The metal army reminded Venser of the bits and pieces he’d been scavenging for years, but these terrors were whole. They were also active, aggressive, and coordinated in their assault. Unlike the broken Phyrexians Venser was familiar with, these were more steel blue than black and were smooth and polished rather than jagged and sharp. They glowed from within, lurid blue light spilling out at their seams, from their open jaws, and from the brightly glowing stones embedded in their chests.
Urborg’s defenders were no less diverse and no less terrifying. Huge tigers and leopards stalked among the machines, savagely tearing off limbs and crushing skulls when they pounced. There were giant insects overhead, wolf-sized wasps and towering mantises that filled the air with buzzing as they skimmed over the icy swamp grass. Endlessly long snakes with spindly double-jointed limbs slithered along the ground and through the trees, their eyes rimmed with red and their fangs spraying poison. Each of the dread menagerie bore the gladehunter mark, a simple, broad-stroke sigil that shined in the darkness. The light from the gladehunter sigils and the Phyrexians’ power supply cast green-black and pale blue shadows across the battlefield, illuminating the animal corpses and broken machinery that littered the ground.
Venser considered himself a man of science, not of faith, but in the face of this carnage even he fell back to the childhood oaths that had once buoyed his courage. “Windgrace protect us,” he muttered, barely aware that he was speaking aloud.
He was shaken but also mesmerized by the spectacle. The ambulator and Jhoira were both forgotten as Venser stood stock-still and watched the strange battle unfold. Both sides were focused and well-organized, and neither had a clear martial advantage. The Phyrexians were precise as they advanced but quickly fell into rabid, uncontrolled action as soon as they were engaged by the gladehunters. Urborg’s forces were not as coherent as a group, but they were ruthlessly efficient once single combat was joined.
No wonder the gladehunters hadn’t come for him yet. Lord Windgrace must have marshaled all of his forces to meet the invaders, sending every last artifact-hating member of his legion into battle against the machine horde. The war raged on and Venser was reminded of the massive sheer cliffs of Shiv and the towering waves that dashed against them—though in this case he could not say which was which. The Phyrexians surged forward, were repelled by the gladehunters, and withdrew. The gladehunters pursued but were met with fierce resistance from Phyrexian reinforcements and pulled back. This ebb and flow played out four times as Venser stood amazed. It became more like two oceans coming together at each one’s high tide, their strongest storm surges meeting, testing each other, then pulling back, all without any regard for the landmasses underneath.
A small knot of combatants split off from the main body and thrashed its way toward him. Venser retreated several steps back down the rise so that only his head was visible from the field. He had never seen live Phyrexians before and had certainly never seen them in action, but neither had he seen the gladehunters rampant. This was the first time he had encountered the fearsome beasts when they weren’t out for his blood, and he took this opportunity to marvel at their dreadful killing power. He was oddly thrilled, not only because they were ignoring him but also because they were killing and dying to protect their shared homeland.
A red and black striped night tiger seized a Phyrexian foot soldier by the chest, its massive jaws almost completely engulfing the artifact warrior’s torso. The feline brute crunched down, sending a fountain of blue sparks up into the air, then savagely twisted its head left and right. The foot soldier’s hips and legs flew in one direction, its mangled upper body flew in another. The big cat coughed and spat a dying blue crystal into the half-frozen muck.
The tiger was then immediately skewered by a gleaming silver-black lance that erupted from the front of a Phyrexian war wagon. The square machine was bigger than an oxcart, and it rolled inexorably forward on twin metal treads. The articulated lance lifted the tiger’s massive body high into the air as the wagon rumbled on. It rolled over the lower half of a gladehunter mantis, crushing it flat, and the machine sent a lethal jolt of electricity through the tiger’s body. The big cat let out one final, defiant roar as its eyes boiled and its tongue curled to black ash.
