by Cory Herndon
An even louder explosion drowned out the din, and Glissa saw a ball of orange flame heading straight for her. She couldn’t tell where it had come from, and didn’t have time to look. The elf girl got out of the way just in time as a massive hunk of molten iron shot past. She turned to follow its trajectory.
The projectile reached its zenith then dropped back down toward the mountain. It struck one of the quake-beasts in the middle of its ovoid body, and both exploded in a conflagration that made Glissa shield her eyes even at that distance. The shock wave from the blast immolated nearby trees and knocked combatants onto the ground.
“What was that?” Glissa wondered aloud. She scanned the mountain, trying to spot the source of the huge hunk of molten iron. Had the quakes triggered a volcanic explosion, or had someone been trying to hit her?
Another blast erupted from the mountain, and this time Glissa made sure to backtrack the projectile’s path. The ball of flaming metal had emerged from perfectly round, bowl-shaped cylinder mounted on the side of a cliff, and pointing straight up. This second shot wasn’t as accurate as the first, and slammed into the mountain several hundred feet from the nearest quake-beast and started a small wildfire. She spotted tiny goblin warriors climbing around the side of the cylinder. Glissa wasn’t surprised that the Krark had built such a massive weapon. Slobad would have loved it.
Slobad. Distracted by the battle, she’d forgotten her immediate task. She forced her eyes forward and accelerated as much as her will would allow toward the Tangle. Glissa intended to enter the interior through the newest lacuna, Yshkar’s recommendations be damned.
Another explosion sent a wave of heat washing over Glissa, and she involuntarily glanced down to see what had happened.
One of the quake beasts had stopped pounding on the mountainside and had the bright idea to instead attack the massive goblin cannon. The attack had knocked the weapon’s barrel at an odd angle and it had fired against the side of Krark-Home itself.
“All right,” Glissa said through clenched teeth. “One more delay, and that’s it.”
The elf girl’s nerves almost hummed in the proximity of so many artifact creatures. Glissa didn’t know the limits of her destructive power, or if what she had in mind would exhaust it before the final battle, when she might need it most. At the moment, she didn’t care. She wheeled in the sky and reached out to touch the Tangle energies. The familiar buzz crackled on her outstretched arms, and she envisioned green fire forcing the massive quake-beasts apart at the seams.
Two rays of blazing jade shot from her clasped hands and struck each gigantic construct squarely in the center of its ovoid body. Glissa willed the power to keep flowing, and the energy obliged, leaping from one quake-beast to another and back again. Finally, they erupted with a pair of successive mushroom explosions that rocked the mountain and sent a visible shock wave of smoke and debris over the battlefield.
The elf girl smelled smoke and realized it was coming from her own body, but she felt no pain. She checked on the Miracore, still tucked safely in her jerkin. The talisman was unharmed—in fact, it was cool to the touch. Glissa was drained and the Tangle energies already felt distant, but it had been worth the effort.
She nearly collided with a tall, familiar humanoid figure covered in mottled silver that rose to block her path. Malil stood astride a larger version of the typical vedalken flyer that bristled with the same iron tubes she’d seen mounted on the noses of aerophins.
“Hello, elf girl,” Malil said. “Having fun?”
“Flare!” Glissa muttered, drawing her sword. She hoped that flight spell wouldn’t give out any time soon.
“No need for that,” Malil replied. “I’m not here to fight.”
“Then why are you here? I’m busy,” Glissa said.
“I just need this,” Malil said, and before Glissa could react, he kicked the flyer into gear and zipped behind her, hooked one finger through the heavy chain supporting the Miracore, and lifted it over her head. Without another word, Malil spun the flyer in mid-air and zoomed off in the direction of the Tangle.
“Flare!” Glissa cursed.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Glissa muttered. No matter how fast she pushed her borrowed flight power, she couldn’t gain on Malil.
The elf girl had dropped her guard, thinking she had the whole sky to herself.
Stupid.
Glissa poured on as much speed as she could, but the tiny silver shape of Malil’s flyer remained as distant as ever. He had been following the ragged line of the Oxidda range for half an hour, and now the Tangle loomed—wild, powerful, and calling to Glissa’s soul like an old friend. An old friend that had undergone a growth spurt in her five-year absence.
