Storm of the Dead - Lisa Smedman [17]
She smiled and raised her sword. Ready.
The beetle sprang.
Cavatina thrust her sword at its thorax. The blade sliced through chitin and cut deep into flesh. The sword sang a joyous peal as bright orange blood rushed from the wound. Then the mandibles scissored shut, their jagged points gouging into Cavatina's sides. The beetle reared up to bring its front two legs into play, yanking her into the air.
Shuddering with pain, blood flowing down her sides, Cavatina gasped out a prayer. A circle of blinding white appeared on her palm, and streaked from it to strike the beetle's head. Suddenly weakened, it sagged backward and let Cavatina fall to the ground.
Cavatina lurched to her feet, the singing sword still in her hand. It sang a soothing melody as she slapped her free hand to her blood-slippery side and prayed. Eilistraee's moonlight sparkled brightly against Cavatina's skin as healing energy flowed into her, closing her wounds.
The beetle struggled to rise on trembling legs. Before it could recover, Cavatina danced in close and slashed. With a blow like an axe striking a heavy tree limb, she severed one of the mandibles. The beetle stabbed a leg down at her but Cavatina twisted aside just in time. The claw thudded into the fallen tree instead. The beetle yanked free, tossing the trunk aside like a stick. The log tumbled down the bank toward the stream, branches snapping from it.
Though weakened, the beetle was still very much alive. Cavatina might hack at it all night and still not kill it-the beetle was that large. The hunting horn that hung from her shoulder was capable of taking the beetle down, but its blare would be heard throughout the forest. It would draw the other priestesses like moths. Cavatina wanted to make this kill on her own, with sword and spell, as was proper for the High Hunt.
The beetle lunged, snapping at her with its remaining mandible. Alerted by her sword's warning peal, Cavatina leaped to the side, avoiding all but a grazing blow. She retaliated with a prayer that summoned a whirling circle of magical energy, pale and sparkling as a moon halo. It coalesced into individual blades of flashing silver and blue-black steel, each as sharp as a freshly honed dagger. With a twist of her hand, Cavatina hurled the whirring circle of magical blades at the monster's head. Whipping her hand around in an ever-tightening spiral, she closed the circle. It tightened in a deadly noose that sent bits of black chitin flying in all directions. Even as it closed, Cavatina raced forward and plunged the singing sword into the beetle's thorax.
As it died, the beetle let out an angry whir. Then its stiffened front wings sprang open. The whirring noise intensified, drowning out the muffled singing of Cavatina's sword, buried to the hilt in the beetle's thorax. Something whizzed past Cavatina's head: a winged, wormlike creature half the length of her forearm. Then another, until the air was thick with flying creatures.
Cavatina yanked her sword free and jumped back as the beetle collapsed. The air was filled with dozens of the flying creatures: the beetle's young, launching themselves from beneath the hard exoskeleton that formed the front wings. Like wasps spilling from a smashed nest they buzzed through the air, forcing Cavatina to dodge and weave. She slashed right and left with her singing sword, slicing several of them in two, but the rest rose up through the trees and escaped.
"Eilistraee!" she cried. "Smite them!"
Whipping her hand forward, she clawed magic from the moon and hurled it at the departing swarm. Moonlight flared, illuminating the trees around her in a wide circle. Wings shriveled and larval bodies imploded under the sheer weight of the goddess's magic. What remained thudded to the ground like soggy hail. A handful of the brood, however-perhaps half a dozen insects-whirred away into the night.
When each landed, it would carve out a home for itself in the forest. There, it would feed, and grow. And if it was female, produce