"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.
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…"