Invasion Cycle - Planeshift Part 7

Only Urza killed with numb hands and a numb heart.

Chapter 9.

Among the Dead, Friends.

For five days, Agnate and his Metathran legions had driven inward across fens and bogs. Beneath the blazing sun, they ground forward. Beneath the Glimmer Moon, they camped on whatever terrain they had gained and defended it against an endless a.s.sault of nocturnal beasts.

No human would have survived the campaign. Humans were born for other things-for laughing and falling in love and bearing young. They had to give up such things to fight a war. Metathran were different, bioengineered and therefore as.e.xual. There was no falling in love and no bearing young, and the only laughing they did came with victory.

Metathran ate while they fought. Their teeth clenched rock-solid biscuits that contained all the nutrients they needed. They drank while they fought. Enzymes in their throats purified even rank swamp water. Like oxen in the traces, they bulled forward over new ground. They could battle in their sleep. For Metathran, fighting was as breathing, as dreaming.

It had been a glorious five days for Agnate. This was not trench warfare like Koilos, with suicide charges across empty ground. This was guerrilla warfare. Secrecy and cunning and courage were key. Tactics and wilderness skills meant life. Here Phyrexians in their mindless hordes could not combat Metathran in their mindful legions. It was a vindication of the creature that Agnate was. It was also revenge for Thaddeus.

Agnate could still see his counterpart dissected alive- every tissue flayed away, his body dismantled bone by bone to his ribcage, even a stone laid against his diaphragm to help him breathe. Phyrexians had torn him apart to learn how Metathran fought.

This is how we fight, Agnate thought as his battle-axe cracked the skull of a Phyrexian trooper. It clove through the neck and into the beast's sternum. This is how we fight.

"Advance!" shouted Agnate to his troops.

Agnate lifted his axe. The cleft monster came up with it. He brought the Phyrexian down on one of its compatriots. The horn-studded trooper made a weighty mace. Spikes drove through the second monster's torso. Internal organs showed in their slimy complexity as the two beasts fell.

Careful not to slip in the mess, Agnate set his powerstone pike to receive the next charge. A monster obliged. Its face was little more than gray skin stretched over a human skull. Its torso was a bundle of tormented muscle over twisted bone. It fell on the pike, which tore its way inward. Still the creature fought.

Holding his pike with one hand, Agnate dislodge the axe with the other. He swung it. The blade sliced through one of the beast's arms, clove the ribs laterally, and emerged from the torso. The top half of the creature toppled from its legs. Agnate shoved the rest of the polearm through the monster. He picked up the weapon and strode onward.

Shoulder to shoulder with him ran a tight pack of Metathran. They were bloodied from that last charge but unbowed. The shouts of warriors and screams of beasts resounded on the flanks of the advance. Agnate and his corps had punched through the center.

They charged up a slimy bank, past arms of forest, and out onto a wide, sandy plain. Beyond the sand flats stood a scattered army of Phyrexians. They drew back, uncertain, as Agnate and his forces appeared.

Agnate halted. All around him, Metathran formed up on their commander. More of the blue-skinned fighters arrived every moment. One hundred troops. Two hundred troops. Five hundred troops.

The Phyrexians beyond the sand flats began an all-out retreat.

"Charge!" Agnate shouted, his axe lifted high.

His voice was joined by five hundred others. Battle cries shook the air. A thousand boots shook the ground. In ten steps, the Metathran reached the speed of hunting hounds, in twenty, that of hunting cats. It felt good to be running full-out after battling for inches.

The ground suddenly stole his feet. Agnate plunged waist deep into quicksand. All around him, his folk did the same. There was no stopping the charge. They bore forward and were swallowed by the deceptive world.

He had led his forces into a trap. The Phyrexians had gotten him just as they had gotten Thaddeus-lured into a fatal charge. There was no time for shame, not on a battlefield, and this shifting, sinking stuff was the current battlefield.

Metathran were too brawny to float. It wouldn't work to lie flat upon the sand and hope to be buoyed up. Even with lungs full of air, Metathran sank like stones. Already the wet sand lapped at Agnate's ribs. It was preternaturally cold and slick like rot. A current dragged him downward and to the right.

