Zendikar_ In The Teeth Of Akoum Part 9

Nissa doublechecked before speaking. "Brood," she said finally.

"What are they doing?" Sorin said, standing next to her.

"It's hard to tell, but some of them seem to be eating the ground."

n.o.body said anything for a time.

"Eating it?" Anowon finally said.

"There are some large ones with tentacles for back legs and long muzzles ..."

Sorin moaned. "Are their muzzles blue?" he asked.

"I can't tell," Nissa said. "But, yes, it is possible, now that you put words to it."

"Trackers," Sorin said.

"But why would they-"

"They are probably tracking the kor refugees," Sorin said. "But they will find us in the process if we don't move."

"How do you know these things?" Nissa said. "The 'blue muzzles'?" The words were out of her mouth before she knew it.

Sorin said nothing, but looked over the edge and squinted. For a moment Nissa wished he'd just step right off the edge. Then the feeling left her, and she wondered what his weak human eyes could see.

"There must be four hundred of them," he said. "The floor of the trench is covered with them. Wonderful."

Nissa looked over the edge.

"The giants were right," Anowon said.

"The giants are down there," Sorin said. "Their bodies are being dismembered right now." He was quiet for a moment. "Rather interesting entrails."

Nissa turned. "They will find our sign and ascend to us by day's end."

"Oh, undoubtedly," Sorin said.

"But we will not be here," Nissa said. She began walking toward the mountains, along the trail on Khalled's map. The trail would take them past the tipped castle. "We should run."

And they did. They ran, holding what gear they had against themselves to keep it from bouncing. The goblins managed to carry Smara. One held each limb, and a fifth ran in the middle, while others scampered behind.

Nissa felt the mana from the gra.s.s course around her ankles as she ran. With this mana she spun a camouflage spell around the whole party, hoping to make them appear as a patch of gra.s.s on the expanse to any prying eyes that might be watching. Nissa dropped back a bit and squinted at her companions. But it was hard to tell if her spell had worked. She was too close to gauge its effectiveness. Nissa sped up.

The party ran through the shadows of the floating islands of land, which dropped clods of dirt from bare roots as they pa.s.sed. Nissa saw a small rodent poke its head out of a hole and almost plummet the distance into the ma.s.sive crater where the other side of its hole continued.

The wind picked up and began to blow in their faces as they ran. Soon they were sweating with exertion. Nissa couldn't help but think about how the wind in their faces would help spread their scent for the brood tracking them. She ran faster, and the others picked up their speed as well.

The sun was half-past zenith when they fell to the ground panting. Nissa laid her face down and breathed the rich smell of dirt and gra.s.s. Her tongue was swollen, and her cracked lips hurt. She needed water.

"There might be water at that palace," she said.

The palace was closer, but it still lay tipped with its many tethers strewn around it. Nissa had watched for movement as they approached, but she had not seen any. It must have been inhabited by humans. They had begun to pa.s.s fields of grain, but what huts there were had been abandoned long ago. She was no judge of crops, but the stunted plants in the ground did not look like the most prosperous bounty she had ever seen.

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 pa.s.sed 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 But what is he he eating? eating? she wondered again. she wondered again. How is his body functioning without food? 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 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 gra.s.sy 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 gra.s.sland. 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 gra.s.sland 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 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 gra.s.slands 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.

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 gra.s.s, 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? Will they cut into the mountains when they find our path? she asked herself as she rolled up the maps. 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sing league they drifted farther away from the forest. She took a deep breath. The gra.s.slands 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 gra.s.slands 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 were called Faduun 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 n.o.body knows why."

"I know why," Nissa said. At least I think I do 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 pa.s.sed 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 Siffleeb we call them." 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.o.c.ked 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.