Destroyer (46 page)

Oh, two years of conning ship’s personnel, building little electric cars and playing hob with ship’s security had created a boy far, far too clever for his own good. It was not the Taibeni teenagers that had accomplished this entire escape. He had no such notion. It was an eight-year-old Ragi prince with far too much confidence in his own cleverness, a deft touch with electrical gadgets he had gained from building toy cars with Mospheiran engineers and Guild Assassins, and a way of assuming such conviction, such lordly force, that he often got past adults’ wiser instincts. Not to mention other things he had gained from Guild company: speed to get near the gate, and never rely on the same trick twice.

Algini mounted up, the whole herd in motion. They rode clear of the despised cobbles, the mecheiti stepping on eggshells all the way. On the first edge of the roadway Banichi took out at a loping run, not a comfortable pace, not something they had done in a long while, and Bren took a moment to find his balance, already finding the saddle a renewed misery.

Too late already, too damned late to prevent a commotion. The defenses were down, the boys had had better than an hour to be across the fence, and, damn it all, the escort would be riding along beyond the estate fence with two extra mecheiti they could by no means drive off—instinct would not allow it; and with two boys hellbent on overtaking them.

“Nadiin,” the young scoundrel would say to them when they met, his golden eyes clear and as pure as glass, “the dowager my great-grandmother has added a message, which we are to carry ourselves.”

And what could two Atageini say to the contrary?

“Maybe,” Bren said to his companions, foreknowing if there was any good hope someone would have seen to it, “maybe the gate can call ahead to the escort and have them bring the boys back.”

“Not optimum, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “These cursed units of theirs make every transmission a risk. And that is not information to spread abroad.”

Tatiseigi was known to be as tight-fisted about technology as he was liberal with artists, conservative, reputedly not replacing the house gas lights with electricity until, oh, about ten years ago. But—good God, to short his security. . . .

If the Kadigidi had monitored the house transmissions, everyone listening might get the idea that young gentlemen were roaming about the neighborhood virtually unprotected.

And would not the Kadigidi already be bending every effort to get there, while, thanks to the breakout,
they
had every last mecheita in the stable following after the young rascal, so that Cenedi and the dowager had no recourse but to stay and defend the house, or escape in Lord Tatiseigi’s antiquated motorcar.

The girl’s escort would not necessarily suspect the boys of lying to them. Prudence dictated they not load the airwaves with inquiries to confirm the story. The boys would simply get their mounts back, with only moderately suspicious looks from Tatiseigi’s men—“We got down to fix a girth and they ran from us, nadiin. . . .we knew they would go to you. We ran to catch up.”

Such a common mishap: mecheiti with two of their number having disappeared over the horizon were inclined to present a problem in control, once they got the scent on the trail, and only two very foolish boys would both get down out of the saddle at the same time.

Those boys were now, at all good odds, themselves on their way to Taiben with Antaro . . . and if that were all the trouble they were facing at this point, Bren said to himself, he would cease his pursuit and let the youngsters reach the Taibeni, and, granted the Taibeni’s better sense, believe they would stay there.

But given all the fuss on the com system had made it likely the Kidigidi had wind of confusion on the north-western side of Atageini land, he could not leave it at that. The Taibeni, on their side, would not have a clue to what was happening, and the two Atageini guards, while reasonably cautious, might not have any apprehension what a commotion had arisen around their mission.

Not good, Bren said to himself. It was not at all good.

 

 

B
ren held on, clamped the leading leg against the saddle and kept a grip on the leather. Any random glance back showed the whole damned mecheiti herd crowding the narrow roadway, shoving against the low hedges, outright trampling them down as they went, where slight gaps in the shrubbery made spreading out attractive. Banichi stayed in the lead, and Banichi delayed for no second thoughts—in the hope—Bren nursed it, too—that Antaro and her escort would ride at a saner pace, perhaps stopping to talk at the gate, perhaps stopping to talk or argue where they met the boys—not long, but every moment gave them a chance.

The gate and the tall outer fence appeared as they crested a particular hill. The gatekeeper left his little weather-shelter amongst the vines and, clearly forewarned, opened the gates for them, to let them straight on through.

