Thaddeus was easily worth ten thousand troops.
He is worth more than that, Agnate mused bitterly. Thaddeus was the other half of his mind. Even distance could not block their shared thoughts-until Tsabo Tavoc. She knew of their bond and targeted it. She tore the point from the compass, leaving only a lead nib to turn, hopelessly alone.
Agnate could not think without Thaddeus. Together, they had planned an assault of a hundred thousand Metathran on a hundred thousand Phyrexians. The Metathran ranks had been halved, and the Phyrexian ranks had doubled. Agnate had positioned paper troops in various arrangements throughout the broad plain. Even with a four-to-one kill ratio, no Metathran would remain to possess the field. It would be suicide to attack now and swifter and surer suicide with every passing hour.
A sound intruded on Agnate's bleak reverie. He had blocked out camp sounds-crackling fires, conversation, strummed lyres- and so the slow-mounting roar startled him alert. Lurching up from his camp stool, Agnate caught his head in the peak of the man-sized tent. With a growl, he ducked and emerged. The flaps slapped angrily together behind him.
Mounting thunder filled the dusty sky. It was unmistakable- the approach of airships. The Phyrexians were bringing sky machines to destroy them.
Agnate shook his head grimly. I couldn't make a damned decision myself, and now they have decided for me.
All around, Agnate's troops stood stunned, staring upward. His indecision had infected even them.
"To arms! To arms!" Agnate bellowed. "Train the guns! Wake! It's time to die."
Soldiers snatched up their swords and pikes. They cranked crossbows. They scrambled to rip covers from cannons and wheel them about. Blocks of powder slid down the barrels of bombards. Powerstone charges mounted within ray cannons. Shouts filled the air. It was a sound that heartened Agnate after days of silent fear and indecision.
"You might not want to fire on these," came a voice abruptly at his side. "These are your reinforcements."
Agnate whirled, sword raking out, and found himself staring at the grim visage of Urza Planeswalker. The man's face was battle weary. His ash-blond hair was disheveled and singed-though only a moment's attention would make it perfect. Urza had not had a moment to spare.
"Master," Agnate said breathlessly, dropping to one knee.
"Call off your gunners!" Urza replied with quiet urgency.
"Gunners, stand down!" Agnate commanded without standing. His call went down the lines. To Urza, he said, "Reinforcements?"
"Coalition forces. Airships, a Benalish army, an elf strike force, and a replacement for Thaddeus," Urza said simply.
"There will never be a replacement for Thaddeus."
"We will see."
Suddenly, the sky was split by a hurtling ship. The vessel clove the air into canyons of white exhaust. The ship was sleek and large, unmistakable to any Metathran's eye. This was Weatherlight-Urza's angel. Her lines were etched into the dream minds of all Urza's children. Her lines meant salvation.
It was a ragged salvation. One airfoil had burned away, and the other was folded like a praying hand. Burns scored her hull. Frightened faces crowded her rail. In the ship's rocketing wake came an even less impressive swarm of vessels. All were small. Some gave out puffs of smoke. Others whined gnatlike.
Weatherlight cut her starboard thrust and spread her remaining airfoil. She slowed and banked, beginning a long circle around the Metathran camp. If she could land without crashing, it would be a miracle. Metathran were raised to believe in miracles from Weatherlight,
Rising to his feet, Agnate watched the wounded war bird and her fledglings circle. "Who is this replacement for Thaddeus?"
"His name is Eladamri. He is a Skyshroud elf from Rath. He is the Seed of Freyalise."
"What is a Freyalise?"
"He is my choice to replace Thaddeus."
"He is not my choice, nor the choice of Thaddeus's troops," Agnate replied quietly. "He is no good until we have chosen him."
"I know."
"And if he fails the test?"
"Then Koilos is lost."
Weatherlight's landing would have been better described as a controlled crash. It was controlled in the sense that Sisay was at the helm, and she was among the best fliers in the multiverse. Also, its engines took orders from a silver golem-undoubtedly the best engineer anywhere. The rest of the crew did all they could- which meant tying themselves to something that would not move and informing their gods they might soon need afterlife accommodations. Aside from these efforts, the landing was simply a crash.
Weatherlight's landing spines sliced into a sand dune. They flung up grit as if it were water. The hull smashed to ground. It groaned under its own weight and bounced briefly aloft again. Sand streamed from a mangled spine. The ship smacked the top of the next dune and knocked the peak off. The keel sawed through packed dust before hanging up on a layer of gravel. Weatherlight pitched forward. She slid down the far side of the dune. Sand shoved her sideways. Flinging a blanket of the stuff, Weatherlight came to rest on the side of a natural bowl in the desert.
Panting in his gunner's rig, Gerrard spat grit from his teeth and said, "That wasn't so bad."
Suddenly, the bare dunes all around teemed with Metathran soldiers. Pikes, swords, and axes gleamed in their hands as they topped the hills. They kept coming- hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Their blue faces were grim, and their boots sent ominous dust clouds up to shadow the great airship.
"All right," Gerrard allowed as he pulled himself out of the tangled traces. "Maybe the bad part is still to come."
In all the surrounding ring of soldiers, there was a single clear avenue. The commander of the Metathran marched there, accompanied by his personal retinue. Garbed in silver battle armor and bearing a naked sword, the commander had a solemnity that bordered on belligerence.
Donning his most winning smile-though just now it was full of sand-Gerrard came to the rail and called out to the commander, "Hail, Friends of Dominaria. I am Gerrard Capashen. I have come to ally my forces with yours."
"I know who you are," shouted the commander curtly. "And I know why you have come. Where is Eladamri?"
"Eladamri?" echoed Gerrard blankly.
"Yes. Eladamri. The Seed of Freyalise. He is to take command of half my army."
Gerrard shook his head in astonishment but managed not to echo the words. "How do you know all this?"
"A god told me."
"I get a lot of that," interrupted the Skyshroud elf from amidships. "I am Eladamri."
"Come," beckoned the Metathran commander. "You must prove yourself to me and to my troops."
"I get a lot of that too," replied Eladamri. "What must I do?”
The commander replied with even steel. "Draw my blood before I draw yours."
It was a duel, like so many others. This had been an age of duels-Urza and Mishra, Xantcha and Gix, Gerrard and Volrath, and now Eladamri and Agnate. It seemed the whole world had come into being between pairs of adversaries squaring off on either side of some table, bringing every weapon, every spell, every ally they had gathered over the years and fighting a duel to the death. Agnate and Eladamri did not fight to the death, of course-but to first blood. There was little difference when both men were weapon masters and both fought with broadswords.