He could not remember coming so close to the threshold of death, ever, yet here he stood, in defiance of the Keldon Necropolis for eighty-six years of life and enough mortal wounds to slay a full warhost. Kreig pulled his greatsword from the foul remains of the creature, its length deformed from the explosion but still deadly in its weight and edge. Laughing his rage at the sky, the witch king stood bare-skinned against the battle continuing around him.
Whatever these things were, they could be killed, and he was still Kreig. He could not know defeat by mortal hands.
* * *
Snow-chilled lands fell away to blankets of hoarfrost. An overcast sky of gray cotton, touched darker with pockets of rain, promised a storm. A light rumble voiced the heavens’ discontent—answered only by the dull echoing of footfalls and shouted commands from within the mountain pass that led to the lower lands surrounding Keld.
Warriors in full armor led the way from the pass, their red leathers and bright metal weapons standing out against the dark ground. They moved with military precision, anxious for battle but still wary of ambush. The lead elements finally trumpeted back an all clear with small instruments made from hollowed-out colos horn. Another band moved from the mountain pass. This was Gatha’s personal guard, their armor bearing his adopted crest—the ancient Keldon sigil for life, from the times before Keld developed a true script for writing. The military procession was followed by a baggage train of three colos pack animals, slaves tending them or laden under packs of their own.
Gatha walked at the center of his guard, nods of respect following his every movement. At times when he passed close to a warrior he received an awkward bow as the Keldon stepped aside. Despite his smaller size, Gatha felt the tallest among them, resplendent in finely designed armor of the best Keldon craftsmanship. He wore metal greaves, chestplate and shoulder mantle, trimmed in red leather and a black, heavy cloth cape with everything tooled in gold. He carried a riding crop—a leather-wrapped handle on a sharp, hooked piece of steel that might have been called a footman’s pick back in Argive. The crop served more as a badge of rank. Gatha never attempted to ride the large colos beasts.
The traipse down from his mountain labs caused a regrettable delay in many experiments, but it was necessary after reading the reports and then spending long hours with Kreig in honest conversation. The witch king’s detailed description of the invaders sent chills through Gatha’s spine, and then had come Kreig’s reluctant admission of what had followed the battle—the enemy’s method of retreat. Such an event Gatha would prefer to consider a bloodlust-spawned illusion.
Bodies of the Keldon fallen, those that had not been taken, Kreig had ordered carried deeper into the mountains for burial beneath rocky cairns. One minor witch king had been interred in the Necropolis. One never returned. The Keldons were most distressed about that, one of their chosen denied the Necropolis and so eventual resurrection. In the Keldons’ long history, not one warlord had ever failed to be brought home to rest.
Signs of the battle were still obvious in the scorched rock and the scraps of blood-stained leather. All metal had been scavenged, including that of a fallen war engine—pieced down so Gatha never did get a fair look at its original design. The warming air, moist with spring’s coming, held a touch of carrion in it. Gatha paused and knelt over one large patch of ground stained black. He pinched up some dirt between his fingers, rubbing it and then bringing it closer to his nose. It felt gritty but not as true soil should. It was a fine dirt ruined with the saturation of some foul substance. The scent gave it away. Oil. Glistening oil.
“Phyrexia,” Gatha whispered, naming the foe.
He placed a sample of the soil in a metal container and moved on, his dark eyes sharply deconstructing the battlefield and missing no scrap, trail of blood, or splash of gore. He found some globs of dark flesh that no scavenging bird had touched set about an area of scorched, pockmarked rock. It was the remnants of the thing Kreig had destroyed. A negator? He gathered every last piece of the ruined meat. Genetic comparisons back inside his labs would confirm it as Phyrexian, and the rogue tutor actually considered this procurement of fresh genetic material a small boon to his work. Who could tell what advantages the Phyrexians had bred into their minions since the samples he had stolen from Tolaria, advantages Gatha would attempt to duplicate for the Keldon people, breeding them into the bloodlines he controlled?