Banichi reined in, however, and all the other mecheiti halted, blowing and snorting, jammed up close.

“Nadi,” Banichi said. “If the girl’s escort comes back and we do not, send them back out to us. We may need help out there. We fear the Kadigidi may be on to the messenger.”

“Nadi,” the man said—not, perhaps, the same watcher they had antagonized the night before—“nadi, one had no prior advisement there was any possible difficulty—”

“Indeed,” Bren said. “We know. They took the extra mecheiti with them?”

“Yes, nandi. They said the strays had overtaken them, and they were puzzled. I had no means to keep them, and one feared they would stray along inside the fence, if . . .”

“We shall find them. No fault to you. Be warned: we may come back very soon, or we may come back much later, at any hour, in company with Taibeni. Or maybe even Taibeni without us. That is the young woman’s mission, under your lord’s seal. They will be allies.”

“Most of all watch out for yourself, nadi,” Banichi said. “There has been far too much com traffic.”

“We have asked the house to send out reinforcement. They are sending it.”

“Good,” Banichi said, and with a pop of the quirt set the leader in motion, which put all of them to a traveling pace uphill beyond the gate.

Tracks of the girl and the escort were plain on the road, tracks that by now involved five mecheiti—and now their own mecheiti, catching the notion of what they were tracking, entered hunting-mode, the leader lowering his snaky neck to snuff above the ground as they went. It was an unsettling move at a run. Bren’s mecheita followed suit, an instant in which he feared the beast would take a tumble under him. He knew exactly what it was doing, and dared not jerk the rein.

Up came the head with a rude snort and a lurch forward of the beast’s own accord, and it loped ahead, coming nearly stride for stride with Banichi’s beast, which drew a surly head-toss . . . mecheiti were not averse to hunting others of their kind, with malice aforethought, and this sudden taking of a scent was not a happy situation, not safe, and not good for the ones being tracked.

And, my God, Bren thought, recalling where they had borrowed these creatures . . . these were hunters of more than game. Mecheiti were stubborn creatures, and these with uncapped tusks, that they had gotten from Taiben, from the rangers peculiarly charged with Tabini’s security—what would this band do, he wondered, when they overtook their Atageini-bred quarry?

“One fears they are hunting,” he said to Banichi.

“That they are, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “and they will need a hard hand once we come in range.”

Last night’s rain had left a lingering moisture in the grass, particularly on the shaded side of hills, where the track showed clear even to human eyes. Mecheiti snatched mouthfuls of grass on the run, rocked along at that rolling gait they could adopt on the hunt, trailing grassy bits. They clumped up together, the herd-leader foremost, along with the young female Bren rode, and the unridden retired matriarch who had been their trouble back at the stables, all bunched in the lead. Low brush stood not a chance where the herd wanted to pass. When the leader moved, hell itself could not stop the rest . . . willingly headed, Bren began to add it up from the mecheiti’s point of view, for their own territory, for Taiben itself, now on the trail of the others that their dim mecheita brains might reasonably think of as interlopers in that territory.

Trouble, he had no doubt. Trouble, and Lord Tatiseigi’s prize stock, those likely with tusks capped . . . and what can I do to hold this creature?

Banichi reined back as they reached a trampled spot, a space where a handful of mecheiti had waited and milled about, grass flattened. Algini pointed to the side, and sure enough, even to a less skilled eye, a small track came in there, a line coming across the hill as one track, then diverging into two, and coming right up on their location.

“The boys joined them here,” Tano said, but even the paidhi had figured that out—knowing the boy in question, if not how to read a trail.

“And got their mecheiti back,” Jago said.

Their own mecheiti, milling about and getting the scent from the ground, had obliterated any finer tracks. Banichi started them moving again, and by now the whole herd had the scent clear, and moved with unanimity . . . willing to run, willing to spend energy they had not used on their way toward Atageini land.

A pop of Banichi’s quirt and the leader lurched into a flat-out run, a pace the Atageini would not reasonably have adopted on their way. They were using up their own mecheiti’s strength, and even considering the beasts were willing now, that would fade quickly.

