They really didn’t see Death arriving on their left flank until Hansen, twenty meters from a pair of stragglers, said, “Cut!” and the bright snarl of his arc sent Unit Four in at a run.
The first two targets required no more skill than a bandsaw needs for boards. Only the chests of these Frekka personnel were armored. Their legs burned like torches when the surge of Hansen’s arc boiled all the water out of them.
There was an incandescent crackling along Unit Four’s line of advance. The least of the men in Hansen’s unit wore armor as good as the best suit among the Frekka troops, and trained teamwork would finish what shock had begun.
The trees to the left were aflame. Because of the way the Frekka forces had bunched, Maharg’s Red Team had more than a fair share of targets—but Hansen was on the far right of the line, and he wasn’t about to screw up an attack plan himself because he got greedy.
A dozen Frekka warriors hesitated on either side of the gully they’d been crossing when Unit Four slaughtered the men marching ahead of them. They turned and ran when Hansen faced them.
“Blue Team,” Hansen shouted as he strode after them—the golden suit had enough power to jump the gully rather than struggling down one side and up the other—
“Follow m—”
There were two Frekka warriors in the gully as Hansen started to leap it. Their suits were in a class with the first one Golsingh issued to Hansen. An arc slashed across Hansen’s crotch as he rose for the jump.
Instead of clearing the obstacle, he crashed into the far bank like a turtle who’d tried to fly.
Hansen’s ears rang. The unexpected pain of his nose was as stunning as being struck by a thunderbolt. All around him was a roaring that fused clay into bubbling glass in a blue glare. Over the sound of the arc weapons he could hear men shouting.
Hansen’s display turned fuzzy. The upper right quadrant still showed the red dots running toward his own white marker like flies headed for fresh carrion.
The pain of almost-blocked electrical discharges stopped abruptly. Hansen could smell the hair crisped over most of his body, but now the blazing arcs surrounded him at a slight distance. It was as though he rode a bottle through the heart of a tornado.
The red dots vanished. Hansen’s display sharpened, but his eyes were too blurred with pain to focus on anything.
“Sir?” called one of the pair of his own men who were trying to lift Hansen upright. “Are you all right? Are you all right?”
Hansen managed to pat one of the men on the back; but it was almost a minute before he felt able to speak again.
Hansen assumed it was another slave entering the tent. He continued sponging at his face, treasuring the sting of cold water, until he heard Golsingh’s voice say, “You all may leave. I’ll take care of any needs the warchief may have.”
Hansen opened his eyes. The slaves scurried out, setting the flames of the oil lamps dancing.
The king wore a sequin-patterned shawl over a pair of light coveralls. His face was serious.
Hansen dabbed at his face again. His nose hurt like hell itself, but he didn’t think it was broken.
“I’m all right,” he said. It struck him that the king’s coveralls were modeled on Hansen’s own pair.
Golsingh dipped a finger in the basin of water. “Wouldn’t you like it heated?” he asked.
“It’s okay.”
Hansen wrung out the rag and met the king’s eyes as well as his swollen nose would permit. “Lord Golsingh,” he said, “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
Golsingh nodded. “Yes,” he said, “you did.”
The king sat down on the cot, blinked, and moved the pry-bar out from under him.
“Peace is very important to me, Lord Hansen,” he said. Hansen went back to mopping his bruised face so that he wouldn’t have to meet Golsingh’s eyes. “The most important thing in my life.”
Golsingh cleared his throat. “The—dream, if you will, that one day the men of this whole continent will be free of the necessity of fighting these interminable, useless wars.