Upon which, in between protecting his balance and Lucasi’s and trying to prevent them both from breaking their necks, he tried to think what to do, how to work their way out of this.
If he had to fall into hostile hands, the best thing was to stay alive, and keep the kid alive, and try to work his way out of it with words—a far better defense than a gun in his hand. The damage he could do Tabini—he could, Banichi’s word, finessethat. That was his job. Get him to a leader he could talk to, he could find somechink in the opposition’s armor, somethingto bargain with.
Brains. And a plan. A plan only happened if he had a situation in front of him.
He wasn’t doing damned well with Banichi’s kind of work.
They skidded, leaving a track. It was a wonder both of them made it to the bottom of the sandstone shelf in one piece, but they hadn’t been quiet about it. He caught Lucasi by the sleeve to keep him from pitching over, while Lucasi, with his bad ankle, was trying to balance the heavy gun in the crook of one arm, having unslung it from his back, and manage his makeshift cane with the other; it was not an outstandingly successful combination.
“Please do not attempt to shoot anyone even if you get a target,” Bren said. “It will only get us killed, nadi. I can talk to them.”
“This is my fault,” Lucasi said. Both of them were panting for breath, and bits of rock crumbled under their feet and slid downslope, rattling all the way. “Hide, nandi, and I shall lead them off.”
“You shall do nothing of the kind, nadi!”
“Forgive me, but Guild cannot accept civilian orders in a combat situationc”
“This is not a combat situation unless—” His foot skidded on the sandstone dome. He recovered, and Lucasi rescued him from pitching over in the other direction. “—unless I say it is, nadi!”
“One begs understanding, nandi. Banichi left me in charge of your safety.”
“ Banichicould have taken a rifle to the halls in Tanaja, and he refrained, because there are other answers in this world than Guild policy, nadi! At this moment I am at the end of my patience with Guild policy, when it would be perfectly possible—” Another difficult sideways step. “—to settle this directly with the lords involved—” Slip. “—without blowing things up.”
“The lord of the Dojisigi only thinkshe is using the Guild who have taken residence with himc”
“The paidhi-aiji, however, is better-served, better-protected, and less a fool than the lord of the Dojisigi, who is probably deceased, nadi. I tell you that you are not to fire that rifle!”
“But,” Lucasi said.
“This is an order, nadi! If you fire, we shall both be dead, instantly. If I have my way, I can at least gain us a day. Obey my order!”
“Yes, nandi.” A desperate maneuver for balance as they hit level ground. “But best hide and not be in such a position in the first place.”
“Just—” Bren half-turned to assist Lucasi, and caught movement at the top of the ridge.
Three uniformed Guild appeared at the top, an instant before one of them yelled,
“Halt!”
“Obey them,” Bren said, and held up empty hands. “Put down the rifle, nadi. Let me deal with them.”
There seemed to be four of them. Their enemies came down the sandstone slope in better order than the two of them had just done, and Lucasi held his rifle aimed at the ground.
“Nadiin,” Bren said, keeping his hands in sight. “My bodyguard is under my orders, so you may rest easy; and I trust you know—”
He didn’t know what had hit him. He went sideways, and fire sprayed the sandstone and came back. The whole world flashed black and red, and he was lying on the ground under Lucasi’s weight with an automatic rifle going off just over his head.
“Get to cover, nandi!” Lucasi yelled, over another three-shot burst, and got his weight off him. “ Go!”
“Nadi,” he protested, outraged, but there seemed nothing for it. There was a lump of rock half a body length away, and he rolled downslope to get there, tangled in the damned long dress coat and trying to get all of him into cover. Lucasi aimed another burst up the hill, on which there was one man down and no sign of the others. In the next second, Lucasi came rolling downhill into the same inadequate shelter. Lucasi, being considerably larger, needed more of the rock, which Bren tried to give him.
There was a moment of no-sound, which made Bren think he had gone deaf; but he heard Lucasi moving around. He heard the scrape of a rock under his knee.
“Nadi,” he began, exasperated.
“He would have fired,” Lucasi said. “Forgive me, nandi, but he moved to fire.”
And did the civilian second-guess Guild instincts? If it had been Banichi, he never would have questioned the judgement. It wasn’t Banichi, by a long shot. And he had lied to that dead man about having control of the situation. Clearly. He was upset about that.
But the fact was, they were alive and under cover. He didn’t know how they were going to get out of this nook, and he didn’t know how many rounds Lucasi had left. He could hope maybe the pair who had fled back up over the hill were waiting for reinforcements, but he had the unhappy suspicion they were just working around to a better vantage, to come at them from behind their rock.
“He would have fired,” Lucasi said again.
“One believes you, nadi.”
“One regrets shoving you so hard.”
“Since I am alive, I by no means take offense. You have actually done very well, nadi.”
It was a young face, struggling with distress and imminent failure. And they were in one hell of a mess.
“I have a gun,” Bren said. “One rather expects they will come around the hill and up. Might one suggest you bring the rifle to bear on that situation, and I will watch for anyone to come over the hill, at a range that will give me time to miss at least once.”
“Yes,” Lucasi said, and shifted about to do exactly that, while Bren took the pistol from his pocket and tried to still his racing pulse. He had, unfortunately, their precision weapon, and he was long out of practice.
They waited. There was a sound at one point, a thump, the shift of a light rock from somewhere over the hill. And then a rock sailed over the crest and rolled down the sandstone dome.
Do them both credit, neither of them was fool enough to fire at it. They sat pat.
They waited.
Then after a considerable time, a second sound, from their right. The rock they were hiding behind obscured the source of it.
“They are coming downhill,” Bren said.
“I have a signal!” Lucasi whispered, suddenly twisting about to show him the blinking green light. “Nandi, oursignal. Your bodyguard is out there.”
From the certainty of disaster to a different kind of fear. They’d made enough racket and had enough guns going off to alert the surrounding countryside. His bodyguard knew he was in trouble and had surely gone from a stealthy approach to a desperate haste, maneuvering to take the opposition out.
But how many were there on the other side? Were they the advance guard of the whole damned force that had been banging and thumping away over at Najida? There could be a hundred or more in that convoy.
“What is my bodyguard doing?” he asked in the faintest whisper.
“They are coming in,” Lucasi said. “Nandi, do not fire.”
God, somebody with a correct code was moving up on their position. He took his finger deliberately off the trigger and curled it around the guard, for fear he might squeeze the trigger in sheer terror; but he wasn’t letting his finger stray far from it, either.