Invasion Cycle - Planeshift Part 12

"Where is it?" rumbled Tahngarth.

"I don't know," replied Sisay. "The coordinates are correct." Her words faded away to the roar of the engines.

"What do you mean?" Tahngarth asked. "How can a whole continent disappear?"

Gerrard snapped his fingers. "Teferi!"

"What?" the minotaur barked.

"Urza said something about his phasing out Zhalfir- magically taking it. He said only the sea remained. He must have taken the Talruum mountains too."

Tahngarth stood and peered at the choppy sea. He couldn't believe it. "He took the whole continent?"

Gerrard shrugged. "That's what Urza said."

It was a brutal irony. A moment ago, he feared rejection from his people. Now, they didn't even exist.

Faltering, Gerrard added, "Urza said something about refugees. He said a contingent of Talruum minotaurs went to Hurloon."

"Next stop, Hurloon?" Sisay asked.

Eyes blazing with fire, Tahngarth growled at Gerrard, "Why are you doing this?"

Gerrard cast a glance behind him. "You said we needed another army."

Eyes darkening, Tahngarth crossed his arms. "How are you going to enlist their aid?"

Gerrard shrugged. "I don't know. Honor? The promise of a brutal fight? What do you suggest?"

"Don't expect me to be your liaison, Gerrard. They will hate me."

Gerrard shot back, "They just don't know you like I do," Turning to the speaking tube, he said, "Captain Sisay, take us to Hurloon."

"Aye, Commander."

Tahngarth closed his eyes as the engines took hold of his stomach. He felt the beaming sun go out of existence. His shoulders grew cold. The tearing winds of the deck died to nothing. The whine of Weatherlight's power core was dampened, sound slipping away into the Blind Eternities. Tahngarth did not watch. He could not bear to see the world dissolve again.

Sound changed. The engine's clamor rebounded from ground. Sudden wind tore at Tahngarth's hide. The cold of evening wrapped him, the wet of alluvial plains. Wood smoke hung in the air. This would be Hurloon. He opened his eyes.

Immediately he wished he hadn't. Below, in the last glow of the day, stretched an enormous wasteland. It had once been the city of Kaldroom, a garrison ground for centuries of minotaur warriors. Now, the city was in ruins. Every roof, every fence, every wooden thing had burned away. Only stone foundations and rubble walls remained. They twisted away to the horizon. Within them lay bodies, minotaur bodies-bulls and cows and calves. They had died where they had stood, slaughtered by the same fire that had destroyed their city. The streets of the city were lined with craters. Smoldering fires lit the darkness. They sent gray smoke skyward. Weatherlight shot among them, stirring the smoke in twin vortices.

Tahngarth pulled himself from the gunner traces and stood at the rail. He stared with bald horror at the scene below. These had not been warriors. These had been merchants and teachers and families. The fire that had slain them had not fallen from the sky. It had burned on Rath as the world overlaid. With utter precision, the Phyrexians had turned a whole city into an oven.

Lifting his head to the skies, Tahngarth released a roar. It mixed with the thrum of the engines and the shout of the air. Long and furious, the sound pealed out across the plains.

The minotaurs of Talruum were gone, and those of Kaldroom were slaughtered wholesale. Better to have disappeared into the ocean than to have died like this. And what of the other cities? Was Tahngarth the last of his people to live? Twisted into the semblance of Phyrexian monstrosity, was he all that remained of the once-proud race?

Weatherlight shrieked out across the city to the garrison grounds. Half the population of Kaldroom had dwelt within the barracks of that place. They remained. Minotaur warriors were laid foot-to-head, row on row across the ground. Their bodies were pristine, untouched by the fire that had destroyed the populace. Even their armor was polished, even their uniforms. Not one showed the wound that had killed him. Their eyes had all been propped open as hunters do to the creatures they stuff. What were these corpses? Trophies? Why would Phyrexians bother to chain corpses together?

"They're alive...." Tahngarth whispered breathlessly. The realization p.r.i.c.kled his hide with a memory.

He is trapped. A red beam stabs down at him from a panel above. It strikes his flesh. It twists his horns and swells his muscles and transforms him into a monster.

Shaken by the flashback, Tahngarth suddenly knew why the Phyrexians had kept these warriors alive.

