A hedron stone bobbed slightly as they walked past. Each of the stones was grooved with the strange designs found on all the crumbling edifices on Zendikar, but Nissa had never seen so many in one place.
The Fields of Agadeem, Anowon said. I have never actually seen them.
The brood did not drag you this way? asked Sorin.
He did not even turn at her taunt. No, they did not, he said. He looked out over the fields as they walked. A bird of prey was perched on the tip of the nearest hedron. It watched them with shining eyes as they passed.
A bit further they found the blue striped, dead body of a juvenile sphinx. It floated in a knotted eddy of humid wind formed around a pack of stones. The mana in the gravity well refracted light like it was underwater.
Later, Sorin stopped and put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the low sun. What would that be? Sorin said.
Nissa followed his eyes to a bit of movement on the plains below. She looked closer and saw a half-built structure cut into the turf. The structure was simple, no more than four walls built as high as Nissa s chin. Something was moving around the structure s shell.
What are they doing? Nissa said.
Anowon squinted. They are brood, he said.
And they are building.
They walked closer, being careful to creep from hedron to hedron. But Sorin ignored Nissa s and Anowon s attempts at stealth and walked straight for the strange building site. The wind was blowing into their faces, which was a stroke of good luck perhaps the only one they would get.
Soon they were as close as they dared go without risking detection, and Sorin stopped for a moment, then walked even closer. Nissa would have liked to have remained concealed, but they had no choice but to follow Sorin as he bulled ahead. Smara followed some distance behind.
Nissa felt like cuffing Sorin when she caught up, but one look at his eyes and she lost that feeling. He had drawn his great sword and was looking at the brood in a certain intent, unblinking way that spoke of violence.
The brood were dragging stones, or rather their vampire workers were dragging stones using harnesses bound to their shoulder and elbow horns. Nissa looked at Anowon s elbow horns. The vampire caught her staring and turned away.
There were perhaps thirty brood, including something she had not seen before: juvenile brood. At least that was what she thought they were. They were half the size of the other brood.
We will take them unawares, Sorin said. Elf he pointed off to the right you start there and sweep in. Ghet, you go there and run straight in.
Straight in, Anowon said, without the slightest inflection.
Yes, that s what I said.
And what will we Nissa started.
We will destroy them all, Sorin said.
We will destroy them all? Nissa repeated. But then she thought of Speaker Sutina, the leader of the Tajuru whom the brood had slain. Yes, we will, she said.
I have no weapon, Anowon said.
Sorin looked at him, measuring him up. Use your teeth, Vampire, he said. Then one of Sorin s smug smiles spread across his face. Are you not angry at that lot? Look at your brethren toiling there. Sorin s eyes stayed on Anowon. See here, they are vulnerable to biting and tearing attacks. Most of them are unarmored, and their flesh is soft. They bleed easily. They will not expect us. They are building whatever they are building. We can take them in the flank.
Anowon s mouth twisted into a growl. Nissa thought it was more for Sorin than the brood.
But Sorin misinterpreted the look. That is more of what I had in mind, he said.
Nissa moved off to the north to squat behind a hedron stone, awaiting Sorin s nod.
As they watched, a brood with tentacles for legs moved to the rock Nissa was hiding behind, and leaned its bony head against the hedron stone. It stayed that way, making sucking sounds. The sweat cooled on Nissa s forehead. What was it sucking off the rock?
Nissa was ready when Sorin nodded. She twisted her staff and slid the stem blade out. With a flick it went limp, and she used it as a whip, snapping it around the rock and neatly severing the brood s head from its shoulders.
Sorin began to run toward the half-built structure. After a moment, Nissa followed, and so did Anowon. The first brood had their backs turned, helping the vampires push a huge block along runners of logs. Sorin and Nissa cut the brood down, and they slumped over the block they had been moving.
The rest of the brood fled to the structure they were building. As they charged, Sorin spoke in his rhyming voice. Nissa listened as it rose and fell to its own rhythm. She could see the cone of sound ripple in the air as the energy tunneled into the brood. Within seconds, their flesh began to tumble off the bone. Before her eyes the creatures fell to pieces, their bones freed from the sinews that held them taught.
Nissa could see the toll such an expenditure of power made on Sorin. When he closed his mouth he had to reach out and steady himself on a hedron stone. His white hair was matted with sweat to his forehead, and his skin was so pale she could have seen veins.
But Nissa did not have time to look for veins in Sorin s skin. A group of brood peered out from behind the corner of the half-built structure, and as she watched they spread out in a line and started running at her.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
Many of the brood were of the tentacle-and-bone variety, Nissa noticed, but at least one of them was the large kind with the many blue eyes. Its tentacles were as thick as a man s chest as they churned up the dirt while running at her. The creature s squat front tentacles dug for purchase as lines of muscle rippled. Behind, four more brood with bone heads ran, followed by three of the kind that flew.
Nissa had a matter of moments before the flying ones were on her. She fell and put her forehead and palms on the ground and took a deep breath. In a moment, the vigor of life pulsed up through the dirt and shot up her veins and arteries and into her head.
And she was not the only one. Anowon charged forward and slashed savagely at one of the flying brood with his long-nailed hands. He bit and tore a head-sized chunk out of its tentacle.
Nissa formed an image in her mind. A moment later a shrill cry split the air and a huge, six-legged basilisk was blinking its oily black eyes in the sun. It swung its head and caught one of the flying brood by a tentacle and flipped it into a nearby hedron. The other brood fell on the lizard like a stone. The lizard hit the brood hard on the top of the head and threw it off into the weeds. From the way it hit the ground, Nissa could tell the brood was dead. The basilisk shook its head, tripped, and almost fell. But it did not, and a second later the brood on foot reached it.
One of the winged ones had snuck past her basilisk. Nissa looked up just as the brood threw one of its long tentacle-arms out to catch her around the neck. Nissa caught the tentacle in her hand and gave it a tug, and the brood had to pull wildly to stay aloft. But stay aloft it did. It snapped its other tentacle out, and with a deft movement Nissa sheared it off with her stem. Still the brood did not cry out. Nissa marveled at that. Perhaps it did not have a mouth.
Another of the creature s tentacles came out and struck her on the forehead. Nissa fell back and pulled her feet up over her head and flipped as best she could. She landed face down, and the brood was on her. She rolled to the right, but the brood grasped her neck and pulled her up and threw her. Nissa flew through the air and was able to easily flip and land lightly on her feet.
To her left the basilisk she had summoned was making wide sweeps with its head. The two horns protruding from its forehead were already blood-spattered, and as she watched, the huge brood rammed into the basilisk s haunch. The lizard screamed and turned for a bite, but its fangs snapped on air the brood-bull had backed away.