Текст книги "Destroyer "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Over all, he feared they were going to have to stand and fight to keep Tatiseigi and the dowager alive, hoping for their own numbers to increase, as surely the Kadigidi were going to bring in reinforcements. Which would be very bad for the Atageini house, and its fragile lilies… worse for its surrounding towns, and their peaceful existence. The farmers—the locals—could have their whole structure blown to bits… vulnerable as the porcelain lilies.

His own affairs—he had wrapped up, leaving the next tries to Jase and Yolanda. He had delivered Cajeiri into the hands of his Taibeni relatives, to get to his father if they could. He trusted Toby was back on the island, likely hovering near the shortwave and hoping for news…

God, this was morbid, cataloging and disposing of all his ties to the world. But the ruler he served seemed less and less likely to get back to power, the more blood they poured on the matter, and if it didn’t happen, the world didn’t need a paidhi whose advice had led to civil war and bodies lying in windrows…

That was the underlying thought, wasn’t it? There was a certain justice in his being here, and he had run out of remedies. If he sent his staff off to take up service with Cajeiri, in the first place, they wouldn’t go, and if he went, himself, it would bring Cajeiri association with him. Everything seemed circular reasoning. Everything led where he was… which left him unable to see the outcome. He couldn’t even see how it mattered, except he might kill some Guildsman who adhered to the Kadigidi, and they might kill him, and nothing, in the long run, would get fixed, not by him, would it?

Maybe by Jase. Maybe by Lord Geigi, who could sit up in the heavens and say, you idiots, I told you so. Are you ready to stop killing each other?

Because the kyo would show up. And somebody had to be in charge. He was sure of that, as sure as he was that the whole current enterprise was unlikely to succeed.

Once he analyzed it that way, he began to have a roadmap of what they had to do, and what constituted a win—if only raising enough hell on the planet that Geigi and Jase got wind of his failure early, before the Kadigidi could capitalize on their win.

At best, getting Ilisidi back to Taiben and making the Kadigidi look a little less powerful than they claimed. That would put egg on their faces… start one hell of a war, but it wouldn’t leave the world to Murini’s non-existent common sense. Get Ilisidi to Taiben. That prospect might even budge Tatiseigi to go, be it in that antique roadster, not to mention the Kadigidi would never be able to claim the man’chi of the Atageini populace… who would rally to their oldest enemies, the Taibeni, and create a very hard kernel of resistance right next to the Kadigidi.

Damn, he was starting to think again, not on a cosmic scale, not of the politics of species, but in the dirt and sweat world of detailed politics and the knack of leaving an enemy looking less successful, while one’s own tattered cause emerged looking as if it had won something. Atevi, like humans, dearly loved a neatly carried action, an outrageous enterprise.

He became downright foolishly cheerful, as cheerful, at least, as contemplating the necessary obverse of that coin could let him be. The wind altogether seemed a little warmer, the dark a great deal friendlier to them.

Give the Kadigidi a surprise? Maybe. His backside had passed the tingling point, far past pain, where the jouncing and jolting of the mechieti’s gait was concerned; he could ignore discomfort, now. The darkened landscape passed in a shadow-play of his own staff riding near and then past him and back again, the rangers tending to the lead, in a territory they seemed to know much better than Lord Tatiseigi might like—down one long slope and another, and finally toward a dark line of shadow that his eyes began to resolve as artificial, the hedge that would conceal a fence, the estate boundary.

It came closer and closer until it barred off their forward progress, an ancient hedge more than head high to a mechieti, thick and tangled and stubborn—and how they could possibly pass it, he had no idea… but their scout had.

They drew up to a hard-breathing halt in front of that barrier, and a number of the rangers slid down and took equipment from their saddle-packs. Some of them bodily forced the hedge aside, one attaching a rope to his saddle and urging his mechieti to turn and pull, which bent two ancient parts of the hedge aside. Then men set to work with hand-axes, others spelling the effort in quick succession, so that the rhythm and strength of the blows never flagged for a moment. The center of each bush began to give way, and once they gave, another ranger pressed into the gap and set to work on the chain link fence, sharp, quick snaps of a wire-cutter: Lord Tatiseigi’s fences and the Taiben rangers seemed, by what he saw, an old, old matter. Bren sat his saddle, shivering alike from anticipation and from the chill breeze that ruffled the grass even in the hedge-shadow. Thunder rumbled out of the west. Lightning was not their friend, not in terms of being the tallest items in the landscape, and not in terms of secrecy in this invasion.

