Invasion

Chapter 35

Tsabo Tavoc drew a long breath through swollen spiracles.

Thaddeus's death was intoxicating. He had died slowly, consciously. It was the best death, a perfect bouquet- intense, quiet, virtuous, patient, doomed. Agnate's sword had given a final piquant burst of emotion-regret, love, terror, release. The only scent that lacked in that death had been hatred-pure, hard-edged hatred.

Agnate exuded it now. His sword had drawn all the welling despair up through its hilt and into a new man. There, it became hate. Thaddeus's death had been intoxicating, but Agnate's hatred was thrilling.

Tsabo Tavoc breathed the glad reek of it.

Agnate was not the greatest hater in the caves, though. Gerrard was. His fury had been strong at the mouth of the cave. It had grown only more powerful with each head he had lopped, each gallon of glistening-oil he had spilled. Gerrard fought as though he battled Death itself. He was a fool. No one could beat Death except Yawgmoth. Gerrard's hatred would lead him to the Ineffable.

All things had come to fruition just as Tsabo Tavoc had planned.

Let them think they are winning. Let Urza and his titans stomp the ragged remnants of the Koilos land army. Let Eladamri post his guards in the blood-painted caves he has won with tooth and nail. Let Gerrard advance toward the portal, believing he can shut death away from himself and all Dominarians.

In fact he will be drawn through, Tsabo Tavoc thought gladly, the first in a harvest of souls. He will be drawn through, and they all will be drawn through.

At great cost, the Dominarians had won themselves a bottomless pit. Gerrard could not close the portal. Nor Taysir. Nor Urza. As long as it remained, Phyrexia would always hold Koilos. Dominarians would fling their sons and daughters into the pit, calling them warriors and freedom fighters though in truth they were human sacrifices to implacable Death. They would battle a ceaseless tide of Phyrexians, not realizing the womb cannot keep pace with the vat. Koilos was not lost. It was transformed into an eating machine that would swallow millions.

Tsabo Tavoc smiled. Plates slid in her segmented mouth, drawing back from filed teeth.

She had won Benalia. Now, she was winning Koilos. Her crowning glory, though, would be the moment she presented the savior of Dominaria, the champion of Urza, to Yawgmoth. He would reward her. He would unseat Master Crovax and give Tsabo Tavoc command of the Rathi overlay.

Shackled and brimming with hate, Gerrard will be yours by day's end, Great Lord Yawgmoth.

This felt good-killing them like this. Leaving them in pieces behind. Somehow, when the monsters were chopped up and sloppy on the cave floor, they seemed cleaner than when they breathed and scuttled and walked. That's how he thought of it-cleansing the caves.

Torches held high, Gerrard and his contingent rounded a corner.

Two monsters launched themselves from the darkness beyond. No longer did they fight in phalanxes. Now they fought like trapped dogs.

Gerrard's torch fell away. His sword rammed into the rushing chest of one. Steel lanced between obscene ribs. It sank deep, rupturing the heart. Oil sprayed around the edges of the blade.

Even dying, the thing fought on. Its knobby arms clamped down on him. Its claws pierced his sides.

Gerrard roared, prying his sword sideways. The blade snapped ribs and tore clear.

The beast slumped, leaning drunkenly on him before it tumbled sideways. Gerrard batted its arms away.

The fight was finished. Three Benalians had slain the other beast-at the cost of their own lives. Their corpses sprawled on one side of the cave.

Gerrard stared at the two Phyrexians. Their flesh was rotten, gray and shabby. Gritting his teeth, he hacked down with his sword. It clove the face of one dead monster. The blade rose. It fell again. He cut the thing's skull in half. The sword slashed down again. It opened the beast's face along the jaw. Gerrard lifted his sword for another strike.

A hand clamped on his shoulder-Tahngarth's hand. "Save your hate. We've plenty more ahead."

Gerrard severed the beast's neck and kicked the head across the chamber. "I have enough hate for all of them." He began working over the other body.

Tahngarth released his shoulder. As Gerrard chopped, he was vaguely aware of the soldiers around him, working to lay out their comrades as was fitting. Only when they had finished did Gerrard kick his way through the Phyrexian remains and lift his gaze.

"Let's go. The portal cannot be far now."

Multani managed to regrow enough of the damaged spar to allow Weatherlight a more graceful landing than her last. Still, the ship came to ground like a box of rocks.

It was little more than that just now. Two ray cannons had overheated and melted down. A third had been blasted away. The hull was riddled with ruptures that even Multani could not close completely. The engines ran red hot and barked gray smoke when Karn shut them down. He pulled his hands from the control sockets where they had been embedded and plunged the glowing things into a bucket of water. She would not fly again, not for hours, and would perhaps not fight for days.

