Chapter 49

Gaius Octavian's host dismounted at the mouth of the Calderon Valley, much to the relief of riders and mounts alike. Fidelias watched the entire process, bemused. How different would the role of cavalry be if horses could talk?

And draw swords.

And eat their riders.

He thought there might be a great deal less running about.

Fidelias shook his head and struggled to focus on the task at hand. Such wandering thoughts might perhaps be natural in the face of exhaustion and near-certain death, but they wouldn't help accomplish the mission.

The captain came riding in from a nearby patch of woods on his big black, his singulares trailing at a slight distance. Though the trees had been a quarter mile away, he had insisted. It would never do, after all, for the Legions to see their Princeps beholden to the call of nature just as they were.

Fidelias swung down from his own horse and walked over to join the captain.

"... know you aren't used to performing in this role," Octavian was saying to two young men - a cavalry centurion named Quartus and Sir Callum of the First Aleran's Knights. Both were the right arms of Maximus and Crassus, respectively, within the First Aleran. "But you've been trained well," Octavian continued. "You'll do fine."

Both young man replied in the affirmative and, Fidelias thought, tried to look more confident than they felt. But then, the captain was doing the exact same thing. He was just a lot better at it than the other two. It also said something about him that, even here, at the last, the captain had arranged matters so that he could have a moment to bolster their spirits before the rest of the commanders of the host arrived.

It took only moments for the command staff of both Legions to reach them, along with Varg, Nasaug, and Master Marok in his vord-chitin mantle. To Fidelias's surprise, Sha was there as well, clad in Hunter grey, pacing along in Varg's shadow.

"Gentlemen," Octavian said. There were no murmurs to be quieted - everyone was tired, though only the Cane didn't look it. Their fur simply seemed a bit limper than was usual. "Let's get right to it. There are two and a half million enemy troops packed into the next fifty miles or so. There are about forty thousand of us. So there are plenty of vord to share. Let's not be stingy."

A rumble of laughter went around the group. Nasaug looked amused, though Varg didn't. Varg looked patient.

"Garrison is about fifty miles from here, on the causeway. They've still got almost a hundred and fifty thousand legionares and support from another hundred thousand Marat."

"That isn't enough to face the vord directly," Nasaug said, his deep voice resonant.

"No," Octavian said. "It isn't. Somewhere between here and Garrison is the vord Queen. Once we kill her, we aren't facing an army anymore. We kill her, we have a chance."

Sir Callum lifted his hand. "Sir...? Um, how are we going to find her?"

Octavian gave him a wolfish smile. "Well, Sir Callum. It appears that some blackhearted villains destroyed the vord's food storehouse at Riva, then proceeded to burn out the croach that was supposed to be their supply line."

Another rumble of laughter went around the group.

"As a result, there are more than a million vord thirty miles east of here, at the site of an old steadholt called Aricholt. They're completely motionless - asleep, in some kind of hibernation."

"How do you know this?" Varg asked.

"Sorcery."

Varg eyed Octavian, an expression far more intimidating on a Cane's face than an Aleran's, then flicked his ears in acknowledgment.

Marok let out a thoughtful growl. "Some of my monastic brethren once pursued similar disciplines. If the vord can do that, they will not need as much food to survive."

Octavian nodded. "I think they must be the vord reserves. And I think the vord Queen will be nearby." He looked around the circle. "Gentlemen, we are going to come down on them in force and annihilate them."

Silence fell on the circle.

"Sir," Sir Callum said slowly. "Attack a million with... sir, that's... the odds are..."

"Twenty-five to one," Varg said quietly.

"Shall we wait for them to wake up and come to us?" Octavian asked, his mouth spread in a wide, confident grin. "No, Sir Callum. The time for being cautious is long past."

"What if they wake up?" Callum asked.

"What if they don't?" Octavian countered. "What if the vord never need them? What if we do nothing while the vord at Garrision overwhelm the Legions?"

Callum frowned and bowed his head. Then he nodded.

"We're going to hit them as fast and as hard as we can," Octavian continued. "And we're going to inflict a crowbegotten lot of harm on them. While that's happening, I will lead a strike team after the Queen. As the most experienced Aleran present, Valiar Marcus will be in command once I am gone."

