Liin Sivi had gathered the seven remaining elves. They eagerly climbed onto the beasts behind Eladamri.
"We've got to reach the main elven contingent," he instructed. "We've got to lead them out-"
A new eruption drowned his words. Beyond the prow, the crater had quadrupled in size. At its center, the lava column had collapsed, giving way to a boiling mound of water and rock. Deep concussions shook the ice. It cracked in a thousand places. Faults opened beneath catapults. Crevasses swallowed ships and platoons. Cracks even raced up the black mountains all around.
Still, the Keldons stood, unmoving.
"Let's go!" Eladamri ordered.
He kicked the sides of his colos. The great mountain yak bounded toward the rail. Touching down once more, it leaped from the ship. Liin Sivi's steed soared through air just beside it. The seven elves followed on their own mounts. All the colos were airborne before Eladamri's landed. Ice flew out in a sharp spray. The glacier trembled beneath the hooves of the beasts, but they were surefooted. They thundered across the battlefield.
The scene before Eladamri was grim. A mile ahead, the main elven contingent struggled amid cracks. Bodies lay strewn across the intervening ice, and new crevasses opened.
Behind Eladamri came a bellowing groan, like the sound of metal failing. The ice lurched backward. Eladamri glanced over his shoulder.
The scene was even worse. The crater grew faster than soldiers could run. Armies disappeared under its advancing lip. Siege engines toppled and sank. Even the long ships were caught. At least they stayed upright, though the currents dragged them sideways like toy boats. A maelstrom had begun.
It whirled in a wide and irresistible arc through the crater. All the detritus of the lake spiraled toward the churning mound at its center. A long ship plunged into that space. It dived prow-first into the flood. In a moment, it was gone.
Warm water struck Eladamri's face. His colos's hooves splashed in a steaming tide. The flood was overtaking them. It raced out atop the glacier faster than the steeds could run. Just ahead, the water poured into a deep crevasse. Beyond, the ice was dry and solid.
Driving his mount toward the crack, Eladamri waved for the others to follow. Hooves came down on the edge of the crevasse. The colos leaped. It hurled itself off the cascade. Water plunged to darkness. Wind whipped the pelts of the leaping beasts. Even as they soared above the crack, the water at its base rose alarmingly upward. The colos stretched their hooves for the far side.
Eladamri's mount touched down with a crackle of ice, just ahead of Liin Sivi's steed. They bounded forward, away from the flooding canyon. The other elves had made the leap as well. At last, they had solid footing. Only a quarter mile ahead fled the rest of their people.
The loudest blast yet rocked the glacier. It made a sound like thunder. Ice dropped away beneath the colos's hooves, stranding them in air. They jolted down upon a steep slope and managed one more leap.
Cracks ripped across the ice. White chunks spun into the air. Water gushed up the empty spaces. The ice disintegrated. When next the colos came down, there was nothing to stand on. They plunged into a deep, hot sea. Water closed over their heads.
Churning huge hooves, the beasts drove themselves toward a surface crowded with ice shards. They butted the stuff aside and lifted their heads above the flood.
Shaking water from his hair, Eladamri saw there would be no escape.
The churning sea was surrounded by sheer ice walls. Huge chunks of glacier calved off, crashing into the flood. The dead and the dying were shoved among icebergs in a current that spiraled inward. No longer was there a mound of water at the center of the sea but only a great, sucking blackness. It drew everything down-siege engines and ruined ships and hunks of the shattered Necropolis. It drew everyone. Phyrexian and Keldon and elf…
"Sivi!" Eladamri yelled. Once again, she was right beside him, her mount treading water. He pointed to the whirlpool. "Any ideas?"
"Drive these beasts toward shore."
With a nod, he indicated the ice cliffs. "That's shore, and they'd never make it against this current."
"We've got to try. We've got to stay together."
"Yes," Eladamri said, reaching across to grip her hand. "We've got to stay together."
Chapter 19
Smoke rolled into the black sky over Kaldroom. Even the burning Phyrexian laboratory did not light the darkness. Its glow was sucked away into soot.
Only Weatherlight's ray cannons lit the scene. Docked on the garrison grounds, she hurled fire to the distant hills. The blasts cooked Phyrexians wherever they gathered. Between ship and Phyrexians lay a minotaur army. They were not dead nor truly alive. Their wide-open eyes glowed with cannon fire. The crew of Weatherlight rushed among them like ants. Pairs of workers rolled minotaurs onto litters and carried them up the ship's gangplank. Everyone except the gunners worked-even Multani and Karn and Tahngarth. Multani configured his body into a kind of ambling stretcher. Karn carried a minotaur slung over either shoulder.
Most effective of all was Tahngarth. The minotaur could not be kept in gun traces while his people lay below. He carried a compatriot over either of his massive shoulders and a third draped in his arms. It was a feat made possible only by his Phyrexian physique- a feat performed as penance. Each time Tahngarth approached a warrior, he bowed to the perfect form of his people. Each time he lifted one, he put himself beneath. Each time he laid one on the deck, he rescued a minotaur from Phyrexian transformation.
Sweat matted his forelocks, stung his eyes, and flowed like tears.
Minotaurs filled every space on Weatherlight. They lay like fish spilled from a bursting net.
It was unwise. Weatherlight was torn from stem to stern. Breaches riddled her hull. Her airfoils hung in tatters from folded spars. Heat stresses formed a fine network of cracks along engine manifolds. She was not battle worthy, perhaps not even sky worthy, but even so, she was overloaded with a thousand comatose minotaurs.
Gerrard and Sisay had tried to broach the subject with Tahngarth, but the minotaur wouldn't listen. Tahngarth wasn't just saving his people. He was saving himself.
At last, he hauled the final three minotaurs on board.
"All right, that's it!" Gerrard punctuated the words with a pair of blasts from his ray cannon. Monsters advanced across the garrison grounds. Into his speaking tube, he shouted, "Posts, everyone. Ignite the engines. Prepare for liftoff."
"I'm not sure we can lift off," Sisay said from the helm. "Not this heavy. Not without airfoils. Not without Hanna."
"Yeah," Gerrard responded grimly. He felt the absence of the ship's navigator every day, every moment. "Well, we can't do anything about Hanna or the airfoils. The only other option is-" Gerrard glanced over his shoulder at Tahngarth, who gingerly stepped among his country folk. The look in the minotaur's eyes was both intent and fragile. "The only other option is to planeshift without taking off."
"What?" Sisay asked.
"How far do you need to reach planeshift velocity?" Gerrard asked.
"How far?"
"Yes, how far-skating across the ground on our landing spines-do you need to reach planeshift velocity?"
"I don't know," Sisay replied. "A thousand yards."
From the speaking tube came Karn's voice, metallic and dour, "We have five hundred yards to the garrison wall and three hundred more to the hills beyond."
Gerrard nodded. "We can blast through walls but not hills. You'll have to do it in eight hundred."