She gazed levelly at him. "So, you didn't notice the army of invaders beyond?" She jabbed her finger toward a high and distant hollow. There, a wide river tumbled over a bed of shattered obsidian.
"What army?"
Tajamin wore a sly look. "We often see only what we want to see-allies or invaders."
Shielding his eyes, Eladamri stared.
It was not a river that flowed down that high valley. It was a legion. What had seemed shattered hunks of obsidian were in truth the battle armor of a huge Phyrexian contingent. Mere days ago they had been arrayed on the hillsides of Rath. Now they marched toward the most sacred site to the people of Keld.
His voice was a hoarse whisper. "How many are there?"
"Scouts have reported two hundred thousand in the main army," Tajamin said flatly.
Eladamri tightly clutched the reins of his colos. "And what is your strategy?"
"Reach the Necropolis before the Phyrexians do."
Nearby, Doyen Olvresk stood in the saddle and lifted high his curve-bladed scythe.
"Full gallop to the troops!" he shouted. He brought his arm forward. His colos bounded out across the ice. Hooves cracked solid footholds and sent crystals cracking away.
Doyenne Tajamin drove heels into her mount's flanks. The colos leaped anxiously. It shouldered past Eladamri's beast, which reared back. The beast charged across the glacier. In moments, doyen and doyenne rode neck and neck. Each of their steeds struggled to gain the lead. The other doyen swarmed in their wake.
"Hearth and fire, they are incomplete without each other," came a familiar voice at Eladamri's shoulder. The elf turned to see the young warlord Astor, astride his colos. The warrior's face was utterly grave, but laughter played in his eyes. "Olvresk and Tajamin each can see only his or her own perspective. Since they both trained me, I can see both."
Eladamri smiled wanly. "Your perspective has saved many lives. What do you suggest we do?"
Lifting heavy eyebrows, Astor simply said, "Follow."
As one, Eladamri, Liin Sivi, and Astor drove their mounts forward across the ice. The hooves of the colos made a brittle rumble as they bore along. Behind them galloped the rest of the Skyshroud commanders. They were eager to be reunited with their troops and to return the colos to their Keldon handlers.
Just ahead, a series of deep crevasses opened in the glacier. The ice sheet had stretched over a rocky ridge, and the surface had cracked. Ice dropped away through blue shadows and into blackness. It was an easy thirty feet across the first crevasse, and only a ten-foot wedge of ice stood between it and the next. It seemed an impassable barrier, but the Keldons did not slow the charge of their steeds.
Side by side in the lead, Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin drove their mounts to the crevasse. Fore-hooves cracked on the ice cliff. The colos gathered their bulk. Hind-hooves smashed on the edge of the crevasse. As one, the great mountain yaks bounded. Though ponderous on the ground, they leaped weightlessly through the air. Doyen and doyenne stood high in the saddle and fixed their gazes on the far wedge. Their mounts soared down. Fore-hooves, hind-hooves, they surged off the ice over the next crevasse.
Unflinching, the other Keldon commanders leaped their mounts over.
Eyes wide, Eladamri stared at approaching doom. He shouted to Warlord Astor, "What do we do?"
Astor repeated simply. "Follow!" Then he too hurtled across the crack.
Liin Sivi and Eladamri traded looks. There was no time to stop.
Leaning against the neck of his mount, Eladamri held his breath. The final four hoofbeats sounded like explosions in his ears. Then came a deathly silence.
Ice chips floated in tangled winds above the crevasse. Colos hooves pawed the emptiness. Eladamri stared down into unseeable depths. The glacier's heart was as black as death. His own heart hung in the gap. There came not a sound except wind in colos hair.
Hooves struck the ice on the far side. The colos gathered its muscles and bounded again.
Something had changed. Perhaps he knew his mount could make it. Perhaps he had already stared once into death and cheated it. This time, Eladamri sat up in the saddle. He peered with interest rather than fear into this new crevasse. His heart pounded excitedly. The dark rip in the white world was beautiful.
By the time he crossed the third crevasse, Eladamri was laughing aloud. It hurt the stitches in his face, but in every other way, it felt good. He was becoming Keldon, he realized. His people would not merely dwell in this land. They would be reshaped by it until they were Keldon people too.
Eladamri followed his allies as they closed the distance to their troops. With a whoop, Eladamri rode up before the lines of his Skyshroud elves. In their thick thistledown cloaks, they hardly looked like elves. Even their eyes showed the beginnings of transformation.
Eladamri reined in his colos, and the beast reared up. Its hooves spun in the air as he shouted, "Follow me, Elves of the Skyshroud, Elves of Keld! Follow me to defend our land!"
Chapter 11
Angels and spirits, helionauts and hoppers were no match for Phyrexian cruisers. Five of the enormous black ships now filled the sky. Their mana bombards heaped death on defenders. Their horn-studded rams chased Weatherlight across the heavens. "I thought we'd gotten rid of these bastards!" Gerrard shouted to no one in particular. He couldn't bring his cannons to bear on the pursuing cruiser, but he found a target anyway. His gun hurled a corridor of flack abeam. The red blaze dissolved a dragon engine into claws and teeth. Energy bounded on and melted the stern of a Phyrexian dagger-boat. Deprived of its engine, the ship bobbed drunkenly and plummeted.
On the other side of the forecastle, Tahngarth's cannon shouted. It tore away a gout of black mana that surged toward Weatherlight.
"Perhaps these are the cruisers from Benalia."
Gerrard gritted his teeth. "Oh, you had to say that." His cannon barked. Crimson bolts shrieked from the muzzle. The first shot struck a Phyrexian ram and pocked the metal. The second and third shots cored the ship as if it were an apple.
The pursuing cruiser sent fire in a deadly tunnel up around Weatherlight.
"How 'bout some rear defenses, Squee?" Gerrard shouted into the speaking tube.
Before his words were even finished, an angry protest answered. "You think dis easy, yeah? You think just 'cause Squee save your butt hundred thousand million times before, he save you now?"
A glob of black mana struck the port airfoil and ripped a rattling hole through it.
"Yes, Squee! Exactly!" Gerrard growled. "The tail gunner's job is to save our butts."
The rapid shots of the tail gun fused into a single, constant, furious discharge. Squee leaped within the traces, spraying beams across their wake. Defensive fire rose from the cruiser but could not anticipate the random blasts. Squee's shots smacked the fuselage, tore holes through conduits, ripped into inner corridors, and clove engine modules. Smoke belched up, and after smoke came fire. The cruiser jolted, dropped backward, and heeled slowly away.
"Nice shooting, Squee," Gerrard called.
"Dat's another two hundred butts you owe Squee."
Tahngarth interrupted the goblin tail gunner. "What's Agnate doing down there?" The minotaur stood and gaped over Weatherlight's rail.
Gerrard peered through his captain's glass, but even with it, he could not make out the figures in the forest.
A metallic voice spoke for all of them-Karn, who could see through the running lamps of the ship. "He marches. He marches with a company of the dead."
"What?" Gerrard asked, reeling. "Agnate has turned traitor?"