Without bothering with his gunner's harness, Tahngarth swung his cannon to the fore and was squeezing off his first shot before he had even glimpsed what must lie beyond. Red rays ripped the air, plunging toward a huge black building, as amorphous as a mountain. It was a flowstone laboratory, grown on Rath and overlaid on Kaldroom. Tahngarth's shot struck the side of the structure. It lit up a portico and bathed the scabrous priests that stood there. They burned like paper. The portico collapsed. A hole opened in the wall. Through it, Tahngarth glimpsed what lay within: torture chambers, vivisection tables, vats of glistening-oil. It was only a moment's glimpse before Weatherlight hurtled above the black rooftop, but it was enough to convince Tahngarth.

"We must destroy that building!"

"What is it?" Gerrard shouted as Weatherlight entered a long, sweeping turn to port.

"A Phyrexian incubation ground. They've killed the citizens and have somehow drugged the garrison. They're going to turn them into monsters. They're going to make them all like me. We have to destroy that factory."

A beam stabbed up from the structure and sliced across the sky. It howled so close overhead that the hairs on Tahngarth's head curled. Two more shots roared from other guns.

"They're on to us!" Sisay shouted.

Weatherlight dropped out from under the bolts. She spread her wings to catch the air. A sudden flare of her engines skipped her out along the lowlands. Flack burst in a tight trail behind her.

Gerrard, the amidships gunners, and Squee at the tail filled the skies with answering fire.

Tahngarth meanwhile clambered into his traces. "Bring us about so I can draw a bead!"

"I'm still being evasive!" Sisay hissed.

A plasma blast from the laboratory swarmed up toward Gerrard's gun. The energy did not seem to move, only to grow wider. Cursing, Gerrard shot a volley down the throat of the attack.

Energy met energy. The center of the plasma ball was ripped away, but its mantle still struck the ship. Plasma ate through the port gunwale and two of the ribs. It dissolved the rail on either side of Gerrard's gun, and flack arched over his head.

The speaking tubes were suddenly jammed with voices: "Multani, hold us together!"

"Target those guns, Squee!"

"Tuck the wings!"

"Full power!"

"Bring us about!"

The shouts were echoed in blazing rays from the guns and roaring fire from the engines. Like an angry hornet angling toward its tormentor, Weatherlight shot above the trailing fire. Her port-side guns bled the sky. She turned her bow hard toward the laboratory.

At last Tahngarth could draw a bead. He unleashed a barrage that lit up the fields below. Flares overwhelmed Phyrexian fire and pulverized the gun that had flung it. A second blast obliterated another bombard along the structure's edge. Tahngarth shifted his aim toward the roof line. The other gunners could take out the weaponry. Tahngarth would destroy the factory.

A blast ripped a long hole in the roof. Another burned away rafters and gantries. The third punched past, to row on row of vats. The golden stuff in them was glistening-oil, the placental fluid of newts. The volatile liquid made one strike work like five.

Vats exploded. The miserable creatures within died in an instant. They would not bear Tahngarth's shame. Blasts rocked the structure and hurled metal and gla.s.s outward. Blazing oil lit more vats. They flamed and burst. A chain reaction swept through the incubation chambers. In manifold explosions, the core of the building went up.

Not pausing to admire the conflagration, Tahngarth hurled bolts of destruction into the adjacent rooftops. Vivisection laboratories were laid bare. Their inhabitants glared upward in startled dread in the moments before they were broiled alive. More shots ripped open the torture chambers.

Tahngarth stared feverishly down. A strange abstraction contorted the scene before him.

His gun is a flat panel in the ceiling. It pours a red ray down onto his flesh. The stinging strokes repair his deformity. They return his soul to its former, beautiful state.

Yes, he felt the shuddering of Weatherlight as she took blast after blast. Yes, he knew that by the time the factory and its defenders were destroyed, the ship would not be battle worthy, perhaps not even sky worthy. It didn't matter. Tahngarth would save them. He would save his people the fate he had endured, and in saving them, he would save himself.

Chapter 16.

In Yawgmoth's Workshop.

Nine t.i.tans towered above a blasted underworld.

The second sphere of Phyrexia was a sc.r.a.p heap. The ground consisted of rusted iron and corroded bra.s.s. Inert machines lay like dead giants on the horizon. Here and there, smokestacks jutted from the ground. They spewed constant pillars of soot high into the air. The metallic waste spread into a churning black firmament miles overhead. Among columns of soot rose columns of metal. Girders and pipes ran like veins on their outer edges. As wide around as whole cities, the pillars extended from the ground to the smoggy firmament above. Here and there, the clouds parted to show not an open sky but a closed vault. It was the underbelly of the first sphere. Enormous trusses stretched column to column. Their metal was encrusted with carbuncles. There was no sun here, no stars. Were it not for occasional blasts of fire from the smokestacks, there would have been no light in this sphere at all. As it was, the red glares leant a flickering and lurid aspect to the landscape.