A dozen gladehunter wasps quickly descended on the war wagon, each bearing a foot-long stinger and vivid yellow stripes. They settled on the machine, covering its front end with their bodies, well clear of the lance and the treads. The wasps stung the war wagon repeatedly, each blow punching through the thick metal armor. Venser saw the caustic venom dripping from those stingers each time they withdrew, and he saw it dissolving metal everywhere it touched. It was dripping freely from the wounds they made, running like an open sore, and Venser wondered how much of the toxic poison had been pumped into the blocky machine’s innards.
The war wagon slowed. The wasps departed as quickly as they had come, rising into the air as one on hard, translucent wings. Venser heard the familiar grinding sound of cogs and gears gone astray, and the Phyrexian wagon shuddered. Instinctively, Venser dropped down behind the hill just as a powerful internal explosion ripped the mechanical monster in half.
Venser peeked up over the rise. The war wagon was dead, silent and smoking in the snow. Overhead, two Phyrexian harpies with scythe hands dived straight into the swarm of gladehunter wasps, cutting two vicious paths through the center. The flying devils screeched as they banked, turned, and plowed through the swarm again on their way back up. Foul, green goo splattered on the field below and random pieces of wing and stinger landed nearby.
Just as Venser began to fear this battle would never end, the gladehunters stopped. Each of the fell menagerie ceased to advance, ceased to engage the enemy, and held its ground. Responding to some unseen signal, Urborg’s defenders then retreated, withdrawing without turning their backs or exposing themselves to Phyrexian attack. Indeed, more than one metallic invader lost limbs or life when they tried to strike at the retreating horde.
The Phyrexians did not hesitate once the field was clear. They surged in, filling the space, jostling each other as they crammed the marsh to overflowing. Venser did not know why they were staging themselves thusly and not pursuing the enemy, but they were somehow more terrifying in this confused, chaotic state then they were in organized ranks.
Venser looked more closely. It was not that the Phyrexians weren’t pursuing the gladehunters but that they couldn’t. Some invisible force was holding them in place, blocking their exit and herding them back into one another. If he peered intently at the edges of the Phyrexian horde, he could see the fog and the smoke baffling off a clearly outlined perimeter, a rounded bubble of impassable space.
The noise and clamor disappeared without warning, though the abominations were all scrabbling over one another and scratching at the barrier. Silence reigned and Venser felt a chill that had nothing do to with the weather. The entire force of gladehunters stood just beyond the edge of the imprisoned Phyrexians, stacked five and six deep with hungry eyes fixed on the enemy.
The silence was shattered by a panther’s growl so loud it pained Venser’s ears. He crouched down again, fearful, but he also kept close watch on the Phyrexians.
A big cat roared, but the sound came from everywhere, around Venser, below him, behind him, and from inside him. The terrifying bellow eclipsed everything else—his fear, his interest, his sense of self-preservation—and Venser found himself filled with almost uncontrollable bloodlust and…pride?
The roar came again, and the entire Phyrexian force rose into the air. They formed a disharmonious mass of metal blades and sharp-edged jaws, each straining to be free, but all they did was damage each other. Soon the ball of invaders was floating twenty feet over the surface of the marsh. Venser watched carefully, noting the small black shoots that sprang from the frozen ground below it.
Something between a scream and a roar rolled over the field. The shoots responded by leaping up into the mass of Phyrexians above, each bec
oming a sturdy, sinuous vine cane as it crawled inside a machine body. The metal horrors screeched and flailed, but they were soon so clogged with vines that they lost what little mobility they had. Fat black thorns popped from the surface of the ever-swelling vines, starting at ground level and rising up each cane like bubbles in a boiling pot.
The thorns met the seams of the lowest Phyrexians in the mass, and Venser heard more metallic grinding from within the invaders when the surge proceeded inside. An awful series of sharp pops and mournful groans rang out as the Phyrexians’ insides were punctured, sundered, and shredded. Thinner thorn canes crawled up the outer surface of the Phyrexian assembly, marring their polished blue-steel exteriors with deeply etched scars and thin curls of metal.
The artifact invaders stiffened and struggled, dripping gold-tinted oil and venting hot clouds of toxic steam. The outer vines contracted as the inner thorns tripled in size. One last shudder ran through the compacted mass of Phyrexian horrors, and the marsh fell silent once more.
