"That was one of ours!" Eladamri shouted above the hoof-beats of his mount. His sword clove a Phyrexian trooper that had won past the line of long ships.
"They're all ours," replied Warlord Astor. His sword struck a scuta and cracked its shield like an eggshell. The colos bounded over the burning dead of Phyrexia. "They've paved our way. The true fight is ahead."
Liin Sivi yanked her toten-vec from the chest of a bloodstock and deftly caught the oily blade. "Let's get up there."
Bending toward the necks of their colos, the three warriors drove onward. Phyrexians loped toward them across the corpse-strewn ice. The three killed all those in reach and let the others go. They would be nothing against the Keldon hordes coming behind. Astor was right about the battle. A dense wave of scale and claw broke just ahead.
The great mountain yaks slew first. Their hooves were hardened and sharpened on ice itself, and they fell with a half-ton of weight atop them. Carapace cracked. Organs oozed. Phyrexians died. Colos bounded on, trampling the beasts beyond.
Their riders did killing work above. Eladamri's sword chopped through a powerful arm that clutched his neck.
He kicked the huge monster back and peeled dead claws from his throat.
The monster lunged. It opened its mouth, intending to take with fangs what it couldn't with claws.
Eladamri gave the thing its arm back. He rammed the grisly end down its throat. It tried to swallow, but Eladamri twisted the limb. Bone caught in the beast's windpipe. Gurgling, it fell.
Another menace approached. Green and huge, the mogg goblin hurled itself onto the colos's back.
Eladamri's sword was too slow. It sliced the goblin shallowly across its belly, but the creature pounded down on him. Scaly fists smashed the elf's armor.
It had been a while since Eladamri had fought one of these natives of Rath, but the smell brought back memories. Eladamri swung his elbow up to crack the goblin's jaw. That gave him enough space to draw a dagger with his off hand. He rammed it into the cut his sword had started.
Cursing, the mogg leaped away from the stinging blow.
At last, Eladamri's sword had room. He slashed. The goblin came to ground in two pieces. It joined two more of its folk, slain by Eladamri's colos.
Beside him, a clutch of Keldons fought a gaunt creature that reared on a serpentine tail. White armor turned Keldon axes. Six long, barbed arms plucked up the fighters. A mouth of shifting plates bit away heads.
Eladamri drove his colos toward the brutal fight.
Something flashed out before him, and he reined in. Liin Sivi's toten-vec whirled toward the beast. Her blade reached where axes could not. The head soared perfectly into the monster's mouth. Metal bit into flesh. The chain went taut. With a roar, Liin Sivi yanked. The weapon came free, dragging mouth parts and membranes with it.
Unable to bite its foes, the Phyrexian began a retreat. It was too late. Keldons climbed it like ants devouring a worm. Their blades at last found chinks in the thing's armor. It fell to chunks beneath them.
Nearby, Astor fought aback his stamping steed. His eyes shone with the battle gleam of true Keldon warriors. A ring of bodies and oil surrounded him. Any creature that ventured into it ended up among the dead. Just now, a Phyrexian trooper charged him. Astor's axe chopped down between shoulder spikes and clove deep into the thing's ribcage. There, the blade jammed. Astor seemed not to notice. He hauled hard on the haft, lifting the trooper from the ground. The wriggling creature struggled to claw him, but he flung it off.
"They're breaking through!" Astor shouted, leveling his axe toward a spot on the distant battlefield.
Eladamri and Liin Sivi turned to see.
A Keldon long ship that had cruised deep into the Phyrexian lines had been captured. The beasts had turned the vessel, harnessing the winds and loading the catapults. With their own dead draping from the prow pikes, Phyrexians sailed the ship back toward the front lines. A monstrous infantry formed up on the ship. Already they reclaimed ice where their own troops had burned away. The vessel beat toward the heart of the Keldon army.
Oil bombs vaulted from its decks. Shrieking through the air, they dropped in a brimstone rain on the allies. A bomb that could kill a single Phyrexian could annihilate a whole elven squad. Even Keldons fell in the holocaustal onslaught. Those who fought on did so with their skin hanging in rags from their shoulders. They folded like paper before the Phyrexian charge.
"That's where the battle is!" shouted Warlord Astor.
He sent his colos bounding out across the ice, toward the skating ship. Astor's axe whirled in fury. He left behind a trail of twitching beasts. Liin Sivi widened that trail with the spinning reach of her toten-vec. Eladamri brought up the rear. He stood in the saddle and peered out across the glaring field.
As that black warship had drawn Phyrexians into a charge, it also drew Keldons into a countercharge. All across the battlefield, mounted warriors converged on the vessel. Eladamri glimpsed, in varied livery, the colors of Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin. They came not only because the ship was breaking through their lines, but also because it was their ship, turned against them.
"Form up!" Warlord Astor called over his shoulder. "We'll go in tight! We'll take it back!"
Tucking her toten-vec, Liin Sivi drove her colos up beside Astor's. Eladamri came up the other side. More mounted warriors joined them, fanning out in a wide wedge.
The colos lowered their curled horns. They smashed into the Phyrexians before them. What monsters were not unmade by the horns were destroyed by blades. The colos cut through the flank of the Phyrexian charge and drove on toward the captured ship.
Astor bore down on the bloody gunwales. He did not slow. The ship loomed up. His mount's hooves bounded twice more before it launched from the ground. The mountain yak soared through the air. Wind ripped at its white fur. The colos cleared the rail. It came down atop an unwary Phyrexian. Hooves hammered the thing to the deck. Astor stood in the saddle and chopped another beast through the middle.
Two more Phyrexians died before the monsters recognized they had been boarded. By then, Liin Sivi's mount was landing and Eladamri's as well. The three warriors drove across the deck, hewing as they went. More yaks pounded onto the ship, bringing more Keldon warriors. The planks ran with glistening-oil. Shattered corpses fell from the rails. In moments, Astor and his warriors had taken back the deck.
"Get below! Cleanse the hold!" Astor shouted to Liin Sivi and Eladamri. They dismounted and went.
Astor meanwhile rode his mount up to the stern castle. He leaped from the saddle. Grabbing the ship's wheel, he turning it hard to windward. The ship lurched upwind, cutting into a bare section of ice.
"Back the main!" he ordered. Below, warriors hauled on the mainsail lines, cleating them off. The face of the sail caught wind and the ship slid backward. Spinning the wheel, Astor brought the long ship about. "Trim the main for a westward run! Load the catapults! Man the bows!"
Even as the sail caught wind again, the catapults were hurling fire back into the heart of the Phyrexian forces.
Eladamri and Liin Sivi returned from the hold. Their eyes glowed.
The elf commander said, "Not a beast remains below."
"Excellent," said Astor through clenched teeth. It wasn't clear whether he smiled or grimaced.
"Yes, excellent," came a new voice. Doyenne Tajamin rode her colos onto the stern castle and dismounted. Despite her words, her face was grim. "We need this ship. We need every ship, every grenade, every oil bomb."
The meaning of her words was plain. The allies were losing. Though Keldons and elves fought with furious valor, the Phyrexians were simply too many. Their lines stretched back across the glacier to the distant peaks. They flung themselves into the front with no regard for survival. Keldons could stand against almost every kind of warrior, but not this kind-not warriors without honor, without end.