Nearby, Fewsteem and Dabis fought two more guards. Unmade by unison strokes, the soldiers fell. One of them landed atop the keys to Hanna's shackles. "Get the keys!" she shouted. Tahngarth finished a final guard and went to fetch them.
He returned and knelt beside Hanna, fitting metal into the lock.
"You arrived just in time," she said.
"How's the ship?" he asked as he worked.
"Fixed. Perfected. More powerful than ever," she replied. "It's complete at last, Tahngarth. Get these chains off me, and the ones off Karn-he's below-and we'll get this ship into the air. We'll fly out of here."
No sooner had she said these words than the shackles clicked. Chains tumbled to the planks. "It won't be so easy. The flight path is blocked."
Rising, Hanna stared out bleakly beyond the rail. The entry to the cavern was completely sealed by a landslide. Her gaze lingered only a moment on that impediment, though. "It's worse than that." She pointed.
Below, in the midst of smoldering ships, stood Volrath and his company. Forty-some soldiers surrounded two figures-Sisay and Gerrard.
Chapter 23
Volrath. Twin mantles of gray skin and bulbous bone arched back from white-gleaming eyes. Black barbs jutted from a thin sagittal crest, and gray armor clung like a second skin to muscles of twisted wire.
The evincar's form was all too familiar to Gerrard-and not just because of the battles and dungeons of Rath. Even after leaving that place, Gerrard had seen Volrath's wicked grin, had felt his predatory gaze parse his soul.
"Takara," Gerrard hissed in amazed realization. He held his sword out before him, keeping the ring of Mercadian soldiers and Phyrexian dock workers at bay.
At his back, Sisay whispered. "Takara? She's here, with Volrath?"
"She is Volrath," Gerrard replied grimly. His mind fled back over all his conversations with the red-haired Rathi- the confidences shared, the guilt unearthed, the talk of hatred giving spine to a hero. It had been Volrath all along.
Gerrard growled at the evincar, "So that's where you've been hiding-in someone else's skin-afraid to face me. You truly are a coward, Vuel."
An edge of anger entered the man's supercilious eyes, but lingered only a moment before dissipating. "I was not hiding, Brother. I was ripping your spine out from the inside and taking your Legacy from the outside. I did not take the form of Takara because I feared you but because I hated you, and I wanted you to hate yourself. On Rath, I've made a career of ripping out heroes' spines and replacing them with mimetic hatred. That's what I was doing to you. I am no coward-more a counselor, more a friend pointing out your great and chronic failings, and empowering you to overcome them. It would seem you are incorrigible. It would seem you are determined to fail."
"You are the one who has failed. Your fleet is destroyed. Your Phyrexian monsters are burning among the ships. Your rule beneath this mountain has ended."
Volrath laughed. Pacing back and forth within his circle of soldiers, he actually laughed. "You and Sisay are surrounded and outnumbered twenty to one, your lover Hanna is executed, your guardian Karn is shackled and held captive, your perfected ship is mine." The evincar spun on his heels, looking directly at Gerrard. "You dare pretend I have failed. What is this measly fleet in flames? It was a cheap price to pay for so diverting a masquerade, for this pleasant dance in which I have systematically stripped away everything you loved until you stood naked and helpless-until I killed you." Volrath drew his own sword. "This moment was inevitable from the time you stole my birthright, Brother. Your death was inevitable."
"All death is inevitable," Gerrard said, lunging forward and swinging his sword.
Volrath easily batted the blade back. Smiling, he dipped his head. His troops surged up behind Gerrard, swarming Sisay. Three Mercadians and one Phyrexian lost their lives before her sword was wrenched away and she was wrestled to the floor.
Gerrard turned, seeing Sisay lying prone, arms and legs held down and a trident jabbing her neck. He growled, stalking toward the Mercadians. Something sharp and heavy struck his shoulder, spinning him around.
"You deal with me, first," Volrath said, raking a bloodied blade from the wound he had just inflicted. "They'll not kill her until I kill you. I want her to see this." He attacked in a humming overhead stroke that crashed down janglingly on Gerrard's sword. Steel skittered on steel, throwing sparks.
With a roar, Gerrard caught the evincar's blade on his hilt and flung it back. "Mercadia is no longer yours. It never will be again. I've denied you this world."
Volrath chuckled. The sound resembled the soft mirth of the boy Vuel when he had roamed the Jamuraan landscape in search of adventure. There was nothing left of Vuel now- nothing boyish except remorseless cruelty. "Mercadians! They can play their little games, or they can perish. It doesn't matter to me what they do." He circled slowly to the left.
Gerrard matched his maneuver. "I've denied you this world, and I'll deny you Dominaria."
Volrath halted, threw back his head, and yelled aloud. Not a yell of anger, but a shout of scathing laughter. "You idiot! You cannot deny me anything. And even if you could, you cannot deny my master."
"Who is your master?" Gerrard felt his heart hammering against his chest.
"The Ineffable, the Lord of Phyrexia and God of the
Multiverse. He has spent millennia plotting the invasion of Dominaria. It is his homeland. It is his holy land. He came from Dominaria, you know, with his people, the Thran. With his people, the Phyrexians, he will return. Do you think for a minute you're going to stop him? Do you think this fleet that you're so proud of having wrecked was the whole of his force? What you saw beneath this mountain is the tiniest part, the merest forefinger of the hand of Phyrexia. That hand is stretching out for your world, and there's not a thing you can do to stop it." Volrath's sword vaulted through the air.
Gerrard barely parried the blow. The Benalian returned it with one of his own, and the clash of steel rang through the hangar as the two blades battered each other. The brothers circled. Volrath lunged wildly. Gerrard stepped back and dashed the sword aside.
As steel skirled again, some long dormant part of Gerrard's mind remembered an identical duel. He and Vuel, mere boys, fought in the bright Jamuraan sun. Beside them stood Vuel's father, the Sidar Kondo. "Remember, boys, no swordsman is invulnerable. Every strength casts a shadow of weakness. Strike there. Gerrard, you're an aggressive fighter with an instinct to attack. Your defenses are weak, cast in shadow. Vuel, you favor your left side. Your blows are powerful and deadly when they fall on the left. Your right is cast in shadow-less guarded and more open to attack."
As Volrath stabbed toward his left, Gerrard consciously gave way. Again, Volrath bore in. Gerrard fell back. Twice, Volrath's attacks sank home. Gerrard felt blood stream down his left arm. His brother smiled hungrily to see the blood, and lunged more recklessly to the left, leaving his right side open.
Careful, Gerrard told himself. He beat back a blow and measured the distance between them. You'll get only one chance. If you strike and fail, he'll realize what you are doing, and you'll perhaps be dead.
Gerrard lowered his guard and feinted.
Volrath's blade swung back, aiming squarely for his exposed left side.
Quick as thought, Gerrard struck at the right. His steel lanced through the breastplate, punched past metal and muscle and bone, and plunged into pink lung.