They rode about half a mile before leaving the protective mists around the host—and were immediately bathed by the light of a waning moon. Predawn hovered in the east, a cold blue light that was only barely brighter than the darkness of night.

They went off the road, and approached the steadholt from the southwest, walking their horses carefully through the thick woods. A murmur from Tavi, and a low, constant effort of will made the trees bend back their limbs, and the new growth of briar and brush allow them to pass without sound or inconvenience. It took them only moments to come within sight of Aricholt.

Tavi had only heard it described by his uncle, and that had never been in great detail. The steadholt had been an average example of the breed—a barn, a great hall, some living quarters and workshops, all of them made of stone. A stone wall circled the place, though it had crumbled in multiple locations.

Standing in the fields were row after row of large, egg-shaped forms, which Tavi suddenly realized were the bodies of the vord warriors. They stretched for a square mile, easily, even with each one curled into a ball and stacked up touching the mantises beside it. None of them moved—it would appear that they were indeed asleep, at least for the moment.

Glowing green croach spread out from the barn and had already begun to creep outward. There was a crowd of mantis warriors sitting around the far side of the barn, a hundred or more. Further sentries crouched around the exterior of the barn, one every ten feet or so. Wax spiders rolled in and out, vomiting out fresh patches of croach, then trundling back inside to pick up more.

“Remind you of anything?” Tavi asked Kitai quietly.

She nodded. “The Queen’s hive under Alera Imperia.”

The high-pitched howl of windstreams bearing Aleran fliers screamed far overhead. Tavi looked up and saw a flier glide smoothly down to the barn entrance—a slender woman clad all in black, whose head had been badly scarred with burns. She passed through the crowd of mantises, shoving them out of the way like unruly lambs, then glanced over her shoulder and up before vanishing into the barn.

“She’s there,” he heard himself whisper. “Bloody crows, the Queen is right there in that barn.”

Kitai’s hand went to her sword. “Should we attack?”

He shook his head. Together they turned their horses and began moving slowly and stealthily back to the host.

Kitai stared at him, visibly furious, as they reentered the mists, and stopped her horse. “That was an opportunity. Perhaps the best one we are going to have. It was foolish of you to cast it aside out of some harebrained need to protect me.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing, Kitai.”