Planeshift

Chapter 2

Urza's titan engine extended a massive metallic arm around Weatherlight's amidships. Thran metal clamped on living wood. The ship lurched to a halt above clambering armies of Phyrexians.

"What the-!" Gerrard growled, slinging sideways in his gunnery traces. He slammed against the red-hot chassis of the gun. Gritting his teeth, he managed to squeeze off two more rounds. The rays stabbed from the cannon barrel and turned the air into a pair of red fists. They soared down in a one-two punch that sizzled Phyrexians to nothing and cratered the sand into glass bowls.

New power surged. Along every rivet and seam of Urza's titan engine, blue energy glowed. It swelled out to envelop the titan, the skyship, and its fleet. Through a glass dome, Urza was just visible in his pilot's harness. His form shimmered-the start of a planeswalk. Rings of disturbance spread out rapidly from him. The piloting mechanisms dissolved into fuzz. The armor shell went next.

Weatherlight's hull glowed too. Even Gerrard at his gun, even Tahngarth, turned insubstantial.

The mad world folded up around Weatherlight, her scrappy fleet, and Urza's titan engine. Koilos and its cockroach armies slid away into sudden creases in reality. The false dawn faded. The false world disintegrated.

In their place swirled the Blind Eternities. It was a cloudy chaos, a space of shapeless energies and potentialities.

Gerrard gripped the fire controls of his cannon and gritted his teeth. He had soared through this nowhere place before, in Weatherlight's own planeshifts, but he'd never been dragged through.

Urza Planeswalker and his creations hung for a moment in the void. Then chaos took form. Potentiality became actuality.

True dawn broke over the ship. For a moment, all seemed blue-the robin's-egg sky above and the sloshing sea below. The scene was marred by one black knot of swamp and moss and tree. It was an island, a rather small island, though growing larger all the while.

Weatherlight and her titan stowaway were plunging down toward it.

Gerrard growled. Into the prow speaking tube, he shouted, "Sisay, evasive!"

Her voice echoed back, "Hang on!"

Weatherlight's engines flared. She yawed suddenly, jiggling the titan's arm. With angry insistence, the ship rolled. Sea replaced sky.

Urza half-flipped. Nerveless, his metallic arm lost hold of the ship.

Weatherlight's airfoils slapped together. Fire flared behind. Like a cork from a bottle, Weatherlight shot from Urza's grasp. The ship surged up into azure heavens.

Urza's titan engine meanwhile plunged toward azure seas.

Gerrard peered over the rail and watched Urza fall, open-mouthed and panicky in his pilot's capsule. The planeswalker's shock could not have been more profound. He tumbled to splash magnificently just beyond the island's shelf. His impact sent a plume of white water five hundred feet into the air. Limbs sank in sand and muck. The pilot bulb glared like an angry eye as it went under.

Gerrard whooped. Standing in the traces, he shouted over the rail, "How do you like getting shoved around, planeswalker?"

From black churning waters, the titan engine's crown emerged. Foam draped the proud dome, and liquid streamed from power conduits. Urza doggedly marched toward the shore of the island.

Gerrard shook his head. "Why did the old bastard bring us here?" He glanced toward the island, and his breath caught in his throat.

Weatherlight had been here before, perhaps a year ago. This isle had once been the home of Crovax.

"Sisay, take us low over the isle."

"Aye."

When last Weatherlight was here, the woods were overrun by Phyrexians and the plantation house was destroyed by fire. Crovax lost his home and his family on that day. He lost even more than that. He lost his angel Selenia too. It had been that loss that had turned him to evil.

Now, more than ever, Gerrard understood such loss.

Weatherlight plummeted from the skies, followed by her fleet. She shot low over the waves. Her keel tore past the toiling titan engine. She mounted up to soar above the palms.

Gazing down between the tossing heads of the trees, Gerrard saw an all-too-familiar scene.