Others warriors sank more quickly than he. A line of them were already submerged to their shoulders. Their necks craned above the sand. They must have been situated over a crevice in the basin.

Whatever underground river fed the quicksand, the water drained there. The current dragged them down. Those warriors were doomed. Sand made little wells in their ears. They would never escape. The current would drag them down and through the crevice and tumble their dead bodies in underworld rivers. Soon the whole army would b.u.mp through the arteries of Dominaria.

There was only one hope-to sink to the bottom and walk themselves out.

"Submerge," Agnate commanded, "and stride for sh.o.r.e!"

For some, it was too late. Their heads were covered.

Agnate drew his last breath, closed his eyes, and drove himself into the sucking ground. Hands sculled against the thick grains. His feet plunged deeper. Cold and slick, the sands closed over him. Black ground gripped him and pulled him down.

Any moment now there would be solid rock, or mud thick enough to shove against, or something other than this cold, entombing stuff.

Any moment.

Agnate sank in silence and chill. He wondered if this was what it felt like to die. Most mortals believed their souls rose to some airy otherworld, but Metathran had no souls. Their bodies were their all, and their bodies sank. Perhaps this was what Thaddeus had felt in the moment of death. Perhaps Agnate even now was dying.

The air in his chest was hot. It swelled in his lungs as though they would burst.

Agnate's foot caught on something hard. It seemed a stick, or club-long and slippery. Kicking, Agnate felt more of them- not sticks but bones.

This quicksand had eaten armies before, countless times. Agnate and his troops were only the latest additions to a warrior's graveyard.

Agnate caught a foothold and pushed. The bones shifted. He slipped. His other boot drove against a skull. It was no good. The sand was too thick, the current too strong.

Agnate felt shame for having led his people here to die. Shame meant he had given up.

A hand grasped his leg. There was no flesh on that grip, only bone-powerful, implacable bone.

This was some lich lord's bone yard, his recruiting ground for an undead army. Agnate had not only slain his fellow warriors but had enlisted them to fight for evil.

Another hand grasped his leg, and another. They were all around him, these skeletal creatures. He struggled to break free, but bone and sand were allied. They clutched his arms, his sides, his neck, his skull. Agnate was dead. There was no point struggling. Death had won. Its literal hands would drag him down.

Agnate released the hot breath he had held. It slid away in blind bubbles through the thick sand. Yes. He was dead.

Except that the skeletal hands lifted him through the flood. They bore him upward in the wake of his own fleeing breath. Sand streamed away. In moments, he broke the boiling surface.

Through lips limned in his own blood, Agnate raked in a grateful breath.

Everywhere his army emerged, lifted on undead hands. Some Metathran were borne aloft by skeletal warriors. Others were clutched in the grip of ghouls. Still more were lifted by empty-eyed zombies, or insubstantial specters, or shambling mounds of rotting flesh. These strange benefactors shoved Metathran heads above the sand and bore blue warriors toward the far sh.o.r.e.

Agnate was numb. He had already given up life. He should have been dead. Normally a Metathran would shrink from the corrupting touch of these monsters, but who shrinks from the touch of salvation?

Metathran and undead, the army surged toward sh.o.r.e. There, the Phyrexians waited.

"Prepare for battle!" Agnate croaked hoa.r.s.ely.

He had lost his powerstone pike in the struggle, but he still carried his battle-axe. Lifting it from the quicksand, he hefted it overhead. His command had been purposely ambiguous. Agnate himself was uncertain whether to use his axe on undead or Phyrexians.

Sand fell in wet clumps from Agnate. It clung a moment longer within the ribs and pelvises of the skeletons. Bony feet splashed through ankle-deep quicksand.

With a roar, Agnate twisted out of their grip. Cold bones slid from hot flesh. Landing on his feet, the Metathran commander flung a pair of skeletons away. They lost hold of his sodden armor and fell sideways. He swung his axe high to drive them back.

He needn't have. The skeletons had not paused in their clattering march. They ran out of the quicksand and leaped with savage fury on the Phyrexians. Finger bones gouged out compound eyes. Rusted swords cracked against sagittal crests. The warriors of old fought fiercely in defense of their island, of their world.

