There was a shriek and a sudden rush of pressure as dozens of warriors flung themselves at the Battlecrows in wholehearted, berserk determination to cut the invaders down, and for a moment the Battlecrows slowed. But then, abruptly, an apparition materialized from the darkness of the barn, a black shadow against the green light in the form of a man. The figure began to move, and suddenly strode out into the light, a completely metallic form the likes of which Fidelias had never seen and only once heard about. Fidelias recognized him at a glance—Araris Valerian, one of the deadliest blades in the Realm, a man whose sword had made him a legend before he’d gotten out of his mid-twenties.

Fidelias had never seen a furycrafter do what Araris had done, though.

The first vord warrior he approached never knew he was near. Araris’s sword clove the legs from one side of its body, then swept its head from its trunk before it could finish falling.

The next vord spun to face the steel swordsman. Its plunging scythe struck Araris on his left shoulder and shattered like a length of desiccated wood. Araris parried the second scythe aside, split the creature’s head with his sword, and kicked the vord’s corpse, still thrashing dangerously, into the crowd of its brethren trying to stop the Battlecrows.

The vord broke, then, rushing back into the barn—but their flight took them within reach of Araris Valerian’s blade. The swordsman never seemed to move with any particular speed—only a fluid, delicate grace entirely at odds with his statuelike appearance. And yet, his sword always seemed to move swiftly enough, no matter how quickly the vord might attempt to evade him. He dropped the first several, it seemed, merely to slow the escape of the others, and his blade and those of the Battlecrows took a heavy toll of the remaining vord. No more than half a dozen of them had survived to flee back into the barn.

Araris nodded at Schultz and looked wildly around him. “Marcus!” he called, his voice buzzing oddly. He tossed a stone from his hand into a long arc, and Fidelias snatched it out of the air. He could feel the tingle of a firecrafting in it—a signal flare, most likely. “The First Lady, and three others are trapped in the hive, wounded. They need to be taken to the stronghold at Garrison immediately. There’s the flare for their escort. Lord Placida may be down at the bottom of that ramp. Find him.”

Then he spun on one heel and began a heavy run back toward the green-lighted holes in the barn floor.

“Schultz!” Fidelias barked, tossing the stone to the centurion, who caught it handily enough. “Get that to some open ground and set it off!”