Very fast. Fire blasted back and kicked up sand that Bren spat and wiped from his face.
“We are in a predicament,” Jago said. “I have position. I’m going to move quickly, Bren-ji, and I must ask you stay here. You have your gun. I want you to fire ten shots, above my head, please, while I run for the rocks a little closer. Then I will lay down fire to cover Banichi and Casurni, who will move. Ten will empty your clip.” She pressed a clip into his hand. “Reload as rapidly as you can and please aim above me.”
“Jago—”
“I must trust you to do this, nadi,” Jago said. “Can you see the gunflashes?”
Fire was going on. He did see, risking a look. “Yes.”
“Begin firing, Bren-ji. Now!”
She didn’t give him a chance to protest. She ran. He fired, putting shots as accurately as he could toward that mark, and someone else was firing, he thought maybe Banichi and maybe someone else.
But fire came back. Jago staggered and went down, and got up, and he fired, pacing his shots. Jago was hurt, trying to run; and then someone from their side broke from cover and reached her and swept her along just as heran out of bullets.
“Damn!” he gasped, and tried to reload calmly, rammed the clip in and fired as rock shattered and something stung his chin. He saw the two figures reach cover and then open fire—two discharges of weapons.
“She made it! They made it!” Jase said beside him. “Incandescent.”
He held his fire maybe two seconds, having maybe seven, eight shots left. Then fire started up again, Jago’s and, he guessed, Banichi’s, which was covering Geigi’s man, Casurni. It was too rapid for just one. He opened fire to support them.
Then—
“Bren!” Jase said, and distracted him to the side, where firelit movement out on the water caught his eye.
Something huge was coming in from the sea, past the wreck of the yacht, like some floating white monster with a mouth gaping dark and wide, an incredible sight, lit by the fire of the burning boat.
It rammed itself onto the sand between them and the wrecked yacht down the beach. A broad ramp came thumping down and a tide of atevi poured out onto the beach, guns in hand. The sign on the superstructure said Dur-Saduri.
“God,” he said, as fire spattered across the beach.
“What isit?” Jase asked.
He said, faintly, not quite believing his own conclusion, “I thinkit’s the Dur island ferry.”
27
There were black-uniformed Guild among the new arrivals. Bren could see them walking across the beach, saw the use of pocket coms, and held his breath and hoped. For a moment firing was very intense and he shouted aloud, “Finesse, nadiin! We have people out there!”
Someone came directly toward their shelter, not rapidly, a little bent and limping, and he ducked in fear of having mistaken the situation. He was about to advise Jase to run for one of the inflatables, when a shadow came to the rock, leaned there, black leather sparking firelight off metal studs, and—he was sure it was Nawari, of Ilisidi’s service—said, “Are you all right, nandiin?”
“Perfectly fine,” Bren said, and stood up as Jase rose to his feet beside him—if Nawari was standing up, he dared. “Jago and Banichi and I think Cenedi went that way!” Fire was still going on. He was shaky in the knees. “Can you spare a clip, nadi?”
Nawari gave him one, and took off running.
“Come on,” he said to Jase, and ran after the man, toward the bank of rocks that, he saw in the firelight, supported a paved road right at cliffside, until pavement lost itself on the beach.
Thatwas where the intense fighting had been going on. That was where he found others of their group, lord Geigi among them, and Ilisidi; and Jago, who had a bloody bandage just above the top of her boot and who was getting off shots down into the dark. As he and Jase slid in beside her, he could just make out the tops of a group of trucks in that direction, between them and Saduri Township. She spared only a dart of her eyes toward them.
“What target?” he asked her.
“Those trucks,” she said. “Aim high! My partner’s a fool!”
He was alarmed. “Where’s Banichi?” he asked. He saw gun flashes out in the dark where he thought was water, and realized then it was the fishing boats. Geigi’s other Guild protection, Gesirimu, had been with them, and theywere running close to shore, firing from the water toward the trucks on that road.
“He said he’d get the trucks!” Jago said, stopping to shove in another clip.
“Are we sure who’s out there in the trucks, Jago-ji? Jase’s partner is missing!”
“We’re sure. Hanks has a pocket com. She’s appealed to all of us to disintegrate and abase our weapons.”
It was surreal. The paidhiin were shooting at each other. His friendBanichi was out there in the dark with bullets flying from the water and from their position, and he opened fire high, with the thought of knocking rock down off the cliffs above those trucks. He was scared of hitting Banichi.
Jago’s fire joined his, lower and more dangerous to the enemy, he was sure. And another someone joined them.
“Nandiin!” a young voice said. “My father believedthe dowager’s men! I have a gun! Where do I shoot!”
“Above the trucks!” Bren said. “Aim at the cliff. Produce ricochets!”
“Yes!” Rejiri said, lifted his high-caliber rifle, and fired.
Fire blossomed in the trucks, and in a flash that imprinted trucks and figures on the retina, light stained the cliffs, the sand, the sea, lit the boats and the rocks they were using for cover. The shock went through the ground and into their bones and before the light died a piece of the cliff was peeling away and headed down toward the trucks. There was the sound of one truck engine, speeding away.
“Ten, ten,” Jago said anxiously into the com.
“ Got them,” Banichi’s voice came back. “All but one, damn it.”
That truck was headed back to Saduri, by the sound of the motor fading. Jago rattled off a string of verbal code that Bren guessed was their identities. It ended with, “The Dur island ferry,” and drew an astonished and rude remark from the com.
A hand closed on Bren’s shoulder, Jase’s, in the silence of the guns. He reached his own out and closed on Jase’s arm, shaky, feeling the chill of the wind now that the area was quiet. Jago went on, apparently trying to talk to someone else.
Then a voice came back and Jago said, “Ten, ten, four, sixteen. Headed your way.”
“ Mistake on their part,” a voice came back. And something exploded in the distance, another shock echoing and echoing off the cliffs.
There was silence after, except the ringing in the ears.
“ Lord Tatiseigi’s compliments,” the com said distinctly.
Deana Hanks was dead. Banichi said he could verify that and it was probably better not to go down to the trucks, but Bren did. The place stank of smoke, of oil, and ocean—of burning, mostly, and while he was there, a small rock gave way high up the cliffs and fell with a pelting of gravel.
Six humans. At least—he was relatively sure it was six. More atevi. Twisted metal, the paint burned off. Banichi had gotten them with a grenade he’d gotten from up at Mogari-nai.
And Tatiseigi’s forces, while the elderly lord had ridden down in the van, had occupied the township proper and thrown up a roadblock with the help of residents. So they heard on the radio.