Warriors armed for slaughter stamped from the houses of Solfygg in which they had been billeted. Shouts from the palace area had aroused the Solfygg forces before dawn, the hour of assembly which King Hermann had set.
Arcs flashed in the confusion. Warriors were testing their equipment nervously. The streets of the city were too narrow for arc weapons, even when used cautiously.
Sparrow watched in cold amusement as a warrior brushed the lower edge of a house with his arc. The stone footings shattered, causing the building front to sag.
Roof tiles slid into the street. Some of them broke on the battlesuit of another warrior who wheeled about, cursing and flailing his arms.
The warrior's armored right hand smashed plaster from the half-timbered facade of a house. He lit his arc in shock at the impact. The dense flux blew a hole completely through the wall, igniting both the wattlework core and tapestries inside the structure.
Sparrow surveyed the city. Dense blue sparks marked a dozen repetitions of the same scene. He didn't care about the Solfygg warriors, not even those champions who wore armor the smith had been enslaved to create. They could live their lives without his let or hindrance.
The royal family, though. . . .
Hermann and his entourage stumbled across the rubbish tip toward the citadel, lighted by several torchbearing servants. Besides the queen and the armored barons, there was a score of freemen with lights or weapons.
The chairs followed.
The chairs glided behind the humans as if drawn by cords. Their wire bodies gleamed softly in the torchlight and the occasional snap of a distant arc weapon. Servants and even warriors glanced sidelong at Sparrow's eerie gifts, but the royal couple were oblivious of everything save their goal.
A freeman tried the door. The inner bar was shot through its staples. King Hermann raised his right gauntlet. The servant barely had time to leap aside before Hermann's arc shattered both panel and bar.
Iron—the bars and studs within the doorpanel—burned white when the flux touched it, but the glow faded as soon as the weapon sliced away. Splintered wood flew out in a blazing five-meter circle, causing servants to yelp and swat at the sparks on their garments.
Queen Stella's cloak smoldered. She ignored it and pushed past her armored husband in the narrow doorway.
Sparrow twisted his in-plane controls. The dragonfly slid through black air toward the citadel.
"Are you pleased to have robbed me, King Hermann?" the smith shouted. Cradled in his left arm, the dog shivered and whined.
The interior of the citadel blazed and echoed with the arc Hermann swept across it. Platt had started to rise. Blue fire from the battlesuit Sparrow had crafted for himself ripped the attendant's torso into vapor and glowing carbon.
Platt's severed head bounced on the stones. His mouth was open, but the intended curse had burned away with his lungs. His legs and dangling genitalia toppled in the opposite direction.
The king continued to slash the citadel's interior, severing the iron barrier in fire and deafening noise. His weapon melted the piles of slag and ignited the bedding on which the master smith had lain.
Queen Stella stumbled out the door. She carried her daughter. Miriam's head dangled, mindless or lifeless. After a moment, the king followed them.
"Do you remember telling them to cripple me, Queen Stella?" Sparrow called. "I remember, lady."
King Hermann looked at Sparrow, three meters above his head. He slashed his arc upward.
The vehicle's protective systems resisted easily. An opalescent globe surrounded the dragonfly and defied Hermann's efforts for over a minute.
The king shut off his weapon. His right gauntlet shimmered, glowing from the current it had carried in its failed attempt.
"Would I had killed you in your lodge," King Hermann whispered.
"Would you had killed me in my lodge," the crippled smith whispered back.
Queen Stella looked up from her silent daughter.
"Sparrow," she said on a rising inflection. "Sparrow? Where are my sons?"
"With you now, lady queen," Sparrow said.
He pointed with the first and second fingers of his right hand. The chairs shifted into wire simulacra of small boys.
"Hello, Mother," squeaked one in Bran's voice, stretching out its arms to the queen.
"I'm here, Father," said the other as its wire legs walked toward Hermann. "It's me, Brech."
Stella began screaming. She buried her face in the mud, but even that was unable to stifle her shrieks.
King Hermann cut the approaching wire figure in half at the waist. Until the arc weapon had completely devoured the creature, the legs continued to walk and the mouth to chirp, "It's me, Father!"
The eastern sky was lemon-colored. Fires were breaking out all over the city. Some conflagrations had grown to the point of showing open flames rather than just a rosy glow.
Metal clanged as Baron Tealer gripped the king's forearm. "Your Majesty," Tealer said, "it's almost dawn. The West King—"
Hermann shrugged away. He spread his right gauntlet and wiped the remaining wire figure away in a hissing electrical fan.
"I'm getting out of here," Baron Salem said. He spoke softly despite the suit's amplification. Three more of the armored warriors slipped away from the group when he did.
"Your Majest—" Tealer attempted.
King Hermann stabbed his vassal in the thorax. The unexpected, point-blank attack burned a hole the size of a fist through Tealer's own excellent armor.
Tealer toppled backward from the force of the blow. Other barons lurched away, then jogged at their suits' best speed toward the safety of their own retainers.
The king turned. He began methodically to erase his daughter's body as he had the armatures which spoke in his sons' voices.
Queen Stella babbled hysterically. Her face was turned toward the sky. Neither her eyes nor her mind held any image.
The dragonfly rose higher in the air. If there was an expression on Sparrow's face, it was pity; but there may have been no expression at all. His great, capable hands petted the crippled dog.
Below them, battle and chaos raged within the walls of Solfygg.