The sounds of battle from within the city were unmistakable. Arc weapons were a constant nervous flickering The guards on Solfygg's battlements turned to watch what was happening behind them. Some deserted their posts.
"Marshal?" said Blaney, the warrior who had replaced Arnor on Hansen's left side. "What the hell is going on in Solfygg?"
"Marshal," said Hansen's earphones, "this is Tapper. Do you know what's going on in the city?"
"Hold one," Hansen said. His artificial intelligence correctly keyed the response both over the command channel and through his battlesuit's speaker, answering both men's question.
"Suit," Hansen said, "patch the vision inputs from King Hermann's battlesuit into the left half of my screen."
This wouldn't work if Hermann had secured his inputs . . . but the AIs did that only if their operators told them to do so. Very few warriors in the Open Lands understood that their battlesuit's artificial intelligence was as valuable—if properly used—as the forcefield or arc weapon.
"But—" said Blaney.
King Prandia touched a finger to Blaney's vision pick-ups. "Silence," he said.
The left half of Hansen's viewpoint was the interior of Solfygg:
The ancient citadel blazed like a chimney. Wind ripped through the doorway and slit windows. The draft fed flames fueled by everything inside the stone walls, including the floor joists.
A body lay sprawled in what had been a first-class battlesuit before an arc destroyed the breastplate and the heart of the man wearing it.
An empty-eyed woman screamed hysterically beside a trench burned into the broken ground. Her body was uninjured, but her mind had shattered like a lightning-struck cliff.
"Montage view," Hansen directed his AI. "Four top Solfygg leaders, your pick."
The center of the vision screen remained a view of Hansen's immediate surroundings. King Prandia and the other West Kingdom warriors, faceless in their battlesuits, stared at their marshal.
The four corners of Hansen's screen each flashed with a different scene of panic and strife. The Solfygg barons hate each other more than they hate you, Hansen had told King Prandia. Now that central control had disintegrated, those hatreds flowered.
A major battle with at least twenty warriors on either side was taking place in the square in front of Solfygg's royal palace. Two of the viewpoints Hansen's AI had chosen were reverse images—barons hacking at one another, while beside them their retainers did the same.
In another quadrant, the viewpoint was a sea of flames. A Solfygg baron turned and turned again, looking for safe passage between buildings which had blazed until they collapsed across the street. The screens degraded as the battlesuit heated. Even if the images had been perfectly clear, they would have been images of death.
The fourth corner was a scene of flight. Servants quickly loaded their lord's movable possessions—and a quantity of obvious loot—onto baggage mammoths near the east gate of Solfygg, the side opposite King Prandia's drawn-up army. The baron and his warriors watched and guarded them.
"Suit," Hansen said. "Set all the friendly suits to receive these images unless overridden."
He took a deep breath. The warriors around him began gasping in wonderment.
"All units," Hansen said. "This is the marshal. Hold your lines until your section leaders re-form you. We've won, gentlemen. There will be no battle. We've won."
His teeth were chattering violently. It was with difficulty that he managed to add, "Out."
He'd won. Now there was nothing to save Hansen from the memory of what victory had cost.
The sky was growing brighter. As if in reaction, smoke from the burning city rose into the clear air. West Kingdom warriors cheered to watch chaos through the eyes of their enemies.
Hansen unlatched his battlesuit. He lifted himself out of it. A freeman jumped to Hansen's side and offered his shoulder for support.
"Shall I have the armor carried to your tent, milord?" the man asked.
Hansen blinked. The freeman was Kraft, the spy who had brought Prandia warning of Gennt's treachery. Kraft's left hand was no longer bandaged, but there were angry pink scars where a dire wolf had chewed until Kraft severed the beast's throat to the backbone.
"What are you doing here?" Hansen asked.
Kraft shrugged. "I like to go where it's interesting," he said. "When I met you, I thought I'd stick close till my arm healed."
He smiled tightly. "As I said—are you finished with your armor for today?"
"I'm finished with it forever," Hansen said. "It's yours. I give it to you."
"Marshal Hansen?" said the king. Like all the other warriors, Prandia still wore his battlesuit. "Shouldn't we attack now? While the enemy is confused, I mean."
"No!" said Hansen more sharply than he intended. "No, Your Majesty. March back home as quick as you can, so that you don't get caught up in the fighting."
"But they're ripe for finishing, milord!" the king protested. "Even I can see that."
"No, Your Majesty," Hansen said. "Anything that needs to be done, they'll do themselves—Hermann's barons and their own vassals."
"But—"
"Go home and enjoy your peace, King Prandia!" Hansen said. He had to shout to interrupt Prandia's amplified voice.
"God knows we've paid enough for it," he added bitterly.
Hansen strode back toward the West Kingdom camp. The crackle of Solfygg burning had mounted into a dull roar.
"Marshal Hansen!" the king called.
He turned only his head. "Just 'Hansen,' Your Majesty. You don't need a marshal any more."
"But where are you going?" Prandia called to Hansen's back.
"To see Malcolm," Hansen replied. "To say goodbye."
Wind drove a curl of smoke westward. It wrapped Prandia's army in smoke and the stench of death.
Nils Hansen had done his job.
Again.