Lifting his hand in a visor over glimmering blue eyes, Thaddeus gazed out beyond even the Caves of Koilos. There, Agnate and his Metathran troops arrayed themselves. Agnate was his true brother. He and Thaddeus were biologically identical, trained together, meant to fight as an opposing pair.
Though a hundred miles of desert and a hundred thousand Phyrexians separated them, Thaddeus could hear his brother's thoughts as if they were his own. Advance?
Nodding in agreement, Thaddeus lifted his hand in a long arc. "Advance!"
He strode down the desert embankment. His boots pounded the ground. Dusty ghosts rose. In the next moment, forty thousand other boots stepped into the march. The ground trembled under their tread. The tremor rolled down the slope and beneath the feet of the waiting Phyrexians. In their midst, the wave of noise crashed against another wave sent from the army of Agnate. The Phyrexians would be caught in a war on two fronts, in the Metathran Pincer. They would writhe in that claw but never escape. They would die.
Thaddeus marched in the midst of his personal guard- eight warriors, four to either side. Each bore a powerstone pike, which could pierce even thick metal, shred whatever flesh lay beneath, and drag itself clean through. Powerstone swords rode their hips for closer combat. Daggers at their ankles awaited intimate engagements. Similarly arrayed Metathran troops spread all along the front line. They could receive a full-out charge if the Phyrexians made any move.
So far, the monsters remained in their ranks across the center of the desert. They were smart. They did not want to charge up a hill nor to spread the already long front farther. Still, it meant Thaddeus and Agnate ate up easy ground on either side. The noose tightened.
"Halt!" Thaddeus called as they reached the base of the hill, just within stout bow range. "Archers to the fore!"
The shout echoed down the line. The march snapped to sudden stillness. Archers flooded ahead. They formed two lines, front ranks kneeling. From powerful shoulders, they unpacked stout bows that could shoot over a mile. The shafts they nocked were six feet long and tipped with powerstone-chips, devised to seek Phyrexian oil-blood.
"Ready?" Thaddeus called. "Loose!"
Ten thousand bowstrings shuddered. Ten thousand arrows vaulted into the sky. They moaned as they went. Their thick shafts arced hungrily upward. In moments, those huge black arrows were so high they seemed starlings. The shafts reached the heights and descended in a deadly hail. They roared down toward the lifted heads of the tightly arrayed monsters. Soon ten thousand of them would be impaled.
The shafts entered a silvery cloud. In an eye-blink, they dissolved.
"What is it?" Thaddeus wondered aloud.
The silvery cloud rose, following the path the arrows had taken. It arched above the desert and coiled down toward the Metathran army. The swarm shimmered as it came. It descended with the same speed as the arrows.
"Battleflies!" Thaddeus warned. "Lift shields!"
The order shot out among the troops. Thaddeus and his personal guard yanked the shields from their backs and crouched beneath them. The battleflies fell. They cracked against the metal like hail from a tin roof. Where flesh was exposed, the metal wings of the beasts clove. Ears and noses and fingers were severed. Razor wings sliced through brows and imbedded in the skulls beneath. Shoulders were masticated. Metathran who had awakened after five hundred years died in instants. The moments after were filled with jittering and deadly swarms.
Thaddeus reached gauntleted hands out from beneath his shield and crushed battleflies as if they were deerflies. The living Metathran all around did the same. Razor wings fell to the ground. Soon, the swarm had thinned enough that the warriors of Dominaria stood and smashed the killing creatures beneath their boots.
"Forward!" Thaddeus ordered, pointing his sword across the desert.
Leaving their brave fallen where they lay, the Metathran army surged toward their waiting foes. If anything, the lacerations across their tattooed faces only whetted their appetite for Phyrexian blood. Swatting the last few battleflies that followed them, the warriors marched double-time. Pikes and swords ran red. Soon, they would run golden.
"Why haven't they moved?" Thaddeus wondered through gritted teeth.
He suddenly had an answer.
The ground erupted before him. It seemed a volcano had burst from the cracked desert. Dirt hurled out in a pelting spray. In the midst of that fountain of soil emerged something enormous. It had a black hide that jutted hairs as stout and sharp as daggers. A huge mouth, formed of three triangular lips, fronted the gigantic worm.
