Princeps Fury

The Vord queen let out a shriek and blurred toward Varg.

Tavi cried out and charged-realizing, as he did, that his wounded leg was no longer responding to the commands of his mind.

The Vord whirled the chain at Varg, who caught it with the blade of his sword. The queen screamed her frustration and tried to rip the sword from the Cane’s grasp, but Varg set his body against the pull and, with a sudden surge of motion, dragged the queen across ten feet of floor and into range of his blade. He struck with a brutally swift economy of motion, and Tavi knew that it would have cut through a tree as thick as his own thigh in a single stroke.

The Vord queen dropped the chain and swept her arm into the path of the blow. Varg’s sword pierced her armored skin, hacking almost to the bone, just as another firecrafted explosion illuminated and shook the walls of the hive. She reeled back from Varg, just in time for the Hunter whose chain she had taken to send a throwing spike into the back of one of her knees. The armored hide must have been less strong there, because the spike sank into it, while the raw power behind the heavy bar of steel sent one of her legs flying upward, taking her hips with it, so that her shoulder blades crashed to the floor.

She used the rebound of the impact to roll backward and to her feet, and as she did she drew the spike from her leg and sent it flying back to the Hunter who had thrown it. He dodged, but she’d either anticipated him or gotten lucky. The spike hit him in the throat, and a fountain of dark Canim blood clouded the air as he fell and was buried under more spiders.

Varg bellowed in rage and threw his weapon at the queen. It spun and tumbled through the air, and she leapt back and away from it-

– and into Tavi’s two-handed swing. His sword struck her across the nape of the neck, and a fountain of blue-and-red sparks exploded from her flesh. The blade cut swift and true, never slowing, and the queen’s head- Tavi’s mind screamed silent horror at him, horror he couldn’t allow himself to feel, as he saw Kitai’s face, her mouth open in silent shock-tumbled away and went rolling across the floor.

The Vord’s behavior changed in an instant. Wax spiders let out chirping squeals of alarm and raced aimlessly around the hive. Outside, Tavi could hear an entire chorus of alien shrieks that went up at the same time, the sound deafening.

The third Hunter appeared from behind Tavi, recovered Varg’s sword, and tossed it to him.

Varg turned to the downed queen, and with four swift, heavy blows, dismembered the body. He glanced at Tavi and found the Aleran staring at him.

“Best to be sure,” Varg rumbled.

Tavi whipped his sword through another spider that had leapt at him, dispatching it. Though they no longer came at them in an enormous wave with a single purpose, the spiders were naturally aggressive, and it was probably a bad idea to stay in the hive any longer than was absolutely necessary.

“Come on!” Tavi called, heading for the exit, and the two Canim came behind him.

Outside the hive, Tavi found a low set of earthworks around the entrance, doubtless earthcrafted by Max and Durias to serve as a fortification. The two Alerans were behind it, bloodied weapons in hand. Max’s sword was wreathed in flame, and dead Vord were piled over the top of the little rampart. Kitai stood between them, her own sword stained as well, while Anag, his axe in hand, his blue-and-black armor covered with ichor, stood behind them, where he must have used his greater height and longer reach to good advantage.

The eerie, green-lighted world of the Vord was in chaos. All manner of nightmarish creatures filled the fey twilight, racing about in what seemed like sheer, unreasoning madness. One Cane-form Vord was clawing and biting a nearby pine tree, while one of the toad-shaped Vord repeatedly bounded forward into the side of the hive, righted itself, and tried again. Wax spiders glided calmly, bounded in tremendous agitation, or fought madly with one another, a seemingly endless number of legs flailing.

“Come on!” Tavi cried. “We’re leaving!”

“Aleran!” Kitai said sharply. “Your leg.”

Tavi looked at her blankly for an instant before he understood what she was talking about and looked down. His leg, where the Vord queen had torn at him with her claws, was bleeding-not fatally, but if it wasn’t stopped, that could change. He’d been drawing upon enough metalcrafting that he hadn’t even noticed the pain of the injury, which seemed as much a part of the background as the howls and shrieks of the disoriented Vord.

“Got it,” Maximus said. He slammed the tip of his sword into the earth, jerked a flask from his belt, and passed it to Kitai. “Pour this over my hands as I close it,” he told her.

While the others warded off any Vord who approached, Tavi felt Max’s hands clamp down on his leg. As Kitai slowly emptied the flask over the wound, the big Antillan’s grip burned like fire for an instant, then two, then for a hideous little collection of seconds. Tavi ground his teeth and concentrated on keeping his sword in his hand, until Max released him.

“There,” the Antillan said. “Good enough.”

Kitai glanced to Tavi, a feral smile stretching her mouth, and gave him a hot, swift kiss. “Lead on.”

Tavi oriented himself and set out at the mile-devouring trot of the Legions toward the ruined steadholt where they had left their taurga. The others followed in his wake.

“What was that?” Tavi demanded. “What the bloody crows did you think you were doing?”

He could hear Kitai’s grin again. “Why, whatever do you mean, Aleran?”

“The attack!” Tavi snapped. “The disguises! That wasn’t something you threw together at the last minute.”

“Naturally not,” Kitai agreed. “The Hunters in Canea have been using suits of Vord chitin since six months into the invasion. There were several available. We just had to fit them.”

He turned to give her an exasperated look. “That’s not what I mean and you know it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Behind Kitai, Max’s mouth spread into a wide grin. “Couldn’t be helped, Your Highness.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Operational security,” Kitai said smugly.

Tavi blinked. “What?”

“There is no lying to a being who can read your thoughts, Aleran,” Kitai said. “The only way we could be sure that she wouldn’t expect the attack was to make sure that you could not expect an attack.”

“You… You, it… How did… You can’t just-”

“Why else would we have let you approach the hive by yourself without so much as a comment about what a foolish idea it was?”

Tavi stared at her helplessly, and nearly killed himself tripping over an outthrust root.

“Do not look so astonished, Aleran,” Kitai said. “It was not difficult to anticipate what kind of strategy you would favor. You have something of a history of successfully negotiating with your enemies. Even making friends of them.” Her green eyes sparkled. “In some cases, very close friends.”

Tavi shook his head. “You used me.”

“Yes.”

“You used me,” Tavi said.

Her smile widened. “And it worked. You are a marvelous stalking cow.”

“Horse,” Tavi corrected wearily. “Stalking horse.”

Kitai tilted her head. “What idiot would so endanger a perfectly good horse?”

Max and Durias both burst out in laughter.

A Cane-form Vord exploded from a copse of small pines ten feet away, bounding forward to the attack. Varg met the attacker in midleap, the speed and power behind the blow astonishing, and the attacking Vord fell to the croach in two pieces.

“Tavar,” Varg growled, still on guard, his eyes scanning the trees around them. “Now is not the time.”

Tavi stared at the still-twitching Vord for a second, his heart racing with surprise at the sheer speed of the attack. He nodded at Varg and grunted his agreement. “But we’re going to talk about this,” he said, glowering at Kitai.

She smiled, unperturbed, and said nothing as they continued making their way out of the confusion and anarchy that covered the landscape every bit as thoroughly as the croach.