Closing his eyes, Barrin drew upon the power of his fury. Lava. Brimstone. Fire. He thought of Shiv and Rhammidarigaaz. He thought of the mana rig pumping redhot stone like a giant heart. Rage welled in him. He was its vessel. Hatred shaped the spell, but he needed more power.
Barrin drew mana from Tolaria beneath him. He remembered Karn's birth in the first Tolaria. He remembered the war with K'rrik in the second Tolaria. He remembered Jhoira and Teferi, Weatherlight and the Metathran, Rayne and Hanna. As blue mana coursed into him, Barrin tapped other lands as well-verdant Yavimaya, militant Benalia, undead Urborg. He drew all the power into himself and became a living sylex.
His insides boiled. Beams shot from his eyes and his fingertips. Power sought escape in every extremity. It crept its way up legs and arms, across face and chest. Hair stood on end and hurled energy from its tips. Pores opened and beamed. Every wound ever struck on his body burst open and shone. His flesh could not contain the radiance. Soon, Barrin glared like a second sun.
Those were not light rays, though, but power rays. They roared out red from him. The air sizzled with them. Beams struck the ships. They cut metal as though it were water. They turned Phyrexian armor to pudding and Phyrexian flesh to ash. They pierced to engine cores and cracked powerstones.
Cruisers and plague ships spewed smoke through a thousand sudden holes. Engines went critical. One machine blazed apart. Its own shrapnel melted in the energy it unleashed. Four adjacent cruisers lurched and exploded. They tilted on end. Daylight sieved through their riddled hulls. Ship to ship, destruction spread.
Not a cannon was fired, not a plasma burst unleashed, but there was holocaustal fire in the heavens. Below, it was the same. Oceans boiled. Trees flash-burned. Rocks melted.
Whatever creatures had stood on Tolaria were blinded by the flash, and deafened by the concussion, and dismantled by the raw power. Phyrexians, scholars, students, hinds, fleas-all died in that moment. Their struggles were done. Their bodies were gone. Even the ground on which they stood turned to wax and ran.
Only Rayne and Hanna were safe, sealed into their sarcophagi.
How like Urza had Barrin become.
At last the blast spent itself. It left a hole in the sky. No ships remained. No clouds either. The beaming sun seemed dim and gray.
Cold waves crashed into boiling seas. Whirlpools laid the ocean depths bare. Water churned silt as red as blood.
Where once had been a verdant island was now a molten slab of rock, hissing into the sea. Tolaria was gone forevermore.
So too was her onetime lord, Mage Master Barrin.
Chapter 32
The Battle is Joined
Eladamri strode at the head of his army, Liin Sivi at his side. He wore the elven armor and livery of his Steel Leaf warriors. He carried a powerstone pike, just like the tens of thousands of Metathran that marched behind him. Their belief armed and armored him. Belief made Eladamri the savior of elves and the commander of Metathran.
Lifting high his powerstone pike, Eladamri shouted, "Charge!" His folk took up the shout. It became a fierce war cry, mortals storming the gates of hell. Those gates were well guarded. The desert before Eladamri swarmed with Phyrexians. For a mile in every direction, monsters ranked. In deep trenches lurked Phyrexian throats-living stomachs that would swallow anyone who happened across them. In cannonades and bombard embrasures, Phyrexian gunners tested aim and range. In spell towers, sorcerers prepared black-mana magics. In sanctums, priests tended flesh eaters. They waited eagerly.
Not all waited. Other beasts marched forward. In sideby-side phalanxes, they advanced. Their claws and hooves flung up shimmering clouds of salt-dust in their wake. The vanguard bristled with scuta. Their cranial shields gleamed black under a merciless sun. Next came bloodstocks. Their metallic fore-hooves churned the ground. Phyrexian shock troops filled up the main body of the army, the most vicious fighters of all. They all advanced-not marching but charging.
Eladamri leveled his powerstone pike. His jaw clenched. His eyes gleamed like twin poniards.
Liin Sivi prepared her toten-vec.
The two lines approached-one blue and silver and the other black and iron.
A whine rose behind Eladamri's division. The noise intensified to a shriek. The air directly overhead suddenly thronged with gleaming birds-falcon engines. They cut the sky to ribbons. Bending razor beaks toward the Phyrexian lines, the birds dived. A manifold crackle followed as falcons smashed through scuta shields. From the holes they punched came a whirring sound and geysers of macerated meat.