Fidelias felt his stomach drop out. He began to say something, but Octavian shot him a level look, and he subsided.

"Varg will be his second," Octavian continued. "Our objective is to eliminate the vord reserves at Aricholt, then fortify our position. Questions?"

No one spoke.

"All right, then, gentlemen," Octavian said, smiling. "Let's get to work. Oh, Master Marok. Would you be willing to speak with me privately for a moment? Thank you."

Fidelias watched the assembly break up as the captain moved over to one side, speaking quietly with Marok. The Cane listened and made short replies. He nodded once, then he and the captain exchanged bows.

The captain strode over to him after speaking to Marok. "Marcus," he said.

"That's me."

Octavian's mouth tugged up at the corner. "With any luck," he said, "I'll be busy elsewhere once the music starts."

"I heard," Fidelias said.

"I'm not going to ask you if you can handle it. I'm telling you that you bloody well will handle it."

"Yes, sir."

Octavian nodded, and said, "We're going all out. Maximum damage to the enemy. Everyone, everyone, including me, is to be considered expendable." He looked back down the column. Hundreds of men and Canim were visible even within the ritualists' concealing mist. There was pain in his eyes. "We can't let the Queen escape us. And we can't allow those reserves to be used against Garrison. No matter the cost."

"I understand, Captain," Fidelias said quietly. "I'll get it done."

Tavi rode at the head of the column the rest of the way to the engagement. Moving down the causeway, it took them a little more than an hour to make the trip, and his mouth was dry the whole time, no matter how many times he drank from his water flask. Scouts and outriders reported infrequent contact with the enemy. They wouldn't have been able to see much - the host was still riding veiled beneath Master Marok's misty cloud. Of course, the reverse also held true. It was difficult for the host to see out. They had to rely heavily upon their scouts to be their eyes and ears.

They turned off the causeway to cover the last three or four miles to Aricholt upon a nonfurycrafted road. In the darkness, the ride was an eerie one. Vord cries drifted up and down the valley. Garrison was only another half an hour or so away upon the causeway, but that was plenty of distance to muffle all but the most piercing cries of the vord, who must have been laying siege to the place. The distant crackles and booms of firecraftings came through clearly, though. From the sound of it, there were still plenty of Citizens standing up to the vord - either that, or the idea he'd shared with his uncle by letter, about the mules and the fire-spheres, had actually paid off. If that was true, he'd be a little startled, he'd admit. He never thought that one would work out.

A scout from the Free Aleran appeared out of the mist ahead of them, riding his horse back at an easy lope. He pulled up next to the command group and saluted Tavi.

"Report."

"Sir, the steadholt is up ahead. It's covered in the croach and..." He shook his head. "The reserves you talked about are there."

"Asleep?"

"Maybe," the man said. "They weren't moving."

Tavi looked over his shoulder at Fidelias, and said, "Signal the halt. Quietly."

Fidelias nodded. Signals were passed by hand gesture and lowered voice back down the column.

"I want to see this for myself," Tavi said. "Everyone else, remain here."

"I am going," Kitai said.

Tavi eyed her. He had no desire whatsoever to expose her - expose them - to danger, but he gave in to the inevitable on the lesser risk. "Fine. But we're only going up to look, and we're doing it under sound, sight, and earth veils."

Kitai shrugged her shoulders. "As you would, Aleran."

They rode out together, and Tavi pulled up a windcrafted veil around them as they did. Without being told, Kitai managed the crafting that would hide the sounds of their passing and another that would make the earth more pliable beneath the hooves of their mounts, greatly reducing the amount of vibration they sent through the earth as they walked, in an effort to avoid detection by enemy earthcrafters who might be standing sentry duty.

They rode about half a mile before leaving the protective mists around the host - and were immediately bathed by the light of a waning moon. Predawn hovered in the east, a cold blue light that was only barely brighter than the darkness of night.

They went off the road, and approached the steadholt from the southwest, walking their horses carefully through the thick woods. A murmur from Tavi, and a low, constant effort of will made the trees bend back their limbs, and the new growth of briar and brush allow them to pass without sound or inconvenience. It took them only moments to come within sight of Aricholt.

