Invasion

Chapter 36

Tsabo Tavoc scuttled down the dark reaches of Koilos.

It was simple from here. Gerrard was hers. He couldn't move, clutched in three of her legs and gripped in the implacable arms of hate. He was as helpless now as a newborn babe. He would cause no trouble.

Think of your beloved, my child. Think of Hanna.

Tsabo Tavoc's other children were far from helpless. They filled the cavern below, driving the Dominarians back from the portal. Her children would be glad to sense her approach. They would open an avenue through the Dominarian host. Her children would press both ways, and Tsabo Tavoc would walk, untouched, through the center of the battle. Anyone else would have called it a gauntlet, with foes and death on either side. For Tsabo Tavoc, it was a parade of coronation. At its end lay Phyrexia and her great reward.

Think of Hanna. You lost her to me, and she lost you to Yawgmoth.

It was a hopeless fight. Phyrexians poured out of their world and into the cavern. Through the portal they came, distorted like visions through rising heat. Beyond that shimmering gate, thousands more filed forward. Rank on rank, they filed into a meat grinder.

Eladamri was one blade of that grinder. He and Liin Sivi led the Steel Leaf elves in a furious drive for the mirror pedestal. Eladamri's sword rang like a bell as he hewed his way. Liin Sivi's toten-vec whirled in deadly circles. The elves did their vicious best, fighting for the Seed of Freyalise as if Eladamri were Freyalise herself. For all their fury, though, Eladamri and his troops could do little more than slay. Phyrexian bodies made walls before them.

Across the chamber was another blade in the meat grinder. Tahngarth's sword opened the belly of a monster. Entrails cascaded out. The beast trod on them and slipped. Tahngarth turned and chopped down into the head of another brute. The horned brow was no match for Hurloon steel. The minotaur wrenched his sword free, simultaneously driving his elbow into the eye of a third beast. It fell to the floor and skidded before Sisay.

She fought beside him with equal valor, though less battle lust. An efficient sword swinger, Sisay had time to defend herself and assist Orim. Though at heart a healer, Orim could kill Phyrexians, even with her wooden Cho-Arrim sword. She had only to think of Hanna. All around Orim fought Benalish irregulars, many armed only with their fists and sheer will.

The defenders of Dominaria brought death to hundreds of Phyrexians, but there were thousands. For half an hour, they had fought in this breathless, hopeless battle, and gained not an inch toward the mirror pedestal.

Karn had done the most in that regard. Without bashing in a head or crushing a spine-both of which he was physically able to do-Karn had simply waded into the Phyrexian troops. It had taken them mere moments to discover they could not kill him. It took considerably longer to discover he would not kill them. They mobbed him. He was halfway across the cavern floor before the weight of bodies mired Karn in place. Beneath a living pile of fiends, Karn and his goblin passenger were buried. Hopeless.

In the next moments, the battle grew worse. The Phyrexians fought with a sudden, unanimous purpose. They pushed back the Benalish brigade and their Metathran and elf allies. A clear path opened in their midst. On one end of that avenue, the scintillating portal stood, disgorging its armies. On the other end, at the lofted entrance to the cave, appeared Tsabo Tavoc.

The spider woman surveyed the scene. Gladness gleamed in her weird eyes. Her mouth plates formed a serene smile. A wound wept blackly on her belly. She clutched something to her thorax, something that dangled like boneless meat.

"Gerrard!" Sisay gasped in realization. She fought toward him.

Orim followed in her wake. Her sword darted with equal thirst.

Tahngarth brought up the rear. Perhaps they could not battle their way to the mirror pedestal that powered the portal, but they could fight their way to Gerrard.

Tsabo Tavoc seemed to see the three comrades. Her spiracles deeply inhaled the scent of battle. On four legs, she darted swiftly down the channel of her warriors.

Roaring, Sisay clove the head of a Phyrexian foot soldier. She climbed his falling body, a ramp up the wall of fiends. Claws lashed her legs. Orim slashed the limbs away. A scuta reared up to block her path. She merely vaulted onto its face shield, sinking her wooden sword in the thing's eye. It slumped. Orim scrambled up the bleeding face. Tahngarth climbed afterward. Tsabo Tavoc scurried past.

