Gerrard pinpointed the nest. He squeezed off a shot. Plasmatic air splashed into the bunker. Hunks of scale tumbled out. The gun wilted.

Sisay brought Weatherlight up. Sunlight flashed across her mirror hull. She rose above the caldera. The crater centered on a black pit. The Stronghold would be below. Once the caldera was secured, Weatherlight would plunge down that shaft. For now, she traced the rim.

"Let's make one circle do the job," Gerrard said.

The sky suddenly went red. Cannon fire crisscrossed. From embrasures along the inner edge of the caldera, blasts ripped the air.

"Plenty of targets!" Gerrard shouted, standing in the traces.

He let fly a barrage. Bolts plunged toward the bowl. They st.i.tched along beneath the rim. Rock melted. Bunkers collapsed. Power cores blew. The inner edge of the crater crumbled. Basalt boulders rolled down on Phyrexian crews.

All the guns were firing. Tahngarth and Squee, the amidships men, the belly gunner, the tops gunner-all unleashed their fury. Weatherlight seemed suspended on lines of power above the volcano.

Still, they could not catch and fling back all the flack. Weatherlight shuddered. Bolts spattered across her new hull. Where before such blasts would have ripped through wood, now mirrored metal reflected the rays. They stabbed downward. Even her new wings were reflectors.

"Take us low!" Gerrard shouted. "Let 'em rip their own eyes out."

"Aye, Commander!" replied Sisay.

The ship plunged toward her attackers. She was a silver phoenix, flying in the midst of fire. Every metal facet hurled back the blasts. Death poured on the head of the killers. She left a molten ring. Nothing could survive there.

Gerrard drew his gun back. "Cease fire! Let them kill themselves."

The sky stormed with bolts. The land burned. Phyrexians and their guns turned to soup. They wouldn't cease firing, even when they saw what the glorious ship did. One circle would do it. As Weatherlight came back upon her own wake, the beams ceased below.

"All right," Gerrard instructed, "that's just a prelude. There will be other defenders-"

From the wide pit in the center of the caldera rose just such a defender. Twice the length and six times the displacement of Weatherlight, this ship was a monster. It had two hulls, one atop the other. The upper hull seemed a thing of carapace. Its flying forecastle hovered like the claw of a crab. The lower hull consisted of broad plates of armor. From these two structures extended four bony masts, stepped back. The ship bore cannons that were the equal of Weatherlight's-in fact were of identical design. But this was not the most fearsome aspect of the new ship. It was the all-too-familiar outline: Predator.

In the skies over Rath, Predator and Weatherlight had fought a vicious duel. Gerrard had battled the ship's captain-Greven il-Vec. The attack had ended badly, with Gerrard thrown overboard and Karn and Tahngarth taken captive. Such would not happen today. This was no mere battle. This was a showdown.

"Take us down to her," Gerrard ordered.

"Greven is mine," Tahngarth announced.

"Fine," rumbled Karn through the speaking tubes. "You take Greven. I take Predator."

Gerrard and Tahngarth traded amazed looks. The commander responded, "Absolutely, Karn. Predator is yours. You have command."

"Captain," Karn said, "I respectfully request that you steer straight for Predator."

"What do you have in mind, Karn?" asked Sisay as she turned the ship. "A ram attack? A keel strike?"

"I have in mind the utter destruction of Predator," Karn replied. The engines roared to sudden life. The ship tore down across the crater.

"Quite a turn for a onetime pacifist," Sisay commented quietly.

Karn's reply rumbled like a war drum. "I will kill them now because, when I was a pacifist, they made me kill."

Weatherlight herself stole away anymore words. Her spikes sliced the air with a chorus of eerie whistles. The ship tore vengefully toward the waiting craft.

"Predator is rising to engage," Sisay warned. "Rising fast."

"Stay above her. Keep wings spread," Karn instructed. He redoubled the engine's thrust. Weatherlight skipped eagerly, weightless on her new wings. "Gunners, lay down a corridor of fire."

