Five warriors closed in while a sixth waited for his death, standing on a knoll with his back to an ice-slicked outcrop. The individual warrior wore armor with silver limbs and a plastron of royal blue. Servants drove his caravan of clopping pack-ponies along the muddy trail in the direction of Peace Rock and safety.
Twenty or so of the mounted freemen who accompanied the five warriors paced the caravan from a safe distance, but they did not dare close in. Two Peace Rock warriors stumbled along beside the ponies. Their armor was of low quality and wouldn't have lasted a heartbeat in close-quarters action against the group of five, but freemen without battlesuits were no more than cheese for their slicing arcs.
Salles of Peace Rock stood on the knoll in a battlesuit nearly of royal quality. His armor was better than that of any of the band sent to fetch him back to Frekka, in chains or in pieces—it was all one to King Venkatna; but they were five and he was alone, and North had sent a pair of Searchers to gather Salles' soul when the arcs seared it out.
Race and Julia held their dragonflies in one of the interstices between planes of the Matrix, watching the battle shape on the knoll beneath them. If any of the warriors chanced to look up, he would see no more than the quiver of refraction, as though a mirage had been disturbed by the rustle of black wings.
But the warriors had more pressing business than the question of what waited in the sky.
The five advanced in a shallow vee. The apex pointed away from Salles while the wings moved to envelope him. The slope was steep enough to make the footing awkward, but it was no real protection to the trapped man.
"Why don't they get it over with?" Race muttered angrily. She twisted a vernier control on her saddle, bringing the tracery of slim booms which she rode through the Matrix closer temporally to the Open Lands.
Race hung in a curtain of colored light. Dimly visible across the pastel shimmer was her companion in a separate bubble of reality, bounded by the tips of wands stretching from her dragonfly's saddle. Below, through a screen of slight asynchrony, warriors and the bleak landscape appeared in shades of gray.
Venkatna's men were in no hurry. The caravan would get away, which was a pity; but Peace Rock would be no refuge in the long run, and Salles was too dangerous an opponent to take lightly.
Salles lighted the arc from his right gauntlet, burning harsh highlights from the icy rocks behind him. His opponents paused, less than three meters away. Salles feinted to his right, watching Venkatna's warriors bunch reflexively.
Julia snorted in derision. She and Race wore battlesuits of better quality than those of the men below. The Searchers had seen more war than any warrior, and they had only scorn for the folk the king had sent to do his bidding.
Salles, on the other hand . . .
Salles lunged, not to his side but for the man in the center. Salles' legs moved stiffly. He had concentrated into his cutting arc the power that would normally have been driving the servos in his limbs.
The slope aided him. Salles' target got his own weapon up, but none of his sidemen were in time to strike with him and drain the attack's power into the defenses of Salles' battlesuit.
No single opponent could meet Salles' rush and live.
Light blazed as the arcs crossed, burning air to a plasma. The Frekka warrior's overloaded weapon failed. Salles cut home. For a fraction of a second, his opponent's suit was shrouded in a corona that boiled snow to steam and cracked the rock underneath with transmitted heat.
The suit's defenses overloaded. Salles' arc tore a deep wedge into his opponent's shoulder. Metal sheathing burned and peeled back. The short-circuited victim collapsed, a dead man in dead armor.
In the saddle of Race's dragonfly, a delicate electronic package clucked. It was recording every nuance of the warrior's mind at the moment of his death. On the Searchers' return, their master North would turn that data to his own purposes. . . .
A Frekka warrior wheeled in time to cut as the Lord of Peace Rock crashed through the line. His extended weapon lighted the carapace of Salles' armor. The arc was too diffuse to kill, but it made Salles' servos stutter as power fed the defenses.
Salles doubled over in a somersault and rolled free. He came to his feet, facing Venkatna's men as they hesitated on the slope above him. He switched his arc off, planted his arms akimbo, and laughed.
"Race!" Julia called across the blur of nothingness. There was grim joy in her voice. "My armor to your hairband that North isn't going to get the Lord of Peace Rock this day!"
She brought her dragonfly closer to the plane they were observing. The Searchers were shadowy outlines to the men on the ground, while the warriors' arcs burned blue-white and vivid to the women above.
One of the Frekka warriors lunged forward as though Salles' laughter had goaded him into movement. He took two gravity-lengthened strides before his companions realized what was happening.
Salles lighted the arc in his left hand. He slashed through his opponent's ankles so swiftly that the crippling shock was his victim's first warning. The depowered battlesuit skidded downslope on its plastron, spluttering and steaming. The warrior inside screamed.