Thankfully, she didn't need to. The ship had landed just beside the cave mouth-now in Dominarian hands. The Phyrexians above ground were routed, pursued in their thousands by tramping titans. The caves were filled with Dominarian defenders. All reports indicated decisive victories. Eladamri and his army descended to the portal.

Mantled in steam, Karn ascended from the engine room. He emerged, massive and brooding, onto the deck. Sisay arrived on deck at the same time, descending from the bridge.

The old friends spoke in accidental unison. "I'm going to help Gerrard."

Sisay smiled, fondly running her hand along Karn's massive jaw. "I'm glad to have you at my side."

Another figure rose from below. In the heat of the sick bay,

Orim had doffed her turban. Her coin-spangled hair dripped with perspiration. She mopped her brow with a rag and tucked it into her healer's cloak. A ready supply of powders, salves, and bandages waited in the pockets of that cloak. Her intent was clear.

Seeing her comrades, Orim strode to them. "Everyone's stable below. There'll be lots more injuries in the caves."

In emulation of Sisay's gesture, Karn ran a yet-warm finger beneath the healer's chin. "We'll all go get him."

The healer's eyes clouded in regret. "Not all of us. Not the one Gerrard wants to see most."

Sisay put one arm around her friend's shoulder. "You did all you could. We all miss her."

The silence that followed was broken by a scampering sound and a shrill squeal.

"Squee go to see him, too!" The green little man vaulted down from the bow gun and clasped hands with his friends.

Karn reached out, wrapping the group in an almighty embrace that lifted them from their feet. He strode purposefully across the deck and leaped over the rail. He fell weightlessly but landed like a hammer on an anvil. The folk in his grip smiled with chattering teeth as he walked into the cave.

Sisay managed to speak for them all. "Thanks, Karn, but I need the exercise."

Considering, Karn tromped to a halt, set his friends down, and gestured ahead of him.

"At least let me lead. I may not be a fighter, but I'm a fair shield."

"A shield?" Sisay said, eloquently staring him up and down. "You're more of a wall."

Squee leaped onto the silver golem's back. "G'won, Karn. You lead, long as Squee rides here."

Satisfied, the massive man tromped down into the Caves of Koilos.

This had been a particularly harsh cul-de-sac. Gerrard had lost ten soldiers to only four Phyrexians. As before, he took out his anger on the bugs' corpses.

Tahngarth and the others meanwhile laid out the bodies of the brave fallen. A torch lighted their heads. There were no longer cloths enough to cover faces. The ten lay staring at the ceiling. Stalactites dripped on them.

Gerrard's sword chopped again into scale and meat. Tahngarth no longer tried to halt the mutilations. Perhaps he understood. Gerrard was only doing to these bodies what their plague had done to Hanna.

Wordless and grim, Tahngarth led the rest of the contingent out of that slaughterhouse. They crowded through the narrow exit and into the passage beyond. Their voices made watery echoes as they headed deeper into the cave. With them went the angry light of the torches.

Gerrard was left with his own torch and the one that tended the fallen.

Cold darkness closed around him. It felt deadly. Gerrard was at home among deadly things. The smell of glisteningoil wreathed him. Positioning a torch at the heads of the four Phyrexians, Gerrard raised his sword. It hung there like a scorpion's tail. The blade fell. A monster's head rolled free with a sound like stone grating on stone…

Gerrard whirled.

A huge, round stone rolled down a track beside the door. With a boom, it sealed off the chamber's only exit.

Gerrard rushed to the stone. He grasped its cold edges and heaved. It did not budge in its track. The corridor beyond was silent and empty.

A rushing sound came behind Gerrard. He spun. Something vast dropped from among the stalactites. Numerous legs riled, outlined in the light of his torch. It was a giant spider-Tsabo Tavoc.

She landed on the torch, extinguishing it with her abdomen. In the sudden murk, legs clicked.

Gerrard lunged, sliding across the bloody cave floor to his fallen comrades. He snatched up the second torch and rose into a crouch. He waved the torch before him. Its fingers of flame were too tepid to reach the chamber's farther spaces.

Gerrard hurled the torch, end over end. It fell atop the Phyrexian dead. Fire leaped to puddles of glistening-oil. With a sudden whoosh, the tiny flame became a great blaze.

Shielding his eyes from the intense illumination, Gerrard scanned the darkness. Lurking beyond the glare, enshrouded in blackness, stood Tsabo Tavoc. She watched the burning corpses with glad fascination. Her compound eyes threw back the raving light.