Predator only grew larger, turning with arrogant confidence to face the smaller attacker. She was a ma.s.sive ship, and she brought her twelve guns to bear on Weatherlight. Scarlet flares lit the cannon tips. They swelled outward, reaching with greedy hands upward.

Weatherlight's own fire stabbed across the roaring air. Cannon blasts met and flung each other back. Weatherlight shot through the breach in them.

"Lift the bow!" Karn called.

At the head of Weatherlight, Gaea soared skyward. The mirror armor of the ship's keel breasted across a sea of fire. Red deadliness splashed away to either side. Plasmatic air curled off the ship's outflung wings. She neared Predator.

Suddenly, Karn folded the ship's wings and cut her engines. Only the song of the spikes sounded. Weatherlight struck Predator like a cleaver chopping a crab. Metal shrieked on metal. Supports moaned and failed. The saw-toothed keel cleft the upper forecastle. Carapace slumped and plunged, taking two guns with it. Weatherlight cut through the second forecastle. Her spikes ripped another gun from its moorings. Karn engaged the engines. The ship shot forward. Her blazing exhaust burned wood and cracked metal. At last beyond the ship, Weatherlight leaped away. She spread her wings and climbed skyward. Angry beams chased her.

"Covering fire, Squee!" Karn said.

The goblin's voice was barely audible above the clamor of his gun. "You gots nerve, tellin' Squee what's what, Mister Commander Man!" His wild shots dragged flack from the air. "You gettin' us into messes and Squee gettin' us out. Squee gots half a mind-" His rant was momentarily preempted when a ray from Predator slipped his guard. It struck the larboard wing. The shot bounced from its mirror edge and pa.s.sed over Squee's head. His ear hair curled acridly. The shot struck the opposite wing and bouncing back. Squee ducked again. The blast rebounded five times over the squealing goblin, lower with each pa.s.s.

"Dive, Karn! What you tryin' to do? Kill Squee! Kill de hero of Mercadia?"

The ship dived, slipping from beneath the ricocheting beam.

"Well, now, dat's more like it!" Squee said gladly.

Weatherlight changed course, and Predator slid from sight behind the starboard wing. "What you doin' now, eh?"

"She's pursuing," Sisay warned.

"Bring us about," Gerrard said, "and keep us high. Their cannons can't do anything against our hull. And Karn's got the right of it. We drop on her from the sky and cut her in half."

"What about Greven?" growled Tahngarth.

"Sorry, pal. See if you can shoot him before we split his ship."

Weatherlight's engines shouted angry approval of the plan. She banked hard to port and rose.

Predator was a distant knot, abeam and below. Though her hull streamed sparks and fire, she still made quick time across the sky. In mere moments, she crossed the wide crater.

Weatherlight was quicker still. She was not the same ship as when first they had met-magnitudes more powerful, with greater armaments. Nor had she the same crew-these handful were a perfectly tuned machine, utterly committed to battle. Weatherlight climbed the sky as if it belonged to her.

Predator struggled to rise. She bled beams up across Weatherlight's bow, which only hurled them back. Predator slid to keel.

Weatherlight's engines cut. Her wings folded. She plunged. The gunners floated up in their traces. Air spilled up both sides of her hull. It rose in twin walls and curled above.

Then the keel sliced more than sky. Weatherlight cracked into the upper hull of Predator, shattering the mainmast. It drooped and fell away. Deeper plunged Weatherlight. Her gleaming keel cut through the center of the ship. Planks splintered. Beams broke. Deeper, and the saw teeth of the keel sc.r.a.ped across Predator's engine core.

A series of m.u.f.fled booms came from the stricken ship. Predator lurched. Smoke flooded from her lower decks.

Weatherlight's engines spouted fire. She ground forward through Predator's hull. Her keel ripped the power core. More explosions rocked the ruined ship.

Tahngarth, Gerrard, and the other gunners poured cannon fire on the superstructure, hoping to break free.

