Side by side, the minotaur and the commander descended the forecastle steps. Up from the central hatch streamed crew members. Most were seafarers turned skyfarers. They bore with them cutla.s.ses and daggers. Others were ensigns and engineers to whom combat was an unwelcome possibility. Among these came Orim and her a.s.sistants-healers who now bore swords. All hands meant all hands.

Striding toward the stern, Gerrard greeted Orim. "You could stay below, wait for casualties."

She hitched her brow. "You'd be surprised what Cho-Arrim water magic can do to Phyrexian metal."

Gerrard and Tahngarth mounted the stern castle steps. They ascended beneath the port-side sweep of the wing stanchions. Suddenly another comrade was beside them. The stairs bowed toward his bulk.

"Karn, what are you doing? How are we going to break free with our engineer above deck?"

The silver golem reached casually to his side, seized one of the grapples, and snapped its line. The cord whipped loose.

"How can we break free with these grapples attached?"

"True enough," Gerrard affirmed, thumping the metal man on the back.

They hadn't time for more conversation. Greven and his il-Vec and il-Dal warriors had headed first for the bridge. The sounds of swords confirmed Gerrard's fears. He rushed around the corner.

The rear door to the bridge had been smashed in. Multani worked feverishly to regrow the wood, but he could not prevail against the axes of the il-Dal. Now only a single figure blocked their path.

"Get back, Rathi sc.u.m!" Sisay growled. Her cutla.s.s bashed away the strike of an il-Dal axe and dipped down to open the man's belly. "This is my ship, d.a.m.n it. Get back!"

Roaring defiantly, the second il-Dal swung his axe in a blow that would cleave Sisay's head.

She couldn't raise her cutla.s.s in time.

The blade hummed as it descended. The warrior completed his stroke-but five feet off the deck. His axe clanged against Karn's silvery back. The golem held him overhead in a pair of huge hands.

"You heard the lady," Karn growled, "get back!" He hurled the warrior over the rail. The il-Dal and his axe plunged toward the crater.

"About time you guys showed up," Sisay said as she stabbed another warrior.

Gerrard shrugged, the move bringing his sword up to block an axe. "You seem to be holding your own."

"I seem to be holding the helm," Sisay replied with a barking laugh, "which means I'm holding everything."

Gerrard smiled. "I'd never argue with that. Of course, you can't take credit for holding Graven." Gerrard gestured outward with his sword. The motion simultaneously severed the arm of a foe and pointed to where Tahngarth faced down the monstrous captain of Predator.

The two warriors circled each other. This had been long in coming. Tahngarth was Greven's escaped prisoner, intended to be his lieutenant. Greven was Tahngarth's erstwhile tormentor, intended to be his master. Both had a score to settle. Both had warned off their comrades from their prize.

As twisted as Tahngarth had become in the torture chambers of Rath, Greven was more twisted still. Every muscle of his body bulked beyond natural dimensions. The cords of his neck, the sinews of his eyelids, and the muscles of his scalp all bulged beneath gray-black armor, but the most deadly modification was the mimetic spine that had replaced his own. It had made him the absolute tool of Volrath and now of Crovax. The evincar of the Stronghold could see through his eyes and hear through his ears and fight through his hands.

Greven swung his polearm. Its head was a pair of crab-claw blades set among spikes. Its b.u.t.t was a mace that sprouted curved horns. Just now, those horns cracked Tahngarth's own.

The minotaur snorted. He bulled forward and rammed the polearm back toward Greven's face. Tangling his horns with the man's weapon, Tahngarth brought his striva in a two-hand slash across Greven's waist. Well-tempered metal cut through the thick leather straps that corseted the mimetic spine. The striva laid open muscle, stopping only when Greven hurled himself back.

"Your transformations have made you powerful," Greven said through teeth locked in a grin. "Let me finish what I began, and you will be a creature to be feared."

Tahngarth's eyes flared. "I already am."

He charged. His striva swept downward in a brutal blow.

Greven backed up. He lifted his polearm to block the stroke. Hands clenched and teeth gritted.

There was too much rage in Tahngarth's attack. The striva sparked as it struck the haft of the weapon. It sheared right through. The cleft ends of the polearm dropped away. The striva continued on, striking Greven's rib guard. It cut through that as well and severed the flaps of muscle laced through his sternum.

Tahngarth continued forward, shoving the blade into Greven's chest. "I want your heart, if you still have one."

Braced against the stern rail, Greven brought the two ends of his polearm around before him. The mace dug its curved horns into the minotaur's chest. The crab-claw blades sliced across his shoulder.

Tahngarth backed up. The striva came away from Greven, trailing blood.

"I will trade you wound for wound, Tahngarth, and you will die. I am a Phyrexian. You are a half-thing, a nothing. Surrender, and you yet might serve me."

Bloodied but unbowed, Tahngarth snorted. "Serve you? You don't even serve yourself. You are a man with someone else's spine."

