The second bodyguard stepped closer and chopped at Hansen’s waist. Hansen was prepared for the stroke and parried it by switching his arc to his left gauntlet.
The first warrior took his release as a gift from providence and lumbered toward the gate. Hansen sheared through the second man’s suit at mid-thigh, then caught the first from behind while he was still between the gate towers.
The man’s battlesuit was very nearly of royal quality. It lost motive power but held until Hansen swiped his victim to the side with his gauntlet almost in contact with its target.
“Through the walls!” Hansen shouted as he led the nearest of the royal forces through the gate. “Don’t spare anybody with a weapon!”
Which wasn’t, part of his mind told him with amusement, a very necessary order.
Even this major entryway curved abruptly just inside the gate, and the houses of Frekka leaned over the cobblestoned street. Most of the dwellings had been built at two stories, but they’d been raised by third-floor lofts as expanding business increased the need to house drovers and artisans within the walls.
Thinking of walls. . . .
The Syndics’ army had broken, even the right wing which hadn’t really been engaged. Frekka warriors massed at the gates the royal army hadn’t yet captured. Many of them were trying to climb over the three-meter walls.
Now that their leashes had been slipped, Golsingh’s men weren’t waiting to go in turn through the gates either.
There were snarls behind Hansen as arcs gnawed the base of the heavy stonework. Quartz popped, mortar blazed as limelight, and fracture lines forced by differential heating shattered the biggest blocks in moments.
Sections of the wall crashed down. Undamaged ashlars from the higher courses bounced crazily, knocking over warriors who weren’t quick enough to dodge them.
A roofing tile broke on Hansen’s helmet.
He looked up. An old woman wearing a shawl over a dress embroidered with pearls stood on the roof coping. She was lifting a second tile to hurl down at him.
The woman dropped the useless missile and began to scream as the faceless gold helmet turned toward her.
Hansen lowered his gauntlet and smashed through the doorway into the house. The lintel was a 6×6 timber. His helmet struck it squarely. The timber didn’t break, but it tore away in a shower of plaster and broken wainscoting.
The stairway was to the left off the front hall. Hansen took the steps one at a time, placing his armored boots directly over the stringers. He still wasn’t sure the treads would take the weight of his battlesuit, but they did. . . .
The entrance to the loft was a ladder at the far end of the second-floor hall. The old woman was halfway down it. She saw Hansen coming up the stairs and screamed, trying to scramble back the way she’d come.
Hansen reached the base of the ladder while she was at the top of it. He jerked the heavy frame out of the wall to which it was pegged.
The old woman dangled from the loft opening, bleating like a trapped rabbit. She’d lost her shoes and her thin legs threshed like a drowning swimmer’s. She wore black stockings held up by incongruous flowered garters.
Hansen started to laugh. He tossed the ladder aside and caught the woman easily when her arms let go.
“Listen to me,” he said, using the amplification of his suit’s speakers to overwhelm her terrified cries. “You know where the—the city hall, the headquarters is.”
The woman’s eyes and mouth clopped shut as the words hammered her. She opened them. “The Palace of Trade?” she asked.
“Right,” said Hansen, walking back to the staircase with his prisoner cradled in his left arm. “You’re going to guide me there.”
He didn’t figure he needed to voice a threat. Besides, his heart wouldn’t’ve been in it. This old lady seemed to be the only person in Frekka with any balls.
The street to which Hansen returned was chaos. Royal troops thronged it, some of them coming from the opposite direction in their confusion. A number of the warriors were clumsily draped with loot. Several houses were already burning, sending flakes of dingy white ash down across the street and men.