The three remaining blade-beasts rushed forward through the crowd of wax spiders at Antillus. He met them boldly—and within seconds found himself driven back. A dozen blades came darting in at him from every angle, and when his sword met one of the beast’s limbs, there was an explosion of scarlet sparks against vord green.
Furycraft. By the furies, Isana thought, these things could use furycraft.
“Placida!” Antillus choked out. His sword became a blur of scarlet light, his steps as light as a dancer’s despite the steel that encased him, as he weaved and dodged before and between the blade-beasts. “Bloody crows, I need a hand here!”
High Lady Placidus Aria darted in from outside the hive, cut several approaching wax spiders from the air without seeming to notice, and sized up the situation with a sweep of her eyes. Her nostrils flared as she tested the air in the hive and apparently found it suitable. She lifted her hand, and a spark leapt from her fingers to kindle into the familiar form of her fury, a fierce, fiery falcon. She gestured with one hand and let out a sharp whistle, and the fire fury streaked forth to slam into one of the blade-beasts fighting Antillus. There was a blast of intense flame no larger than the mouth of a steadholt’s milking pail, but the force of it ripped the blade-beast off of the ground and slammed it into the wall not seven feet from Isana’s head.
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.