Chunks of rock turned to sand on those lips and slid inexorably inward. Worse, five more of the giant beasts appeared to either side, extending in a wall before the charging Metathran.
These were the beasts that had dug out the Phyrexian trenches. Now, they would dig out the Metathran themselves.
One of Thaddeus's personal guard, running with sword lifted high, attacked the beast before them. His blade sank into the mucousy upper lip of the thing. The weapon disappeared to the haft. A sucking sound followed. The warrior disappeared with it. That mouth, which could pulverize rock and dust, ground the man inward until he was but a red smear on dark lips.
The worm lurched forward, its daggerlike hairs driving into the ground. A second guard, hewing at the lower lip of the thing, fell beneath the advancing monster. Hairs pierced him in a hundred places. His life gushed out. When the beast landed atop him, he burst open.
Thaddeus roared. He hurled his powerstone pike into the bloody lip of the thing. The weapon bit true. Its head ground muscle to pulp and dragged its way deeper. It dug through lip and oral cartilage. The shaft slipped away after the pike's gnawing head.
"Use your pikes!" Thaddeus commanded.
Three more of the weapons sank in the worm before him. Each pierced and dug and drew itself inward. The beast lunged, bellowing through ruined lips. Hot, bloody breath shot out before it.
Thaddeus stepped back. If this worm were like every other, its brain would straddle its alimentary tube. It was only a matter of time before the pikes reached it.
The worm entered a sudden convulsion. Its head spiked the warriors crowded up beside it. Metathran fell back. The monster sprayed gore as it flopped. All along the line, worms were dying. One by one, they issued last gasps and dropped to stillness.
"Form up!" shouted Thaddeus, dragging a hand across his crimson face. He pointed to avenues between the dead hulks. "Form up! Advance!"
Thaddeus led his troops between dagger-walls. Beyond, the Phyrexian forces still waited. They were cowards, hiding behind battleflies and worms. What would it take to goad them into charging? Perhaps they would simply wait for the Metathran to overrun them. Thaddeus was glad to oblige.
The first flood of Metathran had only just cleared the field of dead worms when movement began along the Phyrexian lines. Their advance line charged.
Oh, but the cowards! They did not send true Phyrexians even now. That line of rushing things-it glinted metallic. Artifact creatures, machines-and what strange machines! They were perhaps four feet long, with a snakelike central body made up of metal nodes in a line. The things scuttled rapidly forward on metallic legs, their tails jutting up like scorpion stingers above them. They seemed mechanical centipedes-simple-looking beasts, with no apparent weaponry except for that barbed stinger. A thousand of them broke from the Phyrexian ranks and undulated forward.
Thaddeus strode to meet them. His powerstone pike was gone, even now chewing its way through the dead hulk of a trench worm. His powerstone sword was out. It gleamed in his hand as he charged. All along the Metathran line, blades flashed.
These creatures did not so much seem centipedes but metallic spinal columns…
The lines converged. With a glad shout, the Metathran met beasts they could at last fight.
Thaddeus did not shout. He was too busy dodging aside. A war centipede launched its stinger at his face. He swung his sword. Steel flashed, striking the giant bug behind the s
tinger. The blow sparked on hard metal, slid, and caught the soft copper cables that strung them together. With a flash of arcane power, the blade severed the creature's tail from its scaly body. The momentum carried it on. Metal knobs crashed into Thaddeus's chest, knocking him back a pace. Spikes along the centipede's back scourged his shoulder and neck. The artifact creature tumbled in two writhing halves on the ground.
All around Thaddeus, the desert was alive with twitching hunks of centipede. Among them lay many, many slain Metathran. Their mouths had been sliced open, and pulpy blood disgorged from them. The corpses shuddered as if something were crawling through them.
There was no time to see more. Another centipede hurled its stinger at Thaddeus. He was slower this time. Gritting his teeth in determined fury, he dragged his reluctant blade before him. It sliced only air. The beast vaulted over the sword tip and struck Thaddeus's face.