But the fence, thank God, was no longer carrying a charge… the house had ordered defenses lowered. But had they ever gone up again? He thought of the Atageini gatekeeper, alone out there. The man might not have survived the night.

Not to mention the destruction that might have fallen on the house itself. He saw Banichi check the pocket com for information, detected nothing unexpected in Banichi’s demeanor—it had told them nothing it had not told them before.

The wire-cutter meanwhile did its work. Rangers forced their way into the gap and pulled, and the fence, gleaming faintly metallic in the dark, peeled back on either side of the missing bush, and now Deiso quirted the herd-leader through the gap, breaking brush and probably losing a little hide off him and the mechieti in the process.

Bren grabbed for a hold on the saddle as the whole herd decided to go through that atevi-sized gap at once, his own fighting to get ahead of others. Brush broke. Bren had a chaotic view of chain-link bent aside and flattened, and then his mechieti scraped through, dragging his right knee painfully past an unyielding broken branch and ripping his trousers in the process.

They were onto the estate grounds, then, with a single mechieti’s wounded protest. The rangers still afoot had scrambled to the saddle and come through, joining the moving mass. Bren found Banichi on one side of him and Tano on the other, with, he was sure, Algini and Jago just off to their respective sides, in a breathless confusion of mechieti sorting out their traveling order and broadening their front. A peevish toss of a head, tusks gleaming in the dark, an answering snort and head-toss, riders maneuvering as they picked up the pace.

They were on Lord Tatiseigi’s land, now, concealed by a clouded dark, and coming in at a thirty-degree angle to the front door of the house, the opposite side from the stables Bren had at least the glimmering of an idea where they were, a kilometer or so yet to go; and a remarkably clear notion of what they were going to do once they got there, which was to get as close as they could, dismount, and conduct a Guild-against-Guild operation around the house hedges, a sort of conflict in which one human with a sidearm was not outstandingly much help.

Deep breath. The mechieti hit their traveling pace. Too late for second thoughts. His gun was safe in a fastened pocket, so it wouldn’t fall out. Extra clip in his inside pocket. He hoped against all instinct that the core of Tatiseigi’s questionable staff was loyal; he hoped the dowager was still safe, and that Cenedi was.

Over another low rise, and now the house itself showed on the opposing ridge, a dark lump amid dark hedges, not a glimmer of light.

Then a sullen glow, like an illusion. “A light,” he said to those nearest, and Banichi:

“Clearly, nandi.”

Not clear to his eyes. But the house was not deserted. Something was going on in an upper window.

The land pitched. They lost sight of the house on the downslope.

Then gunshots racketed through the dark, four, five, a volley so rapid there was no separating them.

Up again, into full view of the house, that looked no different than before.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “this sort of action will be no good place for you. Pick deep cover and get into it. And get back to the hedge and out before daylight, if we fail.”

“One hears, Banichi-ji.” It was not advice to ignore, no matter how it stung his pride.

An explosion and a gout of orange fire shattered the night. Two explosions, three. More fires started.

“Near the stable,” Banichi said, which Bren desperately took for hope that that light in the house window had not been an invader, that there was still force holding out, deliberately provoking enemy action to get a bead on them. A spatter of gunfire racketed out, echoing.

And suddenly the leader hit an all-out pace and every mechieti followed. Bren grabbed for the saddle and recovered his balance, held rein and saddle with one hand, letting the quirt dangle as he unfastened his pocket and pulled out his pistol.

Safety off. He didn’t make that elementary mistake. The landscape, the blazing fire with its rising smoke, the figures around him were all a jolted blur in the dark. The gait was that breakneck, ground-devouring run that humped the mechieti’s back and knocked the rider against the rear of the saddle—flung him all the way off, if the rider didn’t keep his center of gravity forward and his leading leg locked around the mechieti’s heaving shoulders. The back had to give, thus, to the sway inherent in the motion. He wasn’t a novice, just a long time out of practice, and this beast had a scary habit of crashing around obstacles at the very last moment—nearsighted, he swore; but it was more than following its leader. The damned creature had suddenly taken ambition into its brain, and wanted further forward, carrying lighter weight and being suddenly full of charge-ahead enthusiasm.