All over. Rest now. Safe at last. Rest….
Venser caught a flicker of a thin, armored human figure standing just outside his peripheral vision. He jerked his head and ducked down further, but the phantom in the dull gray helmet and tattered rags was gone, his presence barely registered on Venser’s consciousness.
But he had been there. Venser had seen him, had seen pale, human skin on the helmed figure’s bare arms. Were there Urborg collaborators among the Phyrexians?
Rest, little fly. Your work is done, your burdens lifted. Lie down and rest….
The high, manic voice faded as the ball of thorns and metal began to contract. Its progress was slow, deliberate at first, but then with a sudden, brutal sound the entire mass collapsed, crushing the Phyrexians inside into a compacted mass half its original size. Metal crunched and shattered as the vines continued to surge up across its surface. They curled around and back across themselves, covering the mass in multiple layers of thick black thorns until the ball’s own weight made it sag on its woody foundations. The invaders were all silent and still, broken into their component parts and suspended among the thorns. The battle was over.
Venser quickly crept back down the hill toward his ambulator. He was not sure what had just happened, but he had an educated guess. It was time for him to go. Without the Phyrexians to occupy them, the battle-maddened gladehunters would almost certainly turn on him, and he was determined not to be here when that happened.
The ambulator was now in sight. He didn’t think he could pry it out of the swamp on his own, but he might be able to activate it, to have it carry him instead. Barring that, he would backtrack the trench his landing had created and continue to search for Jhoira. He knew this particular area well, so it would not take him long to search or make it back to the safety of his workshop.
The air shimmered in front of him and Venser plowed face-first into a wall of luxurious fur and rock-hard muscle. Sheer terror ran through him as he realized with whom he had just collided.
Lord Windgrace stared down as Venser stepped back. Urborg’s panther-god protector was enormous, towering on his hind legs, his arms, shoulders, and chest broad and heavily muscled. He wore a simple armored tunic that left his massive arms bare. His black fur shined in the gloom, and his eyes were a paralyzing shade of yellowish green. His lips curled back over his sharp white teeth, and he puffed steam from his triangular nose.
“You there,” Windgrace said. “You’re the maggot who builds machines.” His voice rumbled out of his expansive chest, so low and foreboding that Venser’s spine quivered.
He tried to drop to his knees. He tried to plead for forbearance. He tried to apologize for a lifetime of antagonizing the gladehunters and insulting their patron. Instead, Venser simply stared up at the awesome figure with his mouth hanging open and clouds of white fog rolling from his lips.
Windgrace’s eyebrow rose. Venser felt himself floating helplessly into the air until he was eye-to-eye with the panther-man.
“I would have words with you,” Windgrace said. “Before I decide what to do with you.”
Venser tried once more to talk, but all he produced was a sad strangling sound.
Windgrace ignored him, looking past Venser to the feral assembly of beasts and monsters waiting nearby. “My children,” he said, “you fought well tonight. But the war is far from over.
“In the meantime,” he said, focusing his dreadful gaze back on Venser, “we have this. It may be Phyrexia’s. It may be the Weaver King’s. It may be nothing at all.
“But whatever it is, I shall determine. I will know what it knows. And either Urborg will have a new convert…or you will have a new toy.” Windgrace flicked an eye toward the thorn ball and said, “Do not let this monument to Phyrexia’s failure stand for long. You know your duty. Strip them down, pick them clean, and scatter them across the swamps.”
An unsettling series of hisses and growls signaled the menagerie’s assent. Windgrace did not linger but snorted again and turned away. Almost as an afterthought, Windgrace beckoned with his index finger.
Venser’s body responded, floated past Windgrace and on toward the ambulator. The panther-god padded alongside his captive, his long strides elegant and unhurried.
“Come, maggot,” Windgrace said. “Urborg needs you. One way or the other, you shall serve that need.”