Weatherlight edged from the blazing gap. Her wings spread happily, and she leaped away.

Except that something dragged at her. Harpoons shot from the ruined deck of Predator. They thudded-three, five, eight- into the deck of Weatherlight. After them came grapple after grapple. They clasped her rails Cables snapped taut. They dragged Weatherlight back toward the listing ship.

Gerrard struggled to swing the ray cannon about, but he could not draw a bead.

"Cut those cables!" he shouted into the speaking tube even as he fought free of the gunnery traces. He turned, drawing his sword, and stepped to a harpoon imbedded in the forecastle. He sliced down. Steel met steel. The cable snapped away. It whipped back and lashed the deck of Predator.

Gerrard bellowed into the speaking tube, "Squee! What the h.e.l.l are you doing back there? You're so proud of saving our b.u.t.ts. How about blasting that ship to nothing!"

The response that came was not Squee's. It was an angry, brutal voice, inflected with the iron edge of the il-Vec.

"Squee cannot save you this time, Gerrard. Squee cannot do much of anything. As soon as I get to the fore, you'll be in the same condition."

Gerrard stared back over the bridge to see where a company of il-Vec soldiers boarded Weatherlight's stern. There, in their midst, towered Greven il-Vec.

Chapter 24.

Down the Forgetful Tide.

A maelstrom engulfed the world. The whirlpool drew everything down into its black heart. Ice chunks, war engines, long ships, colos, Phyrexians, Keldons, elves-all bobbed together on the icy current.

Eladamri could not reach solid ice. There was no solid ice to reach. The glacial cliffs forever calved, hurling huge columns into the flood. The impacts made waves that shoved everything toward the whirling center. Whole platoons of elves had been crushed beneath plunging ice or ground to nothing between icebergs.

"We can't get out that way," Liin Sivi shouted as her mount desperately trod water.

"Drive for the shallows," Eladamri replied, guiding his colos toward a long shelf of ice. "When the waters recede, we should be able to stand."

"It's our best hope," Liin Sivi agreed.

The others followed. They were wild eyed. Their mounts were mantled in foam. Bloodshot eyes rolled in sweating hair. The beasts trembled from exertion and cold. The waters froze one moment and boiled the next. Through the depths below came flashes of fire. The liquid was a torrid purple, a bruise on the world.

Eladamri's steed stroked against the current. Clods of ice drifted toward him. A berg shoved up against the colos. It cracked its hooves on a lower ledge of the thing and drove on. These big hunks of ice couldn't float across the shallows, either. They would get stranded. Among them, the elves could shelter, perhaps even climb out of the flood.

The shallows lay just ahead, a streaming shelf. The current dragged against them. Colos paddled hard just to maintain their position. Even if they could reach the flat ice, the beasts would be spent.

Leaning in the saddle, Eladamri whispered into the yak's ears. He spoke the elven language of animals, a combination of sound and emotion.

"Swim, great beast. Swim with all your might. Rest and peace await us there. Rest and peace and solid ground."

The colos leaned toward the cluttered shallows. Its neck bent against steaming water. Hooves churned. Inch by inch, it approached the shelf. Current dragged its matted fur. Liin Sivi's mount swam beside his own. Other beasts crowded up in a long line.

Eladamri's steed caught a hoof on the ice. It cracked away, a fragile edge. A second try gave solid footing. The beast dragged itself forward through a chest-high tide. It kicked its hind legs and leaped. The colos bounded up above the icy waves. It hung for a moment in glittering air before splashing down again in the flood. Another surge of its hooves, and the beast was driving up, clear of the ice pit.

The others followed. Liin Sivi was just beside him, and eight elves came behind her. Their eyes were alight with hope. Bergs gleamed like monoliths all around, the water rushing past. Through the shallows, colos leaped happily.

Eladamri waved his folk forward. "Ahead, it's shallower still-!"

