INVASION mtg-1

by J. Robert King

  They were figures out of nightmares-scaly and grimly powerful. Poison fangs, goring horns, blood-sucking shunts, acid ejectors, exoskeletal proliferation, pincers, barbs, paralyzing stings-every adaptation that nature had given the foes of humankind the Phyrexians had given themselves.

  Out marched the first ranks of shield folk, the scuta. They were stooped creatures. Their skulls had been flattened and elongated into wide shields that guarded their scuttling legs. There was little room for brain anymore in that bony bonnet and little need. These fleetfooted beasts were bred on instinct to rush into unknown territories and flush out ambushers. They seemed giant horseshoe crabs, inhuman except for the vestigial faces, stretched and vacant, on their lower skulls. Shoulder to shoulder, they bounded down the ramp and swept outward, sniffing with enhanced olfactory cavities. Scuta were kept hungry, that they would seek their victims not only for sport but also for sustenance.

  The next ranks were utterly different. Grown for brute strength, stamina, and savagery, bloodstocks had a second pelvis and a second pair of legs grafted across their stomachs. They leaned forward perpetually as if in a vicious charge. Steel beams pierced their shoulders, widening them by three feet and providing artifact arms above their natural pair. The bloodstocks pounded down the ramp and tore out across the field. They were as fast as wolves and charged like rhinos. If the scuta flushed out more forces than they could slay, the bloodstocks would paint the plains in blood.

  After the scuta and the bloodstocks came phalanx after phalanx of Phyrexian troopers. These vat-grown troops were less specialized, with generally human configuration and intelligence. They were tall and lean, their shoulders bristling with horns, their faces taut like leather sacks. The ribs of Phyrexian troopers had thickened into a full-torso breastplate, and implants had developed into subcutaneous armor across their bodies. Mechanical talons replaced hands and feet. It was impossible to tell where flesh stopped and mechanism began. Phyrexian troopers were meant to march and haul and dig as well as fight. They were also meant to follow orders instead of instincts.

  Order and instinct had their mutual apotheosis in the final figure to emerge. She did not come down the ramp among the shouldering hordes of Phyrexians. She was not one of the rabble. She was their leader, their god. It had been part of the indoctrination of these troops that when they looked up at Tsabo Tavoc, they saw mother and ruler and slayer, all.

  Tsabo Tavoc's eight legs helped the image. They were mechanisms, silvery and knife shaped. Even in a crouch, they lifted her torso ten feet off the ground. Fully extended, they made her stand taller than a house. Between those massive legs rose a great, bulbous abdomen. It was a mechanism, as well. A four-foot-long stinger jutted beneath it, dripping venom. Powerstones within that abdomen linked Tsabo Tavoc to her every minion. She could sense everything they sensed.

  Above it all rose a powerful thorax, half human and half machine. Brown robes draped from four massive shoulders and mantled a bald, young, strangely beautiful head. Tsabo Tavoc had once been a fair maiden with ivory skin and supple arms. Her beauty had somehow been only heightened by the torturous modifications she had undergone. Even her eyes, the way they sparkled, might have been alluring were they not so plainly compound.

  Tsabo Tavoc stepped down from the prow of her command cruiser. Her legs picked gracefully forward among the waving heads of grain. She watched with all-seeing eyes as her troops lined up on the plains of Benalia.

  Tsabo Tavoc loved them. These were her children. What seemed almost a smile formed on her segmented lips. She sent her children the sum of her will.

  Welcome, my sweet ones. Welcome to Dominaria. This is our home. Do you feel it in your blood as I do? Do you feel how the hills call to us? They remember when we walked this place. They have longed for our return. We come to them, compleated and glorious, their worthy rulers.

  There is another race here, though. They have ruled this world for these six thousand years, ruled wrongly. They are the remnant of us, those who would not ascend. They remained in squalor and have thrived here only because they had no natural predators.

  We are their natural predators. We have come to take this world back from the soft-skinned, cowering vermin that have overrun it. We will feed upon them, as is our right, and claim dominion over Dominaria, as is our destiny.

  Array yourselves, my children. This is the first great battle of many. Before the sun sets this day, we march upon the center of Benalish power. We march upon Benalia City.

  Chapter 6

  To Sting A Spider

  From Benalia City above came muffled booms and sudden shouts. The cell floor shuddered. Iron clanged on iron. Sand sifted from the stony ceiling.

