Arching his brow, Gerrard said, "Another army? Who? Where?"
"The Atrivak Mounds-Benalish Penal Colony."
"Military prisoners?"
"An easy thousand. Powerful warriors, but incorrigible."
Gerrard gave a dry laugh and shook his head. "Heroes after my own stripe."
Chapter 9
Barrin soared through the skies over coastal Zhalfir. The day was sultry. Clouds stood in steamy stacks all around. Lurking among them were three more portals, newly opened. Soon drifting black racks of Phyrexian armor would appear. Then there would be death in Zhalfir as there was in Benalia.
Barrin's Metathran fleet had been crushed in Benalia. Only a small squad of hoppers had survived. The rest had sacrificed themselves downing cruisers and debilitating plague ships. The Serrans had fared better, though one in two angels had been killed. At last, Barrin and his troops had fought near enough to the portal that he could send his healing magic into the wound in the sky. He sealed it and ended the air battle but was utterly spent in the effort.
He and his last fighters had withdrawn to the next aerial rendezvous. The Serrans soared to their aeries to regroup.
For Barrin, there was an all-too-brief night of study and sleep before the next battle opened above distant Zhalfir- another powerful source of white mana. He teleported to a western point that he knew well. The battle of Zhalfir would unfold just as the battle of Benalia had-too few defenders flinging themselves in suicidal fury against too many attackers. Such had always been the model for Urza's battles. For Urza, survivability was not as important as victory.
One of these days, Urza will orchestrate a battle that even I cannot survive, Barrin thought grimly.
Topping a long slope of saw grass, Barrin glimpsed the battle on the fields beyond. A portal gaped wide in the sky. It was black and ragged among the clouds, as though some jealous god had gripped the heavens and ripped a hole in them. From that black tear emerged cruisers, plague ships, dragon engines, and a new class of sleek-bowed vessels- dagger-boats. Fighters filled the air like wasps, buzzing beside the droning hulls of larger ships.
"Urza and I against an armada," Barrin said, clucking.
He had spoken too soon. Someone had brought defenders to the field-amazing, powerful, glorious defenders. Figures played on the wide plains amid shrubs and fruit trees. In their draping white robes, they seemed children, hands and heads upraised as though guiding kites through the skies. In fact, they were archmages. Above them moved gossamer, streaming sorceries. Mistmoon griffins and giant eagles, angel warriors and armored pegasi-these were summoned creatures, ideals made material. Alabaster dragons and duskrider falcons, winged paladins and flying unicorns-they were guided in their battles from below.
White talons tore dagger-boats to shreds. Angelic swords clove ray cannons from their embrasures. Griffin beaks plucked ballista bolts from the sky and rammed them back into the swarming ships. Even unicorn horns were put to their original use, the merciless goring of the despoiled. Phyrexians died in their thousands. So, too, did these summoned creatures, but they were not true beings.
They were ideas given flesh and blood for a time, granted the will to fight, and ideas never died.
Barrin smiled. This was the battle of a fairer mind than Urza's. White ideals clashed against black realities and steadily won. On a ridge overlooking the savanna stood Urza and that fairer mind-Teferi.
It was a strange tableau. Teferi stood to the fore, gazing out at his sorcerous army. In his manifold blue robes, the black-skinned man seemed taller than Urza- bolder, more powerful. One of Teferi's feet was poised on a stone. He leaned avidly toward the battle and spoke in rapid, exited tones. Urza meanwhile stood behind. He never stood behind. His feet were planted like fence posts. His hands hung empty and idle at his sides.
Barrin allowed himself a laugh at his old friend's expense. Urza was never so miserable as when someone else was in control.
Spreading his war cloak like the wings of a settling hawk, Barrin swooped down to light on the arid hilltop. The rustling robes drew the eyes of the two men upward. Urza's gaze was both nettled and pleading. Teferi's was triumphant.
The tall, ebony-skinned man smiled broadly and extended his hand to shake Barrin's. "Ah-a pleasure to see you again, and so soon-"
"A pleasure!" hissed Urza in exasperation.
"Welcome, Master Barrin, to Zhalfir."
Barrin studied the extended hand with feigned caution before grasping it. "No shocking grasp? It's almost a letdown, Teferi. Still, it's nice to know you haven't reverted to your old tricks."
Teferi shook his head vigorously. "Only new tricks, Master Barrin. Plenty of new ones."
"He won't let us help," Urza blurted in place of a greeting.
"Won't let…" Barrin echoed incredulously. He searched Urza's queer eyes, looking for signs of humor. It was a futile search.
Teferi's eyes brimmed with joy. "It's not that I won't let you both help-just not Master Urza alone. No offense. If Tolaria taught me anything, it taught me that Urza is a danger to himself and everyone else unless he's working with his lab partner."
"Which would be me," Barrin said through tight lips. The two masters of Tolaria traded rueful looks. Teferi had always been a bright, good-hearted troublemaker-just what Barrin and Urza needed. "Well, I'm here, now. How can we help?"
Teferi took a glad breath, stroking his chin and looking out at his proud forces. "That's a good question. The Mage Corps of Zhalfir seem to have things well in hand."
"Impressive," Barrin said. "I have never seen spells used this way before."
"Phoenix flocks," Teferi said. "An innovation of mine. It keeps the battle in the air, keeps the casualties to Phyrexians. Our warriors are all creatures of fancy-ideas battling monsters. That is very appealing to me."
Barrin watched tracers of white-mana magic rise, slim and graceful, from a mage on the dusty field. The power spread outward, blossoming into a great spectral eagle the size of a mammoth. Its wings swept out. They could cover whole companies. With a shrieking cry that raked the heavens, the enormous raptor crashed into a Phyrexian cruiser. Pinions of pure energy enveloped the ship. The bird's figure disintegrated. Lines of magic limned every hackled spine and barbed strut of the ship. The lines solidified into unbreakable cords of power. They constricted inward. The shimmering white force cut beneath armor plates. It sliced bulwarks and causeways. Sparks showered from the cut marks.
"Why don't they simply land, crushing your forces?" Barrin asked.
"Watch," Teferi replied quietly.
The cruiser that had been overwhelmed by the spectral eagle began to disintegrate. Sections of the ship cut loose and tumbled away. Strangely, though, the pieces did not plummet toward the savanna. Instead, they rose, tumbling into the air. Some of the hunks impacted Phyrexian ships above. Sharp wedges lodged in the bellies of the craft. No, not the bellies. Only then did Barrin realize that all the Phyrexian ships floated upside down in the sky.
"It's a simple but powerful enchantment, reversing the pull of Dominaria," Teferi said. "It's a time-field effect, like those I learned on Tolaria. In backward time, the world repels rather than attracts objects. Meteors leap into the sky, feet are propelled away from the ground, and instead of stumbling, drunkards vault upright. I've extracted that single vector of movement and enacted it in a broad space above the plain. My sorcerers can stand on the ground, but a hundred yards above their heads, gravity reverses itself. Those ships are laboring toward the ground just as they would labor into the air. If any of them actually neared the envelope of the reversion field, they would plunge to their destruction."
Above the massed fleet of Phyrexian ships ascended the wrecks of hundreds of other vessels. They rose into empyrean spaces. Many had been dismantled by Teferi's phoenix flocks. Others had met more mundane ends.