Planeswalkers did not need light. They could see heat signatures, and there were plenty of those. There were other signatures here too. Dead ahead, some five miles from where the t.i.tan engines stood, the bomb production facility lay. Each of the stone-charger sh.e.l.ls in that factory gave off a null signature. Its mana-voided core warped natural energies. The total effect, even at five miles, was unmistakable.

Each of us has the capacity to take twenty warheads, Urza told his immortal comrades. Gather that number, 'walk to the master columns, set the charges, and rendezvous on the third sphere.

Taysir remarked, A simple plan- From a simple mind, supplied Szat, kicking a shattered mechanism with the claw of his black dragon suit.

-but Phyrexia is not a simple place, Taysir finished. The multicolored gemstones of his suit scintillated in the eerie darkness.

Within the pilot orb of his own t.i.tan engine, Urza made final adjustments. Small lightnings scintillated on the energy fork at the peak of the suit. This sphere is a habitat, just like the first, except here there are only predators, only mechanical watchdogs-the Devourer, the Dreadnought, the Diabolic Machine....

Holding a rusted cog in her ivy-vined hand, Freyalise said, You seem all too impressed by those names, artificer.

Urza's t.i.tan engine almost shrugged. And why not? They are masterworks of design. Where Thran artifice ended, Phyrexian artifice began. Engines such as these have never been equaled on Dominaria- except in these suits, of course. And you would do well to show a little appreciation yourselves. Without these suits, the caustic atmosphere would rip your nerves to rags.

Daria coyly crossed the legs of her lithe and perfectly balanced t.i.tan suit-a feat none of the other engines were capable of, and said, And I suppose if we get killed, it's our fault, not a design flaw.

Urza peered out of the c.o.c.kpit dome and gave a rare smile. And I thought you didn't understand me. With that, he turned toward the distant bomb factory. Let's go. Every moment we wait is another moment for the Dreadnought to find us.

Above his piloting bulb, the energy fork flickered with an impending storm. Its blue reflection crazed the gla.s.s below. The bulb seemed a mad, glaring eye. Tripod feet crunched down atop piles of twisted sc.r.a.p. Metal shrieked against metal. Two more steps, and Urza was at a full run.

Bo Levar surged up to one side. Clumps of Urborgan mud fell from the pounding legs of his t.i.tan engine. Tatters of tobacco dropped from the joints in his hand as he clawed past a metal pillar.

You ever done this before, Urza?

Attack Phyrexia? he asked curtly over the noise of the engines. No, attack an ammo dump, Bo Levar replied idly, because you're doing it wrong.

The words that returned were snide. And you're an expert because-?

The foes of free trade are known to a.s.semble vast a.r.s.enals. I've made quite a few raids in my time. And what am I doing wrong?

Bo Levar reached down to the mud-encrusted knee joint of his suit and grabbed a clod. He shoved the wet stuff onto Urza's energy fork, diffusing the lightning storm.

First, you've got to remember that the ammo's not your enemy, the guards are. You go in there blazing lightning and rockets, we'll all be blasted to oblivion.

Stone chargers can't be set off that way.

But you don't know what other munitions can. Bo Levar let out a satisfied sigh, and the interior of his pilot bulb grew momentarily blue-gray. Windgrace and I will take point. Follow and learn. With a sudden burst of speed, Bo Levar outpaced Urza. Lord Windgrace's engine bounding up beside him. On all fours, it was the fastest t.i.tan. Side by side, Bo Levar and Lord Windgrace raced toward the installation. Urza followed shortly behind, with the other six in company.

It was only a mile away now, a roofless a.s.semblage of demonic machines-toothy cranes, cobweb gantries, smelting buckets, smoking furnaces, rivers of molten metal, mounds of shattered crystal, and droves of artifact drones.

In their midst stood row on gleaming row of stone chargers, the most powerful bombs developed by the Thran. One stone charger could annihilate a huge city, scouring soil to bedrock and irradiating a hundred miles with deadly concentrations of white mana. It was rumored that Yawgmoth had used such devices to eradicate his rivals in the Thran-Phyrexian war. Now, those bombs would be used on Yawgmoth's own world.

