Jim Butcher - First Lord's Fury

There were at least a thousand of the great creatures within sight, and more coming down the causeway from the Calderon Valley, each bearing one or more Marat riders. They smashed through the vord that had penetrated the Aleran lines like a stone hurtling through a spider’s web. The noise was indescribable, as was the heavy, musky odor of gargant on the air. The beasts went by like a thunderstorm, like a tide of muscle and bone, leaving smashed and broken vord scattered over the earth.

There was a howl of wind, and Countess Calderon streaked by no more than twenty feet from the ground, rushing along the trail of destruction left by the lead gargant and his iron-thewed rider. The hem of her cloak snapped and cracked like a dozen whips in the speed of her passage. She vanished as rapidly as she had appeared.

Ehren found himself standing over the wounded teamster, makeshift club in hand, panting for breath, his ears ringing. The world suddenly seemed to be a very quiet place.

“What…” The teamster coughed. “What just happened?”

Ehren stared dazedly back down the road to the west, toward the main body of the troops, where the angry bugling of the gargants drowned out all other sound. Several pockets of humanity remained along his line of sight, where desperate refugees had banded together to pit their inadequate furies against the foe, and where legionares had formed a shield around groups of civilians and withstood the onslaught. There were many dead and wounded on the ground.

But there wasn’t a living vord warrior in sight.

“Doroga,” Ehren breathed. “That was Clan-Head Doroga. Must have been.” He turned to the teamster and began to more thoroughly see to the man’s leg. “I think we just got reinforcements.”

Travel with the vord Queen was, Isana felt, an extremely unsettling experience—not so much because of the alien nature of the environment as because of all the small, familiar things that appeared, here and there.

Enough of the enslaved Knights Aeris had survived the Battle of Riva to lift a wind coach, though there were precious few others. Each evening, when dark lay on the land, Isana would accompany the vord Queen to the wind coach. She would emerge directly from the Queen’s hivelike lair to climb aboard the coach. The coach would soar up into the sky, just as every other coach she had ridden in. After a time, it would descend again, depositing them at the entrance to another hive.

The Queen would lead Isana back down into the new hive. Dozens of wax spiders would cooperate to carry Araris, still virtually entombed in a coffin-sized slab of croach , down to the new hive, where they would seal him to the wall as before.

Once that was finished, they sat down at a table (one always waited to receive them) to take a meal together. Genuine candles would light the table, though the eerie glow of the croach was more than enough light to see by. The food was… Isana wasn’t sure she could justly call it a form of torture, any more than she could have ascribed malevolence to Tavi’s disastrous first effort at cooking griddle cakes when he was a child. But whether ignorance or malice was to blame, the food twisted unpleasantly in her stomach. Eating sliced sections of the croach inexpertly prepared in the imitation of one dish or another was an experience Isana could have done without.

Several days after the Battle of Riva, Isana descended into the evening’s hive and watched the spiders settling Araris into the croach .

“I have a surprise for you,” the vord Queen said.

Isana had to keep herself from flinching. She hadn’t realized the Queen was standing at her elbow. “Oh,” she said, her tone neutral. “A surprise?”

“I have given consideration to your reasons for desiring properly prepared implements for the dinner ritual.”

“Clean dishes,” Isana said. “A clean tablecloth? Clean cutlery?”

“Your species is young and weak,” the vord Queen said. “Disease is no enemy of the vord. We have lived longer than most diseases. We have survived them. The hygienic concerns of the dinner ritual are unnecessary.”

“And yet,” Isana said, “if you do not follow them, you are not doing it properly.”

“Just so,” the vord Queen said. “There are… intangible factors at work here. Things that make your kind difficult to predict.” The petulant tone of a sulking child entered the Queen’s voice. “Their backs should have been broken at Riva. But they fought more tenaciously than at any time in my observation.”

“And they will only grow more determined,” Isana said. “Not less.”

“That is irrational,” the Queen said.

“But true.”

The Queen stared at Isana sullenly. “I will permit you to observe the proper forms of the dinner ritual. Water will be brought to you in containers. You may use salt and water to clean the implements. You have one hour. Prepare three places.”

She turned abruptly and stalked over to the croach -lined dome she used to command her creations.

The wax spiders began carrying in silverware, plates, and cups. Isana felt sure that basins of water and salt would not be far behind.

She sighed and rolled up her sleeves, wondering as she did how many First Ladies of Alera had found themselves playing scullion to an invading enemy.

It was slightly more than an hour later when, for the first time since the Battle of Riva, they were joined at the meal by Lady Invidia.

Isana stared at the other woman in shock. Invidia had been burned. Horribly. Though portions of her face and neck showed the fresh pink skin indicative of flesh that had been watercrafted whole, they only served to create a contrast against the thick scarring of flesh burned beyond the ability of any healer to make whole. Invidia had been considered one of the great beauties of Alera. One could still see the faint echoes of that beauty, but they only made the melted-wax scarring of her features that much more horrible. One of her eyes drooped at the outer corner, as if the flesh had melted and run down a bit before hardening again. Her lips were twisted into a permanent sneer. Her hair was all but gone, replaced by burn-scarred skin and a close-shaved stubble. The creature on her chest showed similar scars, but it still pulsated and stirred from time to time.

“Good evening, Isana,” Invidia said. The words were slurred very slightly, as if she’d had a little too much wine. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

“Great furies,” Isana breathed. “Invidia… What happened?”

The former High Lady’s eyes flickered with something satisfied and ugly. “A divorce.”

Isana shivered.

Invidia picked up her spoon and examined it thoughtfully. She did the same with her plate. She looked at Isana and arched an eyebrow before looking at the Queen. “I take it she convinced you to see reason?”

“I decided to experiment,” the Queen replied, “on the theory that by doing so, I might gain additional insight into Alerans.”

Invidia’s eyes went back to Isana, and her lips peeled back from her teeth. “I see. Though there seems little point for you in continuing the exercise. Din- nertimes are about to become a matter of historical record. Along with plates and silverware.”

“Part of my duty to my kind is to learn from and absorb the strengths of those beings we displace,” the Queen replied. “The emotional bonding between homogenous bloodlines seems to be the foundation of a wider sense of bonding among the species. Study is warranted.”

Isana felt a sudden stirring of emotion from the Queen as she spoke—a brief spike of sadness and remorse, as slender and cold as a frost-covered needle. Isana did not look up at Invidia, but in her watercrafting senses, the simmering cauldron of pain, fear, and hate that comprised Invidia’s presence did not change.