with their grasping claws, only to have them pass harmlessly through the water. Isana had no love for the vord, but she hated to see any creature suffer. Though they had no emotions readily identifiable with humanity, they felt fear as well as anything else that walked the surface of Alera - and Isana pitied them for their fear.
They collapsed, one by one, quivering still on the ground. Isana stepped forward, to finish each off as mercifully as she could, when another shadow blocked the ceiling above, and a steely figure dropped to the croach-covered floor, crushing the croach with his weight as he fell.
Araris's blade flashed through one vord, then a second, before it slowed and the steel-skinned Knight looked slowly around the hive at the six dead or dying mantises. Then he straightened, his sword dropping rather limply to his side as he turned to stare at Isana.
"Pardon, love," Isana said, rather whimsically. "I regret that you had to see me do anything so unladylike."
Araris Valerian's mouth spread into a slow, calm, and very pleased smile. Then he shook himself a little and dispatched the rest of the mantises as men in the armor of legionares - in the armor of the First Aleran, by all the furies, piled down the hole in Araris's wake.
"Come with me, my lady," Araris said. "There's little time. There's a team coming down to get you and the wounded out and back to Garrison, and another trying to find Lord Placida, but it's going to be close."
Amara pushed herself awkwardly to her feet. "Why? What's happening?"
Araris walked over to Lord Antillus, sheathing his sword. "The First Aleran is about to be overrun."
"The First Aleran," said Isana. "If the First Aleran is here, Araris, where is my son?"
From the hole above them came a screech of fury of such pure malice and scorn and raw, seething hatred that Isana had to flinch away from its intensity. The scream made her feel as though someone with long, dirty fingernails had shoved them beneath the skin of her back and drawn them slowly, spitefully over her spine.
Isana became aware that the men around her had gone very still, staring up toward the origin of that hideous sound.
"Where do you think?" Araris asked quietly, his voice still buzzing with that metallic edge. The swordsman indicated the ceiling with a flick of his sword's tip, and said, "He's fighting that."
Chapter 54
Tavi rolled to his right on pure instinct, and an instant later the Queen's sword sliced through the empty space he had occupied. Her windstream was enormous, violent, and the vicious turbulence that followed her was nearly enough to send him spinning from the sky.
By the time he regained his balance, the Queen was not in sight. The Canim-wrought mist had long since cloaked the ground from view, and at the speeds they were traveling, they would only be visible to one another for a flashing instant through the haze. But Tavi could hear her, or at least her presence. The dull, empty howl of her overpowered windstream was rendered directionless by the mist and seemed to come from everywhere. But Tavi knew she was out there, somewhere, circling him.
Excellent.
Tavi drew himself into a steady hover, reached out a hand, and summoned three fire-spheres in rapid order. They appeared with a disproportionately loud boom and were followed by the hiss of mist being turned to steam. They never came anywhere close to the vord Queen. They weren't supposed to.
The vord Queen let out another spine-shuddering shriek of hostility and rage - which grew louder as it went on. She was coming straight at him. Tavi swept his sword in a couple of swift circles and checked his pocket to be sure he was ready.
The Queen appeared: a sudden blur of white hair, glittering black eyes, and windblown cloak spreading like dark wings. She accelerated toward him with astonishing rapidity, and Tavi lifted his sword as though he meant to meet her blade to blade.
At the last second, he threw a firecrafting at her - even as she did exactly the same thing. The two craftings intercepted one another, and there was a deafening explosion of red and green flame. The vord Queen came plunging through it, the vanishing remnants of the explosion setting the edges of her cloak on fire in both colors. Her blade swept at his throat, but Tavi's sword intercepted the strike neatly. A red, blue, and vord green explosion of sparks the size