… He and Vuel used to pour lamp oil down an anthill and light it on fire…
The third shot struck ground just in front of a cannon embrasure. It pulverized the ground. The cannon drooped forward, unleashing its venom into the backs of its own creatures.
… Wasps emitted an acrid wisp of smoke just before the magnifying glass made their abdomens crack…
Agnate would be able to drive forward over this swath. Weatherlight and the rest of the armada had paved a road in bodies. Sure, plenty of Phyrexian cannons and bombards remained, but Sisay and her other gunners could take them out on subsequent passes. Gerrard unstrapped himself. He had another task ahead.
… It had taken all day and two gallons of lamp oil to dig up the anthill, but when they found the queen, all the bites were worth it. They cut open her abdomen and pulled out the white eggs and crushed them and watched all the workers try to carry them away. They laughed with that last fire, the queen dragging herself through it all, picking at the dead eggs while her torn-open abdomen curled up and crisped…
Tsabo Tavoc. She had done this. She had brought these bugs, these maggots here. She had brought rot and plague. Gerrard would find her and cut her open as she had cut open Hanna. He would drag out her eggs and crush them and kill her slowly, just the way Vuel had shown him.
A hulking presence loomed up behind him. Tahngarth. The sky raced past. The minotaur's eyes were grave. Gerrard saw his reflection, small and hunched, in those eyes.
Tahngarth said, "The strike team is ready."
Gerrard nodded, pulling himself from the gunner traces. Another gunner, waiting nervously beside the minotaur, slid himself into the spot and resumed fire. Gerrard stared blankly at him.
"We're coming up on the drop site," Tahngarth urged. "You need to pull on your hauberk and arm yourself." Tahngarth pounded the hilt of his sword against the Hurloon battle armor he wore.
Nodding numbly, Gerrard lifted a breast-and-backplate and slid them on.
"Are you sure you're up to this? Hanna's death-"
Gerrard's eyes flared. "Yes. That's it, isn't it? Hanna's death. Yes. That's it."
Turning, he stalked to the prow. He shoved his way through the Benalish strike team. Gerrard peered over the ship's rail, seeing that Sisay edged Weatherlight up just above the caves. Phyrexian cannons struggled to turn about and fire on the hovering ship. Just as rapidly, Weatherlight's own guns took out their entrenchments.
From the prow speaking tube, Sisay's voice shrilled, "Can't hold her here for long."
Without answering, Gerrard flipped the capstan lock. As chain rattled out, Gerrard vaulted over the rail. He landed with his feet on the arms of the anchor and rode its plunging weight downward. The prison brigade gave a cheer to see their leader's bold advance. They too flung themselves overboard, gripping the chain. It dropped before the yawning mouth of the Caves of Koilos.
Out of that debouchment lumbered a huge figure-a Phyrexian digger.
The anchor crashed down atop it. The vast head of the monster staved beneath the anchor's crown. The beast collapsed, and Gerrard rode it to ground. He leaped free of anchor and digger both, cleaving the head of the beast's handler. Turning, he hacked through a Phyrexian foot soldier that rushed him. Tahngarth landed beside him, bringing his sword to bear. The two friends pushed back the monsters, widening the circle.
One by one, Gerrard's small army landed. Two hundred Benalish fighters dropped down atop the dead hulk. Gerrard led them. He and his comrades moved out, killing as they went. They were like a plague, spreading from a single point out to infect an entire organism.
Gerrard liked the image. He liked killing these monsters. Vuel would have liked this too. Poor Vuel. Poor Hanna. Gerrard had lost too much. He'd lost everything.
Somehow Tahngarth did not seem to be enjoying himself. He fought sure, and slew, but there seemed no gladness in it.
Gerrard shrugged off the thought. He caught a monster's claws on his sword, chopped them off, and pierced the beast's skull. He advanced into the caves.
Tahngarth will have fun when we find Tsabo Tavoc and slice her open and crush her babies.
He was exquisite. Such an angry killer.
Deaths cascaded like pure water through Tsabo Tavoc's mind. They refreshed her, invigorated her. They made her teeth itch.
This one will be easy to capture, Tsabo Tavoc told herself. Reckless, angry, blind. He will be easy to catch and fun to dissect. He is, after all, Urza's bioengineered savior. If Thaddeus is a work of art, this Gerrard is a masterpiece.
Tsabo Tavoc scuttled from her deep cave, up to capture her prey.
Chapter 33
Weatherlight soared past overhead. She bled fire down onto the Phyrexians. Her cannons glowed. Prow, amidships, stern, and keel, destruction bloomed from her.
Fire raked over a Phyrexian contingent. The flesh beneath chitin flashed away in gray smoke. Scales and bones stood upright a moment longer as bodies fled in sooty ghosts on the wind. Hundreds of monsters fell. Their superheated shells crumbled to white powder. Weatherlight unleashed another firestorm, cratering the battlefield. Glass splashed out to wrap Phyrexians in searing blankets. Halfmelted stones pelted the menagerie. Flesh was scoured from bodies. Other cannon blasts laved acres of sand in flame. Phyrexians marched as far through the holocaust as they could. At last, their cores reached the combustion threshold. They exploded. One blaze ignited a second and third. Where once had marched a whole regiment now lay a highway inward, paved with soot.
Agnate charged onto that highway. He clutched a battle axe in both hands. The vast blade fell with angry vengeance. It clove into the segmented mouth of a Phyrexian footman. The blade bit to the throat, splitting jaw and pallet.
The beast fought on. Its claws rammed beneath Agnate's breastplate, punching holes in his side. Fingers clenched. Organs severed and bled.
Letting go his battle axe, Agnate gripped the impaling claws with one hand and the beast's elbow with the other. Twisting quickly, he rammed the elbow, breaking the joint. It popped loudly, and bone and gristle separated. One more yank, and the arm came off, streaming oil-blood.
Undeterred, the Phyrexian lunged with its good arm.
Agnate drew the dead arm from his side and thrust its gory claws up before him. The Phyrexian grabbed its severed arm, giving Agnate the chance to yank his battle axe free. He swung it in a broad circle and lopped the thing's head off.
The body jigged a moment more, uncertain it was dead, before flopping to ground.
Agnate trod over it. His axe haft felt strange in his hand. It was not just glistening-oil and Phyrexian white matter. Something else was wrong. His fingers felt numb, jangled. His arms were sluggish.
He had been only fighting-not fighting toward something. This Eladamri was his match, was worthy to lead the Metathran, but he was not Thaddeus. Agnate could fight beside this savior of elves but not toward him.
O Thaddeus, in dying, you killed me, thought Agnate bleakly as his axe split the breast of a bloodstock. If you only lived, I could fight.
I do live… Agnate…… I live…
The thought was weak on the wind, but it was there. It entered Agnate like a freshening breeze, breathing life into him.
He lives. I can yet fight. He lives.
Agnate lifted high his axe. It streamed the life of Phyrexians, anointing Agnate and his troops with oil.
"To the caves!" he shouted, as Thaddeus had in the first assault on Koilos. "To the caves!"
That axe fell, harvesting more glistening-oil.
Agnate fought with fury. There was nothing to lose now. Either he would fight to Thaddeus's side, or he would die trying.