We have a slim chance of finding them before dark, Bren reasoned to himself, yielding to the rock and snap of the gait, less sore now: numbness had cut in, and nothing mattered at the moment but the hope of seeing five mecheiti somewhere in the distant rolls of the pastureland.

The sun sank, and sank toward the horizon. The Atageini and the youngsters would almost certainly stop for the night. They entered dusk, and the trail grew dim, but the scent would not.

“Nadiin.”Algini rode to the fore and pointed toward the hill. Bren saw nothing. He hoped it was the youngsters and their escort, but their mecheiti gave no sign of having spotted their quarry.

“Converging with their trail,” Algini said ominously.

“What?” Bren was constrained to ask.

“Another track, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “Game, maybe, but one fears not.”

Something had moved along that hill and veered toward the party they were tracking. Either it was an older game track, that the youngsters’ party had crossed, or something was following them . . . and no four-legged predator in its right senses would stalk several mecheiti.

Only other mecheiti would come in like that. And none that they knew would be here just running loose around the landscape.

Not good, Bren thought, and said nothing. His bodyguard knew the score better than he did. Banichi used the quirt and took them up the hillside, veered over onto the intersecting trail and there reined to a slower pace and to a stop, letting the herd leader get
that
scent clear before it joined the other trail.

Tusked head came up, nostrils flared, head swinging to that new trail like a needle to the magnetic pole.

And they started to move again, fast, with several pops of the quirt.

We could just as well run into ambush at this pace, Bren thought, but he no longer led this expedition: Banichi did, and the paidhi dropped way, way back in the hierarchy of decision-making. Jago had moved up beside Banichi, in front of him, pressing her mount to defy the ordinary order of proceeding, and Tano and Algini moved up on either side to keep the paidhi in their close company, leaving Banichi and Jago free to make more aggressive decisions.

Up and over the ridge, Tano riding athwart Bren’s path to prevent his mecheita following Banichi’s too closely at this point . . . they pressed along the trail that now was merged with the youngsters, or overlay that track, moving as hard as they could go, across a brook and up the other bank. The incoming riders had taken no pains to disguise their track.

Dark was falling fast now. And Banichi reined in just short of the next rise of the land, slid down and handed the herd-leader’s rein across to Jago, but the creature pulled at the restraint, wanting to be let loose, eyes rolling, nostrils flared, and the rest of the herd trembled with eagerness, not that even the unridden matriarch would go past the leader. Banichi said something to Jago too low for Bren’s ears, passed her his mecheita’s rein and suddenly moved, slipping off along the top of the ridge with eye-tricking speed. He didn’t crest the hill—he melted over it, and was gone. And Jago had clambered down and up to the other saddle, taking the herd leader for herself, her own left riderless with the rein looped up for safety.

Bren sat still and kept the rein wrapped desperately around his fist, giving up no slack. He felt a skin-twitch shake the mecheita’s shoulder under his foot, as it gave a soft, explosive snort of sheer lust for combat.

He dared ask nothing. He guessed too much already. The herd leader was trying to break Jago’s control, and she hauled back with all her strength, pulling its head away from the direction it wanted to go, forcing it in a circle. It stopped, stood rock-steady.

Not a sound, except the small movements and breathing of the mecheiti under them and around them, the whole herd held with Jago’s grip on the leader.

A gunshot, a single, horrendous pop and echo.

“Head down, Bren-ji!” Jago drove the leader forward and the whole herd lunged after her, up over the hill, down the other side in the dusk.

Bren ducked as low to the saddle as possible, tried to see where he was going. More shots echoed off the hills. Jago and two unsaddled mecheiti ran in the lead, one on each side of her, and suddenly they veered, plunged into a ravine. Mecheiti stood in the dusk ahead of them, whose mecheiti or how situated he had no time to reckon. The mecheita he was on gave a squalling challenge and charged through prickly brush, raking his leg, catching his jacket, breaking off bits against his trousers on its way to murder. They hit, another mecheita ripped a head-butt at his, and he plied the quirt desperately, getting it away. Two surges of the body under him and they were in the clear again, charging uphill after mecheiti in retreat.