Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (magic:the gathering)

by Robert B. Wintermute

  After a bit of rest and hard tack, Nissa stood and began running again. Sorin was on his feet in an instant and following her at an alarming pace. He had passed her easily as they ran earlier, and she had the distinct feeling that he was slowing his pace so the rest of them could keep up. Nissa sped up to keep ahead of Sorin. It is the poor food I am eating that is allowing the human to run faster, she thought as she pumped her legs. But what is he eating? she wondered again. How is his body functioning without food?

  Anowon, on the other hand, was not having as easy a time. Vampires were capable of alarming feats of physical prowess. They were naturally stronger than most elves Nissa had met. In the jungles of Bala Ged, Nissa had seen a vampire literally run up the trunk of a tree. They could jump better than most elves, but Nissa had never seen a vampire freefall off a tree, spin in midair, and catch itself on a branch. Still, a vampire should be able to run at least as fast as an elf.

  Anowon was not running as fast. In fact, the vampire was midway between Nissa and the goblins that were, after all, carrying a mad kor. She had little doubt that it had been Anowon who had disposed of one of Smara s goblins. If that were the case, then Anowon should be quite fit and able to run. Nissa found it strange.

  They ran past more huts hunched next to the fallow fields, then topped a low rise. The palace loomed ahead. In its course it had floated away and then back again to its original crater, only to fall hugely canted to the right. There were three lines of smoke rising sideways from the ground around the palace.

  Then Nissa saw the first hole. Soon she saw more dotting the landscape ahead. She stopped running. Each was about a man s length across and just as deep. Many of the holes were stuffed with what looked like crops. Others were empty. Brood holes, she muttered.

  When Nissa saw a hole with a pair of bare legs jutting straight out, she jumped behind a nearby hut and crouched. When Sorin and Anowon joined her, she leaned over.

  Brood, Sorin said before she could even open her mouth.

  Anowon nodded.

  Ahead the ground was flat and grassy with small undulating ridges. The huts were more common along the foot-trod path they had been following. Each hut was made of thatch and turf bricks, and as Nissa crouched behind one, she could smell cooking grease from within. A gust of wind blew her hair in her eyes, and with the hooked finger of her right hand she pushed it behind her long ear.

  There were people cooking in this one earlier today, she said.

  The brood holes that dotted the landscape were fresh, and as she looked, Nissa saw plenty more legs sticking out of them.

  Why do they stuff the corpses in the holes? Nissa said.

  Sorin and Anowon said nothing, but Nissa had the distinct impression that one or both of them knew why.

  What s that? Anowon whispered. He pointed.

  A large column of dust far to the right in the grassland. The point from which it emanated was hidden behind one of the rises.

  That, friends, is the dust thrown up by a great host, Sorin said. He stood and began walking forward to a high point occupied by another hut.

  When he reached the hut, he stopped and stared down. Nissa stared too. It was a group of something walking along the ridge between the grassland and the mountains.

  Sizable, Sorin said.

  The tentacled scourge, Nissa said. She could not make out the individual forms, but she could see that some were taller than others, and that some of them moved in strange ways.

  I suppose we should count ourselves lucky to be seeing their backs, Sorin said as he turned and began walking toward the palace.

  Nissa had never seen anything like it. The populations of Zendikar did not have the discipline to form ranks. Plus, there was never enough of anyone, other than the wild creatures and trees, to form any kind of organized fighting force. And even though the brood were not formed in anything like ranks, they were traveling in a group. Where had they learned to walk together in lines? she wondered. She did not know enough about the brood to answer the question. But she would find out, she promised herself.

  Behind the brood, the grasslands swept up in a smooth transition to the Piston Mountains. As she watched, the top of one mountain came hammering down on the base, and the ground shook.

  If we are very lucky, Sorin yelled over his shoulder as he walked, The brood that did this he kicked at a leg poking out of one of the holes will meet and join forces with the brood advancing on us even now from behind.

