rned out, leaving an area of six
or eight blocks blackened and lifeless.

The ship let down, while the six combat-cars which had accompanied her
buzzed the Palace roof, strafing it to keep it clear, and the Kragans
aboard fired with their rifles. She came to rest on seven-eights
weight reduction, and even before the gangplanks were run out, the
Kragans were dropping to the flat roof, running to stairhead
penthouses and tossing grenades into them.

The taking of the Palace was a gruesome business. Knowing exactly how
much mercy they would have shown had they been storming the Residency,
Firkked's soldiers and courtiers fought desperately and had to be
exterminated, floor by floor, room by room, hallway by hallway. They
had to fight for every inch downward.

Driving down from above, von Schlichten and his Kragans slithered over
floors increasingly greasy with yellow Ullran blood. He had picked up
a broadsword at the foot of the first stairway down; a little later,
he tossed it aside in favor of another, better balanced and with a
better guard. There was a furious battle at the doorways of the Throne
Room; finally, climbing over the bodies of their own dead and the
enemy's, they were inside.

* * * * *

Here there was no question of quarter whatever, at least as long as
Firkked lived; North Ullran nobles did not surrender under the eyes of
their king, and North Ullran kings did not surrender their thrones
alive. There was also a tradition, of which von Schlichten was
mindful, that a king must only be killed by his conqueror, in personal
combat, with steel.

With a wedge of Kragan bayonets around him and the picked-up
broadsword in his hand, he fought his way to the throne, where Firkked
waited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in the
other, and a dagger in either lower hand. With his left hand, von
Schlichten detached the bayonet from the rifle of one of his followers
and went forward, trying not to think of the absurdity of a man of the
Sixth Century A.E., the representative of a civilized Chartered
Company, dueling to the death with swords with a barbarian king for a
throne he had promised to another barbarian, or of what could happen
on Ullr if he allowed this four-armed monstrosity to kill him.

It was not as bad as it looked, however. The ornate Spear of State,
in spite of its long, cruel-looking blade, was not an especially good
combat-weapon, at least for