he’d had a little chance to view the map—there was a road leading into the hills and off toward the main west road they’d used coming in.
They hit gravel, notthe paved road they’d come in on, and that startled him. Bren propped his shoulder against Jago’s seat, wrapped his arms around his ribs and kept his head down, telling himself if his bodyguard wasn’t objecting they must be all right. He still had a concept where they were going, onto minor roads into the uplands, and that wasn’t a bad notion: if trouble was coming, it might well come in from the northwest, or from pretty well due north, out of Senji district and across Maschi land. The whole district might light up if Geigi knew about it and called in help to stop it. They could run straight into a firefight.
Nobody said anything. They drove and drove, on bumpy, chancily maintained road.
Then a shot echoed. And something blew. The van swerved.
“Tire,” the man in the front seat said, and the van was steering hard, swerving, with the shredded wreckage of a tire thumping in the front right wheelwell.
Damn, Bren thought, trying for calm.
A second shot broke the front side window. The van spun off violently to the side, bucking over rock and rough ground as the partner tried to steer. The van hit brush, broke through saplings, and the front end dropped with a brain-rattling jolt—that and the simultaneous impact with Banichi’s arm and Jago’s, before his chest and behind his head, so that he rebounded from one to the other. The back door opened, and Tano and Algini vacated the back seats, the hard way—the van was nose-down, and Banichi got his own door open and dived out.
Bren started to move. Jago prevented him. “Get down,” she said.
Down. There wasn’t much further to get down. But Jago was out of her seat, in the tilted floorboard, covering him with her own armored body.
“Nadiin,” she asked, but there was silence from the front seats. “Bren-ji, are you hurt?”
“No,” he said, as honestly as mattered to his ability to move. He had no questions. They were in a mess. The two in front weren’t answering, and Jago got an arm between the seats, trying to ascertain their condition, while Bren stayed still and tried to breathe with her pressing on him.
“Both are dead,” she said in a very quiet voice.
The same shot. Blind damned luck. And there was, around the van, except for the occasional ping of the cooling engine, no sound but their breathing.
“Come,” she said. “This van is a target. Move carefully, Bren-ji. Can you get out Banichi’s door without a sound?”
“One will do it, Jago-ji.” He eased to the side, feet first, and felt his way into open night air.
He paused, remembering his pale trousers and coat. “I shall be visible in the dark.”
“Get below the brush. Get low, Bren-ji. Leave the luggage for now.”
The rest of his bodyguard was out there somewhere, and, he would bet, given that side window shot, they had some notion of the trajectory. They were not sitting still, he’d lay money on that. But Jago was, if he didn’t move. He wriggled out as quickly and quietly as he could, no matter the bruised ribs, and slid in under the brush, as compact as he could make himself, which hurt considerably.
Jago followed. She brought her rifle, tucked low, and took up guard over his position, above a streambed. A trickle of water flowed in it, among brush and rocks, a soft sound that overrode others in the night.
Absolute quiet for a time.
Then a thump and a skid on rock. Two sounds, somewhat upward on the slope. He felt Jago’s hand on his shoulder. Someone ran.
Thump. A rock rattled down the slope. Something heavier fell.
Damn, Bren thought. He was in a cramped position. His leg was going to sleep. He wanted to move it. And daren’t.
Then a faint, faint triple and stop green flash on Jago’s wrist. Someone reporting. Thank God.
She didn’t move for a moment. Then she patted his knee twice, which meant Stay put.
He did, as she eased out of the hiding place. He didn’t hear her move. He did what she asked and stayed very, very still, as Jago reached into the van and hauled out one bag and the other.
Brush whispered. Bren stayed absolutely still. A shadow moved in and Jago didn’t react. The shadow was Banichi-sized, and Bren managed quiet, small breaths.
Jago brought a bag. Banichi did. That was all. Jago came close and hissed, “Bren-ji. Come.”
He didn’t ask questions. He took careful hold of the prickly brush and hauled himself to his feet, trying to stay as involved with the brush as he could. He thought about his wardrobe. He didn’t havea darker coat, damn his planningc he’d not brought one. And hell with it: if they were going cross-country, hewas no help lugging that bag along, and his bodyguard had enough with their own gear. “Leave mine,” he whispered. “I shall manage. My notes. Just get my notes, nadiin-ji.”
Two other shadows materialized from around the end of the van, drawing his tense attention; but atevi vision was keener in the dark, and Banichi took no alarm, only passed the luggage to the shorter one—that would be Tano—and relayed the request.
Jago tugged, drew him away from the van. Banichi was right behind them.
How far to the border? Immaterial, he said to himself; borders meant less now than they usually did on the mainland.
Get to Targai if they could. If not Targai, then Najida or Kajiminda—any place where shots didn’t crash through the walls. They hadn’t even attempted to get the van out of its predicament. They just left it, committed to getting out on foot.
Maybe getting to a safe spot, where they could sit it out and wait for rescue.
He didn’t argue. He didn’t offer an opinion, whatever his bodyguard decided to do. If they were going to try to make it to Targai, he had to keep his discomfort quiet and try not to slow them down with personal problems.
13
« ^ »
They kept as much as possible to stony surfaces, in the higher areas of the hills, disturbing the ground as little as possible. “One is willing,” Bren said, at a stop where he could find breath enough for coherency, “one is willing to go a little faster. I think I can, nadiin-ji. Or find me a place to dig in and wait for you. Then you go for reinforcement and come back.”
“No, Bren-ji,” Banichi said quietly. “Our best hope is to go, now.”
Theyknew how the Guild was likeliest to proceed and what they could rely on; he didn’t. He could do nothing about his clothing: he shone in the dark, he was certain of it. And they were going slower than he was, even when he tried to forge ahead.
And a request to shed the damned vest? They wouldn’t hear of it.
A second shot like the last one, he thought glumly, and I’ll be dead anyway. I couldn’t stand it.
But two hours or so on, at the same steady pace, and he swore the whole of the Tasaigin Marid was uphill. They moved, and they stopped, and sometimes either Jago or Banichi left the rest and went on ahead, scouting during their rest time. Sometimes they would come back to report, or now and again the rest of them would just barely catch up, and then the one scouting would immediately be on ahead on another foray. Tano assigned himself to Bren, and Algini kept an eye to an occasional light-flash on his bracelet, that item of equipment like Jago’s, that Bren had only once or twice seen them wear. He couldn’t read it, no more than he could penetrate the verbal code that passed now and again, curt and infrequent; but green was good. Green was the good one. He’d observed that before.