by Vance Moore
The guards from the barges were closing on him, believing him spent. Once more he sent forth a blade of lightning, but now it moved at knee level and severed legs. The screams of agony were a salve to Barrin's pain. He rose to his feet and looked over the field of cripples. It wasn't enough. He looked toward the sky, and his mind raced higher and higher. Then high over the ground he found what he was looking for-a river of air that circled Dominaria. Like a man filling a bucket, he dipped into the jet stream and brought it toward the earth. His mind fell with the wind, pushing it faster and faster. The blast of air scooped the wounded men into the sky, their screams drowned out by the wind. They dribbled out of the sky, icy corpses as Barrin returned the power to the heavens.
It still wasn't enough. The Keldons near the barges were frozen numb as they stared at Barrin. Perhaps these would ease his rage. The wizard began advancing, and the warriors ran toward the battle. Better to fight men and metal machines than Barrin.
"Craven scum!" Barrin yelled. "Come and die!" He sent a wave of nightmarish illusion to turn them back, driving the warriors where he could see their faces as he killed them. Monsters appeared in the Keldon lines and fell on the enemy. Mageta looked at a huge dragon dripping slime. It loomed over the Keldons and struck at them, spreading fear. Warriors killed each other as they fought the Tolarian wizard's deceit, but few ran back toward the barges, preferring monsters to wizard.
Barrin was aware of the battlefield now. Mageta was closing with the last of the reserves, and the machines had reactivated. Barrin's attack spread panic among the Keldons, and more warriors were cut down trying to flee.
The charging of the fire swallows in the barges was a shout across his mind. The Keldon commanders were going to unleash a wave of destruction that might finish the League even if it savaged their own army. He lacked the power to stop the attack, but they had killed his wife. He could not rest as long as a single one of them lived.
Barrin stumbled toward the barges, his mind and powers preceding his body. Only a few of the barges were ready to launch, and Barrin could feel the instructions trickling down to the reanimated birds. It was his voice-his will- that filled the tiny weapons. His mind followed the links already established between the barges.
"Fly here, roost here." It was a cajoling cry that silenced the cold instructions delivered by a Keldon artificer. Whether it was the intensity of Barrin's will or the hatred he channeled he did not know, but the birds responded, and on release they rose into the air and fell upon the Keldons and their barges. Wooden shells burned, and Barrin enjoyed it. The smell of burning flesh was a cloud over the battlefield, assaulting his brain. This scent had always sickened him, but now he sought it, craved it. He walked among the barges, weak and wavering.
The enraged wizard stooped and plucked a sword from a dead warrior's hand. A few still lived and fled from the battle. He fell upon them, striking weakly at warriors but ignoring the slaves. An easy target, the Keldons fled from him in mindless fear. At last he reached a collapsed barge. The legs were blown free, and it had fallen on its side. It had crushed the Keldon commanders and been abandoned by everyone. A thick layer of soot was covering everything, and Barrin wiped his eyes. Someone was trapped by the barge. He moved forward and saw that it was a Keldon woman, her face rigid with pain and a cane clutched in her hand.
"Dig me free!" ordered Latulla, blinking rapidly to clear her tearing eyes. "Hurry, slave, or I'll have you beaten." The symmetry of it was so perfect, and Barrin came forward without hesitation.
*****
It was almost an hour before General Mageta and a platoon of marines finally reached him. The Keldons were routed and still running from pursuing groups of cavalry and steel ants. Mageta was wounded again, three fingers showing on a bandaged hand and his chest bare and wrapped in bloody cotton. Barrin leaned against a smoking barge shell, a headless Keldon at his feet. Mageta rushed to express his grief, for he knew how Rayne had died.
"Barrin," Mageta said. "We've won the battle and shattered Keldon power on Jamuraa. The enemy is running, and Teferi's forces march to cut off their escape." Barrin said not a word at the news but continued to stare at Latulla's broken body.
"What should we do now?" Mageta said, trying to jar Barrin out of his silence. "There are still warriors on the plains and small detachments across Jamuraa. What are your orders?"
Barrin leaned against the side of a burning barge with his eyes closed. Decades of loving memories tried to fill the gap Rayne left when she died.
His voice was as cold as ice. "No quarter."
*****
Haddad lay at the rear of the battlefield. Despite his fears, he was never noticed during the fighting, his pain and suffering lost against the backdrop of others dying. He witnessed parts of the battle, but every explosion and scream was muffled by his own agony. How long he lay there, he couldn't say. Finally a voice penetrated his mind.
"Where are you wounded?"
It was a handsome woman speaking with kindness and concern. He was so close to home that the pain seemed almost gone.
"I am Haddad. A soldier of the League." He had to pause and muster strength before he could continue. "I was captured months ago and made a slave. I have important information."
Latulla's bracelet sent even more pain into Haddad's body as he tried to betray her. He hammered his head into the ground as his bones seemed to twist and grate.
"What's wrong?" Shalanda had come searching for wounded and maybe information. This former slave appeared to be both, but he might die before he could tell her anything.
"It's the bracelet. It's killing me. Please destroy it. Please!" The need was overwhelming in Haddad's voice, and at last she agreed.
Shalanda breathed and focused on Haddad's pain. The bright core of it nearly blinded her. She lay her hands on the bracelet and could feel the tension barely restrained. Just a gentle nudge should dislodge it.
The bracelet unwound itself in a spray of blood and twisting wire. The device had sent wires up and down Haddad's side, and they were expelled violently in response to Shalanda's ministrations. The shock reverberated in her mind, and she could feel herself falling toward the ground. If she hit, her mind and spirit would break, and she prayed to fall forever.
Haddad could only see the sky and the end of pain. At last, a free man. He closed his eyes and the world went away.
Epilogue
Teferi sat in his palace on his island. He retreated here to be alone after the destruction of the Keldon colony. Almost all the Keldon's warriors had been on the plains meeting Barrin in battle. Teferi and his marines had rescued thousands of slaves as the last die-hard Keldons had been rooted out. The fighting was over when he finally viewed the interior battlefield.
Rayne was dead. A friend and wife of a friend. Immortality became more bitter each time someone close died and bitterest of all when an old friend died. Barrin had won but cared nothing for his victory. He only demanded a cargo dirigible be sent from Tolaria to pick up his wife and her volunteers. Shalanda, Rayne's aide, was in a coma and no one was certain why, though Teferi feared it had something to do with the disease sweeping the continent. Perhaps it would burn out, but the planeswalker knew that was too optimistic.
More people were dying from this mysterious plague, and Teferi considered the old rantings of his one-time teacher, Urza Planeswalker. If what Urza had been preparing for all these years actually came to pass, there would be even more death in the coming months. Teferi looked into the darkness and swore an oath.
"I will guard my lands and the people who look to me, but I will never follow Urza. I will make my own way."
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