Windgrace ferried Venser across the marsh with the artificer hovering beside him like some strange, floating dog. They began their journey alone, just the two of them, but as Windgrace strode across the crunching mud Venser saw and heard the fell and monstrous denizens of Urborg assemble behind him and join in the march.
The creatures from the battlefield were first. They assembled behind their lord and master, a narrow parade of beasts and nightstalkers. As Windgrace led them across the half-frozen flats, more of Urborg’s residents joined the ranks.
They came alone, in pairs, and in small groups. Venser saw creatures both familiar and unknown, commonplace horrors like the mantises and legged serpents moving side by side with shambling, indescribable things with blood-matted hair and bright, jagged fangs. Urborg’s small but diverse human population was also represented, exotic, dark-skinned warriors with bushy, knotted hair and black metal blades. Beside them walked pale, fair-haired mages in gilt silver robes and simple peasants armed with farm tools. Venser recognized two major lich lords, ashen-faced necromancers who brought small contingents of zombified men, reanimated beasts, and undead monsters. The air over the procession was thick with buzzing wasps, gruesome skirges, and carrion birds. Shades and other flickering phantasms appeared and disappeared at the edges of the parade, careful to avoid staying in plain sight but willing soldiers in Windgrace’s dark army.
The panther-man grew less bulky as he walked, his thick muscles tightening around his bones. Where he had been broad and bulging, he became lean and lithe, supple and graceful as his ancient race had been long ago in Urborg’s past. There had not been whole tribes of panther folk in Venser’s home for centuries, but Windgrace single-handedly kept their memory and quasimystical prestige alive. His people had ruled the swamps for generations, and though they were now all but extinct, the panther folk still ruled through their last surviving member.
They soon came to a heavily wooded area that was bounded on three sides by steep hills. The hills protected the area from the worst of the wind and helped keep the filthy snow from drifting in. The disturbing procession of creatures stopped at the entrance to the moonlit hollow, eerily patient as they stood and watched their master. Windgrace glanced toward two thick trees that were growing a few feet apart. Venser floated toward these trees, following the planeswalker’s gaze.
Venser hovered between the trees as four serpentine figures slithered up the roots and curled themselves around the trunks. Two stretched out and encircled his ankles while the others crawled higher and took hold of his wrists. The legged snakes tightened around Venser’s limbs, then pulled back, hanging him spread-e
agle and facing his host.
Windgrace paid Venser no mind as he padded over to a foot-high ridge that rose over the sharp marsh grasses. Supremely confident, effortlessly supple, the panther-man lowered himself onto the ridge with his legs folded under him and his elbows lightly balanced on his knees.
“Tinkerer,” the glossy-black figure said, “if you lie I will know it, and this interview will end.” He bared his fangs and ran his rough tongue over his lips. “Very suddenly. Tell me your name.”
Venser paused to find his voice, and he said, “Venser, my lord.”
“You are one of my charges then. A native of Urborg.”
“I am.”
“And yet you build Phyrexian machines.”
Venser felt the danger rising as anger crept into Windgrace’s powerful voice. He struggled to remember how to deal with godlike planeswalkers, feverishly working through his memories of Jhoira, Teferi, Radha, and Nicol Bolas.
“With respect, my lord,” he said, “I build my own machines. From Phyrexian parts.”
The panther-god growled. “As you will. You build your own machines, in direct and repeated violation of my decrees.”
Venser swallowed hard. He was terrified by the awesome figure before him, but terror and awe were not avenues he could afford to pursue. “I only used pieces,” he said. “I broke them down into their component parts and cannibalized them for my needs. My machine was only ever Phyrexian in terms of raw materials. If there was any life in all that metal and wire, I made sure to strip it out before I repurposed it.”
The panther’s ears flattened. “So you ‘repurposed’ the abominations.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And you have no connection to Phyrexia at all.”
“No, my lord.”
Windgrace’s eyes glittered. He held his long arm out with his hand cupped and waited. Within seconds two skirges swooped down, cawing raucously, and deposited two glowing objects in the panther-man’s broad palm. Venser’s body went cold, and sweat broke out across his forehead.
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