hadn't, Tavi saw the target's head snap back at the violence of the strike, and clearly heard the brutal impact break the enemy's collared neck.
Tavi looked in the direction Varg had pointed and spotted the vord Queen, vanishing into the mists that still surrounded the camp, courtesy of the ritualists. Kitai was pursuing her. That much Tavi had expected. He just hadn't expected to see the two of them running along the tops of the standard Legion white canvas tents.
Legion tents were mostly of the northern design, made to shed water and snow. Two upright poles at either end supported a long cross-pole, which held up the line of the roof. The cross-pole was perhaps an inch and a half thick.
Kitai and the Queen sprinted along them as though they were as wide as the avenues of old Alera Imperia.
Tavi leapt into the air and roared aloft on a column of wind. Though Kitai and the vord Queen were moving more swiftly than any human could have without crafting, flight was faster still.
"Stay with the Princeps!" someone bellowed behind him, maybe Maximus.
A second roar of wind joined his, and Tavi glanced over one shoulder to see Crassus soaring after him, fresh blood dripping from his wetted blade.
Kitai bounded from one tent to the next, took a half stride from one end of the tent to the other, and leapt to the next tent, following the vord Queen. As Tavi began to close in, she narrowed the Queen's lead to only feet, and their next leap between tent poles came at nearly the same instant. Kitai's sword, seething with amethyst fire (how the bloody crows had she done that? Tavi's fire always looked like... fire.) licked out and struck the vord Queen low on one calf - only a last-second convulsion of the limb prevented the blow from striking the tendon at the ankle. Kitai had gone for a crippling blow to slow the Queen and allow the rest of the First Aleran's skilled furycrafters to catch up.
The Queen spun in midair, her body contorting with what could only have been the aid of windcrafting, and a clawed foot lashed out at Kitai's face as the two of them soared through their leap. Kitai was not caught unawares by the attack, and intercepted it with her left arm - but away from the support of any earthcrafting, she was no match for the vord Queen's sheer power. The kick broke bones and laid open flesh in a short spray of blood. Kitai cried out and lost her balance as she came down again, tumbling into the tent canvas and bringing the tent down. The vord Queen took a single, contemptuous step on the tent's cross-pole before it could fall and continued without slackening her pace.
She met Tavi's eyes for an instant, and her expression unsettled him. He had rarely seen any emotion at all displayed by a vord queen, and he had encountered several - but this Queen was not wearing a blank mask. She was smiling, a child's gleeful grin of excitement and joy, an expression seen only in the midst of favorite games and birthday celebrations.
Bloody crows. The creature was having fun.
Tavi let out a cry of rage and flew faster, blade held ready for a cavalry-style passing stroke, but Crassus was surging steadily past him, his years of experience surpassing Tavi's raw power at windcrafting. He had shifted his blade to his left hand, and was arrowing toward the fleeing Queen's right side. The young Tribune clearly intended to occupy the vord's attention and defenses while Tavi took the killing stroke on her left. Tavi altered his flight path slightly, the edges of Crassus's violent windstream ripping his cloak to shreds. He braced himself and closed half an instant behind Crassus's leading attack.
Before they reached her, the Queen spun between one step and the next, a neat pirouette, and one pale arm moved in a swath across her body, spreading a small, arcing cloud of crystals into the air.
Crassus never had a chance. The salt crystals struck him before he could have registered the threat, tearing his wind furies to useless shreds. He fell with a short, frustrated cry into the sea of white tents beneath them, heavy poles snapping, heavy canvas tearing under the bone-shattering force of his speed.
Tavi rolled over and over to his own left, barely avoiding the spray of salt crystals, nearly losing control of his flight. A desperate thrust of wind sent him