At a moving mass, on the road. That was all she could be certain of. It was different from the stream of still-coming vord warrior forms in that there was no gleam of wan light on vord armor, no regular, seething mass of creatures moving as many bodies under the control of a single mind. There were flickers of light moving amidst that body, irregular in shape, spacing, and color, or she wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.

Amara concentrated, murmuring to Cirrus to draw the distant road even closer in her sight. It was difficult to do so while maintaining her windstream, but the far road sprang into focus after a moment of effort and showed Amara the last thing that she had been expecting in the vord’s train.

Furies.

The road was filled with manifest furies. Thousands, tens of thousands, of them.

The variety of the furies in sight was dizzying. Earth furies showed themselves as hummocks of stone in the road, rumbling along through the earth. Some were vaguely shaped like animals, but most were not. The largest of them pushed the entire causeway up into a single hummock as they cruised forward, moving as fast as a running horse. Wood furies bounded along the causeway, their shapes never quite matching that of any single animal or creature, but blending the traits of many—others, invisible in the trees and plants at either side of the road, could only be seen as a ripple of forward motion amidst the living things. Water furies bounded or slithered forward, some shaped like great serpents or frogs, while others were simply amorphous shapes of pure water, held together by the will of the fury inhabiting it. Fire furies rushed among them, mostly in the form of predator animals, though others were flickering forms of fire, changing from one instant to the next—it was they whose light Amara had seen. And from three to twenty feet above the surface of the road rushed a horde of wind furies. They were mostly windmanes, though Amara could see far larger wispy shapes ghosting among them, the largest in the form of a truly enormous shark that cruised through the air as if it were the sea.

So many furies. Amara felt slightly dizzied.

She dimly noted forms moving along the outer edges of the road, or flying slightly above it—captured Alerans. She realized, after a moment’s thought, that they were herding the furies below, using furycraft of their own to keep the mass of furies moving along the causeway. The driven furies were not pleased about it either. Their aggressive anger was something that Amara could practically feel pressing against her teeth.

But if they were doing that it meant…

“Bloody crows,” Amara swore. “Those are feral furies.”

Veradis stared at her with wide eyes, her face pale. “All of them? Th-that’s impossible.”

But it wasn’t. Not after months of warfare against the vord. The enemy had been indiscriminate in its slaughter. And every Aleran killed meant more furies suddenly bereft of human restraint and guidance. Somehow, the vord had gathered together bloody legions of the deadly things. And this was no problem like that of dealing with windmanes in a furystorm, easily solved by taking shelter in a building of earth and stone. If someone tried that against this mob, the earth furies would crush him in his own shelter, assuming the wood furies didn’t simply follow them in, or the fire furies turn what should have been a haven into a murderous furnace.

Feral furies were not easily intimidated or dissuaded from their violence. It required the skills of a full-blown Citizen to deal with them. It had taken Aleran Citizens centuries to pacify the settled lands of Alera, then the routes followed by the causeways.

And now several centuries’ worth of danger and death were racing toward the Aleran lines.

The Legions would never be able to stand before the hammerblow those feral furies would deliver. Simply surviving them would require all of the focus and furycraft at their command—which would mean that they would not be able to direct it toward the vord. And in a purely physical contest, the invaders would grind the Alerans to dust.

And should the feral horde shatter the Legion lines and rush through to Riva and the freemen and refugees now living there… their deaths would be violent and horrible, the loss of life enormous.

The enemy had just transformed Riva from a stronghold into a trap.

Amara felt herself breathing harder and faster than she needed. To the best of her knowledge, there were no Aleran fliers operating as high as her group. The teams covering the lower altitudes wouldn’t be able to see the oncoming threat until it was far too late to react.

Amara shivered and suppressed a desire to scream in frustration.

“Aldrick,” she snapped. “Take the Windwolves back to Riva, directly to the High Lord’s tower. Stand there to cover Lord and Lady Riva, and to respond to any emergency requiring your team’s support.” Her eyes flicked to Veradis. “Lady Veradis will explain.”

Aldrick stared at her, but only for a second. His eyes shifted down and back up, then he nodded once. He made a short series of hand gestures to one of his men, and seconds later, the Windwolves’ fliers and the coaches they carried were banking into a turn, to descend toward the embattled city at their best possible speed.

“Amara,” Veradis said.

“There is no time,” Amara replied calmly. “The enemy has those furies channeled and moving in the proper direction, but they don’t have anything like real control over them. They must have modified the causeway, somehow. Once they turn those furies loose, everything is going to change.”

“What do you mean?” Veradis asked.

“We won’t be able to hold the city,” Amara spat. “Not in the face of so many hostile furies. They’ll rip the city to shreds around us, killing our people along the way. The only thing we can do is withdraw.”

The younger woman shook her head dazedly. “W-withdraw? There’s nowhere left to go.”

Amara felt a surge of fierce pride rush through her. “Yes,” she said. “There is. You will follow Aldrick and his people. Explain to him about the feral furies. Make sure Lord Riva knows, as well.”

“B-but… what are you going to do?”

“Warn Aquitaine,” she snapped. “Stop hovering there like an idle schoolgirl and go!”

Veradis nodded jerkily, turned, and began accelerating to catch up with the Windwolves. Amara watched for a few seconds, to be sure Veradis wasn’t about to fly off in the wrong direction in sheer confusion. Then she turned, called to Cirrus, and dived, rushing down toward the far-distant earth with all the speed that gravity and her fury could give her. There was a thunderous explosion all around her as her speed peaked, and she realized that she had none of the operating passwords for the battlefield below. She would just have to hope that the combat teams patrolling the air were too slow to stop her or kill her before she could speak to Aquitaine.

Besides, that was the least of her worries.

How was she going to be able to face Bernard and tell him that for the sake of the Realm, she had chosen to leave his sister’s fate in enemy hands?