The steel centipedes had given way to a wave of spider-like constructs covered in blue and purple crystalline eyes, followed by a detachment of leonin-sized scorpionoids with blast-cylinder stingers. Now they endured the indignity of hiding as thousands of silver frog-things with wide, toothy mouths and long hooks at the end of their forelimbs hopped past. None of the constructs had paid the pair any heed. Memnarch had to know Glissa was coming. Why hadn’t he sent even a scout? She’d expected a brutal fight. Being ignored when she knew she was expected was much worse. It meant Memnarch no longer thought her a threat.
Glissa was about to make sure he remembered how much of a threat she could be. She held out her wrist, the blue stone facing up. “It’s time,” the elf girl said. “I have to get to that platform. He’s up there.”
“A sound judgment,” Raksha replied. He placed a finger alongside the blue stone, and Glissa did the same.
As they emerged from the lacuna, a cacophony of clattering feet, clicking pincers, and strange, mechanical chittering broke out all around them, joined by a chorus of whining cries.
“They’re awake, Glissa,” Geth’s head said.
“Careful what you wish for,” she muttered and placed a hand on her sword hilt. The cries of a million tinny voices reverberated through the interior of Mirrodin, and soon it sounded as if every last construct-with the exception of the strange automatons-was sounding the alarm, chirping and singing like frog mites on a cold night. So much for being ignored. But despite the noise, not one of the constructs made an aggressive move. “Raksha,” she asked over the din, “does this seem a little too easy?”
“Glissa!” Raksha shouted and slammed into her with his shoulder as a silver flash streaked past, missing them both by inches.
CHAPTER 26
For the first time in living memory, humans, leonin, goblins, and elves saw the suns of Mirrodin rise at exactly the same time. Each of the five spheres glowed more brightly than Bruenna had ever seen, and five distinct colors light streamed into the sky from all directions. They blended into a blinding white glare over the Krark-Home battlefield.
The Neurok mage had never been so exhausted. She’d just gone to the well too many times, and her system refused to take it anymore. The quicksilver energy that powered Bruenna’s magic felt very far away, and she had been forced to the ground. She wanted to sleep for a week, but drew her sword anyway and joined the retreating ground troops on the mountain.
The last skyhunter had fallen, and with Bruenna’s power sapped the air was enemy territory. Wolfpacks of aerophins and a wide variety of the fierce-looking asymmetrical winged construct beasts-each as large as as a five aerophins put together-blasted the ground behind the defenders. Shriekers swooped and divebombed at odd intervals as the lumbering nim drove the leonin and goblin inexorably back.
Bruenna shielded her eyes as four goblin fighters were vaporized right next to her, peppering her forearms with shards of hot iron and molten blood. She stumbled blindly sideways and by sheer luck avoided a small avalanche of ironstone rubble the constructs’ shots had knocked loose from the cliffs above.
Bruenna raised her sword to deflect a swinging nim claw and jumped back, slamming into something armored that snarled. She swung her sword around blindly, but her blade connected with another.
“Careful, mage,” Yshkar growled. He lowered his longknife and guided Bruenna’s blade tip away from his left eye. “Someone could get hurt.”
“Look out!” Bruenna cried, and shoved the Kha aside as an energy bolt blasted the ground nearby and tore a scorched scar up the cliff wall, igniting a few of the scrub trees that still clung to the high reaches. “My Kha, you’ve got to call a full retreat, or you’re not going to have any subjects left tomorrow. We don’t have the strength to hold them here. We have to close up Krark-Home and save as many lives as we can.”
“Retreat? Tuck our tails, run, and hope Glissa will succeed?” Yshkar roared. “Look around you, Neurok. She has failed. And we will face our death on our-”
The leonin paused in midsentence and stared down at his chest with a look of faint surprise. A thin, blood-coated silver blade emerged from the center of Yshkar’s breastplate and glittered in the glare of the five suns. With a sickening slurp, the blade disappeared back into his chest and the leonin dropped dead at the mage’s feet.
The lithe figure behind him danced back a step and twirled her bloody blade.
“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to gut that fool,” Lyese said.
Glissa followed the silver blur as it skimmed the surface of the interior and swooped back up for another pass. Behind her, Raksha bellowed, “Another one-move!” A second silver shape dove straight between them, missing Glissa but apparently striking a glancing blow at Geth’s head, which yelped.
“What are those things?” Glissa shouted over the dull roar of billions of hand-sized metal insects having a collective fit. “They’re too fast!”
“I don’t-”
A third silver blur appeared, and this time Raksha couldn’t dodge in time. “Ooof!” the leonin managed as the flying object carried him away. Glissa didn’t get a chance to follow, because the original flyer was on the way back up. She finally got a good look at the silver blur as it rapidly accelerated toward her. At the last second, she launched herself backward and dodged the ascending hovercraft. The elf girl was so surprised when she finally identified the rider that the second caught her a glancing blow on the boot as it swooped up beside its duplicate.
The identity of the first rider had been unmistakable. So had the second. He had a few more pink blotches of flesh marring his perfect silver skin, but the cruel, angular face had been burned into her mind. It was the face of a dead metal man she’d killed herself.
Without waiting for the first two to come at her another time, Glissa gave chase to the third identical copy of Malil, the one that had grabbed Raksha. She glanced back but didn’t spot either of the other two attackers.
“They’re following, but holding back,” Geth’s head shouted. “They obviously fear my power!”
“Just keep an eye on them and tell me if they change their tactics,” Glissa hollered over one shoulder.
Glissa flirted with the idea of sending a little destructive spark energy into the Malil-clone that had spirited Raksha away, but decided against it. These Malil replicas were partly flesh. The energy only seemed to work against true constructs. Besides, she would probably need it soon. The biggest challenge was still ahead.
“Okay, now one of them is-incoming!” Geth’s head shouted. Glissa tucked her chin and dove. The whine of the flyer’s energy fields was almost deafening, but thanks to Geth’s warning the attack just missed her.
“Geth! Keep that up and I’ll get you a body personally!” Glissa shouted.
“How about yours?”
“Don’t push me, head.”
Bruenna backed away from the Yshkar’s fallen body and raised her sword in her good hand. Lyese stepped over the dead leonin and kept her sword tip pointed at the mage’s heart.
The mage cast about desperately with her peripheral vision. The ironstone avalanche had cut them off from the main battle. She was on her own. Maybe that was for the best, the mage mused, since she was about to engage the Tall Queen of the leonin. There was no guarantee the defenders of Krark-Home would come to Bruenna’s aid.
“Lyese,” Bruenna said. “What have you done?”
“What I should have done years ago,” the elf said in a strange voice that sounded like two. “I could have led these primitives on my own, but the master thought it served his purposes better to leave that oaf in charge.”