Sisay leaped from the wall of Phyrexians into the spider woman's wake. The floor was slick with blood and oil, but Sisay had seafarer's legs. She pelted after the fleeing spider. Tsabo Tavoc was too fast. Sisay dived, extending her sword arm. The blade swept down, slicing into the obscene abdomen. Even as she fell to her face, Sisay twisted the sword. It lodged behind the spider's stinger and ripped the thing out by its roots.

Tsabo Tavoc emitted no scream of pain, but her followers did. Countless claws grasped Sisay and flung her away as if she were poison. She sailed through air and crashed against one wall of the cave.

Orim, cut off by the sudden tide of beasts, leaped away, racing to Sisay's aid.

Tahngarth was not so easily deterred. The mob of monsters crushed up in Tsabo Tavoc's wake, guarding their wounded mother. They were tightly packed like sheep in a slaughter channel. Tahngarth ran across their heads. His hooves pounded skulls, stunning some, crushing others. If they died, they died. His true focus was the spider woman. He might not have caught up to her except that he ran across a throng that also ran.

Hurling himself from their shoulders, Tahngarth vaulted onto Tsabo Tavoc's back.

She crouched, shoved down by the sudden weight.

Tahngarth swung his sword in a decapitating blow.

Before metal could strike flesh, one of the spider woman's legs rose. She blocked the blade and ripped it away.

Tahngarth did not release his sword-no true minotaur would-but he was no match for Tsabo Tavoc's mechanical might. He was flung away as though he were a mere calf. Tahngarth crashed into the opposite wall of the cave. Groaning, the minotaur slid down to lie still.

There was no one to stop her now, hemmed in by her children. Not even Eladamri could fight past that mass of monsters.

Tsabo Tavoc jerked to a sudden stop. One leg seemed caught.

Karn rose, magnificent, from beneath a mound of clawing Phyrexians. They seemed only voracious cockroaches sloughing from his shoulders. In one massive hand, the silver golem clutched Tsabo Tavoc's leg. His other hand won free of the monsters that swarmed him, and he grabbed another of the spider woman's legs. With an almighty heave, he yanked one of the mechanisms from her body.

Sparks popped from the rent socket. Glistening-oil ran. The severed leg convulsed in Karn's grip. He dropped it amid the shrieking horde. They clutched the limb in mournful agony.

Karn grasped another leg and, roaring, yanked it free. The flesh where it had been embedded made a sucking, rending sound as it came loose.

On only two legs, Tsabo Tavoc tottered. She drew one leg away from Gerrard, setting it down before her and struggling to break from the golem's grasp.

Karn was implacable. Above the shrieks of the Phyrexians, his thunderous voice rang out.

"No more. If I must kill the guilty to save the innocent, I will kill!"

He ripped away another of the spider woman's legs. Before he could get another handhold, Tsabo Tavoc leaped away.

She dropped one more leg from Gerrard and ambled away from the silver golem. Her captive hung limp in the grip of a single limb.

Karn struggled to pursue, but the mass of creatures bore him down. He fell Like a steel door, impacting the floor with a resounding boom.

Tsabo Tavoc skittered up to the shimmering portal. Her forces sluiced through around her-faithful children everywhere. Spiracles panting, the spider woman turned to gaze out at the battlefield. She smiled. Segments bristled on her face. Her eyes shone with the glossy glow of exquisite pain.

Climbing onto the mirror pedestal and the glass book, Tsabo Tavoc shouted, "You are finished, Dominaria. You have fought me bravely and lost. No mortal can ever defeat Death. I am Death. Embrace me, and I will lead you down to death and up again into deathless life.

"You think we are destroyers. You are wrong. We are saviors. You are but larvae, but pupae-white and unformed maggots. Until you die, you cannot become more. We bring you your death. We bring you to greater life.

"Now, fight if you must, Dominaria. Flee if you can. Either way, it will be the same. We will drag you down to death and save you…"

Glorious words. Glorious, my mother, Gerrard thought, hanging in her grip. At last, I have lost all to you. Parents, foster parents, family, mentors, friends, and now myself. Only now do I understand. I love you, Mother. I love you with every fiber in me. Thank you for this. Thank you for killing me to make me greater.