The blow made his vision go white. There was a sharp, strange looseness in his lower lip. Next instant, his sight returned. With it came blood-his own blood-in a crimson cloud.
Wrenching his blade up in desperate defense, Thaddeus hewed the centipede in half. It spun, crippled, in the air and dropped by his feet. Thaddeus chopped at the wriggling thing and managed to slice it into three more pieces.
Dripping, Thaddeus reared upward. His face bled profusely. The centipede had sliced through his lower lip. His gums were cut open, exposing the roots of his teeth. He would heal quickly enough-with hyperclotting, regenerative flesh, and blood storage sacs-but the wound angered him.
Thaddeus lashed out at another centipede but was too late. The thing launched itself at a nearby Metathran. The warrior met the attack with a cry. Darting past his sword, the centipede drove its barbed tail into the warrior's mouth. With whiplike legs, it thrust deeper. The warrior goggled in astonishment as the creature wormed quickly down his throat. In moments, the head of the thing clutched the man's severed lips. Eyes going dark, the Metathran dropped to his knees and fell on his face. His body twitched and his mouth gushed pulpy blood.
Why would anyone, even Phyrexians, create such a monstrous machine? There were easier ways to kill a man than to drive a creature down his throat.
A sudden, wet snapping sound came from the fallen man. Grisly spikes popped out of the skin all down his back. The Phyrexian centipede had replaced the warrior's spine. Dead as a slab of meat, the Metathran moved and rose. Horribly, it rose.
"Zombies," Thaddeus managed to splutter through his torn lip.
They were all around him. Thaddeus wheeled. His sword hacked into one of the zombies-a former member of his personal guard. Thaddeus's blade cut a chunk out of the undead warrior's belly, but it was not enough. He stepped back and swung again. The zombie's head bounded free. No blood came, drained already. In the clean cut, Thaddeus could make out the severed esophagus and windpipe and the sliced centipede that had become the warrior's spine.
"Zombies!" Thaddeus shouted in warning to the other Metathran that pressed up behind him. "Slay them!"
The order spread quickly down the line. Living Metathran hewed into unliving ones. These warriors were bred to follow orders, and they did, destroying their former comrades mercilessly. Even so, emotion had not been winnowed out of them, and these warriors, every one, felt the acute dread of the slaughter.
I once believed we were like the Phyrexians, Thaddeus thought, sending the idea across the battlefield to his distant brother. He paused to cleave the corrupted brain of one of his own men. Now I know how truly different we are.
There came no direct answer, but Thaddeus sensed that his counterpart agreed. Agnate and his forces even now fought the same horrible, desperate battle.
* * * * *
With a glad heart, Tsabo Tavoc watched the carnage. It was exquisite to feel the plunging rupture of the spine's descent through flesh. It was delicious to wander the dead minds of the spine-grafted Metathran.
There were two of those blue-skinned creatures-two living ones-whose thoughts called to each other. It was a simple enough thing for Tsabo Tavoc to reach up and pluck the thoughts from the very air.
Yes, Thaddeus, she purred to herself. You are nothing like us, as you will learn all too soon, all too painfully. In my turn, I will learn it as well. I will parse every tissue of you, Thaddeus of the Metathran.
Chapter 18
One Hero Dies, Another is Born
That first moment after the plague machine rocketed into Staprion Palace, the court of Llanowar was paralyzed. Their chief was dead. Their savior was accused of fakery. A strange green man had formed, screaming of fiends from the sky. Then came the plague spores, spilling out on the air.
Only Liin Sivi kept her head. She was used to the solitude of decision. It was a simple thing, really. Rushing the chief's throne, she dragged her toten-vec from her belt. One foot landed on the chair arm and the next on the chair back. She vaulted up the wall. A final toehold on a knothole sent her high enough to hurl out the toten-vec. Chain paid out smoothly, and the blade cut the top corner of an ancient tapestry. The corner plunged beneath her. Liin Sivi rode it like some thief in the Mirage Wars. She kicked the fringe out ahead of her. The carpet spread with beautiful precision over the hole in the wall. It covered the spot, temporarily trapping the plague-spore cloud.