Gerrard strode steadily toward that horrible apparition, calling out to her. "I see you, destroyer. I see you, Tsabo Tavoc. You took my country. You killed my love. Now, I will kill you."

Her voice buzzed like insect wings. "Such delicious hatred. You will make a fine Phyrexian." She withdrew deeper into the shadows. Only the thinnest sheen traced her legs. She seemed a mere phantasm.

Gerrard stalked dauntlessly forward. He himself had become a creature of shadows. "You killed her."

His sword lashed out. It caught one of the spider woman's legs in the conduits behind the knee. Wrenching his arm, Gerrard severed the leg. It rattled against the stone floor.

Tsabo Tavoc backed deeper into the shadows. The light from the burning corpses was faltering. The rear reaches of the cave were utterly dark. "You are powerful. Fearless."

"You killed her!" Gerrard bolted into the blackness.

He glimpsed a fish-white belly before him and rammed his sword up into Tsabo Tavoc's gut. Blood, black in that murk, sagged beneath the impaling blade. He lunged, intent on plunging the sword deeper.

Tsabo Tavoc's legs hurled him away.

Gerrard clutched his sword tightly. It ripped free of the spider woman's body. He tumbled head over heels. Stones bashed him as he rolled. The spider woman's gore looped him. Sprawling against the wall of the chamber, Gerrard panted.

He laughed. His thumb wiped some of the hot stain from his sword, and he tasted it. Salty, acidic-it tasted good.

Gerrard dragged himself to his feet and heaved a glad sigh. "Do you know, that wound I gave you-it's exactly where your plague bomb struck Hanna. That's where the rot began-the rot that ate her away." He strode into the darkness, sword lifted before him. "I'm going to tear you apart the way you tore her apart."

Tsabo Tavoc dropped on him with such speed and force, he was flung supine to the floor. His sword clanged and slid away. Three of the spider woman's legs wrapped about him, constricting tightly. She pressed his chest to her thorax. Blades in her joints cut into him.

Gerrard struggled. It was an inescapable grip. The gore from her belly wound ran down onto his face.

Tsabo Tavoc stared coldly at him. Her compound eyes gleamed in the last light of the burning bodies.

"You have the soul of a Phyrexian, Gerrard, a soul of hate. It makes you powerful, but infinitely malleable."

He felt a sudden, sharp pain in his back. Something gored him. It punched into his spine and poured out a hot, hissing substance. The stuff flooded Gerrard. His limbs shook. His skin blazed with fire. His vision grew acute- angry black lines slashed down around everything.

It was glistening-oil, liquid hatred infused into his spine. He had never known so powerful a passion. He wanted to rip Tsabo Tavoc apart, to kill everyone, to kill himself, but his body was not his own. Hatred burned away his nerves until he hung in hopeless, seething paralysis.

Good, my child, Tsabo Tavoc purred directly into his mind. Now you understand what it is to be one of us. Had you been my trophy, I would have fitted you with a mimetic spine, here and now. You belong not to me, though, but to Yawgmoth. This infusion makes you mine until we stand together before him.

Gerrard hung there beneath her, incapable of moving. He belonged here, clutched in his mother's legs.

She stalked forward a few paces. Her steps slowed, as if she were thinking. Think of your beloved, Gerrard. Think of Hanna, of how I killed her.

The pangs of hate cut deep, slaying Gerrard.

Mother was pleased. She purposefully crossed the cavern, scuttling past the burning Phyrexians and the Benalish dead. Reaching the door, she rolled back the stone as though it were a pebble and carried Gerrard away into the bowels of Koilos.

Karn, Sisay, Orim, and Squee followed the path of destruction carved out by the Benalish brigade. It led them ever downward, at last to a vast, deep chamber.

There, Eladamri and his Metathran troops had joined Tahngarth and the Benalish brigade. Together, they battled a horde of Phyrexians. Every moment, more beasts arrived. They filed through a huge, shimmering portal on the far side of the cave. The Dominarians were outnumbered two to one, and soon three to one. As long as the portal remained open to Phyrexia, there would be no hope of holding Koilos.

Beside the portal, surrounded by hundreds of Phyrexians, was a mirror pedestal. On it rested a giant book of glass and metal. Lines of power radiated from the spot, coursing into the portal.

"Where's Gerrard?" Sisay wondered as she hefted her sword.

"Lost, or dead," guessed Orim, drawing her wooden blade.

"We must destroy the pedestal," Karn said. "We must close the portal." He charged into battle along with Orim and Sisay.

On his back, Squee shouted, "What you doing, Karn? You don't fight."

With a voice like a distant waterfall, Karn growled, "They don't know that."