And spun about with a pistol in hand. It went off.
The whole room went to ceiling in a burst of thunder. It was that fast, and it hurt, and Bren couldn’t get a breath, lying flat on the floor with the feeling someone had just hit him, and he had hit his head, which hurt nearly as much as the punch in his gut. His whole brain was shaken, and his ears rang, and Tano had him by the hand and the arm and was hauling up on him, so he was supposed to get up—
He tried. He could not get a breath, and then got a little air: was aware of Tano on his knees trying to keep him flat, and Tano kept coming and going in a tunnel of dark.
Bad move. Thoroughly bad move.
“He is dead,” he heard Algini say. And: “Good riddance,” Geigi said, and another huge shadow obscured the light. A strong hand took Bren’s shoulder. “Bren-ji.”
“One is—” Bren tried to say, but ran out of air. It came to him that he had been shot, and that that was why the room had gone upside down, and why he had hit his head, but he was still alive, which was due to the vest. The vest now, as his numb fingers explored it, had a large frayed spot. He tried to get an elbow under him.
A halo of faces surrounded him, from his vantage: Tano and Algini left that halo, and Banichi and Jago appeared in their places. “I am quite all right,” he assured them. And attempted to sit up, in which the stiff vest offered no help at all, and his ribs hurt abysmally. Banichi and Jago each took an arm and pulled him gently to his feet; but his head reaching vertical didn’t help, not in the least. He felt sick, and dizzy, and was very glad when they let him down into a chair. He slumped back in the corner made by an arm, and surveyed the carnage in the room.
He’d given an order. Now Pairuti and four Guildsmen were dead on the floor and he’d risked Tano and Algini and Jago and everybody else who relied on himc all because he’d called it urgent.
“One has been a fool,” he said in a low voice, and thought for a moment he was going to be sick and compound everyone’s distress. He kept it down, however, and got two and three breaths. “Do what you need to do for the mission, nadiin-ji. I am far from dead.”
“We are secure, Bren-ji,” Jago said.
“As secure as we shall be,” Banichi said, “until this situation is resolved. We hold Targai.”
“An unwelcome gift,” Geigi said glumly. “But mine to deal with.”
“Can you sort out the staff, nandi?” Banichi asked, and Geigi shrugged.
“Perhaps,” Geigi said, and then ordered his own guard: “Find me one of Pejithi clan.”
“Nandi,” that man said, and moved off. Bren shifted in the chair, sucking in his middle with a wince; but perhaps no ribs were broken—bruised, yes, but he had gotten off better than he had deserved, no question.
“Go do what you need to do,” he said. “I am sure I am bruised, no more than that. From now on I takeadvice, no more of giving it, nadiin-ji. What is necessary, at this point?”
Banichi’s hand closed on his arm, on the chair, commanding attention. “Lord Geigi must take control of the clan, Bren-ji. We must hold this place. The aiji’s forces will do as they have orders to do. Beyond that—we hold here and trust Cenedi to hold Najida.”
Some things came clear out of the fog: that the aiji’s forces were dictating next moves, and that the next move beyond Targai was likely to be the Marid, and all-out war. They were sitting on the front lines. They were, in fact, holding a major piece of the front lines.
But the Marid was not limited to land. They had a navy and so did the aiji. There could be conflict striking at Separti Township, or coming into Kajiminda Bay, or Najida Bay—where there were very valuable targetsc targets Tabini would want to protect; and he hoped to God that Tabini’s forces were not going to start a feud with the Edi locals by going in there in force.
He had to think. Never mind the headache and the lump on the back of his skull, he had to think.
And just then every Guildsman in the room twitched: the door had opened, admitting a broad-shouldered Guildsman, with a solid grip on a younger man.
A very bedraggled, haggard and limping young man in Guild uniform, in the custody of a tall Guildsman with a red band about his armc
“Lucasi,” Bren murmured, and a dozen thoughts flashed through his mind—Cajeiri’s bodyguards: they had been near Barb, they’d disappeared, and they were here, where Marid agents had been running the place and where the local lord had shot at him. Bren sat up with a wince and started to get up from the chair, but bruised ribs said otherwise.
“Nandi!” Lucasi cried, and tried to reach him. The Guildsman holding him had another idea, and then Jago stepped into Lucasi’s intended path, cutting him off. The young man protested: “Nandi, we tried to overtake them! We are nottraitors!”
“I want to hear him, nadiin-ji,” Bren said quietly, and did get to his feet, with Banichi’s hand under his elbow. He got a breath and fixed Cajeiri’s missing bodyguard with a steady stare and one question. “Where is Barb-daja, nadi?”
“Nandi, Veijico—Veijico—is still tracking the kidnappers. They were in a closed truck, four of them, with the ladyc”
“On what road?” Jago asked sharply.
“The main road. East. I had put my foot in a hole. I could no longer keep up. But the truck stopped here. So we did not trust the Maschi lordc we hid. We waited. And then the truck went on. And Veijico went after them. And I was waiting for her—until Ragi Guild came in.”
“And where was your communication back to operations?” Jago asked.
Lucasi cast a look at her and shook his head. “I—was not equipped, nadi. We have the short-range. We do have that.”
“You left the grounds. You did not advise the officer of the watch. You did not take proper equipment. You went off without instruction.”
“We justc we thought—we thought, Jago-nadi, we thought—” Lucasi took a deep breath and wiped his face with both hands, shaking his head. “We had orders.”
“From whom?” Banichi asked.
“From the young lord, nadi.”
“From a child, nadi!”
“To whom we were assigned, nadi!” He made a profound bow to Bren, a slighter one to Banichi. The ribbon of his queue had come half undone. He was dusty, dirty, and thoroughly wretched-looking. “I take all responsibility. Help my partner. Veijico will die before she leaves the trail now, and it is my fault, nadiin, entirely my fault.”
“You involved the paidhi’s brother and led him out of a secure house,” Jago said.
“He came, nadi. We told him go back! We knew there was an alert in progress. We thought the young gentleman might have gone down to the boat—”
“So you took the extravagant action, you involved non-Guild, and at no time did you communicate with operations, though you had short-range available!”
Lucasi’s face became pained. “The young gentleman despises us. He avoided us. We thought—we thought it was on our account, that he had gone out, to teach us a lesson.”
“And why did you go to nand’ Toby at all, nadi?”
“We were wrong,” Lucasi said. “We know now. We were embarrassed. We thought—we thought we could get the young gentleman back, we could save him from a reprimand—we might mend matters. Intruders fired at us. Nand’ Toby went down. We tried to get to position to return fire and protect him, but then the lady bolted uphill, across our line of fire. We sawthem take her. We dodged around and got up as far as the road. Then we heard the young gentleman shouting at us from the porch. We moved to get between the intruders and him, and then we had his orders to retrieve the lady. We tried. We ran out onto the road and saw a truck in the distance. We tried to catch up with it. Then we thought—we need to know which way it will go at the intersection, toward the town or toward the train station, so we can report that. So we tracked them toward the intersection, and then—then we found ourselves out of range of house communications. The truck, nandi, had kept going east, toward the train station or the airport, and then we thought if there was a train, if they tried to take her aboard we could do something—but they kept going past the depot. We thought it might be the airport—but—then we thought—if we can reach Targai, the lord there will help us.” The young man ran out of breath and shook his head. “We were wrong, nandi. And we just—all along, once we had left short-range, we thought if we could get her back—we could redeem some of our mistakes.”