INVASION mtg-1

by J. Robert King

  There seemed genuine appreciation among the vat priests. They produced an inhuman sound, halfway between the purr of a cat and the hiss of a roach.

  "Compare to the original design," Tsabo Tavoc said, withdrawing from the table where Thaddeus lay. Her legs clicked across the stony floor.

  Thaddeus turned his head to watch her. She reached another table where lay another form-a human woman. She had been tied in place instead of spiked, but she was similarly cut open. The woman shivered in dread at the Phyrexian's approach.

  Tsabo Tavoc picked up one of the scalpels and sliced a long, deep line down the woman's leg. "Here, we have larger deposits of adipose tissue. These are not intended to power the skeletal muscles but rather to provision the whole body with food should famine occur. It is another concession to breeding ability. If this woman is bearing young, she will need extra fat deposits. The adipose tissue makes her a slower fighter. Her pelvis is inefficiently wide, as we have seen, and this bundle of leg neurons reaches not to the base of her spine but to her brain. The uterus- prone to numerous diseases and chronic breakdown-takes up an inordinate portion of the abdomen. All in all, this is a crude design, intended for child-bearing instead of war.

  "The males are no better. They bear external genitalia that are extremely vulnerable to injury. Both genders are subject to intermittent madness caused by these systems. Humans and all the indigenous creatures of Dominaria still rely upon sexual reproduction. Such is the way for creatures that live beyond the salvation of Yawgmoth.

  "Only these Metathran have ascended. They are nearer to Phyrexians than any other creature. They are in some senses lost cousins of ours. Urza has made them so." Tsabo Tavoc lifted her gaze from the gory thigh muscle. She raised the scalpel thoughtfully and set the red tip on her own cheek. "One wonders, had we not launched this invasion, how long it would have taken Urza to make all Dominarians into Phyrexians."

  Absently setting the knife on the table, Tsabo Tavoc strolled to the middle of the floor. Her eyes gleamed philosophically in the lantern light. "Here is the great irony." She flung one bloody hand out toward Thaddeus. "This pinnacle of glory was created not for its own sake. The Metathran were created to defend humanity- squalid, imperfect, imperfectible larva." She gestured toward the woman lying beside her. "Urza has engineered a warrior that can be spiked at wrists and shoulders, ankles and hips, can be cut open without anesthesia, can withstand a multiply broken back and still fight. The whole reason this creature exists, though, is to defend beings too weak to escape simple rope bonds, creatures that must be heavily drugged to bear the rigors of vivisection. The cream of humanity came into being to defend its dregs."

  Tsabo Tavoc could not have anticipated what happened next. Even in her compound eyes, she did not see it.

  The flayed woman had found the scalpel Tsabo Tavoc had left. She had used it to cut the bonds on her arms. She lurched up from the examination table. With a swift motion, she cut those around her legs. Roaring, she lunged off the table, scalpel raised to stab.

  It was a futile gesture. She could not have wounded let alone slain Tsabo Tavoc. She could hardly have stood with one leg sliced open. It didn't matter. The woman held a fury that could not be denied.

  A vat priest caught her before she could reach Tsabo Tavoc.

  Shrieking, she rammed her scalpel into the vat-priest's skull. It was her final act. Her abdomen disgorged itself on the priest's clawed feet. He collapsed. Together, the compleated Phyrexian and the incompleated woman fell, dead, to the floor.

  Silence settled. Tsabo Tavoc stared down with mild interest at the bodies. The spiracles along her sides breathed slowly as she drew in the aroma of death. "As primitive and inefficient as these humans are, they fight all out of reason. It matters little. They die either way."

  Thaddeus thrashed against his spikes, unable to escape.

  Tsabo Tavoc once again turned her attentions on him.

  * * * * *

  Gerrard gently lay Hanna in her sick bay berth. She was no better for her sojourn in the darkness. Gerrard was much worse. Hope had fled from him. If Orim could not save Hanna, if Eladamri and Multani could not, she would not be saved.

  "How will I fight unless you are with me?" he whispered, kissing her lightly. Her lips were as dry as paper. "What will I fight for?"