The drones are no concern, Bo Levar advised. It's whatever watchdog guards the drones- A huge and toothy mechanism rose suddenly before the t.i.tan engines. It had lain dormant amid piles of sc.r.a.p, waiting for intruders. Now the thing lunged up from its well of metal. It had the configuration of a sea urchin, rods bristling outward from a central body. Each rod was tipped in a pair of jagged bear-trap mechanisms, ratcheted open. The vicious things swung out to clamp onto Bo Levar and Lord Windgrace Without breaking stride, Bo Levar said, Here's what I meant. He leaped over the snapping jaws of the Phyrexian defender. Lord Windgrace did likewise. Both t.i.tans sailed through the smoky air.

Eschewing the advice of his lessers, Urza halted before the monstrous machine and loosed a pair of rockets. They surged from their wrist housings and corkscrewed toward the beast. The first missile struck a pair of snapping jaws and deflected upward to explode in clear air. The other pa.s.sed perniciously through the forest of rods, screamed out over the intervening s.p.a.ce, and struck a blast furnace. The detonation cracked away metal and brick, loosing a great river of molten steel. It gushed across an adjacent array of stone chargers, liquefying their sh.e.l.ls and rendering them useless.

Clucking quietly in his piloting bulb, Bo Levar said, That wasn't so well done. With a nonchalant kick, he struck the back side of the defender mechanism, where none of the rods jutted. Like an urchin pried from its rock, the thing folded to one side.

Windgrace administered the killing Mow. Blue motes swarmed from the eyes of t.i.tan suit, struck the drive mechanism before him, and liquefied it. The mouths snapped a few more times spasmodically before they lay still.

Brushing the hands of his t.i.tan suit, Bo Levar said, Let's see what they've got for us next.

Look out! sent Kristina. Her weighty engine hurtled through the air above the destroyed mechanism and the other t.i.tans. She came down on the next guardian.

This monster was more muscle than machine. Like the dragon engines of the first sphere, its flesh was living metal. Unlike them, the thousand-legged giant millipede was too ferocious a predator to have free run of the first sphere. Its fang-studded mouth reared into the air.

Kristina ducked beneath the striking head. The t.i.tanium toes of her engine cracked into the back of the great beast. A quick spell made those toes razor sharp. Feet slid between folding plates of metal. With similarly honed fingers, Kristina crouched and grabbed handholds. She heaved, ripping open the back of the monster. Sparks spewed from ruptured wires. Pneumatic muscles groaned as she yanked again. Steel cables separated beneath the millipede's plates. Cords lashed.

Kristina was dauntless. She plunged her hands deeper. t.i.tanic fingers grasped adjacent ribs along the millipede's torso. Spells heightened the tensile strength of her own gears. She pulled. With a pop and an acrid gray cloud of smoke, the nerve center of the beast separated. Severed halves of the monster flopped in biomechanical agony. Kristina continued her grim work until she had completely ripped it in two.

The joints of her suit steamed with exertion. Kristina rose triumphantly in the breach of the worm.

Commodore Guff arrived, his t.i.tan engine striking a dignified pose. Through a haze of smoke, he peered out of the pilot capsule and stared appreciatively at Kristina's handiwork.

By Belinus! You've got a way with bugs. We'd had critters like that back when I was a kid, and we ripped 'em in half too, but just to watch 'em grow a new mouth on both ends- Kristina was too slow-they all were too slow. Both new mouths lunged for her engine. It seemed Yawgmoth had known the signature defense of living millipedes. The first mouth bit straight through Kristina's pilot bulb. Gla.s.s shattered and metal sheered. The bulb crushed like an egg. The second fastened onto the torso of her engine. In dynamic opposition, the two mouths ripped the head away from the body.

Had she 'walked? Had she 'walked? came Taysir's anxious thoughts.

With an animal shriek, Szat hurled himself between the two halves of the beast. He had learned from Kristina's mistake. You couldn't tear this beast apart. You had to kill it from the inside out.

Swallowing, one mouth lunged for Szat. He caught its jaws and roared, pouring fire down the metal throat. While the flame went from red-hot to white-hot, Szat also sent a cloud of corruption down the beast's gullet. Millipede teeth wept like candles. Metallic flesh melted from metallic bones. Neural networks turned to sparking goo. Szat's attack killed the brain of the thing. It went limp, settling like a long, deflated balloon.

Hurling the dead creature down, Szat whirled to attack the other millipede at his back.

He breathed fire. He poured out corruption.

But it wasn't the other half of the millipede that he slew. It was already dead, smoldering in blackness beneath the angry figure of Kristina. She had planeswalked away from her t.i.tan engine just as it was dismantled. Reappearing aback the second beast, she marshaled her full a.r.s.enal of planeswalking spells. The monster lay in dead runnels beneath her, but every last spell was gone from the woman. Battling the caustic air all around her, she had no time to 'walk again.