But no choice, he thought, hearing a step in the grass outside.
“Bren-ji,” a whisper said.
It wasn’t Jago. It was Tano or Algini, one or the other, and he felt the blood drain from his head. “Here,” he whispered back, and a shadow slipped in between the rocks.
Algini, he decided, feeling the aftermath of the adrenaline rush.
“Jago’s been gone all day,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Algini said. “We have contact.”
God, that was a relief.
“Banichi?”
“No,” Algini said, and relief plunged right back into worry.
But there was no chance to ask extensive questions. Algini moved, and he went too, out into the clear. “Tano?” he whispered, outside.
“He is coming,” Algini said, and Bren tucked the gun into his pocket and went with Algini, moving as quietly as he could, in Algini’s footprints, or as close as a human stride could make it.
He was quickly out of breath, his mouth was parched, and blisters made walking painful; Algini had to slow down, and finally to rest, hunkered down next to a line of brush.
“Tano will catch up with us,” Algini said.
“Banichi?”
“Possibly switched off,” Algini said. “Possibly out of range.”
Jago might know. Wherever she was. Bren found himself chilling in the wind and tried not to shiver. Algini was never a fount of sympathy: his mind worked otherwise, on facts and necessities, and one decided it was far better to let Algini think and listen and not to be nattering away with questions to which Algini had no answer. Whatever had happened, had already happened, and at this point they were headed, he hoped, as directly as possible toward Targai, where they could reach Geigi and, if they were lucky, signal the bus to come get them. They were on flatter groundc which could mean they had reached deep into the uplands and maybe were approaching one of the few roads that ran through Maschi lands.
“Water, if you will, nadi,” was his one request of Algini. Algini passed him a small flask, and he held the water in his mouth a long time on each small swallow. It was stale, but it was the best thing in hours. He started to hand the flask back.
Algini made an abrupt move of his hand, then held up two fingers.
Tano, and company. They were going to meet and probably part again after conferring and laying plans.
Then Algini, uncharacteristically, volunteered information. “We have now lost Jago’s contact, nandi.”
His heart sank. There was still nothing they could do about it. “Yes,” he said, acknowledging he had heard. Nothing more. He looked at the ground and tried not to think what could have gone wrong. Jago would go to help Banichi only if she were sure Tano and Algini were going to find him.
So they had found him. What else was going on out there in the dark at the moment, he had no idea, and he was convinced Algini would tell him if he knew anything more.
They waited.
16
« ^ »
Great-grandmother would not, she still said, take refuge in the basementc
“Are we to sit in a hole in the ground along with that coward and malefactor Baiji! We will not, nadi!”
Cajeiri never recalled Great-grandmother addressing Cenedi so rudely. It was late, people needed to settle to bed, particularly nand’ Toby, who was not that well; but that was not happening, not while mani held out abovestairs.
Cenedi replied, jaw set, “Aiji-ma, I will carry you downstairs myself if you will not go. Then I will stay there with you to be sure you stay, when your guard needs my presence. Live or die, they will have to get along without me, because youclearly need me more.”
Cajeiri never recalled Cenedi answering back to mani, either. He found his mouth open, and shut it, and his bodyguard, there to witness along with Lord Geigi, was likely dismayed.
“What’s the matter?” nand’ Toby asked.
It was not a good time to be talking. Cajeiri didn’t say a thing.
Then Lord Geigi said, offering a gentlemanly hand, “Aiji-ma, let us go down together for a light snack and leave our bodyguards less worry, shall we? We shall have Cook provide us cakes and tea, and we shall have my radio, and we shall keep well apprised of the situation on the grounds. Kindly do come, aiji-ma, and keep me company. Otherwise this waiting may be very tedious.”
Mani’s temper was up, for certain, but Lord Geigi bravely persisted.
“Sidi-ji,” he said. “Do join me. You know what they say about lords who ignore their bodyguards.”
“Gods unfortunate, when did youbecome mine?” she muttered, and sharply: “Great-grandson!”
“Mani!” Cajeiri said instantly.
“You will come with us. And bring our guests down.”
Finally! “Yes, mani!” Any other answer was apt to get a thwack with her cane, and not a slight one. “Please come downstairs, too,” he said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. “Get some sleep.”
“How close is the enemy?” Toby wanted to know. “I can shoot, understand. I’m a better shot than my brother.”
“This is Guild business,” Cajeiri said. “It’s going to be bad up here. Mani says come down right now, and I’ll bet she knows something. So we have to go with her. Or she won’t go.”
He looked at his bodyguard. “Taro-ji, Gari-ji, I don’t think you should be up here. Jico-ji—do whatever you decide to do.”
“I am Guild,” Veijico said quietly. “I shall be upstairs, nandi.”
***
It was also possible to be bored while worried sick, and there was nothing to do but sit and stew about the situation.
“Is there any reason they would switch off, Gini-ji?” Bren asked, desperately, finally, in their long sitting still. “Do you think they are still all right?”
Algini took a while answering. The Guild held certain information very close, and it was not likely at all that Algini would divulge method, only conclusion.
“When Guild goes against Guild,” Algini said, “yes. One might switch off.”
It was his dearest hope Jago and Banichi had done exactly that.
It had to pass for good news. Banichi and Jago were a force of two. The number of renegade Guild in the district was certainly far higher than that, even if they might have slightly reduced the odds tonight. They knew the direction Banichi and Jago had taken, at least generally, and prolonged silence and absence could tell them that there was something ahead of them they didn’t want to meet.
That would put that problem out into the far edge of Machigi’s territory, or right in the near edge of Geigi’s, neither being good news for their situation.
He began to wonder if that was the case. And once Tano caught up, they might decide that, instead of going north and trying to cross into Maschi territory as quickly as possible, they might veer off to the northwest and try to reach Najida directly. He wasn’t completely in favor of that. It would be farther. A hellish lot farther. He wasn’t sure how much he had left in him; and he most of all wanted to get back to Najida and in reach of a phone.
But if Tano and Algini said that was the best thing to do, he was going to have to find it in himself to do it.
If he could shed the damned vestc
But they weren’t going to let him do that.
Algini knocked his knee with the back of his hand, a signal to pay attention. Something was going on, but Algini hadn’t moved, otherwise, and just waited. And waited. “I have shut down my locator,” Algini said. “But Tano will find us.”
Tano was close. But there was a chance the enemy was close, too.
Moments passed.
“They are here,” Algini said, in a night no different to Bren’s eyes and ears than the last hour.
“Come, Bren-ji.”
Tano and Lucasi. He got up. Algini took a grip under his arm on the way down the slight rise, for which he was grateful, and from out of a very little cover of brush, there were, indeed, Tano and Lucasi, the latter under his own power with, apparently, a stick he was using as a cane.