Amara and the Knights Flora immediately peeled away, to the left of the column's advance, making their way up a low slope that would allow them to shoot over the heads of the column almost until they engaged the taken.
Once they were clear of the column's path, Bernard lifted his hand and roared, "Legionares! Charge!"
Every Aleran throat opened in a roar of, "Calderon for Alera!" The legionares surged forward in a wave of steel, and their boots were a muffled thunder upon the rain-soaked earth as they followed the Count of Calderon into battle. At the same time, Walker emerged from the cave mouth, the bloodied gargant's battle roar joining that of the legionares as it accelerated into a lumbering run, deceptively swift for all its apparent clumsiness, his claws biting into the earth. Walker began to gain on the legionares at once, gathering momentum while Doroga whirled his long-handled cudgel over his head, howling.
An unearthly yowl rolled out from the stand of trees, and the taken moved in abrupt, silent, and perfect concert. They formed into a loose half circle, shields in the front rank, while those holding spears set them to receive the charge, making the taken shieldwall bristle with the crude weapons.
Amara beckoned Cirrus as she ran, struggling to exert the bare minimum of effort necessary for the fury to bend light and let her see the enemy. She had only one duty in this battle-to find the vord queen and point her out to Bernard.
Beside her, the Knights Flora raised their bows. Arrows flashed out through the rain, striking eyes and throats with unerring precision, and over the next ten seconds half a dozen of the spearmen fell despite the use of the Legion shields. The taken moved at once, others picking up the spears and moving into the place of the fallen-but the disruption was enough to create an opening in the fence of rude spears, allowing the legionares to drive their charge home.
Shield met shield with a deafening metallic thunder, and the legionares hewed at the crude spears with their vicious, heavy blades, further widening the opening and disrupting the formation of the taken.
"Shift left!" Bernard cried. "Shift left, left, left!"
The legionares immediately moved together, a sudden lateral dash of no more than twenty feet.
And a heartbeat later, Doroga and Walker crashed onto the breach in the thicket of spears.
Amara stared in utter shock for a moment at the gargant's impact. She had never heard a beast so loud, never seen anything so unthinkably strong. Walker's chest slammed into the shieldwall, crushing several of the taken who bore them. His great head swung left and right, slamming more of the taken around like an angry child with his toys, and Doroga leaned far over the saddle-mat with his cudgel, striking down upon the skulls of the taken. The gargant plowed through the ranks of the taken without slowing, leaving a corridor of destruction behind him, halted, whirled, and immediately laid into the ranks of the taken with savage claws.
Before the charge was complete, the legionares roared together and slammed forward in a frenzied, all-out attack, catching the taken between them and the blood-maddened gargant.
Amara bit her lip, sweeping her gaze around the battle, desperate to find the queen, to do something to help Bernard and his men. She could only watch the battle, seeing flashes of it in horrible clarity as she searched for the queen.
After the initial shock of the gargant's charge, the taken moved together into a counterattack. Within a minute, several with spears had spread out to either side of Walker, and thrust the weapons at the gargant while Doroga attempted to parry them away with his great club. The others focused on the legionares, and though the men fought with undeniable skill and courage, the numbers against them were simply too great, and their momentum began to falter.
She watched as Bernard ducked the swing of an axe wielded by an old grey-haired man, and the legionare beside him struck a killing blow upon his attacker with a downsweep of his sword. Seconds later, a child, a girl of no more than ten or twelve summers, hauled a legionares leg out from beneath him and twisted with savage power, breaking it. The legionare screamed as other taken hauled him away and fell upon him with mindless savagery. An ancient crone thrust a wooden spear into Walker's shoulder and the gargant whirled with a scream of pain, swatting at the spear and shattering its shaft.
And then Amara saw a flicker of motion, behind Doroga and Walker, something darting out of the shadow of the trees, covered by the folds of a dark cloak and hood.
"There!" she cried to the archers, pointing. "There!"
Moving swiftly, two Knights touched their last arrows, bound with oiled cloths just beneath the heads, so the embers in the small firepots on their belts set the arrows aflame. They drew and loosed, sending twin streaks of fire hissing through the rain. One arrow struck the shape directly, shattering as if it had impacted upon a heavy breastplate. The other arrow missed striking anything solid, but lodged in the folds of the vord queen's cloak.
That was the signal. Bernard's head whipped around to trace the flight of the fire arrows, and he roared commands to his legionares, who wheeled and surged toward the vord queen with desperate power. Doroga whipped his head around as the vord queen leapt at him. He threw himself to one side, rolled off the gargant's back, and landed in a heavy crouch. The vord queen whirled and rushed him, only to alter her course when Walker threw himself into the queen's path.
"Swords!" Amara snapped to the Knights with her. "With me!" They drew steel and sprinted forward, circling the chaos of the melee to head for the queen. Amara sprinted ahead of the Knights, swifter than they on foot, sidestepping a clumsy grab from one of the taken and striking it down as she flew past it. She saw the queen leap again, claws flashing in an effort to put out one of the gargant's eyes. Walker turned his head into the leap, gashing the queen with his tusks, and sending her bouncing across the earth not ten yards from Amara.
The Cursor shouted a wordless battle cry, sword raised, and called to Cirrus for swiftness enough to challenge the queen. The queen whirled to face Amara, claws spread, and let out another shriek. Half a dozen taken peeled away from the fight to charge Amara, but the Knights with her intercepted them, swords raised, and kept them from moving forward.
Amara swept her sword in a feinting cut, then reversed direction and drove her blade in a thrust aimed for the queen's eyes. The queen swatted the blade away, but not before it bit into the creature's face, tearing the hood away and giving Amara a full look at the vord queen's features for the first time.
It looked human.
It almost looked familiar.
Though its skin was green-black, shining and hard, the creature's face looked almost Aleran, but for slightly canted eyes like the Marat. Curly black hair writhed in a mussed wreath around the vord queen's head. Fangs dimpled full feminine lips. But for the fangs, the shade of its skin, and its luminous eyes, the vord queen could have been a young and lovely Aleran girl.
The queen recoiled, and a trickle of a thick, greenish fluid oozed from the cut across her cheekbone. The queen touched her cheek and stared at the blood on her fingers, raw and somehow childlike amazement on her face. "You harmed me."
"That makes us even," Amara said, her voice grim. She shouted and closed again, her sword whipping fast and hard at the queen.