"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.
Kraft Gerding stood with his hands at his sides, his face composed in dignity, waiting for the coup de grace. "Bind the traitor, Elder Cousin," Dink said, addressing an ear not present. Microfabridae, obedient to the command they alone heard, rolled in little waves across the steel door and knit Kraft in a web from ankles to larynx. The police were very near now, their sirens dying as they slowed to halt. Dink sheathed his sword. "Wanji!" he called. "Put him in the car. It is time that we withdraw." Wanji ran up to the cocooned figure, saluted, and dumped Kraft Gerding across his shoulder like a giant spool of silk. The Microfabridae flowed to the Rolls and pooled themselves somewhere in its trunk. "To the Bank, Wanji," Dink ordered, seating himself beside his driver. Orison sat in the back, next to the trussed-up Kraft.
Police appeared, whistling and brandishing their revolvers. One occupied himself with kicking at Kraft's grounded sword, tied to the pavement by tendrils tougher than steel wire. Another guarded the ankle-bound purple-ears, obviously unable to believe what he was seeing. "You in the car there, stop!" a police officer shouted. Wanji, erect and unheeding at the wheel, took the limousine around the corner of the armory and down the street toward the Bank.
"You'd have done better, brother, to have killed me," Kraft Gerding said, strait-jacketed in silk.
"Killing would seem appropriate, although our Elder Cousin declares it unlawful," Dink said over his shoulder. "Your crime is treason against the Triple Crown, attempted assassination of the Heir Apparent, mutiny and kidnap. What punishment would you mete out to an officer so turpitudinous, were you Defender of the Crowns?"
"I would have him put to death in a manner befitting his station," Kraft said. "I would not bind him like a sausage and pelt him with taunts."
"Perhaps you can gain a special dispensation from Elder Compassion, allowing me to grant you a properly noble death," Dink said. "We'll ask him, if you like."