Tavi had only heard it described by his uncle, and that had never been in great detail. The steadholt had been an average example of the breed - a barn, a great hall, some living quarters and workshops, all of them made of stone. A stone wall circled the place, though it had crumbled in multiple locations.

Standing in the fields were row after row of large, egg-shaped forms, which Tavi suddenly realized were the bodies of the vord warriors. They stretched for a square mile, easily, even with each one curled into a ball and stacked up touching the mantises beside it. None of them moved - it would appear that they were indeed asleep, at least for the moment.

Glowing green croach spread out from the barn and had already begun to creep outward. There was a crowd of mantis warriors sitting around the far side of the barn, a hundred or more. Further sentries crouched around the exterior of the barn, one every ten feet or so. Wax spiders rolled in and out, vomiting out fresh patches of croach, then trundling back inside to pick up more.

"Remind you of anything?" Tavi asked Kitai quietly.

She nodded. "The Queen's hive under Alera Imperia."

The high-pitched howl of windstreams bearing Aleran fliers screamed far overhead. Tavi looked up and saw a flier glide smoothly down to the barn entrance - a slender woman clad all in black, whose head had been badly scarred with burns. She passed through the crowd of mantises, shoving them out of the way like unruly lambs, then glanced over her shoulder and up before vanishing into the barn.

"She's there," he heard himself whisper. "Bloody crows, the Queen is right there in that barn."

Kitai's hand went to her sword. "Should we attack?"

He shook his head. Together they turned their horses and began moving slowly and stealthily back to the host.

Kitai stared at him, visibly furious, as they reentered the mists, and stopped her horse. "That was an opportunity. Perhaps the best one we are going to have. It was foolish of you to cast it aside out of some harebrained need to protect me."

"That wasn't what I was doing, Kitai."

"The crows it was not," Kitai said. "And if you think for a moment that you are going to hunt this Queen by yourself, Aleran, you are mistaken. I will not permit you to face her alone."

"Kitai - "

"I don't know who is on this strike team you mentioned, but I am hereby assigning myself to it."

"You're not on the team. You are the team. I've already decided that the safest place for you is next to me."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You have?"

He nodded. Then he stopped his horse and turned to her. "I wish you to become my mate," he said, duplicating her own accented Aleran flawlessly. "Set the challenge of your choice."

She tilted her head. "What?"

"You heard me," he said.

Kitai stared at him for a moment more, then said, "Let the winner of the trial be the one who slays the vord Queen."

Tavi huffed out a laugh. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you didn't want me to marry you."

She smiled at him. "No, fool," she said. "I most certainly do. Kill this creature, my Aleran, and make our world a place where we might live again, where our child might grow up in safety. Kill her, and I will be yours until death parts us."

Tavi stared at Kitai and thought that he'd never seen a creature so beautiful. He leaned over to her and kissed her hard on the mouth. When it was through, they rested their foreheads together, until Kitai's horse sidestepped, and they both nearly plummeted off.

They shared another smile, righted themselves, and returned to the host.

Tavi rode up to Fidelias, who stood talking with Varg. "All right," he said. "It's just ahead. Give the order to get us under way and prepare to sound the attack."

Chapter 50

Invidia stared at the vord Queen, transfixed.

"Do not make a fatal mistake, Invidia," the vord Queen said, her voice calm. "One more dead Aleran means nothing to me. Nor should a few more matter to you, at this point. Kill them. I will keep my word to you."

Invidia bit her lip. Then she bent forward, slowly, her fingers outstretched for the sword's hilt. Once she touched it, something in her seemed to solidify, some resolution that made her expression as smooth and as cold as glass in winter. Her hand seemed to gain strength as she touched the blade. Then she lifted it and turned toward the two Alerans, her eyes hard, the mad, bitter rage pouring off her like smoke from the scorched carcasses around them. "You brought this upon yourselves."

It happened so swiftly. One instant, Invidia was beginning to take a step forward, a dead man's sword in her hand.