It was thought among most Keldons that there was little Gatha could not accomplish, but one must prove himself worthy of any requests and then more so if the magic was to take hold. Of course there would never be any recriminations, no resentment or rancor held, if the request was denied or the process failed. Not since Varden the foolish had anyone challenged Gatha’s decisions. Never since Kreig’s rise to power and the preternaturally long life that followed had another thought to criticize Gatha’s presence in Keld. Such were the conveniences of deification, except that now the game had changed with the arrival of Phyrexians.
Gatha did not actually require tests to tell him that his theory was correct. He knew, just as he felt sure that the force Kreig had fought was little more than a scouting party sent to investigate. How had they learned of his work? What more did they know now? He stood from gathering another sample and looked up into the blanket of gray clouds, expecting to see the “face of the sky” staring back down on him. Gatha would like to believe that Kreig’s explanation had been more of the religious trappings that layered their lives these days, except that the witch king had always seemed to know the truth behind it all even if he did enjoy the benefits as Gatha did.
That left the method of enemy withdrawal as a fact. That the sky had suddenly roiled with steel clouds broken only by cascades of lightning—red, green, and glaring white. Eyes of gray metal within black orbs stared down out of the chaotic sky like twin cold suns. A face of pale skin, sagging and without animation like the flesh of a corpse, appeared over the battlefield. It was cut only by a thin, cruel mouth that issued orders to the invading army in booming thunder. Kreig and others all reported feeling a pull tugging at them as enemy troops stepped away and simply faded from plain sight. Several Keldons surrendered to the arcane forces, vanishing under the gaze of those cold eyes and the call of its thunderous voice. Gatha did not want to believe it, but he did. Kreig had said something to him had made him believe.
Kreig the warrior, the mightiest the nation of Keld had ever seen, had felt afraid.
Dwarfed in power, the witch king had known his first moment of fear, but rather than be cowed, he railed against the forces tugging at him—challenged them. His warriors borrowed from his great strength, rallying. Fewer Keldons slipped away, as with a final scowl of displeasure the creature faded, and the sky cleared. Kreig’s combined warhost had stood alone on the battlefield.
With the Phyrexians defeated at the hands of the Keldons—his Keldons—Gatha hoped for a reprieve. Perhaps they would not return, seeking easier prey elsewhere. Defeat couldn’t sit well with them. Defeat never sat well with anyone.
* * *
Croag threw the lifeless body to the ground, skull shattered, gray matter mingling with yellowish fluids, white splinters of bone, and red blood. Two weeks he had spent in interrogation of the prisoners Davvol returned with. One every day, no matter how tempting it was to rush through them. He savored the moments—the memories—but also took the time after each to consider the information imparted. Davvol had taught him something of patience, with the other’s slow process of improving negators in the steady and relentless hunt of Urza Planeswalker.
He chattered an order to a nearby guard who removed the corpse. The guard would add it to the others, Keldon and Phyrexian alike, for a seeker to later take the entire store of meat to Phyrexia for the vats. Resources were never to be wasted. Perhaps the Keldon matter would serve to make newts stronger and improve the compleated Phyrexians they would eventually become. In that way, the defeat today would only lead to a greater victory in the next generation.
<
br /> In a few of the Keldons there had been large deposits of the same essence that the member of the Inner Circle detected in the old man on Dominaria, recognizing in them that which was familiar to his own nature—that dark perfection of the Ineffable from which all else should and would be derived. Only in the old man—a white-mana creature—that dark core repelled Phyrexian influence. In the Keldons, it made them stronger and therefore a threat.
So this was Urza Planeswalker’s plan! An army of Dominarians with the physical resistance to meet the invasion on an equal footing. How broad the vision and yet so juvenile in the attempt. Of course Phyrexian substance made Dominarians stronger, bringing them closer to perfection. If the planeswalker had a thousand generations he might hope to spread such resistance over enough of Dominaria to make a difference. Here and now, with the scope Croag sensed, that influence would barely be felt, except, of course, in the Dark One’s displeasure.
