Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

Amara's heart started pounding harder as they drew closer to the spectral green light of the croach . "Is this what your people did?" she asked Doroga in a whisper.

"More yelling," Doroga said.

"What if they come early?" she whispered.

"Won't," Doroga said. "Not until the Keepers warn them."

"But if they do-"

"We make them pay to kill us."

Amara's mouth felt dry. She tried to swallow, but her throat didn't feel as though it could move. So she fell silent and waited as they walked in tense, ready silence.

Bernard and his Knights reached the forward edge of the croach . He paused there, giving the legionares behind a chance to settle into their formation, then took a deep breath. He lifted his bow even as he knelt, a broad-bladed hunting arrow lying across the straining wood. He lined up the edge of the arrow with the surface of the croach , then released the arrow. The great bow thrummed. The arrow swept across the ground and, thirty or forty yards in, started cutting a long, fine incision in the surface of the croach . The waxy substance split, bursting like a boil, and luminous green fluid bubbled up out of the yards-long wound.

The vord nest erupted into violent motion, an alien wailing, whistling chorus rising into the night sky. Wax spiders, creatures as big as a medium-sized dog, burst up out of the croach . Their bodies were made of some kind of pale, partially translucent substance that blended in with the croach . Plates overlapped one another to armor their bodies while chitinous, many-jointed legs propelled them into leaps and jumps that covered twenty yards at a bound. The spiders emitted wailing shrieks and keening whistles, rushing for the long cut in the croach . Amara flinched in shock. She would never have believed that so many of them could have been so close, virtually under her nose, but invisible. There were dozens of them, moving over the croach , and as she watched the dozens became scores, then hundreds.

Bernard and his Knights Flora bent their bows and went to work. Arrows hissed unerringly into the wax spiders as they scuttled and leaped across the croach , these mounted with stiletto-shaped heads for piercing through armor. Launched from the heavy bows only a woodcrafter could bend, they proved deadly. Arrows flew home over and over again, ripping through the spiders, leaving them thrashing and dying, and they did not realize that they were being attacked at all for better than a minute.

Some of the nearer spiders spun to face the Aleran troops, eyes whirling with more luminous light and began bobbing up and down, letting out more whistling shrieks. Others picked up the call, and in seconds the whole horde of them had turned from the wounded croach and began rushing at their attackers.

"Now!" Bernard roared. The bowmen fell back, still shooting, arrows striking wax spiders out of the air even as they flew toward the Alerans. Half of Giraldi's infantry advanced onto the surface of the croach , grounded their shields hard on the waxy substance, and stood fast as the wave of wax spiders rolled into their shieldwall.

The legionares worked together, their usual spears discarded in favor of their short, heavy blades that hacked down upon the spiders without mercy or hesitation. One man faltered as three spiders overwhelmed him. Venomous fangs sank into his neck, and he staggered, creating a dangerous breach in the line of shields. Giraldi bellowed orders, and fellow legionares in the ranks behind the first seized the wounded man and hauled him back, then stepped into his place in the line. The slaughter went on for perhaps half a minute, then there was a brief hesitation in the wax spiders' advance.

"Second rank!" bellowed Giraldi. As one, the legionares in the shieldwall pivoted, allowing the second rank of fresh soldiers to advance, ground their shields a pace beyond the first, and ply their blades with deadly effect. Endless seconds later, another break in pressure allowed the third rank to advance in their turn, then the fourth, each one allowing more rested legionares to advance against the tide of wax spiders.

Their heavy boots broke through the surface of the croach so that the viscous fluid within oozed and splashed around every step, and made for poor footing-but they had drilled, maneuvered and fought in mud before, and Giraldi's veterans held their line and steadily advanced toward the cave, while Bernard's archers warded their flanks, arrows striking down the spiders that attempted to rush from the sides.

"Just about halfway there," Doroga rumbled. "They'll come soon. Then we-"

From the mouth of the cave there came another shriek, this one somehow deeper, more strident and commanding than the others. For a second there was silence, then motion. The spiders began bounding away from the Alerans, retreating, and as they did the vord warriors boiled forth from the cave's mouth.

They rushed the Aleran line, dark plates of armor rattling and snapping, vicious mandibles spread wide.

"Doroga!" Bernard bellowed. "Giraldi, fall back!"

The Marat headman barked something at Walker, and the gargant hauled himself around and began to lumber back the way they had come, following the channel crushed through the croach . As he did, Amara leaned over the barrels mounted on Walker's saddle and struck away the plates that covered large tap holes at their bases. Lamp oil mixed with the hardest liquor Giraldi's veterans could find flooded out in a steady stream as Walker retreated, leaving two wide streams that spread out through the channel of broken croach . Giraldi's veterans broke into a flat-out run, racing toward the edge of the croach , and the vord followed in eager pursuit.

As the first legionares came to the end of the croach , Giraldi snapped another order. The men whirled, snapping into their lines again, this time on either side of the channel, shieldwalls aligned to funnel the vord warriors between them. The vord, reckless and aggressive, flooded directly toward the Alerans, their course guided by the shieldwalls, which channeled them directly into Doroga, Walker, and the crushing strength of Bernard's Knights Terra.

Walker let out a fighting bellow, rising up onto his rear legs to slash one vord from the air as it tried to take wing, and the gargant's crushing strength was more than a match for the vord's armor. It fell broken to the ground, while Amara clutched desperately on to Doroga's waist to keep from falling off the beast's back entirely.

The Knights Terra held the gargant's flanks, and ripples of earth, furycrafted by the Knights, lashed out at the vord as they closed, shattering the momentum of their charge and exposing them to well-timed blows from the savage hammers that crushed vord armor plates like eggshells.

And all of it was nothing but a prelude to the true attack.

"Giraldi!" Bernard cried.

"Fire!" the centurion bellowed. "Fire, fire, fire!"

Along the whole of the Legion shieldwall, furylamps blazed into full and blinding brilliance.

And as one, the legionares hurled the lamps down into the viscous liquid of the broken croach mixed with lamp oil and alcohol.

Flames spread with astonishing speed, the individual fires in nearly a hundred places rapidly meeting, melding, feeding one another. Within seconds, the fire blazed up and began to consume the entrapped vord warriors.

Now the legionares had to fight in earnest, as desperate vord tried to batter their way out of the trap. Men screamed. Black smoke and hideous stench filled the air. Giraldi bellowed orders, hardly audible over the frenzied rattling and clicking of the armored vord.