  "Do you hear that?" Gerrard called to the brig guardsman. "That's the invasion we spoke of. Those are the monsters out of the sky."

  The blind seer stood beside him, clutching the bars.

  "They'll be calling you in a moment," Gerrard continued. "They'll need everybody to fight. They'll need us too. Let us loose!"

  The guard was young and pallid. He took a step toward the cell, his hands on the keys at his side. A shout came from above. He craned his neck up the passageway and listened to barked orders. Each word jolted him bodily, as if he were a scrap in the mouth of a dog. Suddenly, he charged up the stairs.

  "Wait!" Gerrard shouted.

  It was too late. A deafening concussion sounded at the head of the stairs. The guard-a mere rag doll now- tumbled down to sprawl at their base.

  "Damn it," Gerrard growled, staring at the crumpled young man. He rattled the cell door in frustration. "We've got to get out of here. It won't be long before Phyrexians start flooding down."

  Tahngarth rose from the corner where he had sat. Snorting angrily, he stalked across the cell, gripped the bars, and hauled hard on them. Muscles snapped like steel cables. The sinews of his massive shoulders rolled beneath mottled white fur. Beads of sweat broke out over his bovine brow. Still, the bars did not budge. With a roar of anger, he released his grip and dropped to his knees, panting.

  Shaking his head, Gerrard said, "How about you, Hanna? Could you jimmy this lock?"

  The slim, blonde navigator shrugged as she came forward. "Just because I studied artifice doesn't mean I know anything about locks." She crouched beside the door and peered into the keyhole. "If this were powerstone driven, I'd have a shot. As it is, I don't even have anything I could use as a lockpick."

  "How 'bout dis?" interposed Squee, suddenly at her side. He clutched a white, pointed object.

  "That might be just the thing," Hanna replied, taking hold of it before she realized it was the tip of Tahngarth's horn. The kneeling minotaur cocked an eyebrow at her, and she let go, smiling in apology.

  "Those horns have bashed down plenty of doors, but never lock-picked them," Tahngarth snorted.

  Another explosion shook the brig. More rocks fell from the ceiling.

  Gerrard patted the minotaur's back. "I hate to ask it of you, but they took anything else we could have used to pick the lock. They even took my belt, as if I'd use it to throttle a guard. They left it with our weapons-with your striva."

  "All right! All right!" the minotaur growled. "Use my horn! It'll just make me more deadly when I get out."

  Hanna gingerly took the tip of it and directed it toward the keyhole. "Forgive me, Tahngarth. I'm not exactly an expert at this."

  "Squee's good! Squee know how to do dat!" the goblin said emphatically. He clambered up Tahngarth's stooped back and leaped to the bars, where he clung like a monkey. He brushed Hanna aside, peered into the keyhole, and said, "Aw, yeah. Easy tumbler. One strike. I do dis easy." He grabbed Tahngarth's horn and shoved it into the keyhole. The minotaur overbalanced, his head ramming against the bars.

  Hanna and Gerrard wisely retreated.

  Tahngarth steadied himself and was about to protest when a cascade of fist-sized stones fell from the ceiling, pummeling his shoulder blades. He was going to be very deadly when he got out of this.
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br />   Squee twisted the minotaur's horn. It shrieked pitiably in the metal encasement. The goblin switched his handhold. His wrist twisted.

  "No good. Angle all wrong. Maybe we break off dis horn!"

  "Maybe we break off dis goblin!" Tahngarth roared.

  Squee was too busy clinging to the bars and rattling the horn in the keyhole to notice he was in mortal peril. Exasperated, he squeezed his way through the bars.

  "Squee try this from outside."

  He braced his feet on the outside of the cell door and yanked on Tahngarth's horns, ramming the bull-man's head again into the bars.

  "Squee! Squee! Stop!" Tahngarth bellowed.

  "Squee almost got it!" shouted back the goblin.

  "You've got it already, you imbecile! You're outside the cell! Grab the keys!"

  "Wuh-?"

  "From the dead guard! Grab the keys!"

  Releasing the minotaur's horn, Squee dropped his webby feet to the cold stone floor. He brushed off his hands, frowned, and shrugged.