He had never known such love. It made him weak. It made him mad. It made him want to stab her, to tear out her eyes, to rake her brains. If only his body would respond, he would cut his way into her.

Never had he known such love!

Once, he thought he had. Hanna had been her name. He remembered so much of her-golden hair, bright eyes, quiet smile-but nothing of wanting to kill her. He must not have loved her-not like he loved Mother.

She had killed Hanna, Mother had. Mother had killed so many, some with claws, some with minions, some with disease. That's how Hanna had died. Mother had loved her enough to send tiny machines crawling through her. Hanna had been furious. She had not wanted to transcend. She had not wanted…

Gerrard's mind struggled to assemble the thought.

Hanna had not wanted… She had not wanted… to die.

That forbidden thought spread through his mind.

Hanna had not wanted to die.

That single truth killed the manifold lies that swarmed in his head. Love is what he had felt for Hanna. Hate was what he felt for Moth-, for Tsabo Tavoc. The rest had all been lies, had been glistening-oil.

Truth spread through his once-poisoned spine and out along a million neural branches and into the tissues they touched. It gave him back his mind and his body.

He hung there still, his strength returning. He could feel Tsabo Tavoc's leg around him, could hear the cicada drone of her oration. No longer was she in his head. How to escape? It would take monumental strength to break the hold of even one of her legs.

"Pssst," came a sound near Gerrard's ear.

He slowly turned his head and saw a beautiful face- green and wart nosed, with feverish little eyes and barbed bits of bug leg between yellow teeth. Squee. It was no wonder he had passed unnoticed among the monsters in the chamber-hideously beautiful as he was.

"Here," the goblin said, shoving forward the hilt of a sword. Gerrard's mind was his own-his arm, his fingers. They clutched the pommel. There was no hesitation. He hurled the blade upward, past legs, past gripping thorax, past even the first cut he had made in Tsabo Tavoc's white belly. His blade bit through skin and muscle. It jabbed into gut, slicing it open.

Tsabo Tavoc's words ceased in the air. Her children watched in shocked horror. She jolted and stared down, stupefied.

"For Hanna!" Gerrard shouted. He heaved the sword again into Tsabo Tavoc's belly, ripping it wide.

The spider woman convulsed. Blood gushed hot from her. She gasped, clutching the filthy laceration.

Her minions winced back in shared agony. The leg that held Gerrard shuddered, loosening. "Let death improve you," Gerrard growled. He lanced the tip of the blade into the leg socket that held him.

Wires severed. Sparks flew. The leg went limp, dropping Gerrard. It felt glorious to fall that way, away from the feverish metal, away from the horrid mother of monsters.

He landed atop the book of glass and metal, atop the mirror pedestal.

Tsabo Tavoc hissed. Her three good legs gathered themselves to lunge.

Suddenly, the portal flickered and disappeared. A rock wall stood where once there had been a door to Phyrexia. The monsters that had been marching through that door were cut in half. Hunks of scale and flesh pattered down in a ghastly hail.

Tsabo Tavoc whirled. Her route to Yawgmoth was gone-her legions of demons, her escape. She didn't even have enough limbs left to hold Gerrard and walk.

Gerrard scrambled off the giant book, swinging his sword before him to clear a path.

The portal reappeared. Without even looking back at her quarry, at her armies, Tsabo Tavoc launched herself for the spot.

"Get back on de book!" Squee squealed. "Shut de door!"

Gerrard dived.

Tsabo Tavoc ambled over the corpses of her own troops. She flung herself through the portal.

Gerrard landed on the book.

The gate slammed shut. Only the blank cave wall remained- and the severed right cheek and arm of Tsabo Tavoc. The two hunks of meat flopped to the floor beside a bulbous cross section of her abdomen. The rest of her was on the other side, in Phyrexia.

"She escaped," Gerrard hissed angrily.

The Phyrexians, so long enspelled by their mother's words, now seemed to wake from a standing sleep. She was gone-they knew that first-and wounded and beyond their reach…

But only as long as the portal remained closed…

A wall of hackles, fangs, and claws rose up to tear Gerrard from the book. En masse, the Phyrexians lunged on him.