Up the final rise onto a mown lawn, and the rattle of gunfire ahead seemed to have nothing to do with them. He hadn’t enough hands for the quirt, the gun, the rein, and a good grip on the saddle: he had to pick the gun and the rein and trust his balance.

The house hedge showed ahead, a black wall against a red-tinged haze of smoke, and the herd leaders were undaunted—vying with one another, jostling for position, they plowed through the low obstruction like so much scrub, flattening it as they poured onto the drive and the whole herd hit the cobbles, a footing they loathed, and scrambled to get away from.

The leaders dived into the stable-lane, beside the house, but a rider rode athwart his beast’s head—Tano, heading him off from that charge. Then Banichi himself rode across his path, jostling his mechieti, forcing it to a complete stop on the drive.

“Get down!” Banichi yelled at him, and he questioned not an instant. His mechieti was stamping and head-tossing at Tano’s beast, trying to get to the lane, and he simply flung a leg off, kept hold of his gun and slid down next to the house hedge, controlling his fall with a grip on the mounting-strap until his feet hit uneven cobbles and exhausted legs tried to buckle under him.

An atevi arm grabbed him around the ribs and one of his staff hurried him against the building, down into the hedge, an atevi hand pressed his head down—and then was gone, his staff—all of them, having left afoot, armed, and with definite intent.

Damn, he thought. They’d gotten down primarily to get him to cover. Now they were dismounted, the mechieti having followed all the others around the corner toward the stables, and he was stuck here beneath a hedge, behind a stone corner and a second, facing hedge that didn’t let him see what was going on.

He ought to stay put. He knew that. But he didn’t like being near the house, which could be a target of explosives and grenades. He was in possession of one gun, of their few. He was in concealment and the hedge was as good as a highway. He wriggled behind the thick central growth of the hedge, crawled, assassin-fashion, on his elbows and belly. Gunfire rang off the stonework, and the ruined arch above the stable hedge lit with fire and smoke. His staff was doubtless in the thick of it.

More gunfire. The hedge across the stable path offered better advantage, a short crawl in the open, and he scrambled for it, forcing his way in. He came up against a metal stake that must be some of the surveillance equipment—which, God knew, might be telling the house at this very moment that there was an intruder in the brush. He felt for wires, found a conduit, wondered exactly what it led to, but there was no cutoff point, no switch available.

Not a place to linger, in any case. From his new vantage, wriggling further, he saw the stable yard, its rails down, mechieti milling about against the skeletal ruin that had been the stable itself.

And he saw atevi moving down the drive, coming from that direction—not his staff, he feared.

Then he saw half a dozen atevi running in his direction, down the drive, toward his former hiding-spot at the corner of the house.

Not his staff, a dim judgement said, and he whipped up his gun and pasted a single shot at the house corner.

The movement halted, spun about, flattened, and now fire flew in earnest, shots chipping the stonework, ricocheting off the ruined arch over his head. He’d been right—he hoped he’d been right, that his shot had warned Banichi, that he hadn’t aimed at some of Deiso’s men by accident. Or—a sober second thought—Tatiseigi’s.

A shot whisked through the branches above him, clipping evergreen, giving off a strange vegetative pungency in a night air choked with fire and gunpowder. He flattened himself all the way against the dirt, and heard the men who’d taken cover at his one shot now attempt to move. He sent a second shot toward the brickwork, and then, remembering what Banichi and Jago had taught him, slithered as silently as possible back along the hedge to a changed perspective, down among the roots, a much smaller target than atevi would generally be aiming at, and he had possible hiding-places an ateva wouldn’t fit into.

Electric shock jolted his arm, right to the roots of his teeth. He jumped—he couldn’t help it. But he didn’t cry out.

He’d found the only damned live wire in the hedge.

He eased back, nursing a numb arm, and tried to figure out where that loose wire was, and what it was connected to, which seemed to be a junction box, a little down from his position, not particularly well-protected, and cut, at this end. Deliberately disabled, and not by someone inside the house, who controlled the master cutoff.

What had been cut could be rejoined. He wondered what would happen if he did. Wondered whether it was sensors or lights connected to this line. Lights could expose his own people, as well as the other.