  Nissa looked back the way they had come. There, far away, was a smaller dust cloud.

  Should not be long now, Sorin said.

  Robert B. Wintermute

  Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

  The holes became more common as they neared the palace, which, itself, had bodies hanging from their riggings heavy humans, dead in their armor with strange fighting devices strapped to their arms. Plumes of smoke spiraled from within somewhere. The huge tethers Nissa had seen from across the plain lay strewn on the grass, as thick as a man s torso.

  Soon they were past the last hut and near the roots of the mountains. Ahead, a huge rock stood on its end, balanced precariously next to the trail. Nissa stopped and took out her map. The trail wound into the foothills and then skirted to the right. They would be moving parallel to the brood lineage that were beating their way around the base of the mountains. Will they cut into the mountains when they find our path? she asked herself as she rolled up the maps.

  The stone balancing next to the trail appeared to wobble in the gusting wind. Nissa had seen other teetering stones, as they were called. She had never known one to fall. On the other hand, she had never known creatures to kill whole villages and stuff the corpses in holes.

  They passed around the teetering stone and kept running along the path.

  Nissa stopped suddenly and crouched, putting her finger into a small depression. She always ran looking at the ground, watching for signs.

  An odd track, she said. I have never seen it before.

  Sorin and Anowon stopped for a look. Nissa traced the deep divots and deep knuckle grooves; it was as if something had dragged itself across the ground, but uphill. Nissa looked up at the treeless mountains ahead. There were small boulders and low clumps of grass, but nothing that appeared large enough for even a goblin to hide behind. And whatever had made the sign was larger than a goblin, by plenty. Each finger groove was longer than her shin.

  Well? Sorin said.

  Nissa shrugged. It is large, she replied.

  But I do not see any indication of tentacles.

  From behind, a drum boomed over the plains. Anowon and Nissa looked back. The dust plume from the brood that had come up out of the trench was nearly at the palace.

  They have become musical, Sorin said. Perhaps I will sing them a song of my own when we meet.

  Nissa did not feel as confident. With each passing league they drifted farther away from the forest. She took a deep breath. The grasslands were rich with a different kind of energy, a kind she did not know how to utilize very well. If she had the proper rest, she could recuperate and draw mana from the land But there was no rest to be had.

  Sorin turned away from his view of the grasslands below and cast a wary eye at the tracks in the rocky dirt of the trail ahead. So, we are being advanced upon from the rear by a prevailing force he made a sweeping gesture with one hand and something of unknown potency is waiting in ambush somewhere ahead?

  After some moments Nissa nodded.

  Sorin unbuckled the belt that held his great sword in place over his right shoulder. He moved the belt to his waist and cinched it tight again. It is good to know these things, he said.

  Nissa watched Anowon investigate the tracks in the dirt. He pushed his fingers around the deep indentations, nodding some secret confirmation.

  Soon they were walking higher and higher into the foothills with the sun low in the western sky.

  The first face they found was half buried in the sandy soil. Nissa knew such stone heads w
ere called Faduun, and that one in particular was huge. It was so large, in fact, that Nissa suspected that fifty elves holding wrists could barely encircle it. Its nose was large, and its stern brow and angry eyes were set in a spiteful scowl. It was exactly the same face as she d seen carved in the river pebbles that Anowon had found.

  They found a smaller face an hour later, cut into the side of an outcropping. Each of the eye sockets had something shoved inside it. Nissa reached for whatever was in the right one.

  Do you really want to know what is in there? Sorin said.

  Nissa put her hand in and took out a wad of cloth. She looked from Sorin to Anowon. The vampire shrugged.

  The Faduun are old, he said. Do you see those? He pointed to some writing above the right eye, scratched into the granite in tiny script.

  Nissa leaned close. Eldrazi?

  No, Anowon said. It is older than Eldrazi script, and yet it bears a certain resemblance. Those designs under the chin are remarkably similar to what we see at many Eldrazi sites all across Zendikar.

