"Only these Metathran have ascended. They are nearer to Phyrexians than any other creature. They are in some senses lost cousins of ours. Urza has made them so." Tsabo Tavoc lifted her gaze from the gory thigh muscle. She raised the scalpel thoughtfully and set the red tip on her own cheek. "One wonders, had we not launched this invasion, how long it would have taken Urza to make all Dominarians into Phyrexians."
Absently setting the knife on the table, Tsabo Tavoc strolled to the middle of the floor. Her eyes gleamed philosophically in the lantern light. "Here is the great irony." She flung one bloody hand out toward Thaddeus. "This pinnacle of glory was created not for its own sake. The Metathran were created to defend humanity- squalid, imperfect, imperfectible larva." She gestured toward the woman lying beside her. "Urza has engineered a warrior that can be spiked at wrists and shoulders, ankles and hips, can be cut open without anesthesia, can withstand a multiply broken back and still fight. The whole reason this creature exists, though, is to defend beings too weak to escape simple rope bonds, creatures that must be heavily drugged to bear the rigors of vivisection. The cream of humanity came into being to defend its dregs."
Tsabo Tavoc could not have anticipated what happened next. Even in her compound eyes, she did not see it.
The flayed woman had found the scalpel Tsabo Tavoc had left. She had used it to cut the bonds on her arms. She lurched up from the examination table. With a swift motion, she cut those around her legs. Roaring, she lunged off the table, scalpel raised to stab.
It was a futile gesture. She could not have wounded let alone slain Tsabo Tavoc. She could hardly have stood with one leg sliced open. It didn't matter. The woman held a fury that could not be denied.
A vat priest caught her before she could reach Tsabo Tavoc.
Shrieking, she rammed her scalpel into the vat-priest's skull. It was her final act. Her abdomen disgorged itself on the priest's clawed feet. He collapsed. Together, the compleated Phyrexian and the incompleated woman fell, dead, to the floor.
Silence settled. Tsabo Tavoc stared down with mild interest at the bodies. The spiracles along her sides breathed slowly as she drew in the aroma of death. "As primitive and inefficient as these humans are, they fight all out of reason. It matters little. They die either way."
Thaddeus thrashed against his spikes, unable to escape.
Tsabo Tavoc once again turned her attentions on him.
Gerrard gently lay Hanna in her sick bay berth. She was no better for her sojourn in the darkness. Gerrard was much worse. Hope had fled from him. If Orim could not save Hanna, if Eladamri and Multani could not, she would not be saved.
"How will I fight unless you are with me?" he whispered, kissing her lightly. Her lips were as dry as paper. "What will I fight for?"
Hanna was more than his beloved. She was his heart, his courage. He fought for her. Before she entered his life, Gerrard had been a bitter young man. If he lost her now, what was he? There would be nothing left but fury. There would be no difference between Gerrard and the Phyrexians.
"Oh how I will slay them," Gerrard said bitterly as he clutched Hanna's skeletal hand. "I will be my own plague. I will rot them away. I've had enough of portal wars and serums. I want a fight, a real fight. I want teeth against knuckles and broken noses and knives in the eyes."
"I have a fight for you," came an elderly voice at the sick bay door. The blind seer hobbled slowly into the chamber. "Not I, but Dominaria. You have lost Benalia, and saved Llanowar. Now there is Koilos."
"Koilos? A hole in the desert," Gerrard hissed.
The old man shrugged. "More than that. At Koilos the Phyrexians were first driven from the world. At Koilos they first returned in the time of Urza. Now, it is their only land portal. If that hole in the desert is lost, all is lost."
Gerrard shook his head bleakly, gazing at Hanna. "All is lost."
"Grief can wait," the old man replied. "Koilos cannot. The Metathran have been beaten back. One of their commanders is captured and near death. They need you and your ship. They need the Benalish air fleet, the prison brigade, elf shock troops, and their leader Eladamri."
"Eladamri?" Gerrard blurted. "He has a nation to rebuild. He won't go."
The blind seer sighed. He eased himself to sit on a bunk. "He will go. Saviors are not builders. The heir to Staprion wishes that he go. No, Eladamri's work is done here but not so at Koilos. He and his elite warriors will go. Multani, too, will go.
"Multani!"
"He was present for the birth of this living ship. He provided her hull from the Heart of Yavimaya. He goes with us, in the very wood of Weatherlight. He will heal her every wound. In some senses, this is his ship." The old sage lifted an eyebrow. "In some senses, you are his as well. Multani trained you. He wants to see how his old student does. You cannot blame your masters for taking an interest in your doings."
"My doings?" Gerrard echoed.
"Yes. Your doings. Koilos is your fight, Gerrard."
Gerrard stared down at the dying form of his beloved. "Of course. It's a fight Hanna would approve." His mouth flattened into a bitter line. "And, besides, at Koilos there are plenty of Phyrexians to kill."
Chapter 29
Weatherlight topped a ridge of sand above the plains of Koilos and soared down the far slope. Gerrard's gunnery harness held him in place as the deck dropped out beneath him. "There are the buggers," he growled. Ahead and for miles to the horizon camped Phyrexian troops.
"Attack formation!" Gerrard shouted into the speaking tube. "Signal the fleet. Strafe the troops. Ray cannons, plasma jets, goblin bombs. Kill 'em with whatever you've got. Let's let them know Benalia's revenge has arrived."
A cheer rose from the prison brigade. They crowded the decks, elven bows clutched in their eager hands. Among them were Steal Leaf troops. Their leader, Eladamri, stood at the prow. He lifted high his longbow, nocked a flaming arrow, and sent the shaft streaking away. It raced ahead of Weatherlight and sank among the Phyrexian troops. The shaft cracked through black scale. It punched into oilblood. The creature ignited, blazing blue. Elves and prisoners whooped excitedly.
"Fire!" Gerrard shouted. "Fire!"
All along the decks, elves and men drew arrows from pots of burning pitch. They set notch to string and loosed. From Weather-light, rings of fire spread. Where those flaming waves touched ground, Phyrexians blazed and flared and exploded.
Gerrard unleashed his own fire. Red-hot bursts of energy leaped from the barrel of his ray cannon. They stabbed faster than arrows. The bolts ripped through monsters and their sleeping sties, tore apart trench worms, blasted through pens of live food. From Tahngarth's gun, another bolt roared. It cut a parallel trough to Gerrard's attack. Each line of energy felled hundreds of Phyrexians, but there were hundreds of thousands.
Benalish assault ships dropped down to Weatherlight's beam. They loosed their own arsenals, not as flashy, but in their own way deadly enough. From the stem hatches of round-bellied bombers, gray goblin bombs rolled. They dropped in twisted lines. Smoke barked up where they struck. Chunks of scale and bone tumbled through the mounded smoke. Hoppers jagged like serpents' teeth above the armies. Their quarrels pelted down in a deadly hail.
Gerrard loosed another volley of ray cannon fire. He gazed appreciatively at the broad line of destruction that his armada cut through the Phyrexian hordes.
"They've got no airships. It's like shooting fish in a barrel!"