But there was a buildup of hostile force in his area, which was exposed, and likely nervous, hesitating to move into chancier cover where Banichi and his crew waited. He reached through the brush another few meters and located what he’d crawled over. Pulled it gently, rolled on his shoulder while shots continued to go off and uselessly chip the pale stonework near the corner.

Hell, he thought. Whatever was going on around the house, if Cenedi and the dowager were still holding out inside, they couldn’t know what was going on. One thing would tell them, encourage them, give them the notion things weren’t all to the attackers’ liking. He dragged the wire back. Touched it to the live one.

Snap! The lights popped on and a siren blared for about a second before he jerked the wire away.

Gunfire spattered through the hedge. He hoped to God he’d not gotten anyone on his side killed. But Banichi wasn’t easy to surprise. Neither, he hoped, were the Taibeni.

Then he heard a whistle he knew. Once, twice. Fortunate three.

He reconnected the wires. And all hell broke loose above his head, shots going every which way. Mechieti squalled, and all of a sudden one broke through the hedge, catching the wire, jerking it right out of his hand.

He didn’t know where it had gone. He couldn’t find it. He didn’t know which way his own side was. The firing kept up, and a concussion went off against the corner of the house, sending a shockwave right over him, deafening him for the moment, in a small fall of leaves.

Not a good position, he decided, and decided, too, knowing the lay of the hedges, that he’d better go back past the live wire and back toward the drive, toward that hedge that ran along the driveway cobbles—it was low, too low to conceal an ateva, and as good a cover as he could get. It was certain he’d been too active in the last few minutes to remain safe where he was.

He moved in that direction, wriggling along, finding and following the live wire, and trying not to make noise, never mind the volleys of shots that were going off on every hand.

He heard whistles. That was Banichi or Jago. He thought so. Hoped it was. He didn’t want to distract them with his problems. He had the gun in hand, had counted the shots he’d made, being sure where he was in the clip. At the same time he asked himself what else there was for a weapon around the stableyard, and he tried to see what might be left of the stable wall, beyond the moving shapes of mechieti. The herd had occupied the yard and now defended it, so far as he could tell—there was a great deal of milling about, a great bluster of snorts and head-shaking, none of which he wanted to challenge—anyone, ateva or human, who attempted the herd in that mood was taking a real chance.

A moment to regroup, lying concealed along the driveway hedge. He remembered he had the pocket com. No one had tried that mode of communication… he’d gotten no signal from it. He didn’t know but what a signal just from turning it on might be picked up, if not understood, and he decided not to try it, Just staying still and undiscovered was a contribution to their side. He could do Banichi the most good just by not getting in—

A shadow moved near him, hunkered down and creeping along the hedge. He could see the face, at least in profile, and it wasn’t one of his. He was relatively sure it wasn’t one of Deiso’s men. Someone—one, no, two of them, attempting to maneuver along the hedge, going right past him.

Stay still? Let them pass? Let someone else handle it?

He fired, fired once and twice more, and the two men went down, one atop the other. He scrambled among the brushy growth, further down the hedge, weaving among the roots, as riflefire cracked and ricocheted off the cobbles of the drive.

Pause to catch his breath. He didn’t know but what there were more after him, but they wouldn’t expect anyone could get underneath the spreading branches, in this small, earthy dark.

A lengthy period of quiet. A sprinkle of rain came down. He laid his head against the ground. Cold had spread through his trousers, and now through his coat, but that was only discomfort. He wasn’t likely to be found if he just didn’t move, didn’t twitch. Except—

He caught a gleam of fire over by the stables.

Someone out there had lit a fire, spooking the mechieti to move out. They squalled and bolted, trampling brush, some crossing the hedge. The fire blazed up and his skin shone like the moon through branches. He did all he could to keep his hands tucked and his face away from the light. He hated not looking. He heard movement outside his hiding-place. He heard a step come right beside him, and the urge to look was overwhelming.

A shot. A body hit the ground right beside him, and now he did look, and saw a man down right beside him—wounded, not dead. It wasn’t one of his side; and sensible as it might be to do for him, for the safety of his own side—he scrupled to become an executioner. He scrambled to get out the other side of the hedge, eeled his way back, while, behind him, someone else tried to get to the man.

Full circle. He’d gotten back in view of the corner of the house, not well enough covered by the hedge, and by now not sure where his own side was. He wriggled underneath the branches and found himself back near the live wire.

