In a voice of command, Doyenne Tajamin shouted, "Set a course for the Necropolis!"
Even as Astor turned the ship, the comrades saw the reason: the prize for which they fought was already in Phyrexian hands. Monstrous troops fortified their positions around the base of Necropolis Peak. The long ships that had driven toward that spot were mired at best and burning at worst. Colos riders could not smash through. Infantry could not slay them fast enough. All the while, out of reach of sword and catapult and spell, Phyrexians swarmed up the black cliffs beneath the Necropolis. The monsters climbed with preternatural speed. They surrounded the peak. They poured into the halls of the guardians.
"Atrocity!" spat Doyenne Tajamin. "Before this battle is done, we will all lie in ice graves." Her hand tightened on the grip of her cudgel. Something changed on her face. She lifted the ancestral weapon before her.
Blood-Phyrexian and Keldon and elf-draped the ancient runes. The tales of Twilight were obscured beneath the gore of battle. Indeed, the glistening-oil even seemed caustic to the symbols. It hissed. Tendrils of white steam crazed the air. Heat trembled through the weapon.
"What's this?" Doyenne Tajamin wondered aloud.
"Look!" said Eladamri, pointing.
Sudden light flared from the Necropolis. Fires blazed. They roared out of every window and door. The very mountain shook with that initial blast. Then came a second. A ring of force spread from the summit across the sky. The third blast was the most powerful yet. Blinding light beamed from the dead city. It swallowed fire, so intense it was, and swallowed the disk of cloud. All dissolved before its brilliance.
Doyenne Tajamin watched a moment more before she fell to her knees. She clutched the sizzling cudgel to her breast. Breathless, she recited the words of the Book of Keld:
And there shall come, in the darkest corner of Twilight, a light that will scour away the shadows. A new sun will dawn over Keld and draw into its compass all the clans and nations. As the warriors of Keld were firstborn from the hearth fire, so the new and true warriors of Keld will be secondborn from the burning sun. They will ride her golden bow from the world before to the world thereafter, and they will fight the final battle of Twilight.
As if in answer, dark figures emerged from the beaming windows and doors of the Necropolis. They were almost unseeable in that ferocious glare.
"The honored dead of Keld," Tajamin murmured worshipfully.
More plentiful than the monsters that had swarmed the peak, the ancient warriors of Keld emerged. They descended to do battle.
"Now we have our army! Every great warlord who ever lived joins us. They join us to fight the final battle of Twilight!"
Swarming downward, the first of the ancient warriors reached the base of the cliff. They drove the Phyrexians before them.
Rising to her feet, Doyenne Tajamin stared in awe. "With the eternal champions fighting for us, we cannot fall!"
Eladamri spoke, his voice quiet with dread. "But… they do not fight for us."
Doyenne Tajamin stared toward the front lines, where the ancient dead of Keld slew their own living warriors. "Atrocity…"
Chapter 15
As Weatherlight tore the air above Urborg, Tahngarth tore the ground below. His ray cannon laid a highway of fire across an Urborgan slope. Beams ripped up grasses and dirt before striking the first Phyrexian bombard embrasure. It flared and melted, its crew buried in molten metal.
Across the forecastle, Gerrard was ranting. "Where the hell is Agnate!" he shouted. His cannon echoed the sentiment. Rays darted down into a swamp. Light ignited gases, which burst in a sudden blue glow. Azure fire wrapped a contingent of Phyrexians. They burned, white smoke pouring from beneath peeled black armor. Gerrard gritted his teeth in satisfaction. "We can't fight the land battle too. These Metathran are worthless without him. Where the hell is Agnate?"
Weatherlight vaulted on, above a slough of skeletal trees.
Tahngarth considered grimly. "Perhaps he has fallen."
"Then the land battle is lost," Gerrard roared. "Look at them!"
As Weatherlight shot out beyond an ancient brake of thistle, Tahngarth looked down. Lowlands opened before the ship. There, a contingent of ten thousand Metathran crouched in shallow trenches. Their battle-axes lay idle beside them. Instead, they set powerstone pikes against impending attack. The woods beyond teemed with monsters, gathering to charge.
Gerrard sent a blistering shot down among them. It blasted a few Phyrexians but did little more.
"The damned Metathran entrench and wait! They brace for attack! Who's commanding them? With Agnate, they advanced."
Tahngarth snorted. "Without a great commander, the Metathran are nothing. We need new troops. Another army. Too bad Weatherlight can't carry more than a thousand." He loosed a single shot that moaned as it descended toward the trees. "If you found the right army, where every warrior was worth ten…"
Casting a wicked glance over his shoulder, Gerrard said, "Excellent idea, Tahngarth!" He leaned to the speaking tube. "Sisay, prepare to planeshift."
Her voice answered from the tube. "Where to?"
"Tahngarth's homeland."
Tahngarth sagged in the traces. Ever since he had been tortured in the Stronghold, he had dreaded returning to his people. To minotaurs, appearances mattered. A handsome beast was a virtuous warrior. A twisted creature was a monster. Under the torments of Greven il-Vec, Tahngarth had become a monster. He was certain his folk would reject him. His hands went numb on the fire controls. Urborg scrolled, watery and black, beneath him.
"I've got the coordinates laid in," Sisay replied.
"Take us there," Gerrard said. "The rest of the fleet and the Serrans can hold the skies while we're gone. Do it."
Sisay sent Weatherlight, in a long, steady climb up the skies. Her engines roared. Her airfoils tucked. The Gaea figurehead drove up through racks of cloud. In moments, the island shrank to stern. The prow carved a hole in the heavens.
With a clap like thunder, Dominaria vanished. Blue sky dissolved into gray chaos. It buzzed in deadly disarray just beyond Weatherlight's power envelope.
Tahngarth stared bleakly out at the Blind Eternities. This nowhere place somehow soothed him.
The planeshift was done all too soon. The envelope around Weatherlight turned to sky and water. Suddenly, all the world was blue and white. Above the hurtling ship arced a cerulean dome. Below it stretched an endless sea. The two were halves of each other, brilliance and darkness. Weatherlight slid between them, her prow pointing toward the arrow-straight horizon.
"Where is it?" rumbled Tahngarth.
"I don't know," replied Sisay. "The coordinates are correct." Her words faded away to the roar of the engines.
"What do you mean?" Tahngarth asked. "How can a whole continent disappear?"
Gerrard snapped his fingers. "Teferi!"
"What?" the minotaur barked.
"Urza said something about his phasing out Zhalfir- magically taking it. He said only the sea remained. He must have taken the Talruum mountains too."
Tahngarth stood and peered at the choppy sea. He couldn't believe it. "He took the whole continent?"
Gerrard shrugged. "That's what Urza said."
It was a brutal irony. A moment ago, he feared rejection from his people. Now, they didn't even exist.
Faltering, Gerrard added, "Urza said something about refugees. He said a contingent of Talruum minotaurs went to Hurloon."
"Next stop, Hurloon?" Sisay asked.
Eyes blazing with fire, Tahngarth growled at Gerrard, "Why are you doing this?"