Vord. Made of steel. Isana felt fairly sure that didn’t bode well for whatever Invidia had planned.

Invidia turned as the initial wave of wax spiders leapt at her. Her hand twitched, as if to move toward her sword, then reversed itself, sweeping in an arc with her fingers spread. Blue-white fire slewed forth in a liquidlike spray from her open hand, splashing upon leaping spiders and clinging to them like hot oil, causing them to curl up into lumps of flaming, withered flesh. In an instant, two dozen of the leaping figures were destroyed—but there were far more than two dozen surging toward the burned woman. She swept one leg easily into the air, kicking a leaping spider aside, and brought her heel and foot straight down with a cry, a furycrafting movement that sent a violent jolt through the earth in a wave that spread out from her foot, knocking small and large spiders alike into one another, sending them tumbling over the floor and bringing dust and gravel falling from the holes in the ceiling where the great spiders had landed.

Except for one. One of the large, bladed spiders had already flung itself into the air before the shock wave could shake it, and two of its bladed legs snapped forward from its body, striking with the speed and precision of serpents.

Even then, the former High Lady was not to be undone. One of her hands moved with impossible speed, her chitin-covered forearm catching the blades, sliding them aside—almost. One of the swordlike limbs plunged through the chitin-armor covering her other arm, and emerged from the back of it in a small fountain of blood.

Invidia cried out, seized the weapon-limb, and tore it free of her arm by dint of pure, furycrafted strength, ducking aside as another half dozen weapons flashed toward her from different directions. She fell back toward the entrance, seized another leaping wax spider, and flung it at the blade-thing with such strength that it was slammed several feet back across the floor, staggering under the impact.

Isana could only remain in place, motionless, hoping to avoid any attention, stunned at the display. Invidia’s power had, for an instant, stemmed the tide of hostile vord.

That instant was all that was required.

Blue-white lightning streaked through the entrance to the hive, twin lances arching around Invidia and converging upon the blade-thing in front of her. They struck in a hideously bright flash of light and a roar of sound that was physically painful. Isana felt the breath sucked from her lungs at the sudden change in air pressure. When she could see again a few seconds later, a blackened patch of ground remained where the first blade-thing had been standing, scorched free of vord and croach alike. Scattered pieces of sharp steel littered the ground, all that remained of the creature.