The next, there was a hiss of rushing air, the sound of a whip crack, and the jagged point of what looked like a spear tip carved from bone erupted from Invidia's chest, just below her breast, to the left of her sternum. The spear transfixed the burned woman and the creature clutching her body in a single blow, and she arched her back in agony, her eyes flying open wide, her mouth stretching into a breathless scream.

A hand gripping a stone knife emerged from a fraying windcrafted veil, swept around Invidia's body, and with a swift, sure motion, cut her throat from ear to ear.

Invidia Aquitaine fell to the croach, her blood pouring out like a fountain, her eyes wide with shock and terror and rage and pain. She turned her head to stare, bewildered, at the woman who had killed her.

Countess Calderonus Amara stood over her with the bloodied stone knife in hand, and whispered, "Thus are you served in Alera, traitor."

Invidia's eyes rolled back into her head, and her breath rattled in her throat. She sank very slowly to the ground, the legs of the beast upon her breast quivering madly, uselessly. Her own legs twitched and kicked several times, as if she believed herself to be running away from something.

Then her bloodless face fell to one side, staring sightlessly, and she went still.

Isana stared at Amara in shock. The Cursor had been in the hive all along. She must have entered when Antillus and Phrygia did, concealing her presence with a veil - doubtless intending to strike down the vord Queen. But the Queen was surrounded by a wall of blade-beasts, and Invidia had been a perfect target, fully focused upon her own self-conflict and pain.

Amara bent and wrenched the bone spear from the body, bracing one boot against the dead woman's shoulder blades. It was a short weapon, no more than three or three and a half feet long, and thicker than her wrist, decorated with Marat-style carvings. A bone spear, Isana thought, and a stone knife - neither of which would have been sensed by Invidia's metalcrafting. Amara took the primitive weapons in hand and turned to face the Queen, her stance casually arrogant.

The Queen narrowed her black, glittering eyes, and Isana felt a surge of deep, hot anger pulse from her in a single wave, then vanish again. As it happened, the blade-beasts parted, rippling smoothly out of the space between the Queen and Countess Amara.

"That," said the Queen, her diction precise, "was inconvenient."

"In what way?" Amara asked, her tone flippant.

The vord Queen answered, but Isana had realized what Amara was doing. She bit her lip and placed her hand on Aria's calf, her fingers clutching hard. Without the waters of a healing pool to work with, she couldn't tell precisely what shape Aria was in. It was like trying to read a book underwater, with her vision blurred and the ink running - but she could feel it well enough to know that Aria knew precisely what was injured, and that she was, in fact, making an effort to heal it. Silently, Isana threw her support behind Lady Placida's efforts, and she could feel it as the other woman's pains began to recede, as her wounds began to close.

"She was... uniquely useful to me," the Queen said.

Amara flicked some of the blood off the tip of the spear with one finger, and said, "She's still useful. You can eat her."

"Her," said the Queen, her eyes narrowing. "And you."

Amara lifted her spear in silent invitation and gave the Queen a mocking bow.

Isana clutched Aria's leg even harder, pouring all her energy into assisting her.

The Queen and the Cursor both called upon windcrafting to give them speed and abruptly rushed toward one another, streaks of motion. At the last instant, Amara flung the stone knife, and the vord Queen had to intercept it with her blade. Amara dropped into a slide and went by her, barely avoiding the sword's backswing. The Cursor came up onto her feet, rolled beneath another blow as the Queen pursued her, then reversed her facing in midleap and flung the bone spear at the Queen with unearthly speed.

The Queen's blade snapped out and shattered the bone weapon into hundreds of shards, and the frantic pace stilled again. Amara came to her feet weap onless, wearing only light clothing, not even a plated coat. The vord Queen stared at her with glittering black eyes, and said, "I had a bond with her. Why was such a thing so difficult to notice until it was gone?"

She tilted her head, still staring at Amara, and said, "This isn't fun any more."

She flicked her wrist, a distracted motion, and there was a sudden high-pitched, hissing hum. Amara gasped, jerked, and twisted several times, driven back half a pace by some kind of impact.

Isana wasn't sure what had happened until she saw half a dozen creatures, like unthinkably large wasps, writhing on Amara's chest, belly, shoulders, arms, and legs. Each of them sported a stinger as long as a woman's finger, made of serrated and gleaming vord chitin.

