“The hive of a subspecies of the Canim. A particularly tenacious strain of the breed. Their fortifications had withstood siege for more than a year when I left Canea.”

“Perhaps they withstand it still.”

The vord Queen looked down at Isana, and said, “Unlikely, Grandmother. The presence of Shuaran Canim in your son’s expeditionary force would suggest that they are refugees, cooperating because they have no other choice.” She turned her face back up to the ceiling. “Though it is far too late, at this point. A unified resistance might have stopped us several years ago, but you were all quite busy exhibiting the most glaring weakness of individuality: self-interest.”

“You see self-identity as a weakness?” Isana asked.

“Obviously.”

“Then one cannot help but wonder why you have one.”

The Queen looked at Isana. The vord’s alien eyes were narrowed. She was silent for a long moment before she looked back up, and answered, “I am defective.” Green light flowed down over her upturned face for a time before she said, “I ran a poisoned sword through your son’s intestinal tract yesterday evening.”

Isana felt her breath stop.

“He seemed well on the way to death when I left him.”

Her heart pounded very hard, and she licked her lips. “And yet, you do not say that he is dead.”

“No.”

“Why did you not kill him, then?” Isana asked.

“The risk-benefit ratio was far too high.”

“In other words,” Isana said, “he ran you off.”

“He and approximately forty thousand troops. Yes.” She flexed her hands, finger by finger, black nails sliding out like claws, then retracting. “It doesn’t matter. By the time they arrive, the fortress called Garrison will be gone, the Alerans there scattered to the winds. They fight upon the walls as if anchored to them. Do they expect me to simply permit them the advantage?”

Isana folded her arms over her chest. “What are you doing to defeat them?”

“You are familiar with the fortress?”

“Somewhat,” Isana said. Technically, that wasn’t actually a lie. Her knowledge of the new defenses was positively sketchy compared to that of many others.

“You know, then, that it straddles a natural choke point—a steep cut in a stone shelf. There are no practical routes to move large bodies of troops from this continent to the next except through the fortress.”

“Yes,” Isana said.

“Practically impassable is not the same thing as impassable,” the vord Queen said. “My children think little of vertical land barriers. They have already overcome them in significant numbers on both the north and south sides of the fortress. They will approach and enfold the fortress from either side, and as they do, my juggernauts will pound the walls to rubble. And then, Grandmother, I will be free to concentrate upon Octavi—”