Phyrexians filled the island. They slew men and beasts and feasted on them. They gnawed trees and burned thorn brakes. They piled ash into swamps and built redoubts. They set ray cannons and mana bombards in their embrasures. By the end of the day, this island would be a Phyrexian stronghold from which they could control the seas and the outer isles of Urborg.

"Not if I can help it," Gerrard said beneath his breath. "Battle stations!" he called through the tube. "Signal the fleet. We're taking back the island."

Tahngarth stood in the gunnery traces and peered down at the swamps rattling past below. "We'd better take out their artillery before it gets running-"

His words were cut short by a black stream of energy that erupted through the cypresses. It vaulted up toward Weatherlight, growing all the while.

"Evasive!" Gerrard called.

Weatherlight folded her airfoils and knifed down laterally above the trees. The black-mana bolt slid away to one side. Weatherlight's wings spread to grab the air, and her engines blazed. Her serrated keel sliced the uppermost boughs as she shot out above the island.

"Too late!" Tahngarth growled. "They've got their guns."

"And we've got ours," Gerrard replied through gritted teeth.

His cannon howled as it unleashed its round. The charge whirled a moment among white boles and crashed into a black-mana bombard. Plasma laved the gun chassis. It penetrated the energy stores. The bombard burst. It dissolved into a swelling sphere of fire. Energy pulverized the Phyrexian gunners. It destroyed trees nearby and cracked the very air.

"That's the way!" Gerrard whooped. "Keep us low and fast, Sisay-at the treetops. They won't know where we are until we're on top of them."

Sisay didn't answer except by steering the ship along a low ridge above the swamps.

Atop the ridge, Phyrexian cannons turned a bead on Weatherlight.

Tahngarth's gun cackled. The shot struck the first cannon. It melted like a candle. Red metal spattered Phyrexian crews and destroyed the second gun. The third got off a shot. Crimson force rose from the steaming barrel.

Growling, Tahngarth swept the air with answering fire. It caught the other blast like a net catching fish.

Weatherlight roared out over the gun.

Tahngarth pivoted to bring his cannon to bear, but the target slid to stern. Another bolt rose after the ship.

"Look sharp, Squee!" Tahngarth shouted into the speaking tube.

His voice spilled out beside the aft gun. There, a much smaller figure clutched the fire controls. Squee was an unlikely tail gunner-green and warty, with long, pointed ears, a crooked-toothed grin, and a reputation for cowardice. Still, he had downed Volrath's own gunship and had assisted in countless cruiser kills during the opening war. At the tail gun, Squee fought with fury.

This occasion was no exception. Squee loosed a triple blast. The first shot smashed aside the Phyrexian beam. The second ripped a clear way through the treetops. The third soared down the enemy barrel and peeled it back as if it were a banana.

"Nice shooting, Squee!" yelled Gerrard. "That's four guns down! How many do you think they've got?"

As if in answer, a wall of scarlet energy jutted skyward ahead of them. Helionauts and jump ships hurtled away to either side of the red wall. Weatherlight was too big for such quick maneuvers. She soared toward destruction.

Sisay dragged the helm hard to port. Weatherlight banked sharply away from the raking fire. Her keel cut a deep groove through the air. She rose on angry engines.

The Phyrexian cannons followed her with fire.

Sisay braced her legs and hauled hard on the wheel. The ship climbed almost straight up. Engines belched blue flame. Weatherlight rocketed heavenward, enwrapped in killing rays. She rose up past the curtain of fire and skipped away among shielding clouds. The light rays dissipated among drops of water.

"It'd be nice to have a little help!" Sisay shouted.

"I've given up expecting it," Gerrard answered. "At least we've got our fleet. Take us back down to them, Captain."

"Aye, Commander," Sisay said.

Weatherlight dived through the clouds. Vapor rolled from her gunwales.