His beast rounded a huge berg only to lose its footing on an icy slope. It plunged into a sucking tide. The others could not see the danger. Liin Sivi also slipped into the slick well. One by one, the elves went too. They floated again in a raging current. The waters drew them down toward another maelstrom. The whirlpool moaned as air escaped its spinning throat. The column descended into a wide crack in the ice.

"Fight for sh.o.r.e!" Eladamri bellowed, hauling hard on the reins. The beast lagged beneath him. It had already given its last effort. Hooves churned the tide but without their previous vigor. There was no strength left in them, only desperation. The other mounts could do no better. Their riders were white-blue with dread and cold. "Fight for sh.o.r.e!"

Even as he said it, he knew it was impossible. Reins lashed the water. The colos bobbed beneath him. It was drawn around the curve of the whirlpool. Eladamri gazed down into the black hollow. He looked up to Liin Sivi, her steed struggling. He reached for her. His fingers came up only with empty air.

Down the maelstrom he went. He sucked a last breath before icy water closed over his head. The crisp sounds of struggle were replaced by a droning thunder. In an instant, rider and mount were hauled down into blue-blackness, then the colos was gone. Eladamri thrashed, reaching for a handhold. His fingers clawed k.n.o.bs of ice worn smooth. There would be no sharp edges to rip him apart. The waters had taken care of that, but there was no shortage of burls. They pummeled him like fists. One blow between the shoulder blades hurled the breath from his lungs.

That was it. A man cannot live without breath. Eladamri went limp. His body became one with the ripping tide. He tumbled through dark s.p.a.ces. Down he went. Water sought its level-the deepest, darkest, coldest place beneath the glacier. Soon all light was gone. There was only the incessant roar and the battering world.

This is what it is to die, this blackness.

Then light returned. It glowed red all around. Whatever volcanism melted this glacier gave its angry radiance to the ice. The water's drone became a shout. Thin walls led inexorably, inescapably, to a bubbling shaft. Eladamri plunged through it.

In a great cascade, Eladamri tumbled into a huge ice cave. He dropped through the cracked ceiling. Suddenly, there was air around him-blisteringly hot air. He breathed. His lungs burned, but better to burn than to die. The smell of sulfur stung his nose. For what seemed a whole minute, Eladamri plummeted. How deep could this chamber be? He glimpsed Liin Sivi and the elves in the cascade above him.

Eladamri struck the hot sea below. He sank. The cascade shoved him down. He tried to tread water, but it was so charged with air it would not buoy him. Something solid struck his side. Eladamri swung his feet around and pushed. He shot up through the waters. The surface above was red and rolling. Eladamri's head broke through.

He dragged a deep breath of the brimstone air. He was below the falls. They gleamed with the crimson light of the erupting volcano. The current here was deep and fast. It descended through steep sluices into blackness. Overhead stretched the smooth, gray ice of the glacier.

Eladamri was perhaps a thousand feet deep. There were four thousand more feet down to bedrock.

Another head broke the surface just upstream. It was Liin Sivi. She gasped a breath.

"Sivi!" Eladamri shouted. He reached toward her and struggled to stroke upstream. It was no good. The rush of water flung him down.

Liin Sivi swam with the current and reached him. Their hands met, and they pulled each other close. The embrace took them beneath the water, but they would gladly trade air for another soul.

Something pounded against them. Eladamri looked up to see a dead colos float past. The beast's legs had been shattered in the terrible descent. Its blood made a red veil in the water.

Gripping Liin Sivi's hand, Eladamri stroked toward the surface. Together, they emerged. They gulped greedy breaths.

No sooner were Eladamri's lungs full than he shouted, "Look out!" He pulled Liin Sivi aside as a huge wedge of wood shot beside her. It was the ram from a Keldon long ship.

Instead of shying back, she lunged and grabbed hold. Liin Sivi pulled him to the ram.

"It floats," she said simply. "It floats, and it takes the beating for us."

"Yes," Eladamri replied. He clung to the wedge. It seemed eager to descend. Ahead, the ice cave was a swallowing gullet. "Where are we going?"