"I understand, Captain," Fidelias said quietly. "I'll get it done."
Tavi rode at the head of the column the rest of the way to the engagement. Moving down the causeway, it took them a little more than an hour to make the trip, and his mouth was dry the whole time, no matter how many times he drank from his water flask. Scouts and outriders reported infrequent contact with the enemy. They wouldn't have been able to see much - the host was still riding veiled beneath Master Marok's misty cloud. Of course, the reverse also held true. It was difficult for the host to see out. They had to rely heavily upon their scouts to be their eyes and ears.
They turned off the causeway to cover the last three or four miles to Aricholt upon a nonfurycrafted road. In the darkness, the ride was an eerie one. Vord cries drifted up and down the valley. Garrison was only another half an hour or so away upon the causeway, but that was plenty of distance to muffle all but the most piercing cries of the vord, who must have been laying siege to the place. The distant crackles and booms of firecraftings came through clearly, though. From the sound of it, there were still plenty of Citizens standing up to the vord - either that, or the idea he'd shared with his uncle by letter, about the mules and the fire-spheres, had actually paid off. If that was true, he'd be a little startled, he'd admit. He never thought that one would work out.
A scout from the Free Aleran appeared out of the mist ahead of them, riding his horse back at an easy lope. He pulled up next to the command group and saluted Tavi.
"Report."
"Sir, the steadholt is up ahead. It's covered in the croach and..." He shook his head. "The reserves you talked about are there."
"Asleep?"
"Maybe," the man said. "They weren't moving."
Tavi looked over his shoulder at Fidelias, and said, "Signal the halt. Quietly."
Fidelias nodded. Signals were passed by hand gesture and lowered voice back down the column.
"I want to see this for myself," Tavi said. "Everyone else, remain here."
"I am going," Kitai said.
Tavi eyed her. He had no desire whatsoever to expose her - expose them - to danger, but he gave in to the inevitable on the lesser risk. "Fine. But we're only going up to look, and we're doing it under sound, sight, and earth veils."
Kitai shrugged her shoulders. "As you would, Aleran."
They rode out together, and Tavi pulled up a windcrafted veil around them as they did. Without being told, Kitai managed the crafting that would hide the sounds of their passing and another that would make the earth more pliable beneath the hooves of their mounts, greatly reducing the amount of vibration they sent through the earth as they walked, in an effort to avoid detection by enemy earthcrafters who might be standing sentry duty.
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."
"The crows it was not," Kitai said. "And if you think for a moment that you are going to hunt this Queen by yourself, Aleran, you are mistaken. I will not permit you to face her alone."
"Kitai - "
"I don't know who is on this strike team you mentioned, but I am hereby assigning myself to it."
"You're not on the team. You are the team. I've already decided that the safest place for you is next to me."
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You have?"
He nodded. Then he stopped his horse and turned to her. "I wish you to become my mate," he said, duplicating her own accented Aleran flawlessly. "Set the challenge of your choice."
She tilted her head. "What?"
"You heard me," he said.
Kitai stared at him for a moment more, then said, "Let the winner of the trial be the one who slays the vord Queen."
Tavi huffed out a laugh. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you didn't want me to marry you."
She smiled at him. "No, fool," she said. "I most certainly do. Kill this creature, my Aleran, and make our world a place where we might live again, where our child might grow up in safety. Kill her, and I will be yours until death parts us."