The isle appeared below. Phyrexian cannon fire clawed the treetops away. One blast snatched a helionaut from the air. Another grazed a jump ship. Though outgunned, the smaller craft sent exploding quarrels down into the Phyrexian armies. It would not be enough. Phyrexians swarmed the land.

"Get the helionauts out of there," Gerrard ordered. "Signal them to hover high and watch for airships. They're no good against ground troops."

"Aye, Commander," came the voice of the communications ensign.

"So, that leaves just us and the jump ships?" Sisay asked.

"Not just us," Gerrard reported, jabbing a finger toward the rapidly approaching shoreline. "Urza's made landfall."

Taller than the treetops, Urza's titan engine marched into the swamp. The hulking mechanism still streamed water and seaweed but looked all the more sinister for it. Rockets jumped away from his wrists and corkscrewed through deadwood forests. They plowed through earthwork trenches and exploded in the bunkers beyond. Hunks of bug flesh rained outward.

Gerrard shook his head in grudging amazement. He lifted a captain's glass to his eye to watch the carnage.

Urza's titan engine strode onward. A huge fireball formed before the planeswalker and swooped down to drive Phyrexians into a shallow marsh. Lightning leaped from the fork above the pilot bulb and jagged through the water. Monsters thrashed and sizzled. Urza strode atop them, paying no heed. He drove straight across the ground, making toward some goal only he knew.

Weatherlight reached the shore and roared out over the treetops.

"There's another titan engine," Tahngarth shouted.

"Another what?" Gerrard asked in amazement.

"Another titan engine-three more!"

Gerrard paused in his attacks to stare at the spectacle. Above the mossy treetops on the far sides of the isle moved gleaming pilot domes. These engines had fought at Koilos and now had come here.

"And ground troops!" Tahngarth called, "Metathran ground troops."

Between the flashing boles of trees, Gerrard saw them. Agnate and his Metathran army of forty thousand had been brought here, too. They swept across the land in a purging blue tide, destroying the Phyrexians in their path.

"Watch your fire, friends," Sisay advised. "Our own troops are down there."

"Yeah," Gerrard confirmed, nodding blankly. "It looks like the old man brought help after all." He folded the captain's glass. "We're useless back here. We can't fire with our own forces on the ground. Sisay, take us to the center of the Phyrexian encampment."

"Where would that be?" she asked "Where Urza is heading," Gerrard said.

"Aye, Commander."

Weatherlight slid into the wake of destruction behind Urza.

Below, Metathran troops ran. Their battle axes glinted. Their war cry rose above even the thunder of Weatherlight's engines.

She soared out directly above Urza.

Falcon engines launched from his shoulders. They gleamed beside Weatherlight's bow. The silvery birds shrieked as they stooped on their prey-Phyrexians.

Just ahead, a fresh wave of the beasts charged into battle. Some had once been human, their figures stretched on metallic frameworks, their muscles augmented with machines. Others were not remotely human. They had been grown in vats of glistening-oil, sculpted by priests of Phyrexia. Massive legs, crested heads, dagger fangs, scimitar claws-they were creatures created to kill.

Whatever their origins, the beasts of Phyrexia met Urza's deadly machines. Silver falcons shrieked down upon them. Razor-sharp beaks rammed Phyrexian bellies. Shredding mechanisms tore them apart. The front lines crumbled and bled even as Weatherlight hurtled by overhead.

"Stay the course," called Gerrard.

He and Tahngarth unleashed a fresh volley of fire. The bolts disintegrated lichens, stripped trees to their heartwood, and boiled marshes. Fire flooded mana bombards. It melted armor and burned fiend flesh from bone. Fore, aft, and amidships, Weatherlight's cannons blazed.

Urza and his three planeswalker comrades meanwhile marched their titan engines inward. They cut converging lines through Phyrexian troops. Wave upon wave of

Metathran mopped up behind. The blue-skinned warriors had taken Koilos. Now they would take Urborg.

But why? Gerrard wondered. Why is this fight so important?