  "Well, if you think it'll be quicker-"

  "Get the keys!" the Weatherlight crew shouted in unison.

  Squee cringed beneath the auditory assault and retreated to the body sprawled beyond. Deft hands won the key ring free of tangled clothes. Squee brought them back to the door. Griping under his breath, he fitted key after key into the slot.

  "Dis just cuts it. Squee save your butts in Mercadia ten hundred times, and now he save your butts here, and all you say is 'Get dose keys, Squee! Get dose keys!' "

  A loud boom sounded above, and a small landslide swept down the stairway, burying the guard.

  Gerrard watched feverishly from the other side of the cell door. Quietly, he advised, "You'd better hurry, Squee."

  " 'Hurry up, Squee! Hurry up, Squee!' " the goblin groused.

  Down that landslide ambled inhuman creatures. They had claws the size of butcher knives and serpent-slitted eyes. They climbed over the body of the dead guardsman and charged the cell door.

  "Hurry up, Squee!" the goblin told himself. "Hurry up, Squee!"

  The lock clicked. Squee hauled on the door, yanking it open. He rode the swinging bars back, keeping the door between him and the charging Phyrexians.

  Tahngarth followed the door out. He burst from the cell with a full-fledged roar. It echoed through the trembling chamber as though the brig itself screamed.

  At that sound, even the Phyrexians faltered. They paused in their charge, glimpsing a great mass of muscle headed their way.

  Tahngarth barreled into the front two Phyrexians. Horns that had been twisted in a Rathi torture chamber caught and gored their first monstrous victims. Golden oilblood rained from the beasts as Tahngarth lifted them to the ceiling. He shook his head. The horns eviscerated the monsters. Guts tumbled out on either side of the minotaur. Like impaled bugs, the Phyrexians writhed on his horns. A brace of their comrades charged Tahngarth. He hurled the dying beasts from his horns, toppling the others.

  Gerrard and Sisay rushed from the cell to the minotaur's side. Sisay clenched her teeth in fury.

  "What do we use for weapons?"

  Gerrard demonstrated with a roundhouse. Knuckles impacted a Phyrexian jaw, just between a pair of venomous horns. The bone beneath cracked. The beast reeled and dropped like a plank. Grinning, Gerrard blew across his knuckles.

  "These, I guess."

  Nodding philosophically, Sisay ducked the swiping claws of another beast. She kicked out, breaking its leg at the knee. Four Phyrexians were down, but dozens more flooded down the stairwell.

  "We're done for, you know?" she said blandly as she stomped the head of the creature she had just felled.

  Before he could respond, Gerrard drove the nose of one beast into its brain. He peeled the thing's claws from his own bleeding throat.

  "I know."

  * * * * *

  Tsabo Tavoc trembled in delight as she strode through the shattered outer wall of Benalia City. Dead citizens lay everywhere. Only a few had been fed on yet. Most lay with wide-open eyes and mouths frozen in final screams. Tsabo Tavoc had heard those screams through the ears of her children. She had tasted the blood of this one, and that. It was as though she herself had killed them all. Even now, more murderous moments flowed over her, as bracing as the waters of a cool stream. Tsabo Tavoc trembled. There was such an ecstasy in the harvest.

  A herd of bloodstocks bounded eagerly through the breach in the wall. They passed among her legs. Tsabo Tavoc was delighted at the touch of her children. She watched the bloodstocks converge on Benalish soldiers. The humans set their pikes for the charge, but these were not horses with hollow chests. The blood-stocks ran full speed onto the pikes. Metal heads struck wedge-shaped stemums, cut along broad ribs, and slid ineffectually out the severed pectoral muscles. Such injuries maimed one arm, but bloodstocks had three others. With them they ripped apart the pike men. It was a glorious sight-a red fountain bursting into being in the cobbled square.

  Ah, what ecstasy there was in the harvest! Tsabo Tavoc drew a deep breath.

  Perhaps the sweetest triumph of the day had been capturing the flying ship Weatherlight. Any Phyrexian would have recognized that queer little war machine. It had caused havoc on Rath. It had destroyed the Phyrexian fleet on Mercadia. All Phyrexians recognized the ship if only as the laughably puny creation of Urza Planeswalker. It was merely a wasp-small and ludicrously vicious but capable of delivering a painful sting.

