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