Organized resistance to Phyrexia’s plans for conquest could never be tolerated. The Dark God would see it as Croag’s failure. His anger would consume the Inner Circle member and deny him continued existence. Croag must destroy such efforts—subvert them. Davvol would be encouraged to continue testing forces against Keld, so that Croag might receive a better idea of the effectiveness of Urza’s current plans. Croag would then destroy the system perpetuating the danger, including the capture and consumption of this Gatha—surely a scion of Urza and possibly with knowledge of the ‘walker’s private retreats. Other large programs of such a nature must also be located and destroyed.
Passing through the gatehouse, its gleaming white spires thrusting upward into a blue sky, Ellyn entered the flagstone-paved courtyard of Capashen Manor. She carried a collection of scrolls bundled loosely under one arm, occasionally dropping one and having to stoop for it. They were taxation estimates for local villages. No matter how important they might be, especially this year, she couldn’t bring herself to invest much enthusiasm. Why should she care how well the crops came in, so long as the farmer caste supplied the manor with plenty? Instead of the scrolls, her hand itched for the comfortable feel of a sword hilt, for the chance to prove herself.
Strange creatures stalked Capashen lands these days. Monsters, some called them, of black flesh and metal with a taste for devastation. Farms had been left in ruins, and the people were frightened. Some of the clan’s best warriors had already taken to the field, leading bands of Benalish soldiers as they tried to protect harvests and clear Capashen territory of these things. Only “some” of the best, though, because she hadn’t been considered. Even in the noble Benalish clans, one’s position was so often determined beforehand.
Since the marriage of Jaffry Capashen and Myrr Ortovi, her great-grandparents, Ellyn’s family line had been relegated to minor status in an attempt to contain any attempts by Clan Ortovi to abuse the relationship. Ellyn’s parents followed a similar course, as taxation officials and village magistrates and minor diplomats depending on the year and needs of the clan. Ellyn had been born…different. She challenged the rules whenever possible, stubbornly pushing forward. Whenever a person of higher stature made a mistake, they turned around to find her ready to assume the greater position. She learned the ways of the sword, drawn to weapons like a piece of metal to lodestone. Sometimes she felt that the metal called to her, a feeling she could not shake, as if a piece of her were missing.
Ellyn heard a whisper at the back of her mind, felt a dark presence seconds before her sharp ears picked up the sound of booted feet hammering against the bleached flagstone courtyard. Shouts of alarm echoed through the manor followed by a screeching snarl. Ellyn turned away from the manor front, walking swiftly at first and then running for the corner, a trail of scrolls bouncing on the flagstones behind her. She slid around to the east side of the great building, where the manor’s shadow fell, just as three guards raced up from the other direction to catch the creature between them and her.
The semblance of a young dragon, it was like nothing Ellyn had ever heard described. Five feet at the shoulder, the creature’s leathery wings stretched up another three feet over its mutilated back. Its head and neck were devoid of flesh or muscle, cleaned down to bone. Thin metal cables connected the eye socket to the base of the skull, and long, coarse hair sprouted from the thick scale armoring its shoulders. Its four legs and a long barbed tail were spot-covered with muscle and some skin, but in several areas ran uncovered down to bone or steel replacement. It screamed again, the chilling screech of metal knives scored against slate.
Two nobles lay on the bleached flagstone, throats and chests clawed open, staining the ground with Capashen blood. A third figure was pinned up against the manor wall by the creature’s bulk, robes tattered and bloody but obviously still alive as he tried to crawl past. The soldiers attempted to drive the monstrous form back. It struck out with its metal-tipped claws, shredding the arm of one soldier who dropped his sword and staggered away, screaming shrilly for the pain. Ellyn’s gaze flickered to the abandoned weapon, part of her eager to seize it and join the battle while another part stood immobile, unwilling. This creature was from one of her recurring nightmares from as far back as she could recall—turned from imagined image to deadly reality in front of her.
