wanted—

“Bren-ji!” Tano said from the rear of the truck. He turned around, saw Tano leaning on the sidewall of the truck, pointing off to the northwest. Lucasi struggled to the same vantage with a thump that rocked the truck, as gunfire rattled steadily in the distance.

“What is it?” he asked.

Tano pressed the com to his ear, talking to someone. “The bus!” Lucasi cried. “The bus is on the road, nandi!”

He still saw nothing. But he trusted atevi hearing. He stood holding on to the truck door, hoping the engine block was some shield against anything coming his direction.

They had the bus, they lost the bus—somebody outranked them and took it from them. And now it came back.

Without a damned word.

“Bren-ji,” Tano said. “Tabini-aiji is coming.”

God. He wouldn’t. An absolute cold chill went through him. Tabini. Risk
himself
. Risk
everything.

And if Tabini came charging in here with the Edi
and
Machigi
and
the renegades going at each other and none of the latter respecting the aishidi’tat, he didn’t lay bets on which side would attack whom.

“Tano.” He made his way to the side of the truck so he could look up at both of them, the resources he had. “Tell Tabini-aiji the situation. Inform him. One doesn’t care who hears at this point. It is not the time for him to come in unaware.”

“Yes,” Tano said, and: “We have code we can use, nandi.”

God, God, God. He could hear the engine now. And the gunfire was still going on out there.

If Tabini came here to repudiate the deal with Machigi, everything could collapse. If Tabini came here thinking he was going to deal with the Edi, he needed to know where Machigi was. It was a damned mess, was what it was.

He needed to haul his own aishid out of this and let them explain. Right now it was just Tano. He thought about hitting the truck horn; but they might think he was in jeopardy and risk themselves trying to get back.

But atevi hearing. They were going, any minute now, to hear the bus.
He
could. They were going to know. There was only one motor in all Sarini Province that sounded like that.

He stood beside the truck and listened to Tano say words that made no sense, and all the while the situation was getting closer on both sides, and gunfire and heavier rounds were going off, the latter shaking the earth. Inside the bus, it was so damned soundproofed it was unlikely anybody heard it; but he couldn’t judge. It was getting hot here, getting closer to their position, and from his vantage he didn’t know how many of the Edi had gotten back here and how many were lagging back firing at the renegades or at Machigi. The whistles had stopped. The gunfire was steady.

“Do the others know?”

Tano gave him a troubled look. And then said, “Yes, nandi. One has called them. They are coming back.”

Back.
Where in hell were they? Doing what
?

He heard the whistles again from off in the woods. And gunfire.
And
the bus. He limped back to the side of the truck, to the front fender, where he had something of a vantage.

More whistles, increasing in complexity. The forest across the road was alive with it. And of all people they could reach with communications, the Edi were not on the list.

Damn, he thought. And heard an alarming burst of gunfire, and saw movement in the trees.

He was not in a good position. A shot kicked up the sand out in the road, and then a volley answered it. He retreated to the side of the truck and saw Lucasi leaning on the roof of the cab, with a rifle, and Tano, one-handed, similarly bracing himself with his sidearm.

He took out his own gun. Thumbed the safety off. More than his aishid had heard the bus. The opposition must be hearing it. So, depending on distance, might Machigi.

The bus had taken the turn. It was coming up the road now, raising a column of dust above the trees.

A column suddenly interrupted.

“Nandi,” Tano said. “Guild is deploying. They instruct us to hold position.”

Hold position. There was no damned way they could move, except to run the truck straight through the Edi.

Who likewise knew that motor. The bus refueled and garaged in Najida village. They’d think it came from Najida estate. They’d hear it as allies moving in. They’d expect Guild under Cenedi’s orders.

Close. Close enough to let them use common sense. He heard the engine rev up again. It was coming.

“Nandi,” Tano said again. “Banichi has warned Machigi.”

Tano’s partner and Banichi and Jago were out there using short-range to reach Machigi—spotting for them, it might well be. Doing a little damage of their own if they got the chance. It made sense. But he wanted them out of there. They were, like him, like Tano, running on empty. They didn’t have it in them to move as fast as they needed, think as sharply as they needed. He wanted them back, dammit, before something happened . . .

The bus came around the bend of the snaking road, full tilt, and applied the brakes. He stood staring at it as it sat there, huge, red and black ,and shiny under a coating of dust. He couldn’t see through the window tint. But they’d see him.

Then a voice like doom thundered out: “This is a Guild operation. Guild forces are dispersed in the area. All civilians, cease fire and fall back behind this point, for your own safety. This is a Guild operation under the auspices of Tabini-aiji, under the law of the aishidi’tat. Cease fire and fall back to this position.”

Nobody in the woods could fail to hear that. He hadn’t known the bus had a loudspeaker. He’d bought it already made from Shejidan, he’d ordered it in by rail, he’d traveled on it. He knew it had tinted windows, a refrigerator, and every passenger comfort. But he hadn’t known the driver had a loudspeaker. That was a surprise.

The strength just started to go out of him. The Guild wanted the damned fight? The Guild could have it. Just—if Tabini was going to take action against Machigi, he had to protest it. He’d agreed to represent Machigi. He had to go do it.

He headed for the bus as the doors opened. He heard a racket behind him—Tano, getting down from the truckbed, his ears told him; but his eyes were for the bus door and the uniformed Guildsmen coming out of it. Tabini’s personal guard, those men.

Tabini came next, in immaculate black brocade, black lace at the cuffs—that pale gold stare that could convince a man he was a damned fool to argue.

He gave his own back, not about to start with any apology for what he’d done. He stopped at the requisite distance and gave a short, correct bow. “Nand’ aiji. One is grateful. One is also obliged to request your forces use caution. Machigi-aiji has engaged the Guild’s enemies. One also—” He ran out of air, grew downright dizzy, damn the restriction of the vest. “—has Guild deployed in support of Machigi.”