Agnate could only stare after them in stupefied amazement. All around, his soldiers stood in the shallows and watched as zombies ripped apart Phyrexians. Blinking sand from his eyes, Agnate swallowed hard.

This strange circ.u.mstance smelled of Urza. Who else would ally the living with the dead?

Lifting his battle-axe, Agnate shouted, "Charge!" On leaden legs, he drove himself forward, to the defense of his undead saviors.

Metathran warriors were nothing if not obedient. They joined the charge.

Straight before Agnate, a zombie clambered atop a Phyrexian trooper, lashing it with powerful but sloppy blows of putrid flesh. The Phyrexian's horns pierced rotting muscle. Chunks of meat hung on the spikes. Keeping its head down, the Phyrexian ripped the gut out of its attacker.

Agnate's axe sang in the air. Steel chopped through the Phyrexian's subcutaneous armor, through its chest, through its heart. Sliced nearly in two, the monster went down. It dragged the zombie with it. Side by side, they struck the sand.

A zombie can fight without its viscera. It pulled itself from the impaling horns and greedily dragged the severed corpse back toward the quicksand. It hurled the body into the deeps. The current dragged it down. In days, perhaps hours, the dead Phyrexian would rise from the sand too, a new member of the shambling army.

Agnate laughed. It was not the victorious laugh that he had voiced so often in battle. It was a more human sound- a recognition of absurdity.

An angry grin spread across his face. He whirled to slay another Phyrexian. His axe hewed as if through firewood. It was fascinating to watch the way they came to pieces. Each chop sent power up the haft of his axe and into his arms. It was as though he harvested the souls of his victims.

Suddenly, there were no more Phyrexians to kill. In a fever fight, Agnate, his troops, and their undead allies had slain them all. Even now, ghouls dutifully dragged dead Phyrexians into the sandy slough.

Setting the head of his axe on the oily ground, Agnate leaned on it and laughed. He could feel the eyes of his warriors on him, but he didn't care. Their shock made it only funnier. Agnate wiped gritty tears from his eyes.

Shaking his head, he muttered, "What has happened to me?"

"You have gained a new ally," answered an ancient and craggy voice.

Agnate raised his eyes to see a tall, strong figure in ornate robes. Within sleeves of embroidered silk, the man's powerful arms spread in a regal, welcoming gesture. Above an upturned collar rose a stout neck and a rugged face. The smile on the man's lips seemed almost boyish, and a fragile light shone in his deep-set eyes. Gray hair stood in an unkempt halo around his temples. So friendly, so familiar was that visage that Agnate at first did not realize the man's flesh was mummified.

"I am Lord Dralnu," he said, bowing deeply. "I command these folk who have saved you. I invite you and your men to celebrate our new alliance in the halls of my palace."

In stunned respect, Agnate bowing his head. A lich lord? He was allied now to a lich lord?

Worst of all, Lord Dralnu looked like Thaddeus, back from the dead.

Chapter 10.

Elves of Skyshroud, Elves of Keld.

Eladamri and Liin Sivi rode great mountain yaks up a long, rocky ascent. Colos, these beasts were called- huge, s.h.a.ggy rams. They were powerful mounts and utterly surefooted. Eladamri was glad. He and his Skyshroud commanders climbed a cliff face beside a gigantic glacier.

They did not ride alone. The leaders of Keld rode with them. As strange as the colos were, the Keldons were even stranger. Ma.s.sive and gray skinned, the average warlord towered an easy foot above Eladamri. Savage helms and breastplates in rust red covered tattooed flesh that was tougher still. Scars crisscrossed their flesh. Among the Keldons, a missing ear and a split lip were beauty marks.

Indeed, when these warriors had first encountered Eladamri, they couldn't believed so short, slight, and unscarred a man-so unKeldon a man-could be a warrior. They were wrong. Eladamri had fought through the Stronghold and the Caves of Koilos. The Keldon scouts issued a two-word challenge, clear even in their barbaric tongue: "Prove it!" With Freyalise's help, Eladamri did. He killed the first rival, so ferocious was the attack. The second limped away sorely wounded, only to fetch more.

