He sat. He had a tiny sip of water and offered some to Lucasi, who silently accepted it and nodded thanks, handing the canteen back.
This wasn’t the brash young man who’d repeatedly caused them trouble. Lucasi was quiet and very sober, his eyes, once he’d caught his breath, scanning the area constantly, his ears doubtless on the alert. Which of his aishid had personally gotten to the young man he wasn’t sure, but someone had—maybe Banichi, possibly Algini. But it had evidently made an impression.
And now the kid had an assignment from them, the biggest assignment they could possibly hand the boy—namely him—and he didn’t plan to make it harder for the young man. He sat still and silent, not to distract him, trusting atevi hearing to pick up anything moving out there, any sound of a motor, or any gunfire.
All he personally heard was the wind, whispering in the brush. The gray, scattered clouds intermittently shed a little rain, spots that grew thick on the stone, then slowly evaporated.
Lucasi turned his head sharply, as good as a screaming alarm. The young man lifted his hand slightly and quietly got to his feet.
Bren stood up.
Come, Lucasi signaled, and Bren followed him, treading as carefully over gravel, taking care not to scuff the stone or break a weed stem. They kept going for what felt like half an hour or so before Lucasi found another stopping point and offered him a place to sit down.
“What did you hear, nadi?” Bren whispered as faintly as he could.
“Trucks, nandi,” Lucasi said. “Three or so. Coming toward us from the north.”
From the direction of the intersection near Najida, and generally toward Kajiminda. It could be their enemy reacting to that call he’d made from the hunting station. He hadn’t heard a thing. But he didn’t doubt Lucasi had heard it.
They sat in utter silence for about a quarter of an hour.
Then he did hear something, a heavy boom. That also came from the north.
Something bad was happening over in the direction of Najida. And they sat here listening to it as if it were some distant weather report.
“Can you tell where Banichi and the others are?” he whispered.
“One is not supposed to discuss the equipment, nandi.”
The kid was following the rules. Any of his own aishid would have just answered the question.
But the kid, he noted, had one of those locator bracelets— whose, he wasn’t sure; but he didn’t think the boy had had one before. And the answer probably was that they were operating with the locators’ send function switched off, as they had done all along. He could surmise that when things were safe, or if they wanted to lay a trap, they would switch on; and whether there was any special equipment that could pick one up if it was switched off, he hadn’t a clue. One didn’t know if all Guild locators worked the same way or how sophisticated was the information they could pass. It was a complex code, individual to the group. He knew that much about it. And Lucasi not being part of his aishid, it was well possible that Lucasi couldn’t interpret their signals and that the only reason he had that bracelet was to pick up any signal out there.
But something was going on with those booms and thumps and that sound of trucks moving.
Somebody was active out there and not being stealthy about it. It could be Edi, even. Or somebody hot on the attack, or desperate in flight.
Banichi and the rest had had time enough to be into trouble by now if they had tripped any alarm.
They’d need to be sure, first off, that it wasthe Edi in control of Kajiminda.
And then they had to convince a force of Edi hunters and fishermen and farmers that this particular set of black uniforms was on theirside.
Meanwhile, if those passing trucks took the north branch of the road, where it intersected, they were going to find the abandoned van and realize somebody was out and about in the landscape.
God, he didn’t like this. He wished now they’d opted to head down to Separti Township and hoped to pick up reinforcements from the Guild Tabini had stationed therec but that might be a pipe dream. Anybody Tabini had stationed anywhere might have shifted position under direct Guild orders—not Guild serving as bodyguards but Guild forces that Tabini-aiji might ordinarily use.
So Separti wasn’t a sure thing, either. Nothing was.
Boom.
He didn’t jump. But his heart did.
“Are you supposed to listen to my suggestions, nadi?” he whispered to his young guard. “But not to be led into anything stupid?”
“Yes, nandi, that is the instruction. But your aishid did not at all say stupid.”
“One is gratified. But one instructs you, nadi, that you explain to me what we are doing sitting here and what my aishid is doing. It would be useful in deciding what I would suggest.”
The kid looked confused, caught between general orders, Guild teaching, and specific orders.
“Nandi, one is simply instructed to keep you as far away from the enemy as possible. One has a general route to follow that circles somewhat; and one hopes we are on it, so your bodyguard can find us at need. But we are under no circumstances to go back to the van, and we are not to go across the road into the woods, and we are not to make any noise at all.”
“And what are theydoing, meanwhile? Did they explain that, nadi?”
“They are taking Kajiminda, nandi.”
Taking Kajiminda. If it were only that simple. Which meant the kid didn’t know any more than he did.
Boom. Again, toward the north. The train station, maybe; maybe Najida itself.
God, what was going on?
18
« ^ »
It was increasingly noisy up there. And something serious was going on. Mani was cross because she had been trying to take a nap, so had nand’ Geigi, and the booms and thumps, which had been only occasional, now just went on and on.
“The Guild,” Mani complained, “is not usually so inconveniently loud.” She adjusted a shawl, folded her arms, and tried to go back to sleep. Nand’ Geigi did, his chin sinking on his chest.
Cajeiri just sat, aching from want of sleep, and played chess with Jegari and tried to make the time pass faster. His concentration suffered. He was distracted, trying to picture the land out there and locate the booms. The east-west road to Kajiminda and the north-south road to the train station and the airport crossed just east of the house and a little uphill. And there was a huge open field opposite the house that ran on up the hill to where the crossroads were, and uphill after that, on and on, he supposed. He wished he had paid better attention in that direction when they had driven in from the train station.
And for a while the shooting had sounded as though half of it was coming from directly across the road opposite the house, but lately there was a lot more of it and it seemed to be coming from the intersection farther away, or maybe farther east than that. Echoes made it hard to tell.
But nobody up on the roof was shooting right now. Which he supposed meant the fight had moved off.
He would have liked to ask mani or nand’ Geigi, but they were pretending to sleep again.
And he was afraid to talk too loudly. If he annoyed mani, he might have to stop the chess game and just sit and think about what could go wrong. And he did not want to sleep, or have dreams, right now.
So he whispered to Antaro and Jegari: “One wonders what is going on, nadiin-ji. Slip upstairs and find out.”
“I shall,” Antaro said, and left very quietly.
“The fighting is up on the hill by the crossroads, nandi,” Jegari said in a whisper. “One is far from sure, but one might hope some of your father’s force has gotten here from the airport.