Bren, clinging to the seat in front of him, behind Cajeiri and the dowager, looked back and saw lights bouncing in the rear window, people running, shadows in the night. Red and blue lights flashed, emergency vehicles.
Algini swerved onto a gravel road that paralleled the tracks, throwing Bren hard against the window-side. Swerved again, up and over the rails behind the rear of the train, then dived down the other side of the tracks, skidded onto a service road in a spatter of gravel—whatever track they followed would follow the railroad, no likelier than roads along the coast to persist for very far, but it got them out of there, and kept them going, and a second look back showed dark behind them, no sign of red lights, just a light at the rear of the train.
The bus ran flat out on the rutted road, bouncing over potholes and sending gravel flying where it took a turn—the men up on the roof must be clinging for their lives.
Somebody back there at the station had to have made a phone call to higher authority, getting instructions, calling for reinforcements, maybe light aircraft.
Jago had a map. That was the paper. She held on with an elbow, tilted the paper to the dim light from the instrument panel, gave instructions, and Algini took a turn to the right, onto a track rougher than the last.
Right. Where did a right turn lead them? He’d remembered where Sidonin was, near the edge of its association, and the rail here served several provinces, skimming along the hazy join that was the atevi concept of a border. They were maybe within forty k of that area of hazy authority, within fifty or sixty, possibly, of Taiben district, which ought to offer safety, maybe a hope of finding Tabini—or run them right into an occupying presence, Taiben being the heart of Ragi territory, and the Ragi Association being the very center of Tabini’s power…
Logically the Kadigidi might have posted observers and controls and guards along this very road, which began to have all the look of a farm-to-market route, maybe one that got Taiben goods to Sidonin’s rail station, and vice versa—he didn’t know. When they’d come to the lodge, they’d come in from the south and east, never the west.
Daylight had begun to fill in some details in the landscape. He saw tall grass, scrub, occasional deciduous growth. Taiben was forest intermittent with sweeping grassland. Hunting territory, with the aiji’s own hunting lodge deep in its territory, a rustic former hall sometimes converted for tourists and ordinary hunters, what time the aiji was not in residence. The place was a warren of hunting trails, abundant in game, with rugged hills, areas where no one lived, rugged terrain and rolling meadow where no one was allowed to hunt or to enter at all, no one but Taiben rangers, overseeing the heart and core of the district, or Tabini-aiji himself, who never fired a gun there.
Good memories, good memories thrown into jeopardy on this rough and half-lit road. A fool had to know where they’d gone. And the Kadigidi had to have watchers out… whether or not they’d be strong enough to interfere with a Taiben move or one from the railway at Sidonin, they’d know, they’d be set up with guns…
As long as no one got aircraft up looking for them… as long as nobody started dropping grenades. They made a very conspicuous target; and if there was an ounce of speed to be gotten out of the bus, Algini was looking for it.
He clung to the seat as they swerved, saw Cajeiri actually trying to sleep in the seat ahead, head against the window, and bouncing from time to time as they hit a particularly deep pothole, but wedging in the tighter the harder the bumps. The dowager, beside him, had Banichi in the aisle, quietly bracing her in the worst stretches. But the boy beside her fell asleep, mouth open—Cajeiri was that tired, and the motion of the bus finally did it, maybe the illusion of having gotten away, when nothing else had lulled him.
Bren gazed at him, the momentary focus of very worried thoughts. Felt sorry for him.
Hell of a birthday, kid. Hell of a few days.
And what the boy didn’t know about their present situation had the paidhi’s stomach in an upheaval. Speed over stealth. Speed, over the chance of bogging down in a sniper war while their opposition called for air support, and them with the dowager, afoot in rough terrain… he had enough of an idea of the reasoning in their security’s choices to keep his stomach in a knot, and his eyes sweeping what he could see of the road past Banichi, dreading the sight of a roadblock, the moment at which their two on the roof might open fire.
Fifty k to a dubious safety in which they couldn’t even guarantee the heart of Taiben was still in allied hands. This whole desperate venture could come to grief in the next five minutes.
The road passed trees, passed trees on either hand, and by now the dawn showed more than one tree or two deep, a thicket, a forest. Their road bounced, rolled, pitched, and swerved left and right. Branches raked the overhead, hazarding their pair on the roof.
And with a soft gasp of brakes, Algini slowed the bus, and stopped.
The men on the roof got down. Tano opened the door, Banichi got off the bus and did not get back aboard, conferring out in the dim dawn with the two from the roof.
Then those two boarded and Banichi did not. Banichi wasn’t there. Bren looked left and right out the windows.
Where has he gone? Bren wondered. But maybe it was as simple as a call of nature.
In front of him, Cajeiri moaned and turned sideways in the seat, seeking more room for his limbs. The dowager sat still, waiting.
Then the bus started to move again, and Banichi was not aboard. Nawari had gotten up and move into position to brace the dowager.
It was too much. Bren stood up, using the seat safety grips as he edged past Nawari to one he could ask, to Jago, who was still hanging with her map, at Algini’s side.
“Are we onto Taiben’s lands, Jago-ji?” he asked.
“Well onto them,” Jago said. “Unfortunately… the tank is nearing bottom. It was only half full when we left.”
“At least they’re not on top of us,” he said, just glad to be alive and in something like daylight. “Where did Banichi go?”
Jago stooped and gave a look out the windshield. “A short hike, to a message drop. We shall pick him up when the trail winds back across the hill.”
“A message drop?” How in reason had they arranged that? And with whom?
“We have no great reason to hope it is active, nandi,” Jago said, “but if anyone has escaped into the woods, there are such places. There always have been. We were in the aiji’s service, before we came to yours.”
In Tabini’s personal service, and likely in and out of Taiben and perhaps privy to its defensive secrets… neither of them had ever alluded to that knowledge, not even in crisis.
Which meant Banichi took the lead here. Cenedi was, like Ilisidi, from the east, from across the continental divide… and might know many things… but maybe not Taiben.
“You are not supposed to know where these places are, Bren-ji. Not even all the Taiben folk do, but the lodge director, his assistant, the aiji’s personal guard. As we were, previously, of course, in that number. If the lodge staff has escaped, and gotten to the drops, they will leave word, and break into cells, and use the drops to communicate between cells, avoiding any transmissions that might be traced. We shall see if the system is active.”
The road turned, the bus exiting the woods and running along the grassy side of the hill. Forest fire had denuded the farther slopes. But that was old damage. Young trees were coming back, a thick bluegreen growth half a man’s height.
Brush scraped the fenders, and grass brushed the undercarriage. Their road might lead to one of the villages, but it had not been much used this season.