On a low hill ahead lay the core of Phyrexian command- Crovax's noble estate. It was in ruins. Smoke blackened everything. Domes lay cracked like eggshells. Columns pointed accusing fingers at the sky. Phyrexian armies were marshaled across the fields. Once the angel Selenia had kept evil from this place. That was before Crovax stole her away. Now, the angel, the plantation, and Crovax himself belonged to Yawgmoth. The plantation had become a Phyrexian staging ground.

"Target the guns first!" Gerrard ordered, folding his captain's glass and bringing his cannon to bear, "then the ammunitions depot, then the command center, then the individual soldiers."

"Aye," answered Tahngarth and the other gunners.

"Sisay, bring us in at the treetops, fast and low. Strafe the damned bugs."

"I think you enjoy this too much," Sisay replied, adding a belated, "Commander."

Weatherlight flew down a marshy hollow. Fronds slapped the belly of the ship. Weatherlight's roar bounced from water and wood.

"Even with bats' ears and flies' eyes, they won't be able to tell where we are," Gerrard assured himself.

His hands were sweaty on the fire controls. Fear prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. There was something not right about this. He'd made a miscalculation-was thinking too much like a human, not a monster. Gerrard flicked a glance over one shoulder to Tahngarth. The bull-man returned his gaze, eyes rimmed with uncertainty. He sensed it too.

Clenching his jaw, Gerrard faced forward. "All right, just watch for the guns. Take out the guns, and we'll be fine."

Weatherlight flew from the wetlands and up the rising fields where Crovax's family had once planted their crops. A darker crop rose now-countless Phyrexians encamped for war. They were arrayed in orderly file, toy soldiers on a brown carpet. In the center of the army, a column of beasts marched-not toward battle but toward the plantation house.

"Hold your fire!" Gerrard called. "Watch for the guns!"

Though Weatherlight roared above the Phyrexians, none looked upward.

The ship topped the long rise and reached the broad tablelands where the ruins rested. Rampant vines draped palm and cypress-plenty of cover to hide bombards. No guns fired, though. In the central lane leading to the plantation house, Phyrexians marched in an orderly column.

"What is this?" Tahngarth asked.

Gerrard only shook his head.

At last the ship flew over the shattered mansion itself. Every room lay open to the sky. The ghosts of past grandeur lingered among burned beams and ruined furnishings. The Phyrexian parade entered the plantation house and snaked its way to a specific room-a small room. It was untouched by the ravages that had destroyed the rest, or it had been reconstructed-the room of a young man. There, in that doorway, Phyrexians one by one bowed to the floor in homage.

There was no time to see more. Weatherlight shot past the roofless home. Gerrard and the other gunners still watched for ground-to-air fire, but none rose.

In dread realization, Gerrard murmured, "It's not a command center. It's a holy place, a temple to the boy who grew up there. It's a temple to Crovax." A drop of sweat rolled chillingly down Gerrard's spine.

How high had Crovax risen in the Phyrexian hierarchy?

"That's why we're in Urborg," Gerrard said to himself. "Crovax is here." Into the speaking tube, he said, "Bring us around, Sisay. Let's go in with guns blazing. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel. We'll kill every last bug. We'll capture this isle. It'll become our beachhead for rousting the Phyrexians from all of Urborg."

Even as he spoke, Sisay brought the ship around in a tight arc. All along the rails, cannons hummed hotly, ready for annihilation. The jitters were gone from gunners' hands. There was only the grim set of jaws and the lightless eyes of men who knew they were about to commit slaughter.

Gerrard's gun spoke first. It lashed out a red hand that burned away a whole platoon of Phyrexians. Tahngarth's cannon ripped through fifty more. Death stabbed down on the bowed heads and shuffling claws. Phyrexians died like roaches.

Above the roar of his gun, Tahngarth shouted, "Why don't they even run?"

Gerrard shook his head. "They cannot run. Crovax has commanded their worship."