And he hoped to God the kid back there just kept his head down and melted into a hole in the rocks before their enemies came swarming out and around the area.
He—he just had to get down this slope, carefully, quickly. Safety was ahead of them, not behind. Banichi and Jago might have left the kid out of practicality, but they were held to the progress hecould make, and the only thing he could do to help them was to watch where he put his feet and just do better, longer, farther than he thought he possibly, humanly, could.
He got down to flat rock. Banichi moved on, and he kept going, with Jago’s help under his arm.
“Bren-ji,” Jago said at one point, “go more slowly if you must!”
“For my sake or yours, Jago-ji?” he panted as he went. “If for mine, trust I can do this. I shall live, I assure you.”
They went at the increased pace, Banichi in the lead, Jago close by him, being sure he didn’t step into a hole, so he had one less thing to worry about. Staying upright. Moving. That was his job.
The sun was definitively up, now, removing the cover of darkness even to human eyes.
Breathing and walking occupied all available intellect. And he was no longer sure he was using his best sense, but he pushed a bit harder, able to see, now. He made it to the top of a rise, wavered, with the far view of hills swimming ahead of him, then realized he was wobbling on the edge of a drop-off, and he caught himself one nanosecond before Jago snatched him against her and steered him to safer route, keeping him from descending the hill in a catastrophic slide.
“One is,” grateful, he tried to say. But he hadn’t the wind left. The whole world went fuzzy at that point. He might have been out on his feet, except Jago still had hold of his arm, and then had her arm around him.
“Here is not a good place, Bren-ji. Just a little farther. Then we shall rest an hour.”
An hour. A whole hour sitting still. He wanted it so much.
But they couldn’t afford that.
He had to tell them that. But he had to get where it was safe. He energized his legs and managed to keep going, sure, with what shred of intelligence he had left, that where Banichi was going, where Jago wanted him to go, was at least better cover, and a place where he could take just a little rest and get his wind back and then argue.
Maybe he could even take off the damned vest for a moment or two. It would be such a relief.
God, he wanted to do that.
It was still another downhill, in among rocks, and past an overhanging shrub. Banichi waited at the bottom of a steep little slope, took his other arm and steered him to a little concealed nook and a flat rock he could sit on.
Then, silently, by the time Bren looked up, Banichi had left them. Jago was alone.
“Sorry,” Bren said, trying to get his breath. “One is sorry, Jago-ji. Banichi is scouting?”
“As well we take a look ahead, Bren-ji. Use the time.”
She offered him a drink from a small flask, plain water, which they had in very short supply, he knew that. His mouth was dust-dry and he let a mouthful roll around and moisten his throat in little trickles. For not very much encouragement at all he would lie flat on the rock and stay there, but it would only hurt more, getting up, and the damned vest, once he was sitting down, at least helped hold him upright in some comfort.
“How are you, Bren-ji?” Jago asked him, sinking down on her haunches. She wanted an estimate, he said to himself, not stupid overstatement.
“I can walk,” he said, “but my judgment is question—” More breath. New try.
“Questionable.”
She pressed her fingers against the side of his neck, where the pulse rate, he thought, was probably still rather high.
“Rest,” she said. “I could give you a drug. But one advises not.”
“If it keeps me going—”
“Better to rest. You may need it later.”
“I need more time,” he said, “in a gym, Jago-ji. I am going to do thatc when we get back.”
He won a slight smile from her, and with a little bow of her head: “I shall go up to a better vantage, Bren-ji. I shall not be leaving you.”
“Tano and Algini,” he said.
“They may overtake us here. The boy will probably be somewhat behind them.”
So the boy was coming. Alone. God. He hadn’t wanted that.
“Rest,” Jago said, and stepped up onto the rock, and onto another, and left his field of vision.
At that point, it was his job just to sit there. And breathe. And let blood circulate back to parts of his brain he was sure were not functioning all that well. His feet hurt. Badly. He had burst a couple of stitches in the lightweight dress boots that were all he had with him, which was not a good situation. And he was lost. As lost as he had ever been in his life. He had absolutely no idea where they were, or even what direction they were going at the moment—
west, he thought, and then wasn’t sure, given the season and the latitude. He could judge where the sun would be, behind the rocks, but he couldn’t see it from where he was sitting. It seemed they had not aimed due northwest, which would have taken them to Targai. But that could be an accident of where they had stopped, or the route they had to take, since they had wound around so many obstacles it had seemed they were going in circles.
They were still on the Southern Plateau, he was almost sure of that. They hadn’t been descending that long. They wouldn’t be descending northeast, toward the coast—that would only put them back in danger.
If they were ever out of it.
He was dizzy, still. Orientation in the world? He was doing damned well to orient himself upright.
He still thought that if he could just get rid of the vest, and its constriction, he could go faster.
But Jago would shoot him herself if she came back and found him sitting there in his shirt sleeves.
So he sat. He sat with the spring chill of the rock working its way up his backside and the warmth of the sun and the heavy vest working its way down from his shoulders, for a reasonable meeting somewhere in the middle of him: his chest hurt and his backside was numb. He let his eyes shut, just drowsing upright. Best he could do.
He wiggled his feet to be sure they still worked. He thought about Najida, and the bath that he was going to have when he got home, and his own bed. Breakfast.
Eggs and toast. Hot tea. He could do with that.
When he got there.
15
« ^ »
All the house was supposed to be at formal breakfast, after the one they had already had and shouldn’t admit to. Cajeiri and Veijico and Antaro had been on the way, in the hall and headed for the dining room, all dressed and proper. A little toast and tea would not suffice for the whole morning, and Cajeiri had told his aishid to take turns going for a proper breakfast themselves. He was sure they had been awake long enough to be hungry all over again.
But Jegari, who had gone to the security room, intercepted them halfway down the hall, with a low-voiced, breathless, “Nandi, there is open warbroken out in Taisigi district. Your great-grandmother and Cenedi-nadi and Lord Geigi are in conference, and breakfast is delayed.
They have shut the doors to the dining room and nobody can get in.”
Cajeri took that in for a few seconds, stopped right in mid-hallway, with servants witnessing.
War in Taisigi district.
Where nand’ Bren was.
Where Lucasi also might be.
The shooting meant nand’ Bren was going to have to get out of there. It was a situation far beyond argument and finesse.
“We shall go back to the suite,” he said to them. “Come.”