"Hang on!"
Weatherlight sloughed suddenly sideways, air spilling across the deck. The Phyrexian ship came into view, just fore of Weatherlight's port wing.
Beneath a breaking wrack of cloud, the ship seemed a soaring dragon skull. Its bridge was a sloping brainpan, its pilot a sinus bone between gaping eye sockets. From jutting tusks along what would have been the jaw of the thing, twin bolts of power emerged. They raked across the main deck of Weatherlight, vaporizing a section of rail.
Gerrard squeezed off a pair of blasts. The shots bounded past Weatherlight's wing and cracked through the hull of the Phyrexian ship. Black smoke belched out, and debris fell, but the ship came on, heedless. It hurtled through the skies, intent on ramming Weatherlight broadside.
"Get us out of here!" Gerrard shouted.
Weatherlight leaped, surging from the space just as the larger ship soared through it. Glancing aft, Gerrard made out the ship's name-Recreant-and glimpsed a very familiar face at the helm.
"He's alive? Volrath's alive?"
Bolts lashed out from Recreant toward Weatherlight's unprotected stern.
Almost unprotected. The stern ray cannon surged with sudden life. A certain green fellow flung ravening rounds aft. With the percussion of great hammers, blasts struck the Phyrexian beams. Energy tangled and riled and exploded in midair. A few of the goblin's charges even won through, striking Recreant's center sail and ripping a wide hole in it.
Gerrard let out a whoop. "Nice shooting, Squee!"
Weatherlight surged out away from its attacker.
Recreant's batteries followed where its hull could not. Cannon fire ripped the air all around.
"It's no good!" Gerrard shouted. "They've got multiple guns on every side. As long as they're aft, only Squee can return fire."
Worse, Recreant was damnably agile. It banked violently and quickly closed the space, cannons blazing all the while. "Fast, agile, deadly," Sisay shouted through the tubes. "What now, Commander?"
"Climb!" Gerrard replied. "Make Volrath haul that extra weight into the sky."
No sooner were the words spoken than Weatherlight's prow swooped up toward the raveling clouds. Her stern swung down toward the muddy desert below. Engines surged. Intakes roared. Fire shot in twin columns out the rear of the ship. Squee gave his own whoop, watching the blaze. Weatherlight vaulted into the sky with the eager speed of a heaven-bound soul. Her wings flung clouds away from the lemon sky and the beaming sun.
Recreant followed. It clung tenaciously to its prey, losing little ground despite its vast bulk. At least the furious ascent weakened the blasts from its cannons. Auxiliary power was diverted to the engines. The cannon rays still blistered paint and flash burned fabric, but no longer did they vaporize wood. Doggedly, the Phyrexian ship climbed.
Gerrard gazed back, seeing his brother's mutilated figure, gripping the helm in rage. In ancient days, Mishra had been similarly mutilated, warped into a Phyrexian. Urza destroyed his brother in revulsion. It was strange how history repeated itself. Would this day end like that day? No. Gerrard's anger was gone. He no longer hated his brother. He felt only sadness. He would kill Volrath not in fury but in mercy.
"Divert all power to Squee's gun. Cut engines," Gerrard ordered.
"What?" came the incredulous response through the tube.
"Divert all power to Squee's gun and cut engines."
"We'll fall from the sky. He'll ram us."
"No. We'll ram him."
Reluctantly-"Aye, Commander."
There was sudden silence. The roar of Weatherlight's power plant ceased. Air stilled in the intakes. Even the wind that had raged over the bow grew calm.
Weatherlight hung for an instant in air, a pickax hovering before it falls.
In the hush, only Squee's gun spoke. It unloaded bolts so hot they shot clear through Recreant.
Then Weatherlight fell. Its long, strong stern pierced the bridge, shattering glass and helm. Volrath shrieked and dodged aside before it could slay him. The stern drove deeper into the ship and might have gotten mired but for Squee's cannon fire. Bolts of white-hot energy ripped away wood, metal, crystal-all. Nothing remained to foul Weatherlight's stern.
In moments, the aft of Recreant was completely vaporized and with it a hundred tons of engine. Only the prow of the ship survived. It tumbled away, with Volrath clutching its severed hull.
"Engage engine!" Gerrard shouted. "Full power!"
Gerrard's command was ended by the roar of Weatherlight's power core. The great ship pulled from its listing dive and rose again. Intakes filled with air, and foils hoisted the vessel toward the sun.
"Where to, Commander?" Sisay said happily.
"Take her up higher," Gerrard replied, staring over the rail at the plummeting wreckage that held his brother. "There's another ship approaching the city. Prepare a diving attack!"
Gerrard had done it, again. Gerrard had killed him again. Volrath knew he should die this time. It would be cowardly not to. He was utterly defeated. To live on now would be to live on as a worm. That would be a miserable life.
It would be a life, though-a life Volrath could endure.
Even as the prow of his battleship plunged in smoky ruin, Volrath clawed his way into his personal quarters. All was in disarray, tumbling loose in a deadly hail-but not the portal mechanism. It was fastened to the wall, behind a locked hatch.
Despite the chaos all around, despite the plunging death below and the utter defeat above, Volrath calmly worked the lock and opened the hatch.
Afraid to face me… coward…
They were no longer his brothers' words. Now they were Volrath's own.
He stepped into the portal device. That single simple movement took him out of death, out of Mercadia. He returned, a whipped dog, to his throne on Rath.
Orim had watched the two ships climb into the sun. Gerrard and Volrath… Urza and Mishra… Ramos and Orhop-all were overlaid in her mind as the vessels disappeared in the radiant sun.
The Separi story had told it all-two brothers battling each other, tearing down hunks of the sky to slay each other… But that story had ended in devastation and death. How would this one end?
Cho-Manno pointed to a tiny meteor that streamed smoke as it tumbled down across the eastern sky. It was too small to have been even one of the ships, let alone both. "What is it? Do you suppose your friends-?"
"No," Orim said with a finality she did not feel. She struggled to see some sign of Weatherlight against the beaming sun. "No, it can't be."
All this while Orim had resented the intrusion of Gerrard and the crew in her new life. Now, faced with the possibility they were gone, she was staggered. As much as she loved ChoManno, as much as the Cho-Arrim had changed her life, her life still lay aboard Weatherlight.
"I don't know what that smoking thing is, but it's not them." She watched the spinning wreckage impact on the distant plains and then peered back toward the sun, where the warring gods had disappeared. "It wasn't them."
"What is that?" Cho-Manno wondered, pointing out another form behind them. It was much larger than the smoking wreck, and it approached from the west. "A ship?"
"That's them," Orim said hopefully even before she caught sight of the object. As soon as she saw it-metallic wings of gold shimmering with each vast stroke-she knew the thing was not Weatherlight. "No… that's not them. It must be another
… another Phyrexian ship…"
It was huge, and it grew larger every moment. Its metal frame was undeniable, its power and speed inescapable. Even from this distance, its Phyrexian design shone clear. Where was Weatherlight? What defense could the city have except Weatherlight? Everything the rebels had accomplished today would be undone by that singular ship.