  Not today. The ship's crew was gone. It had been guarded only by Benalish soldiers. They were dead now, replaced by Phyrexians. Every chamber of the ship had been searched. Where was the crew?

  Something sad touched her: the piquancy of loss. It came from there, from the ruined infirmary. It seemed a place of victory. A ray cannon had ripped the roof off. One brick wall was blown out. Bunks lay overturned. Between them were red fragments of bone where the inhabitants had fed scuta. Even Capashen Chief Rad-deus and his wife Leda had been surprised there, visiting the ill. They were gibbeted high enough that the bloodstocks could bite off only a toe or two. Above ground was victory.

  Below ground was defeat. A deep brig lurked there. Twenty of her children lay dead, and not a single prisoner was slain. What sort of prisoners were these-?

  With a sudden shudder of realization, Tsabo Tavoc knew. She sent out her will. Hold them, my children. Do not slay them. Neither allow them escape. These are the master's former friends. They are Urza's saviors.

  The reply came back, as always it did, with grateful obedience. The thoughts were borne on a current of death-the deaths of her servants.

  I must go see this Gerrard Capashen myself, Tsabo Tavoc thought.

  Her legs galloped. In moments, she reached the blasted infirmary and stood at the top of the stairs. Agony broke in exquisite waves over them. Tsabo Tavoc's hearts pounded in her thorax. She tucked her venomous abdomen up beneath her and folded her legs in a cage over her head. Metal scraped on stone as she rolled down the steps. She landed on a rubble pile at the foot of the stairs. There was a still-warm body beneath her feet, but she paid it no heed. Unfolding her legs, she surveyed the scene.

  Her children lay, twenty-some, dead before the crew of Weatherlight. How had fists and horns bested claws and fangs?

  Tsabo Tavoc spoke. It was a grave moment when she spoke aloud. Her voice had the sound of cicadas rasping in chorus.

  "Surrender, Gerrard of Weatherlight. You will not be harmed by me. My master has want to see you. Surrender, and live."

  The black-bearded man she addressed wore a most unusual grin as his bloody knuckles felled another foot soldier.

  "You overestimate… how fond I am… of life."

  Rarely did Tsabo Tavoc speak aloud. When she did, she was always obeyed.

  There in that tight space, her legs scraped the ceiling as she lunged for Gerrard. A minotaur-foolish bovine- stepped before the man and rammed his horns into Tsabo Tavoc's belly. Her own pain was not as lovely as others'. With one slim hand, she wrenched the t
wisted thing from her flesh. The horn was slick with her oil-blood. Tsabo Tavoc shoved the minotaur away as though he were a newborn calf.

  A dark-skinned woman kicked the belly wound. Her foot sank into the oozy hole.

  Tsabo Tavoc constricted her thorax and trapped the foot. Her assailant writhed in agony. Heedless, Tsabo Tavoc dragged the woman toward Gerrard.

  He took a swing even as he stumbled away. Tsabo Tavoc caught his fist and hauled him up by it. He tried to break free but was too weak. It was like crushing kittens.

  Tsabo Tavoc gazed into the angry face of this young man, this creature bred out of millennia for his task. Her voice buzzed through the brig.

  "You cannot defy me, Gerrard, nor my master. I have taken your country. I will take you as well. My master will take your world."

  What was this? He spit on her face? Could he possibly defy her still?

  "What is your name, that I can brag of killing you," the bearded man asked.

  "I am Tsabo Tavoc," she replied placidly, "but it is quite the other way around." Her abdomen curled up beneath Gerrard. A huge stinger dripped venom. Poison sacs pulsed. Tsabo Tavoc clamped onto Gerrard's side.

  Oh, this was the greatest pleasure of all!

  Sudden light and noise filled the place. The weighty ceiling came to pieces. It dropped all about them. Every chunk of stone was limned in red light. Phyrexians were crushed. A hunk of rock knocked the dark-skinned woman unconscious. Another tore a deep gash in Gerrard's side. Only those in the cell were protected.

  Just one rock mattered, though-one deadly boulder. It smashed Tsabo Tavoc to the ground. A twenty-foot slab of stone pinned the legs of her left side. She struggling to claw free.

  Worse, Gerrard got away. His hand was in bloody ribbons. He dragged his dark-skinned companion with him. Her foot was badly burned from Tsabo Tavoc's blood, but they got away.