Amara looked down at herself, at the enormous wasps, shocked. And then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she toppled to the ground, her back arched into a rigid bow, her limbs thrashing.

"Countess!" Aria cried, her face a mask of blood - but no longer bleeding, at least, no longer blinding her. She took a step forward, and her wounded leg buckled beneath her, nearly throwing her down.

The vord Queen looked over her shoulder and made the exact same gesture. Aria lifted her sword in a vain defensive motion, but there was the hiss-hum of more wasps flashing from some gaping orifice within the croach, high up on one wall. Where they struck steel, they hit with a heavy thump - it sounded like a hailstorm as literally hundreds of wasps lashed at Lady Placida. She shielded her eyes, but several of the creatures struck her cheeks, her neck, including one spectacular impact where the wasp's stinger pierced her left earlobe and all but tore it off her head.

Aria fell to one knee, gasping for breath. The little wounds frothed with poison, and the stream of wasps was merciless and unending. One struck her thigh, below the hem of the skirt of plated leather straps hanging from her belt. Another pierced her boot. Seconds later, the wasps had simply pounded her balance from her, and she toppled as well, letting out a high-pitched moan of agony and despair as her own body began to thrash like Amara's.

Isana felt her fingers tightening helplessly on the sheathed sword in her hand. Though she had some rudimentary training with such a weapon, she was in no way fit to compare herself to violent professionals such as Amara and Lady Aria - and even if she had been, neither of them had managed to defend herself. Her eyes flicked to the pool of water, but it was simply too far away. She would never be able to use what was in it in time.

The vord Queen's dark eyes focused on Isana.

She lifted her hand - and then her black eyes widened in surprise.

A gleaming metal hand reached out from behind Isana and gently took the late Invidia's weapon from her grasp. She twisted her head up to see Araris, stepping clear of the croach like a man walking through a field of grain. And yet, it was not Araris, as she had last seen him. Every inch of visible skin gleamed like polished steel. The mail he'd been wearing was gone, and Isana realized with a start that the master metalcrafter had, somehow, incorporated it into his very flesh.

He took two steps forward, each one falling with more sound and force than any being of flesh and blood should have possessed. He flipped the sword through several calm circles, evidently testing its weight and balance. Then Araris Valerian squared off against the vord Queen, and said, quietly, his voice strangely roughened, burred, "You will not touch her."

The Queen bared her teeth and flung her hand toward Araris, hissing. A sudden storm of wasps leapt through the air in three distinct streams. They hammered into Araris, hundreds of them in the space of seconds, each impact making its own sharply distinct pinging sound - and each and every one of them rebounded from his steely flesh, landing on the floor amidst the remains of his shredded shirt, their legs and stingers thrashing.

The streams of wasps died down and stopped, and Isana could clearly hear her own swift breathing in the silence that followed. The impotent wasps were littered into a pile halfway up Araris's thighs.

Moving very slowly, very calmly, his living-steel hand drifted up and lightly touched the hilt of his sword, settling the grip one finger at a time. "All right," he said in a soft, quiet voice. "My turn."

And suddenly one of the deadliest swordsmen in Alera was rushing across the distance separating him from the vord Queen, his weapon still sheathed.

The Queen let out a shriek of challenge and darted forward to meet him. In the very last instant, before the two reached each other, both of their swords leapt out, little more than blurs of green croach light on steel, and a thunderstorm of sparks erupted in the center of the hive.

The chiming sound of steel on steel from within the continual cloud of sparks sounded like twenty swordsmen were fighting, not two. It lasted for two seconds, three, four, then the sparks washed away over the floor, revealing a tableau: Araris stood facing the vord Queen, his sword before him, gripped in both hands. She stood facing him, sword arm extended down and to the side. Her pale cheek was marked by a thin line of green-brown blood.

Her eyes were slightly wide, and they flicked down to the cut on her face in disbelief. Her lip lifted in a snarl, and she made a hissing sound, pointing her sword at him.

Instantly, two of the blade-beasts bounded forward, menacing him with their weapon-limbs. They rushed Araris, unbelievably swift and strong. Blades descended toward the man Isana loved, and her heart flew up into her throat.