  Hanna was more than his beloved. She was his heart, his courage. He fought for her. Before she entered his life, Gerrard had been a bitter young man. If he lost her now, what was he? There would be nothing left but fury. There would be no difference between Gerrard and the Phyrexians.

  "Oh how I will slay them," Gerrard said bitterly as he clutched Hanna's skeletal hand. "I will be my own plague. I will rot them away. I've had enough of portal wars and serums. I want a fight, a real fight. I want teeth against knuckles and broken noses and knives in the eyes."

  "I have a fight for you," came an elderly voice at the sick bay door. The blind seer hobbled slowly into the chamber. "Not I, but Dominaria. You have lost Benalia, and saved Llanowar. Now there is Koilos."

  "Koilos? A hole in the desert," Gerrard hissed.

  The old man shrugged. "More than that. At Koilos the Phyrexians were first driven from the world. At Koilos they first returned in the time of Urza. Now, it is their only land portal. If that hole in the desert is lost, all is lost."

  Gerrard shook his head bleakly, gazing at Hanna. "All is lost."

  "Grief can wait," the old man replied. "Koilos cannot. The Metathran have been beaten back. One of their commanders is captured and near death. They need you and your ship. They need the Benalish air fleet, the prison brigade, elf shock troops, and their leader Eladamri."

  "Eladamri?" Gerrard blurted. "He has a nation to rebuild. He won't go."

  The blind seer sighed. He eased himself to sit on a bunk. "He will go. Saviors are not builders. The heir to Staprion wishes that he go. No, Eladamri's work is done here but not so at Koilos. He and his elite warriors will go. Multani, too, will go.

  "Multani!"

  "He was present for the birth of this living ship. He provided her hull from the Heart of Yavimaya. He goes with us, in the very wood of Weatherlight. He will heal her every wound. In some senses, this is his ship." The old sage lifted an eyebrow. "In some senses, you are his as well. Multani trained you. He wants to see how his old student does. You cannot blame your masters for taking an interest in your doings."

  "My doings?" Gerrard echoed.

  "Yes. Your doings. Koilos is your fight, Gerrard."

  Gerrard stared down at the dying form of his beloved. "Of course. It's a fight Hanna would approve." His mouth flattened into a bitter line. "And, besides, at Koilos there are plenty of Phyrexians to kill."

  Chapter 29

  Battles Won and Lost

  Weatherlight topped a ridge of sand above the plains of Koilos and soared down the far slope. Gerrard's gunnery harness held him in place as the deck dropped out beneath him. "There are the buggers," he growled. Ahead and for miles to the horizon camped Phyrexian troops.

  "Attack formation!" Gerrard shouted into the speaking tube. "Signal the fleet. Strafe the troops. Ray cannons, plasma jets, goblin bombs. Kill 'em with whatever you've got. Let's let them know Benalia's revenge has arrived."

  A cheer rose from the prison brigade. They crowded the decks, elven bows clutched in their eager hands. Among them were Steal Leaf troops. Their leader, Eladamri, stood at the prow. He lifted high his longbow, nocked a flaming arrow, and sent the shaft streaking away. It raced ahead of Weatherlight and sank among the Phyrexian troops. The shaft cracked through black scale. It punched into oilblood. The creature ignited, blazing blue. Elves and prisoners whooped excitedly.

  "Fire!" Gerrard shouted. "Fire!"

  All along the decks, elves and men drew arrows from pots of burning pitch. They set notch to string and loosed. From Weather-light, rings of fire spread. Where those flaming waves touched ground, Phyrexians blazed and flared and exploded.

  Gerrard unleashed his own fire
. Red-hot bursts of energy leaped from the barrel of his ray cannon. They stabbed faster than arrows. The bolts ripped through monsters and their sleeping sties, tore apart trench worms, blasted through pens of live food. From Tahngarth's gun, another bolt roared. It cut a parallel trough to Gerrard's attack. Each line of energy felled hundreds of Phyrexians, but there were hundreds of thousands.

  Benalish assault ships dropped down to Weatherlight's beam. They loosed their own arsenals, not as flashy, but in their own way deadly enough. From the stem hatches of round-bellied bombers, gray goblin bombs rolled. They dropped in twisted lines. Smoke barked up where they struck. Chunks of scale and bone tumbled through the mounded smoke. Hoppers jagged like serpents' teeth above the armies. Their quarrels pelted down in a deadly hail.

