"Excellent," said Agnate. "From this outpost, we can secure the rest of the range."
"I fear you will be doing no such thing, Commander," the healer said quietly. "You cannot go to battle. You will never walk again. Perhaps you will not even last the week." His bedside manner was as brutal as his methods. The healer drew back the white linen that lay across him. Though Agnate's chest remained broad and muscular, from the base of his ribs downward, his body was gangrenous.
"Were I to amputate, not enough of you would remain to stay alive."
Agnate's mind returned to a former time, when another harsh healer worked over another patient… Thaddeus lay strapped to a gleaming table… His body was gone from the ribs down…
"I want to finish this campaign. I want victory at Urborg."
The healer stared in bald dread at the ruined man. "There is something you must know about this plague. It is not Phyrexian in origin. Orim's elixir would have prevented its spread. This is a different disease altogether, a ravenous gangrene. Its origins do not lie with Phyrexia but with Lich Lord Dralnu."
Agnate remembered the feast in Vhelnish. He remembered the brackish basin and the lich lord laving his feet in the filthy water. He had called it an ancient rite, honoring a new ally. An ancient rite indeed-a necromantic rite.
"He is bringing you over, Agnate, making you into one of his minions," Grizzlegom said. "Don't you see? He has literally corrupted you. The reason your legs no longer work is that they belong to him. When at last this corruption reaches your heart, you will be his entirely. Then he will raise you, and you will dance to his bidding. Through you, he will gain your army."
Agnate shook his head. "No. You don't know Dralnu- "
"He is a lich lord! What is there to know?"
"He does what he does for noble warriors," Agnate insisted. "In the absence of a deity, Lord Dralnu has become a deity-"
"Better no god than a false god."
"And he has made an eternity for us, a heaven-"
"He has made a hell for you. He has made you his devils. Don't you see?" Grizzlegom asked, sitting up on his cot. "You have bargained with death, but death wins every deal."
"If you could only meet him, only speak to him, you would see his sincerity," Agnate said.
"A man can be sincere and still be wrong, Commander. What Dralnu has done is wrong. Life and death cannot be allies. They must forever be at war. You must break this alliance, before you are destroyed."
Agnate's eyes traced out the seams in the canvas above. "I am already destroyed."
The minotaur commander swung his legs from the pallet. He had been badly burned by the gargantua's stomach acid, but minotaur healers knew much about treating burns. Grizzlegom leveled his gaze.
"Only one question remains, Commander Agnate-to whom will you grant your army?"
"Yes," Agnate mused. "To whom?"
"If you grant Dralnu your troops, you have given him everything. He will corrupt them as he has corrupted you. He will scour the land of Phyrexians only to claim it all as his own."
"And if I grant my army to you," Agnate supplied, "you will turn my men against Dralnu. You will make our men fight an army of undead."
"Yes, but at least they will be fighting for their lives, not their deaths."
Agnate's face was firm. "I cannot allow you to betray this alliance."
"How can you speak of betrayal? This whole alliance was a betrayal. You lie there, rotting from a plague given to you by your ally, and you wonder about betraying him?"
Grizzlegom asked. He stood, hooves firm on the floor. "It is too late to save yourself, Agnate, but save your army."
"Draw it up, quickly now," Agnate said in sudden decision. "I will sign it. I will seal it. Only draw up the order, and my troops are yours."
Grizzlegom nodded a command to the healer, who drew out quill and parchment to write up the order. Meanwhile, the minotaur commander knelt beside the bed of his comrade. He took Agnate's hand.
"Why not convey the instructions yourself?"
"I cannot. You said it was too late to save me, but you were wrong. I do not want to rise again as a minion of Dralnu. The one condition of my order is that you make sure that does not happen." Agnate stared piercingly at his comrade. "It will take two strokes, the first to end my life and the second to end my unlife. The twice dead cannot be raised. Only then will I be free."
Grizzlegom's eyes were full of dread. "Do not ask me to do this. Instead, I shall slay Dralnu myself, and you will be free."
"It is not certain enough. I am done bargaining with death. This must be certain. Two strokes," Agnate said.
The healer approached, bearing the order and a quill. He brought also Commander Grizzlegom's striva.
Agnate reached out, taking the order. He read it, signed it, and used his ring to seal it. Then he handed it back to the healer.
"There, I have made the strokes that will save you. You must make the strokes that will save me."
Grizzlegom took the striva in hand. He lifted the blade. It was golden in the lantern light. "Until we meet in the true warrior's paradise…"
Agnate watched the blade descend. He thought only of a long ago time when another blade-his own battle axe- carved the air of a cave room and descended into the face of another great warrior.
Chapter 26
To see them fly that way above a flashing sea-Treva in white and Rith in emerald- was glorious. No dragon could look upon that sight without sensing the raw power in it. To the heart of any dragon, power was beauty.
See how the sun makes Treva an avenging angel? See how the waves make Rith a mosaic of gems? Who can doubt their glory? It sings from their wings and reaches back to snare us and drag us along. How wondrous to be dragged so!
Rhammidarigaaz could not hush the whispers of his wild heart. He desperately wished to, but these dragon gods had taken up residence in his mind. No dragon who flew in the wake of the Primevals could resist their presence.
What of Rokun? Darigaaz asked himself. There had once been a dragon named Rokun who resisted. He dwelt now in a dark corner of Darigaaz's mind, along with the other sacrifices. It was hard to see them. A mind naturally looks toward light.
The dragon nations flew above crystalline waters. Gleaming billows covered forests of kelp. A deep rift cut across the seabed, its base as cold and sere as a mountaintop. Verdant gardens of coral overhung it and spread across the shallows. Fish schooled there, and otters darted after them. On the watery plateau beyond lay the dragons' destination-the ancient ruins of Vodalia.
Once this great merfolk city had ruled a whole ocean. Now, its sunken palaces and pearly halls were ruled by barnacles. First had come caste wars, then cold waters, and last Homarids. The Vodalians had escaped the crab folk by retreating to a kingdom across the sea. They had abandoned their capital city to hammerheads and octopi.
Of course, one resident remained-a beast so ancient that even the Vodalians had thought him dead. From his deep caves beneath the ruined city, the blue Primeval called to Darigaaz and the other dragons. Through rock and water, air and centuries, Dromar called them.
Treva trimmed her wings along white-scaled flanks and dived. Beside her, Rith also plunged. They angled toward the black ocean rift alongside Vodalia. Darigaaz furled his own wings and followed. The dragon nations flocked behind.
As Darigaaz descended, the air around him grew pregnant with light. His medallions rang together in a chorus of bells. The sea rose toward his bent brow. Already, it received Treva and Rith with white-splashing coronas.
Darigaaz closed his eyes and let his crest cleave the waves. He struck with tremendous force. The water parted around him. He dragged air down in its midst. The sea closed, enveloping him.
The water was as warm and salty as blood. It seeped into Darigaaz's scales. His momentum carried him deep into the cleft of the sea floor. Treva and Rith swam below. Darigaaz spread his wings and drove downward.