"Orison! Over here!" Dink Gerding shouted. Orison leaped from the tank and ran toward the Rolls-Royce. "Get down!" Dink shouted again. He ran to seize her, and threw her to the ground. "And stay down!" He was up, drawing his sword. There was a crash. A smear of lead appeared on the concrete beside Orison. Dink, bellowing rage, was running down the ramp into the armory basement, his sword raised. Kraft Gerding stood at the head of his troops at the foot of the ramp. In hand he had an Army .45. He shouted to his men, a dozen purple-ears, dressed in fatigues, each as big and ugly as the two who'd been guarding Orison and the Captain. They strained forward to follow him--but fell like ten-pins, tripped up by strands of web knitted between their ankles by fast-working Microfabridae. "Don't stop him, Elder Cousin!" Dink shouted, his words evidently meant for the mysterious brain-guy, Elder Compassion, in the ninth floor of the Taft Bank Building. "This I must do," Dink said. Kraft Gerding dropped the automatic and slicked his sword from its scabbard. The blade, Orison saw, rising to her feet, was by no means an ornament. It looked most naked and competent. Dink advanced upon his brother, each holding his sword at the ready like scorpions ready to do battle. "It would distress me to wound you, elder sibling," Dink said. "_Lese majesty_ or no, my liege," Kraft shouted, "I intend to chop you to stew-meat!" Their blades met and clashed, the swordsmen taking the shock of their contact with skillful springing of their arms and shoulders. Behind the clash of steel, Orison heard a new sound, the scream of a siren. A second siren called out, and both grew louder. "The police!" Wanji shouted. "Stop it, Sires!" The captain stood beside Orison. "I've seen _Hamlet_ played," he said, "but the sword-fight was nowhere near so violent as this. Who are these two nuts, anyway?" "My fiance, and the man who, if he lives, will be my brother-in-law," Orison said. "Excuse me," the captain said. * * * * * Orison gripped the captain's arm and tried not to cry out at Dink's danger. Kraft parried his brother's blade, raising it high and to his right. Then he went in like a flash, hacking his edge down toward the juncture of shoulder and neck. Dink fell aside. Kraft's sword bit concrete. Dink flipped his sword in a jeweled arc, slamming Kraft's blade from his hand to spin end-over-end through the air like a drum-majorette's baton. Kraft's sword slammed to the pavement. In an instant a pool of Microfabridae had covered it, binding the steel to the concrete with strands of their angel-hair. Dink advanced on his brother, backing him against the bulk of the Sherman tank.