  Gerrard loosed another volley of ray cannon fire. He gazed appreciatively at the broad line of destruction that his armada cut through the Phyrexian hordes.

  "They've got no airships. It's like shooting fish in a barrel!"

  He spoke too soon. The beasts might not have airships, but they had brought cannons. Fire spat from entrenched batteries. Crimson and black, rays roared skyward.

  One bolt struck a falling stream of goblin bombs. It ignited them. In midair, they detonated. Each new explosion triggered a second and third. Like a fuse, the line of bombs carried their explosions up toward the stem of the bomber. Shrapnel tore into the fuselage. The detonations went to completion. A white blaze erupted around the ship. A thousand explosions roared out. Hunks of ship cascaded down.

  Another beam rippled through a line of fighters. One after another, they flew into the radiance and were cloven in two. Halves spiraled down in fiery wreckage.

  A third bolt-this placed best of all-smashed into Weatherlight's port airfoil. The spars lit with fire. The canvas flashed away to nothing. Weatherlight listed hard to port and began to roll over.

  "Take her up!" Gerrard cried even as his latest shot raked the enemy lines.

  "I know! I know!" Sisay shouted back through the speaking tube.

  The starboard airfoil slapped closed, and the ship's engines roared. Weatherlight lolled upright and rocketed heavenward.

  "Signal the fleet! Break off the assault!" Gerrard ordered. He braced himself against the hot casing of the gun. Weatherlight jigged up through a rack of clouds. "Rendezvous at the Metathran camp. Land and repair!"

  He had breath for little more. The ship ascended like a comet. Gerrard and his crew and their fugitive armies held tight to the meteoric craft. It vaulted just ahead of the cannon fire, outpacing killing heads of flame. The Benalish armada straggled upward in the great ship's wake.

  In canyons of concealing cloud, Weatherlight leveled out. Gerrard gave a gusty sigh.

  "Let's hope for a better reception from the Metathran."

  * * * * *

  Within his tent, Commander Agnate stared bleakly at the tactical maps of Koilos. They lay in a sloppy stack across his field table. Once, they had been neatly stored, each in its own tube. Once, Thaddeus and Agnate had strolled their compasses easily across lines of topography. Now, the maps bore the fretful, fruitless scribbles of a commander in a hopeless engagement.

  Agnate was trapped. His forces had been winnowed horribly by the last, disastrous assault. Fifty thousand Metathran had marched into battle behind him, and twenty thousand had fled. They had made camp here, twenty miles beyond the caves-out of reach of the monsters. Members of Thaddeus's army slowly joined them. The field was lost. The Metathran were in full rout. Thaddeus's force was equally reduced. Thirty thousand of them remained, but they had lost their commander.

  Thaddeus was easily worth ten thousand troops.

  He is worth more than that, Agnate mused bitterly. Thaddeus was the other half of his mind. Even distance could not block their shared thoughts-until Tsabo Tavoc. She knew of their bond and targeted it. She tore the point from the compass, leaving only a lead nib to turn, hopelessly alone.

  Agnate could not think without Thaddeus. Together, they had planned an assault of a hundred thousand Metathran on a hundred thousand Phyrexians. The Metathran ranks had been halved, and the Phyrexian ranks had doubled. Agnate had positioned paper troops in various arrangements throughout the broad plain. Even with a four-to-one kill ratio, no Metathran would remain to possess the field. It would be suicide to attack now and swifter and surer suicide with every passing hour.

  A sound intruded on Agnate's bleak reverie. He had blocked out camp sounds-crackling fires, conversation, strummed lyres- and so the slow-mounting roar startled him alert. Lurching up from his camp stool, Agnate caught his head in the peak of the man-sized tent. With a growl, he ducked and emerged. The flaps slapped angrily together behind him.

  Mounting thunder filled the dusty sky. It was unmistakable- the approach of airships. The Phyrexians were bringing sky machines to destroy them.

  Agnate shook his head grimly. I couldn't make a damned decision myself, and now they have decided for me.

  All around, Agnate's troops stood stunned, staring upward. His indecision had infected even them.

  "To arms! To arms!" Agnate bellowed. "Train the guns! Wake! It's time to die."