Ten warriors returned, accompanying their field commander. This young man was different-leanly muscular. His eyes shone with bright intellect within his scarred face. He studied the dead scout. With a long sweep of his eyes, he took in the strange, green forest laid down in the icy fastness of his lands. The sights sparked something in him, something he'd heard or read. These elves were no mere invaders. They were emissaries from another world and from the black future.

The young commander jabbed a thumb toward his chest and barked a single word, "Astor."

Astor proved an uncommon Keldon, equally versed in war and lore. He knew many Dominarian languages and took pains to teach Eladamri the rudiments of Common Keld. His rulers, Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin, arrived within the week. The former immediately ambushed Eladamri with his crescent-bladed scythe. The weapon opened a long wound from the elf's right temple to his jaw. Without pause, Eladamri responded with a slash of his sword. He struck an identical wound on the doyen's face. Their bloodied blades met between them and locked. Neither man could throw back the other. In moments, the duel was done. Without words, they had achieved detente.

Even now, as the colos climbed the ragged mountainside, Eladamri was still proving himself to Doyenne Tajamin. She rode to his right and poured out a long narrative in Common Keld. She spoke of the end of the world, of Twilight. Most Keldons believed Eladamri and his forest home to be harbingers of this end time. As Keeper of the Book of Keld, Doyenne Tajamin was harder to convince.

Her colos leaped, surging to a narrow shelf of basalt. Snow fell in easy cascades beside the beast's hooves. Aback it, Doyenne Tajamin looked down with fiery eyes.

"True, the books of Twilight speak of allies from another world, but also they speak of invaders. You claim you are allies- perhaps-but you are undoubtedly invaders."

Eladamri smiled winningly, the expression rumpling the st.i.tched scar across his face.

In Common Keld, he replied, "The Twilight legends are yours, Doyenne, not mine. You are more eager than I to make me fit." Eladamri's steed leaped up beside hers.

Tajamin smiled as well, a predatory leer. She lifted an ancient war cudgel. The age-blackened wood was carved deep with runes.

"This weapon will decide. Some folk believe the sword cuts to the truth. We believe a cudgel divines more surely. Only those who can stand beneath its blow are true." Tajamin flipped her arm.

Eladamri braced for another attack. Instead, Tajamin rode her mount up to a higher ledge.

"So, once we are out on the battlefield, I should expect you to club me?" Eladamri asked.

"A true warrior is ready for anything," she responded.

Two more bounds of her mount brought her to the top of the cliff. Glacial light broke over her face, showing up each scar that crossed it. Her wry and dangerous look melted away, replaced by a solemn joy.

Digging his heels into the s.h.a.ggy sides of his colos, Eladamri surged up over the ridge. He too saw.

A vast glacier extended from the hooves of his mount out to distant black mountains. The ice shone white beneath silvery rafts of cloud. It was a veritable sea of snow, held aloft by an ancient range of volcanic peaks. Numerous lateral glaciers descended from higher valleys to join together in this one enormous ice sheet.

From two of the lateral glaciers marched divisions of the Keldon army. They had taken a slower but less treacherous approach. In their midst rolled ma.s.sive war engines-trebuchets, catapults, and greater ballistae. Larger than even these machines of war were Keldon long ships on huge runners. At full sail, their bladed bows could rip through enemy lines and their vast rams could smash a twenty-foot-thick wall. h.o.a.rdings lined the rails of the warships. Through their loopholes, archers could pour quarrels on troops and battlements alike. Among these enormous machines rode twenty-five thousand heavy colos cavalry. Seventy-five thousand Keldons filled out the warhost.

Eladamri was glad to see his ten thousand elven troops marching among the arrayed might of Keld.

These were grand sights, true, but they were not what lit the face of the doyenne. The grandest vision of all stood to one side of the glacier.

On a conic peak among craggy mountains perched a tall, black city. The base of the structure was crowded with countless dwellings. Their steep roofs dumped incessant snows. Lights shown minutely in their windows. Farther up, the buildings grew dark. In the midst of the dwellings rose a tall pyramid of stone, open on two ends. It seemed almost a hangar for an airship, but the s.p.a.ce could have held a vessel five times the size of Weatherlight. At the pyramid's pinnacle resided a lofty citadel. It lurked among the raveling clouds.