Weatherlight reached the shore and roared out over the treetops.
"There's another titan engine," Tahngarth shouted.
"Another what?" Gerrard asked in amazement.
"Another titan engine-three more!"
Gerrard paused in his attacks to stare at the spectacle. Above the mossy treetops on the far sides of the isle moved gleaming pilot domes. These engines had fought at Koilos and now had come here.
"And ground troops!" Tahngarth called, "Metathran ground troops."
Between the flashing boles of trees, Gerrard saw them. Agnate and his Metathran army of forty thousand had been brought here, too. They swept across the land in a purging blue tide, destroying the Phyrexians in their path.
"Watch your fire, friends," Sisay advised. "Our own troops are down there."
"Yeah," Gerrard confirmed, nodding blankly. "It looks like the old man brought help after all." He folded the captain's glass. "We're useless back here. We can't fire with our own forces on the ground. Sisay, take us to the center of the Phyrexian encampment."
"Where would that be?" she asked "Where Urza is heading," Gerrard said.
"Aye, Commander."
Weatherlight slid into the wake of destruction behind Urza.
Below, Metathran troops ran. Their battle axes glinted. Their war cry rose above even the thunder of Weatherlight's engines.
She soared out directly above Urza.
Falcon engines launched from his shoulders. They gleamed beside Weatherlight's bow. The silvery birds shrieked as they stooped on their prey-Phyrexians.
Just ahead, a fresh wave of the beasts charged into battle. Some had once been human, their figures stretched on metallic frameworks, their muscles augmented with machines. Others were not remotely human. They had been grown in vats of glistening-oil, sculpted by priests of Phyrexia. Massive legs, crested heads, dagger fangs, scimitar claws-they were creatures created to kill.
Whatever their origins, the beasts of Phyrexia met Urza's deadly machines. Silver falcons shrieked down upon them. Razor-sharp beaks rammed Phyrexian bellies. Shredding mechanisms tore them apart. The front lines crumbled and bled even as Weatherlight hurtled by overhead.
"Stay the course," called Gerrard.
He and Tahngarth unleashed a fresh volley of fire. The bolts disintegrated lichens, stripped trees to their heartwood, and boiled marshes. Fire flooded mana bombards. It melted armor and burned fiend flesh from bone. Fore, aft, and amidships, Weatherlight's cannons blazed.
Urza and his three planeswalker comrades meanwhile marched their titan engines inward. They cut converging lines through Phyrexian troops. Wave upon wave of
Metathran mopped up behind. The blue-skinned warriors had taken Koilos. Now they would take Urborg.
But why? Gerrard wondered. Why is this fight so important?
On a low hill ahead lay the core of Phyrexian command- Crovax's noble estate. It was in ruins. Smoke blackened everything. Domes lay cracked like eggshells. Columns pointed accusing fingers at the sky. Phyrexian armies were marshaled across the fields. Once the angel Selenia had kept evil from this place. That was before Crovax stole her away. Now, the angel, the plantation, and Crovax himself belonged to Yawgmoth. The plantation had become a Phyrexian staging ground.
"Target the guns first!" Gerrard ordered, folding his captain's glass and bringing his cannon to bear, "then the ammunitions depot, then the command center, then the individual soldiers."
"Aye," answered Tahngarth and the other gunners.
"Sisay, bring us in at the treetops, fast and low. Strafe the damned bugs."
"I think you enjoy this too much," Sisay replied, adding a belated, "Commander."
Weatherlight flew down a marshy hollow. Fronds slapped the belly of the ship. Weatherlight's roar bounced from water and wood.
"Even with bats' ears and flies' eyes, they won't be able to tell where we are," Gerrard assured himself.
His hands were sweaty on the fire controls. Fear prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. There was something not right about this. He'd made a miscalculation-was thinking too much like a human, not a monster. Gerrard flicked a glance over one shoulder to Tahngarth. The bull-man returned his gaze, eyes rimmed with uncertainty. He sensed it too.
Clenching his jaw, Gerrard faced forward. "All right, just watch for the guns. Take out the guns, and we'll be fine."
Weatherlight flew from the wetlands and up the rising fields where Crovax's family had once planted their crops. A darker crop rose now-countless Phyrexians encamped for war. They were arrayed in orderly file, toy soldiers on a brown carpet. In the center of the army, a column of beasts marched-not toward battle but toward the plantation house.
"Hold your fire!" Gerrard called. "Watch for the guns!"
Though Weatherlight roared above the Phyrexians, none looked upward.
The ship topped the long rise and reached the broad tablelands where the ruins rested. Rampant vines draped palm and cypress-plenty of cover to hide bombards. No guns fired, though. In the central lane leading to the plantation house, Phyrexians marched in an orderly column.
"What is this?" Tahngarth asked.
Gerrard only shook his head.
At last the ship flew over the shattered mansion itself. Every room lay open to the sky. The ghosts of past grandeur lingered among burned beams and ruined furnishings. The Phyrexian parade entered the plantation house and snaked its way to a specific room-a small room. It was untouched by the ravages that had destroyed the rest, or it had been reconstructed-the room of a young man. There, in that doorway, Phyrexians one by one bowed to the floor in homage.
There was no time to see more. Weatherlight shot past the roofless home. Gerrard and the other gunners still watched for ground-to-air fire, but none rose.
In dread realization, Gerrard murmured, "It's not a command center. It's a holy place, a temple to the boy who grew up there. It's a temple to Crovax." A drop of sweat rolled chillingly down Gerrard's spine.
How high had Crovax risen in the Phyrexian hierarchy?
"That's why we're in Urborg," Gerrard said to himself. "Crovax is here." Into the speaking tube, he said, "Bring us around, Sisay. Let's go in with guns blazing. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel. We'll kill every last bug. We'll capture this isle. It'll become our beachhead for rousting the Phyrexians from all of Urborg."
Even as he spoke, Sisay brought the ship around in a tight arc. All along the rails, cannons hummed hotly, ready for annihilation. The jitters were gone from gunners' hands. There was only the grim set of jaws and the lightless eyes of men who knew they were about to commit slaughter.
Gerrard's gun spoke first. It lashed out a red hand that burned away a whole platoon of Phyrexians. Tahngarth's cannon ripped through fifty more. Death stabbed down on the bowed heads and shuffling claws. Phyrexians died like roaches.
Above the roar of his gun, Tahngarth shouted, "Why don't they even run?"
Gerrard shook his head. "They cannot run. Crovax has commanded their worship."
Chapter 3
Tsabo Tavoc, conqueror of Benalia and queen of Koilos, stood on a volcano in Rath. In moments, she would return to Dominaria. She had almost owned that world. By right, it would have been hers-except for one warty, green-skinned wretch. Squee was his name. Squee had given Gerrard a sword. With it, Gerrard had wounded Tsabo Tavoc and destroyed the portal at Koilos and escaped. Her prize had escaped, and Tsabo Tavoc had limped back to Phyrexia. It had been a long road back, a road paved with torment and humiliation.
First, Tsabo Tavoc had gone to the fourth sphere of Phyrexia for the none-too-tender ministrations of the vat priests. They stitched closed the laceration in her gut. She commanded them to use silk, but they used leather thongs instead. Even vat priests could ignore her orders.