Of course, no plan is utterly perfect. The contagion that had already seeped into the palace was flung outward. It swept across elves. It rolled over Liin Sivi too, though this was an elf plague. While it stung her skin, it melted theirs. Virulence sank into their pores. Flesh reddened and turned gelatinous. Elves melted like wax creatures. They oozed together across the marble floor. Those behind scrambled back and away, trampling others in their haste to escape.
Outside, plague bombs tore through the treetops.
"Flee downward!" Liin Sivi shouted. She saw that her own skin prickled with rash. Striding toward them, she bellowed, "Follow Eladamri downward!"
The green-man shucked quosumic leaves to slip free of the guards that held him. He turned, barging a wooden shoulder against a tall set of double doors. They flung back, barking against the walls of a dark chamber beyond.
"Here, the royal stair! It winds down within the quosumic. It is the safest way."
A guard roared, ramming his spear through the greenman's belly-as useless as stabbing a bush. "Only the king and his guard may descend there."
Eladamri yanked the spear from Multani's gut and bowled the guard over. "The king is dead. We will be as well lest you follow me downward. Come! Swiftly." Spear raised high, he strode through the doorway and down into the lantern-lit gloom beyond.
Still, the folk hesitated.
Liin Sivi snarled, "You heard him!" She whirled her toten-vec.
The crowd surged toward the door. They followed Eladamri.
Liin Sivi spotted a shimmering shield hung upon the wall-the enchanted coat of arms of the Staprion royal house. She strode to a chandelier tie-down cord, grabbed the line, and sliced it. A massive chandelier in the center of the chamber plunged. The rope yanked her up along the wall. With one hand Liin Sivi held to the cord as her feet ran up the smooth face. She snatched the shield from its mount. Brandishing the thing overhead, she continued to run up the wall. The rope hurled her to the rafters. Liin Sivi leaped onto a hammer beam and released the cord. A terrible crash came below. The chandelier shattered before the throne. Giving no heed, Liin Sivi climbed the black beams, reaching the thatch. Three chops of her toten-vec opened a hole large enough to crawl through. A fourth allowed the shield to come after her.
Liin Sivi climbed onto the green roof. It was sharply pitched, on all sides merging with the canopy of leaves. Above the shaggy peak, the blue sky was crowded with small portals opening and closing.
As each gate would swell into being, a plague machine would plunge through. No sooner had the bulk cleared the device than it would slam shut again. All across Llanowar, plague machines fell from the skies. They whined in air and crashed through treetops and hammered th
e boles of the ancient forest. After they struck, plague clouds hissed out on the wind.
Liin Sivi sniffed in annoyance. The gods-damned Phyrexians did not even want to take this forest, only destroy it. Typical. She'd lived her whole life in the shadow of those heartless, mindless, soulless roaches. She knew how they swarmed, and she knew how to stomp them.
One plague machine dropped free of its portal and plunged straight for the rooftop.
With another snort, Liin Sivi rushed up the green slope, shield in hand. If that machine entered the throne room, thousands would die. A direct hit could tear through thick wood, but what of a glancing blow? Staring upward, she vaulted to the peak of the roof. For a moment, she lost the plunging machine in the sun. Lifting her hand to block the light, she still could not make out the death sphere. Its whine grew to a deafening shriek. Only the device's growing shadow told her she stood in the right place. She swung the shield to one side and braced on the king beam of the palace.
A clang like a giant bell sounded. Liin Sivi was crushed flat against the rooftop. The sphere cracked away, whirling to impact a nearby tree.
Rising tremulously, Liin Sivi dragged numb fingers from the shield's handles and shook them out.
Another scream mounted-another sphere plunged. Squinting up into the sky to find her target, Liin Sivi ambled toward the site. "Damned Phyrexians."
* * * * *
"Damned Phyrexians!" Takara hissed.
She dragged an elf away from the bloody slough where his friends lay-red gelatin and bone. The elf's own legs dribbled away to nothing. Arteries emptied behind him. His eyes rolled one last time-eyes that had seen hundreds of years of peace in Llanowar. They died seeing this.
Releasing him, Takara breathed raggedly. Her fiery hair was pasted to her forehead, and her back ached excruciatingly.
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