Whistle. Banichi’s. Or Jago’s. He held his breath, tried to judge where it had come from, and he thought it was near him. He hunched down, face down, for a moment, to ease his position, arms under him, then looked up.

Straight at a pair of boots.

He didn’t move. Scarcely breathed.

Eventually the owner of the boots crouched down and moved off. His own, or the other side, he had no idea at all. He stayed still, breathing in controlled ins and outs, listened to occasional shots, and finally, strange in the dark, heard whispers, someone discussing the situation, but faint and far. They were talking about Lord Tatiseigi, about his security arrangements.

“The old cheapskate will never afford a wire,” one said, to his strained hearing. “And the power is down. Get in, take the dowager, take the heir and the paidhi, and what they do out here has no effect.”

There was indeed a wire. Or two. They misjudged, and it could be messy, if the lights had been deliberately turned out and if the house still had power.

But letting them try it—was too great a risk. He moved an elbow, eased his whole body over, and saw a knot of skulkers over beside the porch. He hated to let off a shot. He was running out of hiding places. They knew a human was in question. If they adjusted their concept of what to look for, they might suspect where he was. But he saw nothing else to do.

“Look out!” one yelled, looking his direction and moving, and he let off one shot and two and three and four at that knot of shadows, then ducked back among the roots, catching sight of a ground-floor window opening, but no one near it.

Then a couple of bodies dropped from the window down to the ground. Someone from inside the house.

He had the pocket com. He was in a position to see something. He drew a deep breath and risked turning it on for a second, adjusting it with his thumb in complete dark.

“Banichi,” he whispered. “Banichi. Someone has exited the house.”

Tatiseigi’s men had mixed themselves into the affair.

“Stay down,” the answer came to him. “Shut it off.”

He turned the unit off, stuck it back into his pocket, hoped not to hear from it again until there was reason for Banichi to want to find him. He stayed there, face buried, listening, listening. A twitch started in his shoulder muscles.

It was quiet for very, very long after that.

He changed position, half-numb, muscles shivering from strain. He moved very, very carefully. He wiped a little mud over his face and hands and ventured a look out.

A flurry of shots ensued, and a squall of mechieti.

He ducked back. Stayed absolutely still, relaxed, finally, except for shivers from the cold. Minutes turned into half hours, and half hours to an hour, at least. He had absolutely no sound from anything but the restless mechieti and the crackle of the ebbing fire over in the stable area.

He moved enough, finally, to rest his cheek against his left hand, which warmed both. The Guild could be very patient. They could stay like this for hours, waiting for something to change, and what would change was the planet turning on its axis, and sunlight coming over the horizon.

Daylight would come. At dawn things might begin to move again.

White light flared, ran across the cobbled drive. He lifted his head, peered up through the branches, seeing a spotlight glaring from an upstairs window. It played over the hedges, and off over the lawn.

Then it went out.

More waiting. He relieved the stress on his neck by dropping his head to his hand again, and wondered what was going on in the house. It had gotten ungodly complicated. If Cenedi was inside, Cenedi couldn’t just shoot at whatever moved out here.

But Cenedi could just toss pebbles into the pond, looking to raise a ripple, to force whoever hadn’t taken good cover to do so. That light might represent such thinking.

Or possibly Cenedi did as he had done, and signalled his rescuers that they were still alive, still in control of the house upstairs and down. He hoped that was the case.

Long, long wait. Then the spotlight flared out of another window, playing on the hedges, and running along the ground—Bren saw it through a black lattice of branches—toward the regrouped mechieti, who disliked it, and started milling about and creating noise of their own.

The com vibrated. Bren laid his pistol on the ground and dug the device out of his pocket, pressed it to his ear.

“We are on the grounds, on your trail,” a voice said, and one he thought was Banichi’s:

“One is advised, nadi.”

The transmission cut off. If the enemy had intercepted it, that news could only make them more anxious. Day was coming. Help was coming in, from Taiben. The odds were beginning to shift.

Then a voice from somewhere far to the right, Banichi’s, loud and clear.

“Kadigidi. Our allies are moving in. Atageini forces are coming in. Clear the grounds. Guild truce. Recover your wounded and go.”

Bren moved his hand to his gun, slipped his fingers around it, lay there, expecting a volley of shots to pursue that voice.

“Guild truce,” a clear voice came back.