  These are not found in other areas? Nissa said.

  Anowon shook his head. Only on Ondu. And nobody knows why.

  I know why, Nissa said. At least I think I do, she thought. They are the first Eldrazi, she said. Nissa was not sure why she knew it, but having said it, she knew it to be true.

  Anowon nodded once. So it is said by some, he said. But how can they not be there. How can the plane have no sign of their writing or design one year, and then they are present the next? Cultures take time to develop.

  Perhaps they are from somewhere else. Nissa felt strange saying that.

  But Sorin turned his eyes to her. A good deduction, elf, he said. Have you any proof?

  Nissa s pulse jumped. What proof could there be? she said, backtracking. Such an idea is impossible, naturally.

  Sorin looked at her for longer than was normal. Naturally, he said.

  Nissa looked back down at the foothills they had traveled. Past those, the dust plume had reached well past the palace. We had better keep moving, she said.

  The trail and hills were the smoothest rock Nissa had ever seen red rock utterly barren of vegetation. She was curious to see what could live on the barren hills leading into the mountains, and she walked ahead paying no mind to where she was stepping.

  They had dipped into a wet swale through which a slow stream gurgled. The trail passed between some low shrubs with wide, thick leaves that were two-times Sorin s height in width. The plants in the low spot intrigued Nissa. They reminded her of the jungles of Bala Ged, and she ran ahead, heedlessly. Despite the wetness in the low spot next to the river, the plants were wilted. Nissa found something about their color disgusting. Their leaves appeared green, but with an undertone of red, somehow, as if blood beat through the leaves cells. But that was impossible. She stopped running, sniffed, and covered her nose. What was not impossible was their smell. There must be something dead here, she said. But she kept walking to the small stream, her mouth already tasting its cool waters. Nissa knew they would be as clear as the becks of Bala Ged.

  She stopped. One of the plants seemed to have perked up, its leaves a bit stiffer. Nissa turned, and just as she did so, she caught the sudden sound of movement a branch stirred, and she instinctively ducked and shoved her staff forward. The impact that followed knocked her backward, and her staff flew out of her hand. She lay still where she fell.

  Nissa was on her back, but slowly she pushed herself with her heels until she was looking up at the frowning Anowon. She stood. The plant was slowly drawing one long vine back into itself. Her staff was off to the side next to another plant. She could see a cleft in the staff s side that went almost all the way through. Anowon pointed off to the right.

  A shape lay half-concealed under one of the plants. Its head lay on its side not far away, severed cleanly by the looks of it. The body was badly decayed, but Nissa recognized the form of a small drake.

  Nissa recovered her voice. Snap ferns, she said.

  I was not paying enough attention.

  Anowon nodded. Something similar exists in Guul Draz. But ours shoot canes up through the water impaling the unsuspecting. Siffleeb we call them.

  Hearing the guttural vampire-speak made the hairs on the back of Nissa s neck stand up. Or perhaps the feeling was caused by her almost dying a moment before.

  Anowon was looking at her strangely.

  Sorin inexplicably had her staff when she turned. He was smiling again and handed it to her. She took it and ran her palm along its smooth wood. The cut from the vorpal weed was higher than she had thought and went almost all the way through the shaft exactly at neck height. She passed her hand over the cut, and the wood knitted together and the cut was no more. She whipped the staff over her shoulder, strapped it in place and started to walk up into the mountains.

  They followed the trail all the rest of the day until the light fell and the small robber birds began to follow them, landing in the dusty soil to turn their heads and regard them through cocked eyes.

  Soon the dark of the mountains was on them, and there was no moon again that night. The cold wind intensified as they walked through the foothills, and the rocks took on a grayer, more sand-whipped texture.

  The rocks where they stopped did not radiate anything like heat. But soon Nissa found an indentation in the lea side of a boulder, and they all hunched there, mostly out of the wind. Fire was impossible, she knew. But Anowon took out one of his teeth and dropped it on a bare spot, and it began glowing and giving off heat. They encircled it and bent close.

