And Banichi answered her: “Advise Lord Pairuti, nadi, that he has an offer of safety and personal intercession from the paidhi-aiji. Your lord, we believe, is aware of the Filing of Intent.”
“He is aware of it, nadi.”
There was a moment of silence, then. Bren could not entirely see what was happening because of the doorframe, but he saw Jago standing quite, quite still, with her hand ominously near her sidearm.
“There is a signal passed, Bren-ji,” Tano said without diverting his eyes from their potential targets. “Banichi has asked whether they are under duress. They have responded they are under internal threat.”
Handsigns, that silent language of the Guild.
They had a problem, then. Marid agents—in the house. These two were out here in a desperate bid to negotiatec
Either that, or these two were lying and intended to set them up.
Tano said, sharply, “Bren-ji, up! Get off the bus. We are taking the house.”
Damn! Bren thought, and flung himself to his feet and around the rail to reach the steps with Tano and Algini right with him. He thought he was going to run for the doors. But Tano seized him around the ribs in one arm and outright carried him to the front of the house, setting him down to the side of the entry as Banichi and Jago kicked wide the half-open house doors and fired one volley down the hall.
Then they were not alone. From cover of somewhere—the ornamental bushes down the drive, the ancient, crumbled masonry beyond, God knew—there suddenly appeared other black uniforms, guns lifted, signal of peace.
Tabini’s men, Bren thought, heart lifting.
The two local Guild meanwhile turned their backs to the situation, hands held outward, a declaration they were not going to contest the takeover, Bren saw with a sideward glance. He felt sorry for them: they were in a hell of a situation, relying on hisword there was a chance to save their lord.
But if the wrong word came out of the house, those two would fight. And die without a chance.
Geigi’s guard had reached the door of the house just a little ahead of Geigi himself reaching Bren’s position. The bodyguard had their rifles aimed generally up, but a scant heartbeat from going level and wreaking destruction down the hall.
Tano and Algini kept themselves in the way, cutting off view of any proceedings inside the building, while Banichi and Jago continued to issue orders from just inside. Nobody had touched the two local Guildsmen, who had not moved in all this, not a muscle.
“Lord Pairuti is offered the paidhi-aiji’s intercession!” Banichi’s voice rang down the hall. “Let him come out and surrender to the paidhi-aiji!”
There was silence inside. Bren was not in a position to see what was going on; there was a large bush and Tano’s very tall body between him and the hall. Tano maintained a grip on his arm with his left hand, the rifle in his right, tucked under his arm. On the other was Algini, also armed, and partially blocking his view of Lord Giegi, who was similarly jammed into the bushes, with four or five of the newly arrived Guildsmen between their positions. The two still-armed bodyguards maintained their posture, waiting, arms outstretched, unmoving.
“ Come out!” Banichi shouted down the inner hall, with Jago standing right by him—her rifle aimed right down that hallway.
Fire came back, a shot so loud Bren jerked; and in the same muscle-twitch their side fired back.
“Stay here, nandi!” Tano said, half a heartbeat behind Algini moving. They took up position in the doorway: Bren stood pat, heart pounding, wondering what had happened, whether Banichi and Jago were all right. He could just see Banichi down on one knee, with rifle braced to fire. Nobody was shooting now. And in a moment Bren saw Jago shift into view, standing, rifle covering the hall.
Algini moved, to insinuate himself past the open door and cover both Banichi and Jago, with no fire at all.
Then Bren became aware that Guild around them had moved—some vanishing from the driveway without a sound, just gone, when Bren looked back in Geigi’s direction: the corner of the house offered a likely destination. Others had dragged the two locals out of the line of fire and applied medical aid to one of them—who must have been felled by that shot.
For a moment that gesture of mercy was the only movement, one of the two brought down by a shot presumably from their own side, and surgery being performed right on the driveway, in the cover of the bus.
Not a nice situation, no.
But it was over, he was thinking, starting to plan how he was going to get into the hall.
Banichi and Jago opened fire suddenly, a deafening discharge; and simultaneously moved, with Geigi’s bodyguard at their backs. There was nothing Tano and Algini could do about the situation, not with two helpless lords in their care. Bren had the pistol in his pocket, but he left it there: they already had the example of friendly fire on the driveway. And he stayed right where he was, beside the open door, next to a row of bushes; and they daren’t budge from here. Geigi was immediately behind him.
Get back to the bus? It was a sitting target, even if it hadn’t gotten so much as a ding in its painted panels on this venture.
Better to be where they were. Unless things went very, very bad in there.
And God, there were so many ways it—
Blast from inside. Grenade, or boobytrap. There were wires that could take a head or foot off. There were a hundred ways the Guild could kill intruders in a territory they had prepared for invasion; and Bren stood there against the bushes trying not to think of that.
Then massive fire erupted inside the building.
Followed by a deafening silence.
Stinging smoke wafted out of the doorway.
And out of that smoke, Jago appeared on a leisurely retreat, spoke code into her com, and looked as if she had understood something in the instant before her eyes shifted for one split-second toward Bren and Geigi.
“The aiji’s men have come into the house from the garden entry,” Jago said, watching down that hall again, “meeting ours.”
“Are they all right?” Bren asked in a low voice—not wishing to distract Jago from business; and in fact Jago’s look of concentration never broke from the hall.
“They have asked the same of us,” Jago said under her breath. “There are targets on the grounds. Probably it will be best to move inside the house, Bren-ji. Now.”
Bren moved, jammed his hand into his pocket to find the butt of the pistol, and, with Jago, Geigi, and Tano and Algini, rounded the corner into the hallway.
Banichi, two of Geigi’s men and a handful of other Guild were the only persons standing under a high pall of smoke in that hall. Two people in civilian dress were sitting on the floor, knees tucked up, against the wall—denoting their noncombatant status, and inconveniently far from any side door. Those were servants.
Two other Guild lay face down in a pool of blood. He and Geigi were still near the door, with their bodyguards; and Tano, stepping to the side, drew Bren against the wall there— a safer place than mid-hall, in case anybody should burst out of one of the side rooms firing, Bren thought belatedly. Geigi was in the same defensive position, their bodyguards arrayed as a living shield between them and anybody appearing from down the hall, and Algini, at their rear, guarding against anybody trying to retreat into the house and coming at them from behind.
Not an optimum approach, if they wanted to save Pairuti and what he knew. Bren looked at Geigi and saw distress: not an optimum homecoming, either, with dead in the hallway and house servants trying desperately to keep out of the line of hair-triggered Guild. Banichi signaled the two servants they could move to safety, and they quietly did so, getting into a side room, shutting that door.