Tahngarth attacked again. His striva sang as it sliced the air. It struck the crab-claw blades and bashed them back. In the same motion, it blocked the horned mace.

Tahngarth drove onward. His blade sank into Greven's jaw. It clove skin and muscle to bone, cutting away the lower quarter of his face. "Not so c.o.c.ky now, are you?"

The mace and the claw blades converged on Tahngarth. One would spike his head and the other sever it.

Tahngarth ducked beneath the blow. The weapons crossed above him. The spikes impaled one of Greven's shoulders, and the claw blades chunked into die other. Tahngarth b.u.t.ted die beast with his horns. One point gouged through the torn leather corset.

Gored, Greven vomited blood on the minotaur's back.

Ignoring it, Tahngarth lifted his foe across his horns and hurled him down.

Greven struck the deck with a boom. His armor dug into the planks beneath him. He bled profusely at shoulders, face, and gut.

"I will never serve you, Greven," Tahngarth said, pointing his striva at the creature. "It is you who must surrender."

Laughing through b.l.o.o.d.y teeth, Greven barked, "Surrender?" Despite his wounds, he struggled to his feet. "You still don't understand. You do not speak to Greven. You speak to Crovax. You could never best me, Tahngarth, not when we were shipmates and certainly not now. No, you will serve." Greven launched himself at Tahngarth.

It was a suicidal attack. Whether Crovax tossed a useless weapon at his foe or Greven took the final moment of control from his master, Tahngarth would never know.

The striva fell. It clove Greven's head down the middle. The blade did not even cease until it struck Greven's mimetic spine. The captain of Predator fell, his split face striking the stern castle of Weatherlight.

Panting, bloodied, still full of battle fury, Tahngarth stared down at the riven form. He had his revenge on the man who had so tormented him.

Obscene sucking sounds came from Greven. Something moved within the split brain case. It nosed forward from the cleft. Its head was a collection of bulbous nodules. Its body was a long centipede of armored cords. Metallic cilia undulated along its length, dragging it forward.

Tahngarth took a step back. "Spinal centipede."

Lifting its pointed tail, the thing bounded toward him.

With one smooth stroke of his striva, Tahngarth bisected the mimetic spine down its middle. Sparking from severed conduits, the two halves fell away from each other. They landed on the planks, snapping and convulsing beside the corpse of Greven. Tahngarth chopped them up as if they were snakes.

Even when Greven was dead, Crovax still lashed out. He still hoped to make Tahngarth his own.

While Tahngarth dispatched the captain of Predator, Gerrard did the same to the crew.

He bashed a battle axe aside, deflecting it to the head of an il-Dal warrior. While the owner of the axe struggled to haul the thing free, Gerrard felled him with a thrust. He climbed over that warrior to the next and the next. He had one goal in mind-Squee.

The goblin lay beneath his gun. He bore a horrid wound down his back, from shoulder to hip. Muscle and bone were laid bare. The fact that it still bled meant Squee still lived. The fact that it bled so profusely meant he would not live much longer.

Gerrard blocked another il-Vec axe and shoved its wielder over the rail. A severed grapple line told that Karn had been along here. Soon he would snap the last lines, and the ship could pull free of Predator. The final few cables whined with tension. As long as they held, more invaders could cross over.

Gerrard's sword made quick work of the il-Vec. Two more toppled, and he reached Squee.

Gerrard knelt beside the goblin and stared in uncertainty at the long gash. How could he bind it? Reaching to his shoulder, he ripped the sleeve from his shift and dragged it off his hand.

"Here, let me," came the voice of Orim. Word of Squee's injury had reached her, and she had fought through the gauntlet. "Cleaner this way," she said, pressing her hands to the wound. Silvery magic glowed beneath her fingers.

"Thanks!" Gerrard said heavily. He stood in time to stab another il-Vec who had clambered over the stern. He fell sloppily beside them, almost landing on Orim.

"See if you can't keep the air clear," she suggested.

"Oh, I'll clear the air!" Gerrard growled, gripping the fire controls of Squee's ray cannon. A few pumps of the foot treadle, and the gun hummed with life. "How about some of this?"

The cannon blazed. Crimson destruction belched from its muzzle. Rays ignited the foundering Predator. Sections of the vessel exploded. Crew disappeared in the blasts or tumbled in flames toward the volcano's crater. A second barrage ripped the lower forecastle clean away from Predator. With it went the grapple mounts. Weatherlight ground free of the disintegrating ship.

Gerrard smiled viciously, leaning toward Orim. "See? We were doing it the hard way. Don't snap the grapples. Destroy the ship."

Sisay retreated to the helm, and Karn to the engine room. The last of the il-Vec had been dispatched. They covered the stem castle. Crew members busily dumped bodies over the rail.

Tahngarth loomed up suddenly beside Gerrard. He held overhead a ma.s.sive corpse-the horn-studded figure of Greven il-Vec. With a look of triumph, he hurled the body overboard. It arced from Weatherlight's stern to the gunwales of Predator.