  Soldiers snatched up their swords and pikes. They cranked crossbows. They scrambled to rip covers from cannons and wheel them about. Blocks of powder slid down the barrels of bombards. Powerstone charges mounted within ray cannons. Shouts filled the air. It was a sound that heartened Agnate after days of silent fear and indecision.

  "You might not want to fire on these," came a voice abruptly at his side. "These are your reinforcements."

  Agnate whirled, sword raking out, and found himself staring at the grim visage of Urza Planeswalker. The man's face was battle weary. His ash-blond hair was disheveled and singed-though only a moment's attention would make it perfect. Urza had not had a moment to spare.

  "Master," Agnate said breathlessly, dropping to one knee.

  "Call off your gunners!" Urza replied with quiet urgency.

  "Gunners, stand down!" Agnate commanded without standing. His call went down the lines. To Urza, he said, "Reinforcements?"

  "Coalition forces. Airships, a Benalish army, an elf strike force, and a replacement for Thaddeus," Urza said simply.

  "There will never be a replacement for Thaddeus."

  "We will see."

  Suddenly, the sky was split by a hurtling ship. The vessel clove the air into canyons of white exhaust. The ship was sleek and large, unmistakable to any Metathran's eye. This was Weatherlight-Urza's angel. Her lines were etched into the dream minds of all Urza's children. Her lines meant salvation.

  It was a ragged salvation. One airfoil had burned away, and the other was folded like a praying hand. Burns scored her hull. Frightened faces crowded her rail. In the ship's rocketing wake came an even less impressive swarm of vessels. All were small. Some gave out puffs of smoke. Others whined gnatlike.

  Weatherlight cut her starboard thrust and spread her remaining airfoil. She slowed and banked, beginning a long circle around the Metathran camp. If she could land without crashing, it would be a miracle. Metathran were raised to believe in miracles from Weatherlight,

  Rising to his feet, Agnate watched the wounded war bird and her fledglings circle. "Who is this replacement for Thaddeus?"

  "His name is Eladamri. He is a Skyshroud elf from Rath. He is the Seed of Freyalise."

  "What is a Freyalise?"

  "He is my choice to replace Thaddeus."

  "He is not my choice, nor the choice of Thaddeus's troops," Agnate replied quietly. "He is no good until we have chosen him."

  "I know."

  "And if he fails the test?"

  "Then Koilos is lost."

  * * * * *

  Weatherlight's landing would have been better described as a controlled crash. It was controlled in the sense that Sisay was at the helm, and she was among the best fliers in the multiverse. Also, its engines took orders from a silver golem-undoubtedly the best engineer anywhere. The rest of
the crew did all they could- which meant tying themselves to something that would not move and informing their gods they might soon need afterlife accommodations. Aside from these efforts, the landing was simply a crash.

  Weatherlight's landing spines sliced into a sand dune. They flung up grit as if it were water. The hull smashed to ground. It groaned under its own weight and bounced briefly aloft again. Sand streamed from a mangled spine. The ship smacked the top of the next dune and knocked the peak off. The keel sawed through packed dust before hanging up on a layer of gravel. Weatherlight pitched forward. She slid down the far side of the dune. Sand shoved her sideways. Flinging a blanket of the stuff, Weatherlight came to rest on the side of a natural bowl in the desert.

  Panting in his gunner's rig, Gerrard spat grit from his teeth and said, "That wasn't so bad."

  Suddenly, the bare dunes all around teemed with Metathran soldiers. Pikes, swords, and axes gleamed in their hands as they topped the hills. They kept coming- hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Their blue faces were grim, and their boots sent ominous dust clouds up to shadow the great airship.

  "All right," Gerrard allowed as he pulled himself out of the tangled traces. "Maybe the bad part is still to come."

  In all the surrounding ring of soldiers, there was a single clear avenue. The commander of the Metathran marched there, accompanied by his personal retinue. Garbed in silver battle armor and bearing a naked sword, the commander had a solemnity that bordered on belligerence.

  Donning his most winning smile-though just now it was full of sand-Gerrard came to the rail and called out to the commander, "Hail, Friends of Dominaria. I am Gerrard Capashen. I have come to ally my forces with yours."