The Canim assault did not shatter the mantis horde so much as smash it to dust. Isana saw one of the lead taurga bounding a good six feet off the ground to come down with both of its front legs touching together, so that they drove into the vord before it like a sledgehammer, killing it instantly. It seized the next vord with its broad, blunt teeth and flung it into a cluster of other vord, so that four of them were tangled and unable to evade the next rank of taurga, who simply crushed them under their broad, pounding feet. Most of the attacking vord died in the first moments of the engagement, and many fled, only to be run down by teams of Aleran horsemen in position to do precisely that.
“He did it,” Isana breathed, and found tears in her eyes. “He did it. My son did it.”
The First Spear looked at her and spun to bellow in his parade-ground voice, “The captain’s taken the vord Queen! He’s done it!”
The cheers of the Legion shook the air, louder than the thunder they’d replaced.
Ehren would never have believed that anyone could be tired enough to sleep through the end of the world—but apparently he was wrong. Still recovering from the horrific wounds he’d taken in the battle, he supposed he hadn’t fallen asleep so much as rejected consciousness.
“Ehren,” Count Calderon said, shaking him by one shoulder. “Ehren!”
Ehren looked up, squinting down at the battle, then up at the northern bluff. The second vordbulk had almost reached them, and the vord were massing heavily against the defenders, ready to assault the second the bulk had breached the walls.
Though the sky had darkened and cold rain had begun to fall, there was still enough light to see. The sky to the west was absolutely black with storm clouds. The vast form of the great fury Garados could be seen intermittently through the overcast, though there was far less lightning playing through the distant clouds than there had been before. In fact, the bursts of light that colored the layers of cloud were…
“That isn’t lightning,” Ehren said, yawning. “We’d hear thunder. At least a little. Even this far away.”
“What else could it be?” Bernard asked.
Ehren peered at the lights, then sat bolt upright. “Metalcrafting. Up near the head of Garados.”
Bernard grunted in the affirmative. “The green flashes are the same color as the croach.”
“Someone’s taking on the Queen?” Ehren asked. “If they bring her down…”
“It still won’t be in time for us,” Bernard said calmly.
Ehren looked up at the northern bluff. While he had been unaware, the vordbulk had waded forward through everything that had been thrown at it. It was only yards from being in position to crush Garrison’s defenses. The vordbulk let out another bellowing roar.
And a Citizen, bearing a sword that blazed with emerald fire, suddenly streaked from the ground toward the vordbulk. Ehren and Bernard both came to their feet. Both of them recognized the armored, white-haired form of Lord Cereus. The nimbus of light around the old High Lord’s sword grew and grew, until it was almost violently bright. Ehren made himself watch, but just as it seemed the light’s intensity would force him to avert his gaze, High Lord Cereus plunged completely into the vordbulk’s roaring maw.
The vordbulk smashed its jaws shut, and they came together like a pair of city gates closing.
And an instant later, a brilliant green fireball replaced the vordbulk’s head and the spreading shield of bone around it. Fire tore at the torso and legs of the vordbulk, incinerating tons of chitin and muscle in one supremely violent blast.
Incredibly, the vordbulk’s mangled left front leg quivered and began to take another step, as if the limb had no idea that the head had been destroyed—but then the creature sagged to its left. Lord Cereus had, clearly, timed and directed his attack to achieve that very outcome, and the vordbulk toppled like the one before it, falling away from the fortress. It fell in seeming deliberation, because of its sheer size, but the impact when it came crashing down crushed fully grown trees to splinters.
Ehren stared in shock at the fallen vordbulk for a full minute, hardly able to comprehend the incredible courage and sacrifice of the old High Lord. But then, Cereus’s daughter Veradis was behind the walls, employing her considerable talents as a healer, and his grandchildren were in the refugee camp. Of course her father would be willing to lay down his life to protect his sole surviving child and his sons’ orphans; or at least, a man of Cereus’s character would. It was one thing for a man to say he was willing to lay down his life for his child—but quite another for him to actually do it.
Count Calderon exhaled heavily, and breathed, “Thank you, Your Grace.”
Ferocious battle ensued on the northern bluff, between the Wolf tribe and the vord who had been guarding the vordbulk, but it was no longer a hopeless fight for the Wolf, especially with the support of the Horse. Cereus’s brigade of Citizens came flying back into the fortress in a state of total exhaustion.
Bernard looked up from a message brought by a courier and grunted. “That’s it, then. We’re out of firestones, and the rain is keeping the workshop from making any more.”
“We can hold them with steel alone if they don’t bring us any more surprises,” Ehren said.
“I’d like to think that the vord are straining their limits as much as we are,” Bernard said. “But our experience with them thus far does not fill me with confidence.” He shook his head. “Well. We can only do what we can do. We’ll stand for as long as our legs hold us. Sir Ehren, I wonder if you would please inform High Lady Cereus of her lord father’s passing. Let her know exactly what happened.”
Ehren sighed. “Of course, my lord. Better to hear it now than in rumor half an hour from now.”
Bernard nodded and rubbed at his jaw—then froze and peered to the west.
Far down the valley, the storm clouds veiling Garados had apparently gone mad, spewing a thousand colors of lightning like spray at the bottom of a waterfall. Ehren stopped in his tracks and watched, as well, as the distant storm raked the land with lightning bolts. He was sure he imagined it, but for a moment it almost looked like one enormous windmane, miles and miles across, was raking the ground with claws of living lightning.
Then the vord all began to shriek, screaming as one creature. The wail put the hairs up on the back of Ehren’s neck, but he stepped forward and gripped the edge of the balcony’s railing, staring.
The seething, pulsing rhythm of the mass of vord, that sense of underlying organization and purpose that made them all seem like the various organs of a single body, began to fray. Over the next several minutes, Ehren watched the vord attackers change from an army driven by purpose and perfect discipline to a mob of hungry, dangerous predators. Though the sheer pressure of numbers crammed into limited space forced the vord at the leading edge of the mob to continue the attack on the walls of Garrison, farther back was a different tale.
Ehren brought up a sightcrafting and stared as the vord to the rear of the immediate combat began to turn upon one another, apparently driven by desperate hunger—and those farthest back began to depart altogether. It would take a long time, hours perhaps, for the pressure on the leading edge of the vord to relent enough to allow them to retreat, but it would happen. It would happen!
“What can you see?” Count Calderon asked, his weary voice anxious.
“They’re breaking,” Ehren said. He recognized that his own voice was thick with emotion he had neither expected nor approved. “They’re turning on one another at the back of the mob. They’re breaking.” His vision was blurred by something. “They aren’t holding together. They’re breaking.”