  How many of those do you have? Sorin asked.

  How many toothless humans have you made?

  Anowon looked up at the rock they were crouching against. They are not only merfolk teeth. The vampire stood and took a step back and looked again. A smile curled one corner of his mouth, showing just the edge of an incisor. Look.

  They were sheltering against a huge Faduun head, in the space created under its nose. Anowon stood staring at the face with the wind blowing his long braid almost sideways. His torn robes snapped in the wind.

  The merfolk speak of three gods, he said.

  And I have realized something. He looked down at them huddled against the Faduun s lips. There are three kinds of brood. Have you noticed?

  Nissa had noticed. There were the large ones with all the eyes and tentacles for rear legs, those that were all tentacles and could sometimes fly, and those possessing a thick bony skull without a face.

  Perhaps it is no coincidence, Anowon said.

  That the mermen have three gods. Their stories are not as old as, say, the kor s. So, maybe the Eldrazi have only been here since those merfolk stories? The kor would never admit it, but their gods are the same gods by different names.

  But the brood are many, Nissa said. The merfolk and kor gods are only three.

  Perhaps the brood have gods as well.

  Are they real? Nissa said.

  Anowon s brow dropped in confusion. What a question.

  But he said nothing more, and the wind howled around the stone.

  Sorin sniffed.

  Nissa glanced over her shoulder into the darkness where she knew the plains stretched thousands of feet below. When she turned back, Anowon was looking across the glowing light at Sorin.

  Are they evil? The brood? she asked.

  Sorin spoke quickly, which surprised her. They are consumers. Neither good nor evil. They eat.

  And why do they put things in those holes?

  He shook his head. I am sure I have no idea, he replied. But I do know they devour pure mana. Their methods must have something to do with that.

  Nissa nodded. It seemed the wind was blowing harder.

  The goblins tightened their circle around Smara, who had been mostly quiet that day. As Nissa looked, the kor rocked back and forth with her crystal held against her small bosom. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. Nissa watched her rock back and forth, and soon her own eyelids
started drooping.

  When Nissa opened her eyes, the tooth s glow had dimmed greatly, but she could still see the bare shadows of the others asleep. The wind had lessened a bit, but a deep cold had swept in on the breeze, and Nissa s teeth knocked together as she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. She chuckled to herself. Imagine perishing up here of cold after traveling through such danger, she thought. But Nissa knew the cold on the mountain was not severe enough to kill her, as long as she stayed out of the wind. The Piston Mountains were a very long but very thin range, and not the tallest mountains on Zendikar those were on Akoum. According to the map, they would crest and be on the other side of the mountains by the morrow. But that realization did not help the fact that for the moment, she was cold.

  She stood up and stamped her feet. Then she took a couple of steps and heard a particular sound over the breeze. It sounded like a gargling gag combined with a sort of growl. The sound raised the hairs on the back of her arms. She saw a form in the shadows hunched over another form. She heard slurping.

  As quietly as she could she turned and padded back to the circle. Her stomach, as empty as it was, fluttered, and for a moment she thought she might be sick. It was not the sound that had caused her such nausea, it was the smell. Blood had its own sweet smell, and arterial blood was the sweetest of all. She knelt on the ground and wrapped her cloak around herself and, surprisingly, she slept.

  When she woke, the sun was just rising in the gray sky. She could see her breath in the cold air. The tooth s glow was gone. As Nissa suspected, one of Smara s goblins was gone as well. She looked again. Two of the goblins were gone. Anowon was staring at her from across the circle with his knees drawn up to his chin. Sorin was asleep next to him with his long head laid sideways on his own knees.

  Nissa knew a vampire had to feed. She understood the natural order of that, mostly. Still, to see the feeding happening Nissa glanced at the sleeping Smara and then back to Anowon. Who is she? Nissa said.

  Anowon lifted his head. I do not know.