The Phyrexian front lines crashed down. Over their scaly backs, bloodstocks galloped eagerly. They bore no shields except the bone armor beneath their skin. They bore no weapons except the scimitar claws that sprouted from their fingers. Their fangy throats were filled with roars as they smashed against Eladamri and his army.
Powerstone pikes rammed into bloodstock bellies. The weapons tore through bony plates and ate deeper. Bloodstocks clawed their way up the shafts that impaled them. Pikes chewed through Phyrexian spines. Their hind legs went limp. Mechanical forelegs bore the creatures forward. They sank scimitar claws into elf faces and Metathran necks.
Eladamri himself was almost torn to pieces. He released his pike-mired in a bloodstock's midsection-and ducked under a pair of swiping claws. With a roundhouse kick, he flung the claws back to stab their owner. The bloodstock impaled its own eye and tore its neck wide. Glistening-oil sprayed in a golden cloud.
Blanketed in the monster's gore, Eladamri raked his sword from its sheath. With one chop to the neck, the bloodstock fell before him. His powerstone pike clawed its way out the monster's back. Eladamri clambered past the beast and retrieved his pike.
A terrible creature reared up before him. It seemed a giant crab. A huge pincher clamped onto Eladamri, lifting him from the ground. Carapace cut into his sides. Biting back the agony, he hurled his powerstone pike at the thing's back. The weapon cracked off of chitin and rattled uselessly down among clicking legs.
The claw tightened. Eladamri felt his hip pop. He hacked at the claw's joint. The sword's tip imbedded between scissoring plates. Yanking sideways on it, Eladamri levered the pinchers slightly open. He could not escape, but neither could the monster cut him in half.
A Phyrexian foot soldier climbed the crab's back to hew Eladamri's head from his shoulders.
Sudden fire blazed from the sky. The foot soldier was gone, dismantled by a ray cannon beam. The carapace of the creature was eaten away also. Its guts showed in white cross-section beneath the shattered shell. The beam sliced onward. It carved a smoldering line deep through the Phyrexian troops.
Behind that beam came a welcome sight, the roaring hull of Weatherlight. Another ray cannon blast ripped down from the other side of the vessel. Weatherlight blazed past overhead. Her guns plowed furrows through the monsters. Directly abeam of the great warship flew a ragged fleet of smaller fighters. Some shot cannons of their own. Most hailed quarrel bolts down atop monstrous heads.
Dropping from the dead claw of his captor, Eladamri lifted his sword high and let out a Skyshroud battle cry.
In elf and Metathran throats, the shout echoed across the bloody field.
* * * * *
Gerrard heard the battle cry go up, and it hardened his angry heart.
The gun before him was already blisteringly hot. He loosed another round. A ray roared from the smoking muzzle. It soared, a great fist, and slammed into a Phyrexian cannonade. The guns below liquefied atop their gunners.
Gerrard watched them writhe. He spat through gritted teeth. His spittle sizzled off the cannon. Spotting another gun bunker, he squeezed off a line of fire. The shot hurled down into the long, low embrasure. It brilliantly lit the space within. Figures shone for a moment, silhouetted in fire. The roof blew wide. A great gray gout of smoke belched up from the scar.
The scar. A huge black crater, with gray tendrils radiating out across once-healthy flesh…
He poured fire down on
the roaches. He ripped their black shells and watched the white meat ooze from beneath. He tore out their nests and stomped on the vile maggots. They were vermin. Worse, they were living rot, they were hunks of walking plague.
Gerrard's cannon spoke again. Four pulses leaped out. The first came to ground with such force that it rolled across Phyrexians, mowing them down in a line a thousand feet long. The second struck the rising shot from an ensconce bombard. Energy ripped the bombs from the sky, turning them to whistling fireworks. The third spattered flame across a whole regiment of monsters. The final bolt sailed low above the ground and impacted the entrance to the Caves of Koilos.
Weatherlight pulled up sharply. It had been their plan-Gerrard's plan-to cut Eladamri an avenue of destruction through the Phyrexian forces. Eladamri would drive across the smoldering ground and straight for the caves, cutting one edge off the Phyrexian defense. Then the ship would fly to Agnate's contingent and cut a similar swath for them.