Ellyn might not have broken from her trance, torn between loyalty and a strange, unholy sense of fear and familiarity for the creature, but then the beast reared back, one massive back leg coming down on the fallen noble and pinning his leg against the ground. He cried out in pain, hands grasping at his leg to pull it free. Ellyn recognized him, even past the smears of blood masking his face.
So did one of the guards. “Leader Purceon!” he yelled. It was the leader of their clan. The warrior didn’t hesitate. “Capashen!” he yelled out in battle cry, rushing forward. The dragon beast’s tail whipped around and impaled him, the tail’s bladed tip driving through his midsection and thrusting out of his back.
The danger to her clan leader and the sacrifice of the guard broke Ellyn’s catatonic state. She dove forward, snatched up the fallen sword and rolled to her feet as the creature cast away the broken body. The leather grip felt strange, too soft, but the balance was familiar. She moved shoulder to shoulder with the remaining guard, adding her swordplay to his. Checking one slash, Ellyn almost lost her sword as it vibrated madly in her hand. It felt as if she had slashed her sword into a steel post.
As one they advanced, forcing the beast back from their fallen clansman. So close to the creature, Ellyn could smell the reek of oil—at once foul and enticing.
With a last swipe at the two sword-bearing humans, the dragon beast turned and held them at bay with violent slashes of its bladed tail. Its scream resounded with pure fury and hatred as it reared over Purceon. It slashed down once, twice. The creature’s head bobbed in time to its clawing, always keeping its attention divided between the fallen noble and the two wielding swords.
Th guard standing next to Ellyn moved toward the beast, and she followed. The creature turned with incredible agility. Its claws struck out, rending long mortal furrows down the guard’s face and chest even as its tail sliced deeply across both legs. Its attention diverted for a crucial second, Ellyn slipped past and ran her sword through the dangling loops of metal cable running from the creature’s eye sockets to the base of its skull. She thrust downward with all her strength, pressing her full weight behind the stroke. The cables parted, and the metallic screech of the dragon beast’s pain half-deafened her. She stumbled forward, fell and rolled out of the way.
A slashing breeze brushed at her hair. The creature’s long tail, barbed with a dagger-sized blades, whipsawed the air over her. Ellyn tried to bury herself down into the flagstones, thankful the beast could no longer see her. The furious beat of wings buffeted her, digging grit out from between the flagstones and dusting it into the air. With a screech of rage the blinded beast took to the air as new guards ran around the corner, weapons drawn.
Ellyn rolled over to Purceon’s side, her
breath coming in short, gasping fits. She felt as if she had passed a test of sorts, though to pick at the thought any more brought only confusion. Instead she checked her clan leader for life and found him staring at her with guarded eyes. One side of his face bore a parallel set of deep scars ripped through his cheek. He nodded a cautious greeting to her.
“My thanks, Ellyn Capashen.”
She nodded back, not trusting her voice just yet. Ellyn stood up and walked over to a fallen guard. She stripped him of his swordbelt and buckled it on over her tunic. Ramming the sword home, the weight of its steel comfortable on her hip, she moved back to where soldiers were applying pressure to Purceon’s open wounds.
“More of those creatures are out there,” she said simply, knowing it to be true. “I will take charge of a band and hunt them.” Ellyn knew that further tests awaited her.
Purceon paused, winced as a new bandage was applied over his leg, and then looked skyward for the retreating creature that had taken the lives of five other Capashen. He nodded to himself.
“Yes,” he finally said. “You will.”
* * *
The village of Devas spread along the river, the normally white stone bathed pink in the late afternoon sunlight. Stubbled fields lead away from the settlement as far as the eye could see. The harvesting season in Benalia had just ended. A few missed stalks of grain wafted in the warm breeze that drifted in off the western plains. The high fluted columns flanking Devas’s gates cast long shadows east over the parade grounds established just outside the walls. Those shadows ended in winged silhouettes, the platforms up high occupied by a pair of sentries who watched the surrounding lands with a hawk’s gaze.
Bloodlines Page 17