The Tangle had not spread, like the Dross, but the diffusion of magic five years ago had led to an explosion of plant life. The oldest trees now rose like sentinels above the canopy, joined in their vigil by several of the omnipresent silver spires that seemed to be everywhere on the surface of Mirrodin.
Malil made a wide turn as he passed a circular break in the forest canopy—a venue into the thick foliage that could only be the lacuna. The metal man was heading straight back to his master with the prize. If Memnarch were to come into possession of the Miracore, what could she do? Though willing to try, Glissa didn’t really think she could take the Guardian in a straight fight, even if he weren’t protected by all the other bizarre constructs she’d seen before. The ones he was obviously still creating at a breakneck pace. Malil looped once and dove straight down into the hole in the side of the world. Glissa followed, closing the distance for the first time since the chase began.
The lacuna was tangled with vines and roots all around the edges, but still provided ample room to maneuver as long as Glissa stayed clear of the sides. Malil, however, stuck close to lacuna walls, diving around and through the snarl of vegetation. Glissa gained a little more. Why was Malil allowing himself to slow down?
Something flashed far away down the long tunnel, something silver that was out of place in the midst of the vibrant vegetation. As soon as she saw the glint of metal it disappeared.
She must have imagined it. The only silver thing in the lacuna was Malil, and if she didn’t do something soon he was going to get away.
As Malil passed by the spot where Glissa thought she had seen a flash, the foliage exploded. A long-haired figure in tattered black clothing vaulted off the side of the lacuna and caught the metal man in a flying tackle. The blow knocked Malil cleanly from the flyer, which spun out of control, rudderless, and exploded against the inner wall far below. Both figures tumbled into open space, and slowly Malil and Glissa’s mysterious ally dropped downward. The metal man kicked and flailed, but his attacker clutched him around the waist, refusing to let go. Within seconds, she’d caught up to the pair and was able to get a good look at the man in black.
The man in black wasn’t a man at all. He was leonin.
Raksha Golden Cub flashed Glissa a toothy smile. “You’re here! You’re alive!” The leonin let out a long laugh that bordered on maniacal, and added, “I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto this creature! Do something!”
Malil screamed as Glissa raised her sword, but couldn’t get his feet or fists to connect with anything. In one smooth stroke, the elf girl brought her blade down on the metal man’s neck and out the other side. Arterial spray fanned into the air, but subsided within seconds as Malil bled out. Strange, when she’d tried that five years ago, the wound had healed instantly in a swirl of quicksilver. Flesh had almost consumed the metal man. Glissa slipped the Miracore from Malil’s headless shoulders, then Raksha released the body and gave it a shove. The mottled silver corpse crashed into the spiky vegetation that lined the lacuna, where it hung suspended by thorns and vines.
The elf girl slipped the Miracore over her head then grabbed the leonin under the armpits and gradually slowed their descent. Shifting Raksha in her arms to make sure she wouldn’t drop him, Glissa floated over to the side
of the lacuna and felt the odd sideways turn of gravity. She set the leonin down gently amongst the vines and moss. At that exact moment, her flight spell finally gave out.
Glissa fell sideways and flopped onto the greenery next to Raksha, drawing breath and happy to be alive, happier still that she’d found her friend again—and at such an opportune time. The elf girl had grown accustomed to the constant pull of exhaustion, and the opportunity to just lie there was too much to resist. The relief at regaining the Miracore was palpable. Malil’s sudden theft of the talisman had almost looked like the end. Just a few minutes of rest wouldn’t hurt.
Finally, Glissa broke the silence. “So … you’re alive, then?”
Raksha snorted, and burst into that same odd laughter she’d heard before. Apparently, three years in the Tangle had wrought changes in the Golden Cub, both physical and mental. Had the others been right? Had he really gone mad?