Weatherlight rose at the end of her run. She thundered into the heavens.
Gerrard distractedly clutched the gunners' straps. He should have ordered the maneuver. He did not. Sisay knew what she was doing. The ship vaulted high above Phyrexian cannonades. Fire followed them up. Its tepid tongues licked the screaming machine. One shot spacked against the new spar, grown by Multani. It hissed sap but did not burst into flame. The engine surged. Weatherlight leaped skyward, shucking the fire with an airless boom.
"Prepare for second strafing run!" Sisay shouted through the tube.
Weatherlight topped out her ascent, slipping sideways to bring herself about. Ahead lay Koilos. Air spilled past the hull. The world soared suddenly up beneath her. The line of battle was there, just ahead. Agnate and his troops fought.
Weatherlight nosed down toward the bloody front. Gerrard swung his gun down. The machine shuddered as a charge built within. He spotted a line of trench worms. The cannon belched energy. The shot looped as it descended and corkscrewed into one of the huge worms, frying it.
… When he had been a child, Gerrard and Vuel had skewered caterpillars with twigs and watched them struggle to walk…
Another flare spilled from his gun, rolling over the Phyrexian hordes and baking them in their shells.
… He and Vuel used to pour lamp oil down an anthill and light it on fire…
The third shot struck ground just in front of a cannon embrasure. It pulverized the ground. The cannon drooped forward, unleashing its venom into the backs of its own creatures.
… Wasps emitted an acrid wisp of smoke just before the magnifying glass made their abdomens crack…
Agnate would be able to drive forward over this swath. Weatherlight and the rest of the armada had paved a road in bodies. Sure, plenty of Phyrexian cannons and bombards remained, but Sisay and her other gunners could take them out on subsequent passes. Gerrard unstrapped himself. He had another task ahead.
… It had taken all day and two gallons of lamp oil to dig up the anthill, but when they found the queen, all the bites were worth it. They cut open her abdomen and pulled out the white eggs and crushed them and watched all the workers try to carry them away. They laughed with that last fire, the queen dragging herself through it all, picking at the dead eggs while her torn-open abdomen curled up and crisped…
Tsabo Tavoc. She had done this. She had brought these bugs, these maggots here. She had brought rot and plague. Gerrard would find her and cut her open as she had cut open Hanna. He would drag out her eggs and crush them and kill her slowly, just the way Vuel had shown him.
A hulking presence loomed up behind him. Tahngarth. The sky raced past. The minotaur's eyes were grave. Gerrard saw his reflection, small and hunched, in those eyes.
Tahngarth said, "The strike team is ready."
Gerrard nodded, pulling himself from the gunner traces. Another gunner, waiting nervously beside the minotaur, slid himself into the spot and resumed fire. Gerrard stared blankly at him.
"We're coming up on the drop site," Tahngarth urged. "You need to pull on your hauberk and arm yourself." Tahngarth pounded the hilt of his sword against the Hurloon battle armor he wore.
Nodding numbly, Gerrard lifted a breast-and-backplate and slid them on.
"Are you sure you're up to this? Hanna's death-"
Gerrard's eyes flared. "Yes. That's it, isn't it? Hanna's death. Yes. That's it."
Turning, he stalked to the prow. He shoved his way through the Benalish strike team. Gerrard peered over the ship's rail, seeing that Sisay edged Weatherlight up just above the caves. Phyrexian cannons struggled to turn about and fire on the hovering ship. Just as rapidly, Weatherlight's own guns took out their entrenchments.
From the prow speaking tube, Sisay's voice shrilled, "Can't hold her here for long."
Without answering, Gerrard flipped the capstan lock. As chain rattled out, Gerrard vaulted over the rail. He landed with his feet on the arms of the anchor and rode its plunging weight downward. The prison brigade gave a cheer to see their leader's bold advance. They too flung themselves overboard, gripping the chain. It dropped before the yawning mouth of the Caves of Koilos.
Out of that debouchment lumbered a huge figure-a Phyrexian digger.
The anchor crashed down atop it. The vast head of the monster staved beneath the anchor's crown. The beast collapsed, and Gerrard rode it to ground. He leaped free of anchor and digger both, cleaving the head of the beast's handler. Turning, he hacked through a Phyrexian foot soldier that rushed him. Tahngarth landed beside him, bringing his sword to bear. The two friends pushed back the monsters, widening the circle.
