Dawd nudged the door wide with his foot and stepped back a pace. Both automatics rose, bucked sharply in his hands as he fired, making a hissing ptttht! Two of the Jehanan jerked, the sound of bullets puncturing scale sounding like a broken plate hitting a tiled floor. The other three slicks sprang to their feet. Blood dusted the far wall. Dawd shifted slightly, shot two more as they clawed for their guns and then ducked into the room, sliding to his left.
The last Jehanan has his assault rifle swinging up, an outraged hoooo! bursting from his throat, when Colmuir – his line of fire clear – shot him in the throat with the Macana. The flechette burst inside the slick's cranium, shredding muscles, spinal cord and brain alike. There was a choked, gurgling sound mixed with a whine of spinning metal and the Jehanan soldier toppled over.
Colmuir signed for Dawd to check the far door as he advanced, checking each body for signs of life. The younger Skawtsman drifted to the exit, slid a spyeye thread through the door and signed all-clear. Moving quietly, they slid out into a darkened kitchen. Colmuir's backup comp was flickering, showing an intermittent signature from the prince's skinsuit.
Five minutes later, on the third floor, Dawd darted out of the landing at the head of the servant's stairs, caught sight of two Jehanan officers in the hallway, long heads together in conversation and charged towards them. The passage was high ceilinged and filled with painted wooden panels depicting great feats of Parusian arms – most by brawny slicks wielding axes and swords of enormous size. The Skawtsman's boots raced across deep, plush carpet. A tall pair of double-doors stood closed behind the two natives.
Hissing in irritation, the taller of the two officers turned away sharply and immediately saw Dawd loping towards him, automatics raised. A wild hoooo! leapt from his scaled throat and he snatched for his own sidearm. Dawd dodged to one side and fired his lefthand Nambu twice. The other officer, still unawares, spun around, chest and face smashed by the bullets. Gargling, he fell in a cloud of blood.
A dozen paces behind, Colmuir calmly shot the alerted officer twice in the chest, the impact throwing the Jehanan back into the doorway with a crash. Dawd grimaced, stepped over the twitching body and tried the locking wheel.
"Shut tight," he whispered. The Jehanan under his feet groaned, trying to rise. The Eagle Knight knelt, jamming his knee into the slick's throat. The master sergeant drifted up, Macana swinging back to cover the hallway. Dawd fumbled in the remains of his gunrig. "Damn – I've lost my cutting gel."
"I've some," Colmuir said, slinging his assault rifle to clear both hands. "Cover my back."
Dawd made sure the wounded Jehanan wouldn't be getting up and stood aside while the master sergeant drew a box around the locking wheel with a tube of demolition paste. Colmuir mashed a lighter tab into the orange goo, and flattened against the wall, head turned away.
The paste ignited with a sharp bang and the locking wheel crashed to the floor. Dawd tensed, the master sergeant paused a heartbeat, hearing a chorus of alarmed warbling from inside and popped one of the grenades out of his launcher. A twist of the arming ring switched the little bomb from highex to flash mode.
For a second, nothing happened. The hallway was empty, the room was silent – save for the harsh breathing of many lizardy throats – and neither man moved.
Dawd crouched down, automatics on the floor. Colmuir set the flash grenade in his hand to the shortest possible fusing.
Inside the room, a human voice bleated "Get off of – mmrph!"
The master sergeant flipped the grenade through the smoking hole. There was an immediate roar of automatic rifle fire. The doors shredded and bullets whined down the long hallway, smashing lamps, paintings and chewing up the wall at the far end.
BANG!
White smoke vomited through the perforated door, strobing with the afterimage of a brilliant flash. Dawd flung the panels open and rolled in on the floor, automatics snapping in both hands. He emptied both coils within five seconds, spraying the room with whining flechettes. Jehanan soldiers – there were easily twenty in the luxurious suite – staggered and howled, flayed by the bullets. Colmuir swung around the corner, his visor outlining the prince crawling underneath an enormous mound-shaped bed, and fired a grenade at each side of the room.
Heavy bullets slammed into his shoulder and chest. Colmuir grunted, flung back by the impact and felt something break in his shoulder. Twin blasts tore through the enemy, flinging scaled bodies in every direction. The master sergeant's medband swamped the injury with stabilizer and nopain. The Macana in his hands roared, ripping a stream of flechettes across three Jehanan soldiers blazing away at the door with their HK-45B's. They exploded in a cloud of red mist and their pulped bodies collapsed, shattering a thin-legged table.
Dawd sprang up, darting forward, smoking ammo coils ejecting from his pistols. His boot smashed into the face of a Jehanan soldier trying desperately to clear the action of his rifle. The slick went down squealing, and the sergeant smashed its eye socket with an empty pistol. Undaunted, the soldier twisted, tail lashing around to crack across Dawd's wounded arm. Gasping, the Skawtsman pitched to the side, losing the automatic.
The Jehanan staggered up, producing a dirk-style blade as long as Dawd's arm.
Colmuir slumped to the ground outside the doorway, teeth gritted, numb fingers managing to eject the emptied coil in his rifle. He caught the double-wrapped clip, swapped it end for end and jammed it back into the Macana.
The sword slashed down as Dawd rolled to the side, piercing carpet and the wooden floor beneath. Hissing in outrage, the Jehanan stamped down with a broad, leathery foot, catching the Skawtsman on the hip. Pinned, the Eagle Knight jerked up and a combat knife was in his hand. Dawd stabbed the slick in the stomach and a flood of entrails, half-digested noodles and blood spewed out, drenching him. Snout gaping wide in a dying hiss, the Jehanan toppled over.
Dawd rolled out of the mess, jammed a fresh coil into his Nambu and popped up.
A handful of Jehanan soldiers, stunned and disoriented by the grenade blast, blinked owlishly at him. The Eagle Knight, rather rattled himself, squeezed the trigger of his automatic in quick succession. Slicks jerked, strings cut, and more gore patterned the walls.
"Get the lad t' safety!" Colmuir shouted, managing to swing himself around. More Jehanan soldiers were storming up the main stairs into the third-floor hallway. Some of the other doors on the passage had banged open, surprised and wary slicks staring out. The master sergeant fired his last grenade through the nearest door as it slammed closed. There was a heavy thump and smoke leaked out from the sill.
A crowd of soldiers burst from the staircase. Colmuir switched his Macana to full automatic and sprayed the lot of them as they boiled up. Bodies staggered, shredded by the cloud of flechettes, and there was a cacophony of screams. The wall behind them exploded in a cloud of plaster dust and splintered wood. The flash-suppressor on the assault rifle began to glow red.
Dawd kicked the prince's foot, still exposed under the edge of the bed. "Mi'lord, come on! We've got t -"
The sound of the bathroom door opening had been drowned by the wailing of crippled and dying Jehanan soldiers. The sergeant caught a glimpse of something leaping towards him and then his head slammed around, combat visor flying askew, and he went down like a sack of meal.
Half-blinded by sparks flooding across his vision, Dawd tried to heave himself up. His medband squeaked angrily. Someone was dragging the prince out from under the bed by the foot. A horrified squealing sound penetrated the Eagle Knight's groggy daze as Tezozуmoc clutched the bedlegs for dear life. Heartsick at the sound, the Skawtsman staggered up.