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Crassus dropped a swift gesture of affir hisbolt was loosed, and flashed across the sky froreen-and-black luh upon a wall seee with soht and fury Frag in every direction, and the half shape that was left see into a more conventional bonfire

And the stream of deadly arroasps from that horrible hive abruptly vanished

Tavi swatted several more wasps down, and noted that Kitai hadforce of the winds Tavi held around the several thousand arroasps into the vord still trapped in the grasses Tavi doubted that the poison coating the wasps' stingers would prove dangerous to the h vord chitin with great effectiveness, and each drew its individual trickle of blood In very short order, noKitai turned her attention to the spiders andfrom the city, and the vord arroasps sliced and cut into their own kind, helpless before the vast winds

Thunder rolled overhead, accoht Three, four, five, six Each tiht one of the captured bolts forth, he destroyed another hive - and after the sixth, the flow of arroasps rushing into the wind shield abruptly ceased, just as thetoward Tavi and Kitai

"I think that ell," Kitai called

"I'll take it," Tavi said Then they both leapt upward, and the whirling shield co them both up into the skies and out of the reach of the vord below

Either Crassus had been passing infor had had his fill of waiting Dru had placed Tavi's leading cohorts in the center and flanked theroup of warriors stood ready to support any weak points in the line

"Sir?" Crassus shouted toward hi remained "What do we do with the rest of it?"

Tavi pointed a finger at the collapsed section of wall, where the vord were pouring out

Crassus nodded and over the next several 's thunderstor bolts blew craters in the earth and left the sround

The Legion closed in, with taurga si down vord that had spread out to the sides of the opening Their riders never needed to lift their weapons The Battlecrows and the Prihtering the vord They were aided by a thin line of Varg's warriors armed with balests, the heavy, steel-bowed, shoulder-fired weapons of the Caniht allowed the an allied legionare, and when one of the steel projectiles struck a vord, the creature fell, screaht

The erous opponents: So were the most experienced and decorated cohorts in the First Aleran Tavi watched as their centurions assessed the threat of the mantis-form scythes The weapons really weren't terribly different fro-handled sickle-swords used by the Cani's forces in the Vale, but if adjustments weren't made, they could take a toll on the cohorts

Centurions all along the line came to si orders, the first rank dropped to fight in a low, defensive crouch while the second shifted to their spears, their shields held high and tilted up, to deflect or reduce the effect of any doard-plunging scythes toward the partners in the first rank The spear thrusts over the front rank's shoulders and hel in too close, and any vord that seee iftly introduced to a heavy steel balest bolt

Tavi watched the leading cohorts take light casualties "Light" casualties, he thought Only soionare's arnificant