One by one, Gerrard's small army landed. Two hundred Benalish fighters dropped down atop the dead hulk. Gerrard led them. He and his comrades moved out, killing as they went. They were like a plague, spreading from a single point out to infect an entire organism.
Gerrard liked the image. He liked killing these monsters. Vuel would have liked this too. Poor Vuel. Poor Hanna. Gerrard had lost too much. He'd lost everything.
Somehow Tahngarth did not seem to be enjoying himself. He fought sure, and slew, but there seemed no gladness in it.
Gerrard shrugged off the thought. He caught a monster's claws on his sword, chopped them off, and pierced the beast's skull. He advanced into the caves.
Tahngarth will have fun when we find Tsabo Tavoc and slice her open and crush her babies.
* * * * *
He was exquisite. Such an angry killer.
Deaths cascaded like pure water through Tsabo Tavoc's mind. They refreshed her, invigorated her. They made her teeth itch.
This one will be easy to capture, Tsabo Tavoc told herself. Reckless, angry, blind. He will be easy to catch and fun to dissect. He is, after all, Urza's bioengineered savior. If Thaddeus is a work of art, this Gerrard is a masterpiece.
Tsabo Tavoc scuttled from her deep cave, up to capture her prey.
Chapter 33
The Fight Inward
Weatherlight soared past overhead. She bled fire down onto the Phyrexians. Her cannons glowed. Prow, amidships, stern, and keel, destruction bloomed from her.
Fire raked over a Phyrexian contingent. The flesh beneath chitin flashed away in gray smoke. Scales and bones stood upright a moment longer as bodies fled in sooty ghosts on the wind. Hundreds of monsters fell. Their superheated shells crumbled to white powder. Weatherlight unleashed another firestorm, cratering the battlefield. Glass splashed out to wrap Phyrexians in searing blankets. Halfmelted stones pelted the menagerie. Flesh was scoured from bodies. Other cannon blasts laved acres of sand in flame. Phyrexians marched as far through the holocaust as they could. At last, their cores reached the combustion threshold. They exploded. One blaze ignited a second and third. Where once had marched a whole regiment now lay a highway inward, paved with soot.
Agnate charged onto that highway. He clutched a battle axe in both hands. The vast blade fell with angry vengeance. It clove into the segmented mouth of a Phyrexian footman. The blade bit to the throat, s
plitting jaw and pallet.
The beast fought on. Its claws rammed beneath Agnate's breastplate, punching holes in his side. Fingers clenched. Organs severed and bled.
Letting go his battle axe, Agnate gripped the impaling claws with one hand and the beast's elbow with the other. Twisting quickly, he rammed the elbow, breaking the joint. It popped loudly, and bone and gristle separated. One more yank, and the arm came off, streaming oil-blood.
Undeterred, the Phyrexian lunged with its good arm.
Agnate drew the dead arm from his side and thrust its gory claws up before him. The Phyrexian grabbed its severed arm, giving Agnate the chance to yank his battle axe free. He swung it in a broad circle and lopped the thing's head off.
The body jigged a moment more, uncertain it was dead, before flopping to ground.
Agnate trod over it. His axe haft felt strange in his hand. It was not just glistening-oil and Phyrexian white matter. Something else was wrong. His fingers felt numb, jangled. His arms were sluggish.
He had been only fighting-not fighting toward something. This Eladamri was his match, was worthy to lead the Metathran, but he was not Thaddeus. Agnate could fight beside this savior of elves but not toward him.
O Thaddeus, in dying, you killed me, thought Agnate bleakly as his axe split the breast of a bloodstock. If you only lived, I could fight.
I do live… Agnate…… I live…
The thought was weak on the wind, but it was there. It entered Agnate like a freshening breeze, breathing life into him.
He lives. I can yet fight. He lives.
Agnate lifted high his axe. It streamed the life of Phyrexians, anointing Agnate and his troops with oil.
"To the caves!" he shouted, as Thaddeus had in the first assault on Koilos. "To the caves!"
That axe fell, harvesting more glistening-oil.
Agnate fought with fury. There was nothing to lose now. Either he would fight to Thaddeus's side, or he would die trying.
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