“Stop!” Cajeiri yelled, and just then gunfire broke out in the hall, just around the bend, out of their sight. “Get him!” he yelled at Jegari and Antaro, as Baiji tried to break past them and get up the stairs. They grabbed him and threw him on the hall floor at the foot of the stairs, Baiji howling and protesting at the top of his lungs.
The fight had spilled into the downstairs, from the garden hall stairs, from around the bent end of the hall. Mani’s guard never would have let Baiji loose, and Baiji was too stupid to get loose on his own, which meant something had happened to one of mani’s young men, on guard down there.
And mani and Lord Geigi were in danger if the fight came around the corner and headed this way.
Shots rang out from that direction.
“Come on,” Cajeiri said. It was not far to mani’s door, and they could get there. They could protect mani from inside until Cenedi could get down here.
“Move!” Antaro told Baiji, dragging him along. Baiji was shouting curses at them, protesting he was not to be handled. Jegari got his other arm, and he started howling in pain. Cajeiri did not look back. He ran straight for mani’s door and tried to open it.
They had it locked. Of course. And when he looked back, he saw Veijico down by the bend of the hall, with a gun. “Get in a room!” Veijico shouted, running toward them.
“Mani!” he shouted, pounding on the door. “Let us in! Let us in!”
Lord Geigi opened it, and they started to go in, all but Veijico. She stood against the wall, her pistol aimed back toward the bend of the hall.
“Lock it after you!” Veijico said, and they were still trying to get in, but Baiji tried to resist in the doorway and blocked them. Lord Geigi took a fistful of Baiji’s coat and spun him into the room with a fearful crash of furniture. Baiji went stumbling backward over two chairs and up against a table before he hit the floor.
Geigi shut the door. Veijico was still out there.
“Get over here,” Mani said to them sharply, from where she sat. “They may fire through the door. Here is better protected.”
They all did what mani said, except Baiji, who huddled on the floor in the corner whimpering about assassins.
“Have you decided now, fool, who is trying to keep you alive?” Geigi snapped at him from across the room, and Baiji, on hands and knees in his corner, launched into a new theme, how he had never meant any harm and had been scared by the Taisigi and had been all alone, considering his uncle Geigi was in space and he had not been certain if the aiji was going to be able to stay in powerc
“Silence!” mani snapped, “or Ishall have you shot!”
Baiji swallowed the rest of it, looking as if he were going to choke.
And all of a sudden there was shooting in the hall right outside.
Veijico, Cajeiri thought in distress. Veijico was all alone out there, and the shooting stopped, and there were footsteps in the hall.
Then somebody tried theirdoor.
And none of them had a gun.
There was nothing they could do. Just—
He took the slingshot out of his pocket. He had his several choice bits of metal.
Fire came through the door, and the lock blew in. The door flew open, banging backward, and a foreign Guildsman with a rifle swung it straight toward them.
Cajeiri fired the hardest draw he had ever done, and the man fell backward into the door, slamming it back. Two other men were coming behind him, and Cajeiri loaded another shot just as gunfire broke out, and the men turned around, firing rifles back down the hall.
The nearer of them lurched into the room, and all of a sudden the inward-opening door slammed back into the man from Baiji’s corner. Jegari flung himself past Cajeiri, Antaro trying for the other man, who turned, swinging his rifle toward her. Cajeiri fired.
His last stone hit the man and made the rifle jerk as Antaro tried to shove it out of line.
But all of a sudden a shot from outside hit the man, and hit the door behind him, and there was blood everywhere. Veijico heaved herself into view on the hall floor outside, grabbed the doorframe with a bloody hand, and pulled herself halfway up as footsteps rushed closer.
“Nandiin!” somebody yelled, and uniformed Guild showed up in the doorway, helping Veijico, standing over the three attackers. It was Cenedi and mani’s bodyguard, and they held the hall out there, and they were all safe.
Cajeiri started shivering. He didn’t intend to. But he was out of ammunition; and everybody was all right, and he just wanted to sit down.
Mani did sit down, her cane braced before her. “ Well,” she said.
Baiji crept out from behind the door on his hands and knees.
“Do not attempt to run,” Lord Geigi said to him, “or they will have no patience.”
“How is Veijico?” Cajeiri managed to ask as, Jegari and Antaro having disentangled themselves, mani’s young men dragged the attackers out. He tried not to let anybody see he was shaking all over. “Cenedi-nadi, how is Veijico?”
“And how are you, Great-grandson?” mani asked sharply, from his left.
“We broke the tea set,” was the first idiotic thing that came out of his mouth. He had never sounded so stupid, and his voice did shake.
And there was still gunfire going on somewhere above, but distant.
“They used a grenade at the front door,” Cenedi said. Cenedi was bleeding all down his left arm, red dripping from his fingers, but he had a rifle in his right hand. “It blew out both ends of the hall, nandiin, regrettably. They used a truck to get under the portico, blew the door, and then got in through the front. Our people stationed on the roof got in through the back to stop them, but some of the intruders got down the garden hall stairs and let Baiji loose, doubtless while looking for higher-value targets. One apologizes profoundly for letting that happen.”
“We will have to apologize to the paidhi, when we get him back,” mani said dryly. “One supposes the house is now open to the winds, and we are sitting in an unfortified sieve, while my lazy grandson has still not managed to get hisforces out of the airport.”
“That would be correct, nandi,” Cenedi said. “They are still pinned down.” Cenedi then added wryly: “We do, however, have the enemy securely pent up between us.”
Mani laughed. Actually laughed.
Cajeiri was amazed. Shocked. He just stood there shivering. And Cenedi’s men dragged out the man he had hit with the slingshot, who had not moved at all.
“Nadiin-ji,” he said, as Antaro and Jegari edged close to him. “See how Veijico is. Help her.
We havehelp coming.”
His father’s men were trying to come in. Cenedi said so. But they were stuck. And there was no front door any more, and there were still enemies.
The whole place smelled like gunpowder. And there was cold air blowing through the halls, taking that smell everywhere.
***
At one moment Bren was sure they had driven off the edge of a ditch and in the next, the van, hitting the full compression of its shocks, and grinding something on its undercarriage, bounced. Bren, sitting on the floor, held on.
Then, surprising him, they leveled out onto a defined, mowed road, gathering speed.
They were clearly not conserving fuel now. But they were making time. Lucasi had gotten up on the seat again at Tano’s order, without a word. It was one more armored body between the paidhi and trouble, but Lucasi didn’t object.
The floor was not, however, a good vantage point, and after they had run on gravel for a while, on an unexpectedly well-maintained road, Bren got onto his knees and carefully levered himself up onto the seat, with Tano’s help.