plant its feet, it would simply rip Fidelias's leg off at the knee.
The vord's long, slender tail suddenly whipped around his thigh, and Fidelias saw, in an instant of frozen horror, that hundreds of sharp, tiny ridges, like the teeth of a serrated knife, had suddenly extended along its length. The vord would simply lash its tail free, cutting the muscles of his thigh from the bone in one long spiral, like carving the meat from a ham.
Magnus let out a shriek and swept his gladius down. Though the old man's arms were lean, they were backed by the power of his own earthcrafting, and the famous sword of the Legions severed the vord's tail at its base.
The vord released Fidelias and whirled on Magnus with unnerving speed and precision, and the old Cursor went down under its weight.
Fidelias pushed himself back up and saw Magnus holding the vord's jaws away from his face with both hands. Magnus wasn't as strong an earthcrafter as Fidelias was. He was unable to dislodge the vord, and the thing had managed to begin raking at him with its claws as it struggled to clamp the incredible power of its jaws over Magnus's face.
For an instant, Magnus's eyes met his.
Fidelias saw the branches of logic in his mind, unfolding as calmly and cleanly as if he'd been performing a theoretical exercise.
The situation was ideal. The vord was already badly wounded. The nearest legionares were already taking up their weapons and charging forward - but they would never arrive in time to save Magnus. Fidelias himself was badly wounded. The shock was keeping him from feeling it, but he knew that even with the attentions of a Legion healer, he'd be off his feet for a few days.
Magnus knew.
No one would be able to blame him for only killing two and a half of three vord. Fidelias would remain hidden. Valiar Marcus's position would be secure. And to accomplish it, all Fidelias would need to do was... nothing.
Nothing but let one of them, the vord, the foe of every living thing on Carna, rip a trusted confidant of the rightful First Lord of Alera to quivering bits of meat.
And suddenly he was consumed with rage. Rage at the lies and selfish ambition that had poisoned the heart of Alera ever since the death of Gaius Septimus. Rage at Sextus's stubborn pride, pride that had driven him to turn the Realm into a venomous cauldron of treachery and intrigue. Rage at the things he had been forced to do in the name of his oath to the Crown, and then in supposed service to the greater good of all Alera, when it seemed clear that the man to whom he had sworn his oath had abandoned his own duty to the Realm. Things that boy at the Academy, all those years ago, would be horrified to know were in his future.
It had to stop.
Here, before the greatest threat any of them had ever known, it had to stop.
Valiar Marcus let out a roar of furious defiance and threw himself onto the vord's back. He jammed an armored forearm between the vord's jaws, and felt the terrible pressure of its teeth as they clamped down. He ignored it and ripped savagely at the vord's head with his shoulders, twisting and worrying at the thing like a man trying to rip a stump from the earth.
The vord let out a hiss of rage. It was too sinuous and flexible to let him snap its neck.
But as he strained and pulled, Valiar Marcus saw its scales pulled up, extending slightly from the skin of its neck, baring the tender flesh beneath to a blow struck from the proper angle.
Maestro Magnus saw it, too.
He produced the knife from his sleeve with a single flicking motion of his hand, as smoothly and swiftly as a skilled conjurer. The blade was small but bright, its edge deadly keen.
The Cursor drove it to the hilt into the vord's neck. Then, with a ripping twist, he opened the thing's throat. The vord bucked, muscles straining in sudden agony - but its jaws had suddenly lost their power.
Then the legionares arrived, swords hacking, and in a moment, it was over.
Marcus lay on his back on the earth in the aftermath. One of the legionares had gone running to find a healer and raise the alarm. The others had spread out in a line, putting their armored bodies between the gathering night outside and the two