"Fitting," Gerrard shouted, "that the captain go down with his ship."

"That's a calling card," Tahngarth said, his voice deeply brooding. He watched the fiery vessel plunge away. It spiraled in air, trailing a cyclone of smoke above it. Predator plummeted toward the deep pit at the volcano's center. "A calling card for Crovax."

Gerrard nodded solemnly, watching the ship fall. It seemed a blazing comet as it entered the pit. A ring of fire descended around it and lit the walls. Weatherlight would follow down that dark pa.s.sage soon enough.

Breathing deeply, Gerrard released the fire controls of Squee's cannon and peered at the fallen gunner.

"How's he doing?"

Orim's eyes were weary as she looked up. She stroked coin-coifed hair from her face. "That wound would have killed me or you, but somehow, he's survived."

A m.u.f.fled voice volunteered, "You need Squee to fight Crovax."

Gerrard laughed. "You used to think everybody wanted you dead, Squee. Now it seems everybody wants you alive."

"Everybody's got smart all of a sudden," Squee groaned. He stood up, stretching his back. "Whatcha do, Orim, give Squee a Greven spine? You probly want Squee as servant! Everybody want Squee as servant!"

Orim smiled. "He'll be just fine." She spotted two more crew members in need of healing. "Tahngarth, give me a hand getting those two down to sickbay."

Nodding, the minotaur followed her.

Gerrard watched his two friends carry the wounded away. His reverie was broken by the sound of goblin feet tapping the planks. He looked down to see Squee, arms crossed, staring at him accusingly. Gerrard spread his hands in question.

The goblin scowled. "Maybe commander think he keep gun. Maybe he think he not give Squee back Squee's gun."

"No, no, no," Gerrard replied, backing away from the cannon. "I was just standing here."

Squee advanced a step. "Maybe he think Squee not well enough to shoot. Maybe he afraid more bad guys sneak up his b.u.t.t."

"Look! Look! They're all gone. There's n.o.body here. I was just standing near the gun. It's yours. Fine. Take it back. I don't need it."

"Yes, you do," came a voice out of nowhere. "Greven left one soldier behind."

Invisible arms clamped tightly around Gerrard, and then turned visible-Phyrexian arms. Their grip was implacable.

They pinned his weapon in place. Gerrard thrashed his head to see who had grabbed him, but he could not even turn.

Squee lunged toward them. "Ertai!"

With a thought, the wizard who had once served on Weatherlight disappeared from the stern castle, taking Gerrard and Squee with him.

Chapter 28.

The True Warriors of Keld.

Never before had the armies of Keld retreated. When overmatched, Keldon warlords descended bravely into death, grinding away at their foes all the while. Any adversary who would dominate the Keldons would pay for victory in blood, oceans of it. Superior forces often surrendered to Keld for this very reason. The wisest enemies avoided war altogether, knowing they would face an all-out and endless battle. This adversary was no rival nation. Who can battle a glacier? Who can war with a volcano? Who can stand against the coming of Twilight, the night of wrath?

The Keldons had stood as long as they could. Here was the culmination of history. Millennia of battles since the descent from Parma had led to this moment, this blasphemous moment. Twilight had come. The honored dead of Keld had returned to life. They had emerged from the Necropolis only to join armies of Phyrexians. Dead Keldons had slaughtered live ones. Keldon history had bowed in service to a foreign G.o.d. Still, living Keldons had battled bravely on.

Then the very world turned on them.

Beneath the army's feet, ice turned to water. Around their shoulders, water turned to steam. The Keldons in their hundreds of thousands descended through ice and fire into the heart of the world.

Only a single scant legion escaped. They had been farthest out from the fighting-young camp runners and old warriors cursed to survive their battle careers. All of them fled. There was no honor in this retreat, but there was less honor in letting the flood claim them. Keld needed warriors, even if they be only whelps and curs.

Across disintegrating ice, the army retreated. Their colos leaped over widening creva.s.ses. Infantry splashed through new warm streams. Warriors struggled to navigate the calving ice cliffs. They rushed toward the black basalt mountain on one side of the terminal glacier. Even when they reached that rock-solid ground, it too shuddered under them. It was as if the fire G.o.ds below pounded the over world with ma.s.sive hammers.

Now the survivors of the Battle of Twilight camped on a chill ridge of black stone. It was a defensible spot-no Keldon would camp anywhere else-though no Phyrexian foe remained. Alt had died in the world conflagration. The only foe was the flood itself.

At first, the towering terminus had sprouted countless jets across its surface. Water that had fought through twisted pa.s.sages shot in straight lines from the glacier. Pressurized streams widened and joined. Centuries of centuries of water burst out into a gray river. Enormous hunks of ice bounded free. They bobbed through deeper stretches and rolled among rapids. The serpent of Twilight muscled its way toward the sea.