The physical changes in the former Kha shocked her. Raksha’s black vorrac-leather tunic and trousers were ragged and ripped. A leonin longknife, the hilt worn smooth from use, was tucked sheathless into a knotted cablevine he wore around his waist. Little of his silver armor remained, but he still wore a chest plate carved with deep gouges, one battered pauldron on his left shoulder, and dented iron bracers that were caked with rust. Despite the conditions of his garments, Raksha appeared to have stayed in relatively good shape, if a little underfed. That much was obvious from the way he’d tackled Malil.
“Yes, I live. Your eyes are sharp as ever,” Raksha said, his voice a little rougher than Glissa remembered. The elf girl noted the former Kha had also dropped any pretense of his old formal speech pattern. “You came. You finally …” He propped himself up on one elbow and stared at her as if he expected she might dissolve into smoke. The bright golden fur on his chin was flecked with white and silver, and his wiry whiskers were shorn clean on the right side. Three pale, ragged scars ran diagonally from the center of his forehead and down across his eye socket to his left cheek, though his sharp eyes were both intact. His mane had become as wild as Glissa’s own tangled cable hair, but more nappy, snarled with twigs and sticks.
Raksha sniffed the air and flashed the tips of his teeth. “What is that smell?” He followed his nose to Glissa, and peeked over her shoulder.
“Hi there,” Geth’s head said from inside the open pack, and winked.
“You brought the head?” Raksha growled in disbelief. “How did it even—”
“He might be useful,” Glissa replied. “Besides, I’m still figuring out what to do with him. Every time I think about throwing him away, something stops me.”
“Who’s throwing what?” Geth asked.
“Let’s just keep our enemies upwind,” Raksha said, and flipped the bag shut.
“Heym, my muz talkim!”
“Shut up, Geth. Raksha, they told me you’d gone crazy. That you destroyed Taj Nar.”
Raksha snorted with disgust. “Lies,” he said. “You wound my honor by even asking me, but I admit I am not surprised. But think, old friend. If I were truly mad, why would I save you?”
He had a point. The entire story about Raksha’s attempted sabotage hadn’t felt right to her. Nor did it strike her as right to doubt Lyese’s word, but the leonin standing before her did not look like a maniac, let alone ready to destroy his own home den in a suicidal bid for honor. Her instincts told her to trust him for now. Besides, Glissa didn’t have much choice. She did not want to fight Raksha, even if everything she’d been told was true.
“Raksha, there’s something else,” Glissa said. “In a few days, Memnarch will be vulnerable. This—” she raised the Miracore—“is the weapon that can kill him. I’m the only one who can do it, but I can’t try it for another three days.”
“Yes, I know,” Raksha said.
“You what? How long have you been here, Raksha? Yshkar told me you were most likely dead,” Glissa said. “He certainly seemed to hope you were, I’m sorry to say.”
Raksha’s grin drooped into a scowl, and he flashed his canines as a low growl that sounded distinctly unfriendly rumbled deep in his throat. “Do not speak that name,” he snarled. “He’s as dead to me as I am to him.”
Glissa suddenly felt very exposed, here in the dark lacuna with a possibly dangerous madman. She cast a quick glance at the knife on Raksha’s waist, but it was not quick enough to escape feline eyes.
“You injure me,” he said. “Glissa, I am not going to attack you. Nor did I do anything that you were told. We were both manipulated, but now we have the chance to set things right. My cousin was a faithless man, and I fear my throne was more important to him than victory over our enemies. He has been duped. And Bruenna, too, I fear.”
“‘Dupe’ seems a little strong,” Glissa said. “Yshkar seems to have the military situation well in hand. He married my sister, you know that? An elf and a leonin. She always liked you, you know. But she seems happy now, even if I didn’t expect that kind of life for her.”
“Your sister …” Raksha said, and grimaced. “Glissa, your sister is dead. The thing that wed my cousin an imposter.”
TRIAGE
Bruenna’s back itched, but she couldn’t reach it. She hated wearing leonin armor, but she hated being cut open more, so she endured the discomfort. The battle had lasted two days, and now four of the suns were already down. The fifth dawn was not far off now. Bruenna hoped the suffering below would prove worth it. If Glissa wasn’t successful, there might not be anyone left on the surface to save.
