Aria lifted her hand again, and the falcon was reborn upon her wrist, its flaming wings already raised and eager to fly. Aria’s mouth lifted into a chill little smile as she sent the thing flashing forth again, and in another roar of intertwined fire and wind embedded the broken remains of a second blade-beast into the far wall of the hive.
“Thank you!” called Raucus in a calm, workmanlike tone, and suddenly shifted his motion, darting forward under the last blade-beast’s weaponry and striking its two foremost limbs from its body where they joined the trunk and were nothing but smooth chitin. The blade-beast recoiled, but Raucous took a spinning, dancelike step forward, to stay in close and build momentum for a thrust of his blade that struck into the unguarded area of the vord’s head and upper body, plunging deep into both. The High Lord’s mouth split into a ferocious, snarling grin, and he let out a sudden cry of effort.
For an instant, light seemed to pour from the joints of the blade-beast, from where its limbs joined its body, then the creature quite literally exploded, the red fire of Antillus’s burning sword expanding into a firecrafter’s sphere within the beast’s body. Pieces flew everywhere, and an instant later, the High Lord of Antillus stood alone, scorched ichor plastered all over his armor. He whipped his head around and winked at Aria.
“Show-off,” Aria sniffed. She turned to Isana, and said, “Isana. Are you well?”
Isana managed a brief and jerky nod. “Aria, this isn’t right!”
“Stay down and out of the way! We’ll talk about Invidia after,” Aria responded, and fell into step with Raucus as he turned to approach the battle in the alcove. The two of them moved lightly up to the edges of the fight, hesitated like a pair of dancers looking for the beat before they stepped onto the crowded floor, then flung themselves into the battle against the vord Queen.
“People!” bellowed a voice from outside—Lord Placida. There was the boom of a nearby firecrafting. “The bitch has called in her pets! Hurry!”
Isana looked up to see Placidus Sandos backing down the incline, step by step, his legs spread widely, anchoring him to the ground like tree trunks. That enormous sword was in his hands—in fact, often he wielded it in a single hand—whipping back and forth. He looked like a man hacking his way through underbrush: black chitinous… parts, for Isana could identify them no more specifically than that, scattered to the floor with each swing. Only in this case, the underbrush proved to be pursuing him. Isana could see a thicket of mantis limbs on the ground above Lord Placida as he backed step by step away from the pressure of the attack.
Isana’s eyes went back to the alcove, where the three Citizens had trapped the vord Queen between them. Blades darted and bodies moved, all almost too quickly to be seen. Each combatant was little more than a blur—the result of windcrafting, it had to be. Sparks raged in blinding clouds. Isana had no idea how the participants could even see through them, much less continue the battle. She tried to scream to them over the chorus of miniature explosions and vord shrieks coming from outside, but to no avail.
Then there was a brassy, metallic scream that cut over everything, shocking the world into an abrupt silence.
Isana’s eyes widened as the battle in the alcove froze in place. The vord Queen stood pinned against one wall, with the hilt of Antillus’s sword standing out from her heart. She let out another scream and swept her sword in a futile slash at the unarmed man, but Aria caught the blow on her own sword in a last, feeble cascade of sparks, and as she did, the cold fire of Phrygius’s sword struck the Queen’s head from her neck.
“No!” Isana screamed. “That—”
Invidia was moving, after having hovered in the background during the whole of the battle. She reached out with one hand, and the scattered bits of steely blade-beast, all around the hive, abruptly rose up from the floor.
“—is not—”
The former High Lady of Aquitaine flicked her hand—and a cloud of broken, deadly blades hurtled toward the alcove, a lethal storm of steel.
“—the true vord Queen!” Isana screamed.
Aria’s head whipped around just as hundreds of bits of razor-sharp flying metal hurtled into the alcove. Her sword flashed up and steel chimed, but no one could have defeated every single threatening blade with nothing more than a sword in hand. Their armor offered some protection, but it was far from perfect.
Antillus managed to lift an arm to shield his face and neck, but Phrygius was too slow. Metal fragments slashed into his face, and Isana saw, with sickening clarity, the way his eyes were sliced from his head. Antillus reeled against the wall, his face bloodied. Scarlet droplets scattered the wall.
The true vord Queen, naked but for her dark cloak, plummeted from the roof of the alcove. The first stroke of her blazing green sword echoed Phrygius’s own strike with sinister irony, and the High Lord’s head flew from his neck. Raucus reached for his sword, trapped in the wall, but the second motion of the Queen’s attack struck his arm from his body at the shoulder. The third strike shattered his armor in a burst of ugly fire, slicing through his body just below his ribs and sweeping almost all the way to his spine. Never stopping, the Queen whirled, her sword describing a deadly arc aimed at Aria’s neck as Raucus crumpled to the floor.
Aria’s face was cut to bloody ribbons, and one of her eyes was shut with flowing blood. She did not even attempt to block the attack, but threw herself to one side in a roll and came up on her feet, the motion smooth and swift—but not swift enough to prevent the vord Queen from altering the sweep of her blazing sword to slash through the back of Aria’s left thigh. Lady Placida let out a cry as her left leg buckled. She caught herself with her empty hand and began scrambling toward Isana, her leg dragging uselessly. She shook her head left and right, trying to clear her eyes of blood as she went. “Sandos!” she screamed.
The vord Queen’s head snapped toward the entrance, and she made a gesture with one hand. The entire mouth of the hive suddenly fell, as abruptly as if it had been a nail driven down by the blow of a titan’s hammer. One moment it gaped open, showing them Lord Placida’s wild-eyed, panicked face, and the next it was a wall of granite.
Aria continued retreating, until her fingertips touched the hem of Isana’s filthy gown. She swiped at her eyes a few more times, then hoisted herself to lift her sword into an awkward guard position, her left leg hanging lifelessly beneath her.
There was a quiet rustle of sound—and no fewer than eight more blade-beasts dropped from the ceiling all around the vord Queen and slowly rose. Their gently glowing eyes focused on the Alerans, and the vord creations lifted their sword-limbs, ready to strike, as they rustled closer.
“Crows take you,” Aria choked, her voice shaking. “Crows take you, Invidia.”
Invidia stared at the vord Queen from one side, her face bloodless. It made her scars stand out purple and hideous. “I didn’t… I thought that…”
“You thought,” the Queen said, “that you would allow the High Lords to exterminate me. Then you, in turn, would exterminate them—disposing of nearly every Aleran still alive who could match your power.” She shook her head as she looked at Invidia. “Did you think me a fool?”
Invidia licked her lips and took a step back. Blood ran down her wounded arm and dripped to the croach in a quiet, steady patter.
“You have no need to fear me,” the Queen told her. “It is a weakness over which you have no control, Invidia. I simply planned to take your shortcomings into account. It was not difficult to remove a junior queen’s higher functions and reshape her into the lure for the trap. I regard your treachery as a minor shortcoming of character, in the greater scheme.”