And thereafter small movements began, one very, very close at hand. Bren lay hardly breathing as a shadow left the hedge, evergreen whispering, oh, so quietly. Small movements went on, increasing in the vicinity of the stables, and mechieti took exception.

Further and further away, those sounds moved. He had heard of such things, that the Guild, being a professional brotherhood, would limit damages, that there were mechanisms to prevent the waste of lives, among those who, in the Guild hall, might share a pot of tea.

Then silence, long silence. If Banichi wanted to move out and trust it was safe, Banichi would move, but Banichi did not, nor was there any sound at all but the mechieti milling about. Bren lay there, chilled through, his fingers no longer feeling the gun. He didn’t know if anyone ever agreed to, then violated Guild truce. A very great deal was at stake, and if no one ever had done such a thing in the history of the Guild, it still might not mean safety. There were non-Guild who sometimes mixed into these affairs—like him. It had all been stealthy—thus far.

The next round… who knew? Airplanes. Bombs. He didn’t like to think what the day might bring.

But if they went that far, if it got beyond Guild, then the farmers and the shopkeepers would take a hand. And it would be bloody war, with farmers on this side attacking farmers on the other. Utter disaster. Everything they had done last night was one thing. They never wanted it to get to the utmost.

Long, long wait. He took up the com unit in his left hand, rested his chin on that wrist, waited.

It vibrated, and he had it to his ear in a heartbeat.

“Bren-ji? ” Jago’s whisper, blessed sound.

“I’m fine,” he whispered back.

“Are you in a safe position?”

Amazing that Jago had to ask him. He’d learned a few things in his career. One of them was not to blurt out his position on a compromised communications system. “Are they gone?” He had heard no mechieti leaving.

“We think so. But we shall not trust them. Work your way toward the stable path. Algini will meet you. Our allies will be here in moments.”

He shut down, pocketed the com and wriggled forward, following the curve of the drive. He could only think of Taibeni allies inbound, and the fact that he didn’t know the sort of signals the rangers passed, or the Guild, either, for that matter. He slithered among the roots, beside another wire, another connection, and up where the stable path left. A shape crouched there, watching, the slight gleam of starlight on a rifle-barrel.

He stopped, frozen, the instant he realized that shape.

“Bren-ji?” it asked.

Algini. He moved again, as far as the path that divided them.

“Stay still, nandi,” Algini said. “Stay as you are.”

He was no longer alone, at least. And in a moment more, another figure turned up, crouching low along the hedges. Tano, he was relatively sure.

There was quiet, a lengthy quiet. He put the safety on the gun, at least, feeling that secure, and put it into his pocket, so as not to get dirt in it. But beyond that, he didn’t move.

The mechieti began to stir. One called out.

They’re coming, he said to himself. Their help was coming in.

He lowered his forehead against his hand and drew several even breaths, listening, listening as the mechieti decided, unrestrained, to go wandering out along the stableyard walk, one passing right by them, but, disliking the cobbles of the drive, not going further. His position was becoming untenable not because of enemy action, but because of mechieti.

He eeled forward and got up as far as his knees, when Tano seized his elbow and hauled him back, as all of a sudden mechieti poured past onto the hated cobbles, and other mechieti came crashing through the ruined hedge on the other side of the drive.

“Taiben!” someone called out, and from further down the path, another recognition.

“Cajeiri got there,” Bren ventured.

“One believes a message did,” Banichi said, appearing near them. “One hopes that he got there.”

He was numb. He watched the mechieti milling about, and then a tall rider drew up in front of them and slid down to the cobbled drive.

“Bren-ji,” that man said, in a resonant voice that, once heard, was never forgotten.

“Aiji-ma!” Bren said, with no doubt at all. One never hugged atevi, least of all one’s lord, but it was, it very much was Tabini-aiji.

“One somehow knew Bren-nandi was at the heart of all this fire and smoke,” Tabini said. “Where is my grandmother?”

“In the house, aiji-ma, at least one hopes she is.”

No hesitation, no explanations. A tall figure, wide-shouldered and clad in Assassin’s black, Tabini strode off toward the house steps. A woman in ranger’s green joined him, and two other Assassins in black—Damiri and Tabini’s guard, Bren had no doubt, though he was still stunned. He watched the bodyguard stride to the fore and heard them hail the house.