Her zauk trotted cautiously onto the smoldering battlefield at the head of a group of twelve mounted leonin warriors in battle regalia. Bruenna’s own armor had been damaged beyond repair the day before, when Krark-Home’s last charbelcher had gone up under an aerophin suicide run. The ’belcher had tipped over sideways, causing its molten ammunition to ignite, but not launch. Within seconds, the overheated weapon exploded, taking the aerophins, several levelers, dozens of nim, and far too many Krark-Home defenders with it. Only her sturdy old Neurok battle armor had saved Bruenna.
Now the mage wore a borrowed suit of segmented silver plate that was once worn by Rishan, the seer Ushanti’s long-dead daughter and at one time Raksha Golden Cub’s intended. Lyese had insisted the mage put it on before heading out onto the field, and Yshkar had concurred. The armor was certainly strong and would no doubt protect her from harm as well as the old suit, but it didn’t fit quite right across the hips. Nor, she groused, did it easily allow one to reach the middle of one’s back. The mage awkwardly slid the sword on her belt a little forward so it would stop slapping against the side of the bird, which brought a stop to its frequent squawks of complaint.
Bruenna chided herself for worrying about her own discomfort in the midst of an ongoing battle. The carnage the riders passed through was devastating and made her stomach roil. Corpses and pieces of corpses lay everywhere, interspersed with the writhing wounded who couldn’t leave the field under their own power—hapless souls who were already dead, but hadn’t realized it yet. Twisted chunks of metal and debris from the shattered vedalken quake-beasts and broken charbelchers lay amongst dead zauks, horribly mangled pteron corpses with their delicate wings crumpled and broken, and piles of stinking nim bodies that in their stillness looked more than ever like dead insects. An amber haze hung low over the scene—a noxious fog of blood, smoke, necrogen mist, and steam that spewed from ruined constructs.
The artifact armies had finally been beaten back into retreat with determination, courage, and hundreds of spent lives. Yshkar was already boasting of this “great victory.” Bruenna found the Kha’s boasting ill-advised, but the leonin had told her that the troops needed a victory, no matter what the cost, to keep going.
The other half of the royal couple was not on the field. Khanha Lyese had not been seen by anyone since returning from the battlefield the night before and entering her quarters. The mage wondered if Glissa’s departure was the reason for her retreat. It was strange, though
, not to see the Tall Queen leading the defenders. Bruenna had never known Lyese to shirk a fight, and in fact the elf seemed to enjoy it a little too much. Maybe humans could never really understand the behavior of elves.
Bruenna reached the closest fallen defender and reined the zauk to a halt. She half-dismounted, half-fell from the side of the bird, thrown off balance by the new armor, but managed to land on two feet. She dropped to one knee next to a goblin soldier whose legs were gone. The Krark-Home defender was pinned to the ground by what had once been a part of a charbelcher. He moaned pitiably and reached up to Bruenna.
This was why she was here. With so many dead, dying, and wounded, there weren’t enough healers to go around. Bruenna had offered to do whatever she could, and the healers had told her they were happy for the help.
The mage took the goblin’s hand in her remaining real one and held it tight. “I’m here to help you,” she whispered. “Don’t try to speak. You’re hurt.” She locked eyes with his, and Bruenna saw that the goblin knew he was more than hurt.
The mage’s clockwork hand opened a pouch on her belt and removed one tiny vial of precious serum. Bruenna had medicines and salves from the leonin healers for the ones she could save, but the best she could do for this patient was ease his suffering before the end. The serum was not anaesthetic, but it would definitely take the sting out of death. Her eyes still locked with the dying goblin’s, Bruenna heard two thuds as Commander Jethrar dismounted from his own zauk and stepped up next to her, sword drawn. The dying goblin’s eyes widened in terror, and he began to shriek.
“Get back!” Bruenna snapped backhanding the leonin in the gut. “You’re terrifying him.”
“But we are allies,” Jethrar said. “Goblin, you have no need to fear me.”
“The alliance had been around for only a few years. Until that time your people kept his as pets. Now, back off, commander,” Bruenna said, staring the leonin down. “This man is terrified, and at the moment his needs are a lot more important to me than yours.”