more than enough of the enemy on the way simply to overwhelm them. If he ordered them to stand against that, they would not survive. Their deaths would serve only to buy time.
But he needed the time.
He flashed the orders to Sir Callum by hand signal: Engage and hold the incoming enemy to the east.
By then, it was just light enough for Tavi to see the expression on Callum's face. He looked to the east and saw what was coming. He became pale, his expression twisting into a grimace of fear. He closed his eyes for a second and turned to Tavi. He banged his fist against his armored chest, meeting his gaze, and nodded slightly - whether in agreement or farewell, Tavi did not know. Then Callum began passing orders to the fliers, gathering each of them up as they finished their runs on the Queen.
As they did, Tavi continued hurling flame into the ranks around the vord Queen, killing dozens of mantis warriors, each blast earning him a fresh flash of her pure rage. Kitai took up the slack of the Knights as they ceased shooting at the Queen, her hand flying from quiver to bowstring, her arrows flashing with the supernatural speed and accuracy of a woodcrafter. The Queen was an elusive target - many arrows missed altogether, and those that stayed on their mark inevitably met with her blade. The Queen kept on shrieking, and several thousand mantis warriors were on the move, gathering up around her.
There was an enormous roar of collected windstreams as Callum and his men streaked out to engage the incoming vordknights, and a moment later Kitai switched to firecrafting as well. Bright spheres of blue-white light exploded beside Tavi's scarlet-white firecraftings, chewing a pair of broad holes in the ground. Mantis warriors screamed in agony and died in dozens as they were engulfed in the flames.
The Queen let out another howl of rage and turned toward Kitai, one hand raised and gathering a fistful of flame. As soon as Tavi saw that the Queen's attention was off him, he altered course to soar around behind her and, even as she sent the firecrafting at Kitai, Tavi hurled one of his own at the Queen.
The vord's spectacular reflexes saved her from Tavi's attack, though the warriors immediately around her were scoured from the face of the land. But the dodge had cost her - her own firecrafting exploded yards and yards short of Kitai.
The Queen shifted her aim to attack Tavi, only to have Kitai emulate the tactic Tavi had just used. As the Queen threw, Kitai's fire blast tore into her, forcing her to dodge and ruining her aim. Tavi felt his mouth turning up into a wolfish smile. If they could keep the battle moving this way, they would have her - and the vord Queen had to realize that every bit as much as Tavi did. Which meant that any second now she would...
The Queen shrieked again in anger and flung herself airborne. For a moment, Tavi thought that her wind furies were still in a state of disruption and that she wasn't going to have enough lift to fly - but then a vortex like a small tornado abruptly gathered beneath her, tossing her own brood about like toys, and she came rushing up at them at terrible speed, a wave of raw anger pulsing through the air before her as she flew straight toward Kitai.
Kitai set another salt-headed arrow to her bow, drew, and calmly waited until the last instant to loose it. The arrow leapt from the bow.
The vord Queen snatched it out of the air with her left hand, turned her wrist in a sinuous movement too swift to follow, and drove the tip toward Kitai's throat. Kitai lifted an arm in a desperate block, and the salt-crystal tip drove through her forearm and began to emerge from the other side before the arrow's slender shaft snapped. The blow still drove her forearm up against her mail, and the protruding portion of bloodied salt crystal was powdered to grains against it.
Kitai dropped like a stone.
Tavi sheathed his sword and altered his course smoothly, pouring on the speed, and hoped that Kitai had the presence of mind - even as she plunged through a lethal fall - to realize what the Queen was almost certain to do next.
Even as Kitai fell, she drew her third - her last - salt arrow from the specially designed quiver