But Araris Valerian was their match.

The first two blades to come sweeping at him were shattered entirely in fountains of white and green sparks. Another blade struck his chest and rebounded in another shower of sparks, even as he caught a fourth in a literal steely grip and calmly drove the blade down through the limb of the other vord before him, slamming it through the vord and into the bedrock below, trapping one blade-beast in place with the piercing limb of the second. His sword flashed once, dispatching the trapped beast - and then he spun and drove his left fist forward, through the second beast's guard and into its head. His metallic fist smashed through the blade-beast's skull like a warhammer, until he had sunk his arm halfway to the elbow in the creature's skull. He withdrew his arm with a calm, smooth motion, and the blade-beast collapsed.

He had barely moved his feet.

The vord Queen's eyes narrowed, and she streaked toward Araris again, her sword flashing. Again, sparks flooded the hive, and Isana had to lift her hand to shield her eyes against them. By the time the two had parted once more, a second cut, almost precisely parallel to the Queen's first injury, but an inch closer to her throat, also graced her cheek.

"Speed isn't enough," Araris said in a gentle voice. "Not by itself. Your technique is sloppy. You haven't drilled enough."

The vord Queen's mouth spread into a very slow smile. Her eyes raked Araris, moving up and down his gleaming form, as she said, "Metal skin. Impressive. Painful?"

"Quite," said Araris.

The Queen made a quick gesture of her left hand, and the temperature in the hive seemed to drop. Crystals of ice formed upon Araris's steely skin, first here and there, then in a thick, spreading blanket. Isana felt the surge of agony in Araris, as the torment of the frozen steel began to gouge at him even through a metalcrafter's insulation against pain.

"And now more so," the Queen said, and launched another attack.

Araris made his first defensive movement, and there was the peculiar sound of squealing metal. He screamed in sudden agony, a pain so great that it broke through his metalcrafting and left him at its mercy, raking against Isana's senses like frozen claws. He reeled back before the Queen, howling in pain with every tormented movement. He parried the first two blows, and the third, but missed the fourth, and the Queen's sword struck his shoulder.

There was a peculiar, hollow sound, and a webwork of cracks abruptly spread over the surface of his metallic skin.

Araris choked on another scream, his eyes wide and round, as the agony drove him down to one knee before the vord Queen.

"You cannot stop me," the vord Queen said. Her sword kindled to green-white flame as she loomed over Araris. "None of you can stop me."

Isana reached out a hand and seized upon the water in the little pool. She bade it leap up toward the Queen, but the vord was far too swift. She sensed the column of water speeding toward her and took a single step back as it washed by. As it went past her, the Queen stretched out a hand and Isana felt her rip control of the water from her as easily as Isana might have torn it from a child. The Queen sent it crashing into Araris, where it promptly began freezing on his armor, drawing even more pain from the battered man.

The Queen turned to look at Isana, and said, "Grandmother, you have one chance to live. Agree to govern the postconflict Alerans and to assist me in my current efforts, and I will spare your life and your mate's."

Isana straightened where she sat. She faced the vord Queen. And, very slowly, she shook her head.

"So be it," said the vord Queen.

Isana closed her eyes, and it was just then that trumpets began to blare, high and clear, from somewhere outside. Their voices were not the braying deepness of the Canim horns, nor the higher silver sound of the navy's bugles. These were genuine trumpets played by real Legion musicians, and their high-pitched, clarion call sent a shiver down Isana's spine.

The vord Queen's head whipped around to one side, and she hissed, "No. No, he cannot be here. Not yet."

The trumpets called again. The ground rumbled under the weight of many feet. The mantis warriors outside began to screech a warning - and all of those sounds proclaimed a single, unmistakable fact:

Gaius Octavian had come to do battle with the vord Queen.

"Kill them," the Queen snarled. "Kill them all."

The Queen crouched, then leapt skyward, clawing her way up through the holes in the hive's ceiling that had held the blade-beasts, and with a shriek passed out into the countryside.

Six blade-beasts turned toward Isana, Araris, and the wounded survivors of the failed assassination.