But blood briar or not, she had to get her sword out. Nissa searched until she found the stem sword, buried almost past the pommel. She grasped its slimy grip and pulled and pulled. Eventually she was able to rip the sword from the wet body of the dead brood. Thick roots extended off the stem like a brush; she would pare them off with a small knife later. She watched as Sorin assisted Anowon in destroying the last brood. After Sorin jabbed the creature and it lay still on the rock, she walked to them.
Nissa watched Sorin tuck his white hair back behind his ears and smile an impish smile at her. Do you have any more shortcut ideas? he said to Nissa, motioning to the smallest trail.
We had better take it before more brood appear, Anowon said, out of breath. I could not do that again if my very blood depended on it.
With her knife Nissa cut the roots off the stem before sliding it back into its sheath. She tapped her staff on the mountain and started walking down the small trail, which narrowed as they walked. Soon the rocks began to shut them in. They were walking through a deeply cloven gully, silent and dim, with high, ridged headwalls of red sandstone on either side. Crystals with bases as thick and as gnarled as old jaddi trees hung out over the cliffs above, and more crystals bunched into inclines of glinting tips. But Nissa s eyes were on the ground before them.
What do you observe? Sorin said.
Nothing, Nissa said.
Nothing?
No tracks or any sign of recent disturbance, Nissa said, trying to sound more positive than she felt. She wondered how a trail could have no sign of any kind, not even animal tracks. But her throat hurt from the brood s tentacle, and she did not want to explain to Sorin why a trail without any sign was more dangerous somehow than a trail with a sign. As it was, she was going to have a hard time convincing the ancient vampire to release the very creatures he was on Zendikar to imprison. She would save her breath for that debate.
Sorin looked up and around. This place is familiar to me, he said. We are closer.
They walked up the long gulley. Above their heads the high alpine wind howled through the crystals, which stood virtually shoulder to shoulder. But in the gulley there was no wind. There had never been any, Nissa thought as she ran her finger across the top of a nearby crystal and saw it covered with dust.
At the top of the gulley they stopped and surveyed. Ahead the small canyon dipped and narrowed, so the talus and scree channeled down into the black maw of a large erosion hole.
This is the very entrance, Sorin said. This is where I stood long ago, dreaming this prison to life with the others.
Anowon spit into the rocks at his feet. After you meted out pain and anguish to my people, abuse that has lasted for generations, then you imprisoned the very empire you helped?
Sorin turned to Anowon. I was charged with containing them. And I only gave your people what they deserved tenfold.
Anowon rose up, a snarl curling the corner of his lip. Sorin took a step back and dropped one hand to the pommel of his great sword, his own lips curled back off his fangs.
Stop, Nissa said. Something about her voice stopped the two vampires in their places. She pointed upwards.
Anowon followed Nissa s line of sight. He whistled when his eyes fell on them. There were at least ten lava drakes, each perched on the tip of a huge crystal.
Sorin sniffed. No, he whispered. What energy I have left must be kept for the containment spell.
Nissa turned to Anowon.
I cannot sup on a drake s blood, Anowon said. Even if I was able to slay one of them.
You were both more than ready to fight each other a moment ago, Nissa said.
Nissa looked back at the drakes. We cannot match them, she conceded. But we can run into the hole before they reach us. She turned to the others.
We will drop the gear here and run for the hole, Nissa said.
But they will reach us before we reach the hole, Anowon said.
Nissa cast the vampire a sidelong glace. If we run like vampires they will reach us. Run like elves. Nissa turned back to the drakes and the hole. Ready? she called.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
The drakes saw them almost immediately, and they took to the air a second later. Nissa clutched her staff and ran as hard and as fast as she ever had, skipping between the larger boulders and trying not to slip on the gravel. She d seen drakes before but always been careful to avoid them, knowing that in their way there were more dangerous that a dragon. A Zendikar dragon would not normally bother itself with two or three beings, but preferred lazy activities like sleeping in a deep hole or sitting in Glasspool soaking its scales.
Drakes were different. Aside from the obvious difference drakes had no arms, only legs and wings there was the large difference in bearing and disposition. Drakes were mean and dim. Their love of hunting in packs made them extremely difficult to fight, and their appetite was prodigious.
The drakes were on them before they reached the hill. Nissa had her stem sword out and managed to lop the leg off a drake that was extending its claw for her. She dodged another who had landed in her path and attempted to bite her.
A third drake swooped down and seized her in its claws and bore her up, at the same time it bit down at her head. But when it opened its mouth for the lethal bite, it received a thrust from Nissa s stem sword which traveled through the top of its palate and into its brain. Mana from the sword pulsed through the drake s body. Nissa had a flash image of rhizomes spreading out from the stem and constricting around the drake s brain and spine.
Nissa was able to land first with her feet and roll out with no injury, except for the deep gashes in her shoulder where the drake s claws had been.
A moment later she was charging over the rocks to the gaping maw of the cave. She reached the cave just as another drake was sweeping down on her. But the flying beast decided against following her into the darkness of the cave, preferring instead to land on the rocks outside and peer inside cautiously, screeching uneasily.
Nissa took a rock from her feet and threw it at the drake, hitting it in the eye and driving it away. Soon Anowon was in the cave having found a way to avoid attack completely. Sorin was soon to follow, with two drakes hounding his progress, and three bodies quivering on the rock, fallen to his sword.
Soon the drakes gave up and flew back to their perch, where they screeched and nipped at each other and began to fight.
Nissa turned and peered into the darkness of the cave. Have we another tooth, Anowon? she said.
The vampire pulled a tooth from his cloak. He whispered to it, and it burst to light. Outside the cave the drakes were screaming. Holding the tooth between his fingers, Anowon looked around the cave. Markings covered the walls, lines and lines of writing executed in a script so twisted and long that Nissa could not tell where one word stopped and the next began.
Anowon held out the tooth further and looked closely at the etchings. These are utterly foreign to me, he said at last. I cannot decipher even one word.
We left these lines, Sorin said. When we imprisoned the Eldrazi for the second time. They talk about the crimes committed against the planes.
Anowon blinked as he considered what Sorin had said. The Eldrazi were imprisoned more than once?
They were imprisoned on another occasion, before my time, Sorin said. Even I am not that old.
Anowon spit on the ground.
And these are the titans? Nissa said, pointing at the pictures in the rock. Three grotesque images looked hauntingly like the brood lineage, but different. She could not pull her eyes off the strange creatures, which looked a strange combination of insect, brain, and kraken. None had faces of any sort. And despite herself, Nissa shivered.