Race began to laugh. "North sent us for the wrong man," she cried to her companion. "He won't be pleased!"
Salles took a step toward his three remaining opponents. Arcs sprang like corpse candles from Salles' right gauntlet, then his left.
The Frekka warriors moved as well, this time as a trained unit—
Until the man in the center, concentrating on his opponent, missed his footing. He shrieked as he skidded downslope on his back. His legs were splayed outward.
Salles stabbed through the man's groin. He stepped back from the smoking corpse before the other two warriors could interfere.
Venkatna's surviving men eased away also. They put their backs against the outcrop at which Salles had awaited them only minutes before. Turf smoldered on the face of the knoll where there was organic material for the arcs to ignite.
Five fresh warriors trotted down the trail. The men had decorated their battlesuits with their personal colors, but each helmet bore the crimson-in-gold rosette of Venkatna's royal army. They spread out as they closed on the Lord of Peace Rock from behind.
"It's not fair!" Julia cried.
"Since when was North fair?" Race replied bitterly. "He wants the souls of warriors, and he'll have his way no matter what."
Julia twisted a control. "Not Salles," she said simply. "Not this time."
The Searcher and her dragonfly sprang into perfect focus with the landscape beneath them. Julia slid forward the joystick on her pommel, sending the vehicle downward at a sharp slant. Its four jointed legs flexed as the feet touched down. The booms folded and telescoped as the dragonfly came to rest. Julia sprang from the saddle.
Race landed beside her companion. The dragonflies trailed tendrils of ozone as their electronics meshed with the new temporal ambiance. That ionized harshness was lost in the effluvium of the arc weapons of the oncoming warriors.
The fresh squad of Venkatna's men hesitated at the Searchers' sudden appearance. Race and Julia gave them no time to consider their course of action.
Race, wearing a battlesuit colored orange with bronze highlights, stepped forward—struck with her right hand—and switched the power instantly to her left gauntlet. Her arc doubled Julia's stroke at the leading warrior's sideman.
The Searchers' armor was of the highest quality attainable, the ideal within the Matrix which smiths in the Open Lands attempted to replicate. The chest of the man struck by the paired blow exploded in a yellow blast like that of raw sodium dropped into water. His helmet and both arms separated as the mangled suit toppled backwards.
Race strode forward and cut into the hip of the warrior at whom she had feinted initially. Julia, clad in a scale-patterned suit of scarlet, silver and mauve, ran down the man who fled screaming that the gods fought against them.
Not the gods. . . .
Julia's powerful arc licked out and caught her opponent three meters away. His suit concentrated all its energies on defense; the warrior fell over because the servos in his leg armor froze while he was in an unstable position. Julia stepped forward, a pace and then a second. The defensive screen overloaded and the victim's carapace burst into a fountain of burning steel and shorted electronics.
Salles looked over his shoulder; but only for an instant, because the survivors of the group he'd fought started the rush they'd intended to coordinate with the newcomers' attack. Salles parried one slash with his right hand, then pivoted as he tried to keep the second warrior at a distance with a dangerously-weak arc from the other gauntlet.
Race and Julia attacked their remaining opponents. Venkatna's men stood, but they made only the feeblest of attempts to defend themselves. The sudden turn of events had left them with no more volition than calves in the slaughter chute.
Behind the Searchers, the Lord of Peace Rock swiveled to put both royal warriors in line before him. He struck high at the nearer with the full power of his arc, then leaped the headless battlesuit to meet the sole survivor before the man could decide whether to lunge or backpedal.
The two warriors grappled. The long shadows cast by the sun through the pines danced with discharges from the straining battlesuits.
Salles got his left arm into the position he wanted. He directed a full-power arc from that gauntlet into his opponent's throat. Circuits blew out with a bang.
Venkatna's man fell backward. For a moment, currents played across the blackened surface of his armor in fluctuating patterns. One of the dragonflies chuckled as it drank another soul.
The Lord of Peace Rock swayed. Paint had blistered from his plastron and right forearm, but all his opponents were down.
Freemen rode east along the trail. They carried word to King Venkatna, who had tried to forestall a rebellion by assassinating its leader. Venkatna would try again, but for now the fighting was over.
"Who are you?" Salles called to the figures, faceless in their battlesuits. "Why did you—"
The figure in orange and bronze raised a hand. It might have been about to speak. Before it could do so, the shadow of a great hand blurred across the landscape and gathered Salles' rescuers into the Matrix.