We are their natural predators. We have come to take this world back from the soft-skinned, cowering vermin that have overrun it. We will feed upon them, as is our right, and claim dominion over Dominaria, as is our destiny.

Array yourselves, my children. This is the first great battle of many. Before the sun sets this day, we march upon the center of Benalish power. We march upon Benalia City.

Chapter 6

From Benalia City above came muffled booms and sudden shouts. The cell floor shuddered. Iron clanged on iron. Sand sifted from the stony ceiling.

"Do you hear that?" Gerrard called to the brig guardsman. "That's the invasion we spoke of. Those are the monsters out of the sky."

The blind seer stood beside him, clutching the bars.

"They'll be calling you in a moment," Gerrard continued. "They'll need everybody to fight. They'll need us too. Let us loose!"

The guard was young and pallid. He took a step toward the cell, his hands on the keys at his side. A shout came from above. He craned his neck up the passageway and listened to barked orders. Each word jolted him bodily, as if he were a scrap in the mouth of a dog. Suddenly, he charged up the stairs.

"Wait!" Gerrard shouted.

It was too late. A deafening concussion sounded at the head of the stairs. The guard-a mere rag doll now- tumbled down to sprawl at their base.

"Damn it," Gerrard growled, staring at the crumpled young man. He rattled the cell door in frustration. "We've got to get out of here. It won't be long before Phyrexians start flooding down."

Tahngarth rose from the corner where he had sat. Snorting angrily, he stalked across the cell, gripped the bars, and hauled hard on them. Muscles snapped like steel cables. The sinews of his massive shoulders rolled beneath mottled white fur. Beads of sweat broke out over his bovine brow. Still, the bars did not budge. With a roar of anger, he released his grip and dropped to his knees, panting.

Shaking his head, Gerrard said, "How about you, Hanna? Could you jimmy this lock?"

The slim, blonde navigator shrugged as she came forward. "Just because I studied artifice doesn't mean I know anything about locks." She crouched beside the door and peered into the keyhole. "If this were powerstone driven, I'd have a shot. As it is, I don't even have anything I could use as a lockpick."

"How 'bout dis?" interposed Squee, suddenly at her side. He clutched a white, pointed object.

"That might be just the thing," Hanna replied, taking hold of it before she realized it was the tip of Tahngarth's horn. The kneeling minotaur cocked an eyebrow at her, and she let go, smiling in apology.

"Those horns have bashed down plenty of doors, but never lock-picked them," Tahngarth snorted.

Another explosion shook the brig. More rocks fell from the ceiling.

Gerrard patted the minotaur's back. "I hate to ask it of you, but they took anything else we could have used to pick the lock. They even took my belt, as if I'd use it to throttle a guard. They left it with our weapons-with your striva."

"All right! All right!" the minotaur growled. "Use my horn! It'll just make me more deadly when I get out."

Hanna gingerly took the tip of it and directed it toward the keyhole. "Forgive me, Tahngarth. I'm not exactly an expert at this."

"Squee's good! Squee know how to do dat!" the goblin said emphatically. He clambered up Tahngarth's stooped back and leaped to the bars, where he clung like a monkey. He brushed Hanna aside, peered into the keyhole, and said, "Aw, yeah. Easy tumbler. One strike. I do dis easy." He grabbed Tahngarth's horn and shoved it into the keyhole. The minotaur overbalanced, his head ramming against the bars.

Hanna and Gerrard wisely retreated.

Tahngarth steadied himself and was about to protest when a cascade of fist-sized stones fell from the ceiling, pummeling his shoulder blades. He was going to be very deadly when he got out of this.

Squee twisted the minotaur's horn. It shrieked pitiably in the metal encasement. The goblin switched his handhold. His wrist twisted.

"No good. Angle all wrong. Maybe we break off dis horn!"

"Maybe we break off dis goblin!" Tahngarth roared.

Squee was too busy clinging to the bars and rattling the horn in the keyhole to notice he was in mortal peril. Exasperated, he squeezed his way through the bars.

"Squee try this from outside."

He braced his feet on the outside of the cell door and yanked on Tahngarth's horns, ramming the bull-man's head again into the bars.

"Squee! Squee! Stop!" Tahngarth bellowed.

"Squee almost got it!" shouted back the goblin.

"You've got it already, you imbecile! You're outside the cell! Grab the keys!"

"Wuh-?"

"From the dead guard! Grab the keys!"

Releasing the minotaur's horn, Squee dropped his webby feet to the cold stone floor. He brushed off his hands, frowned, and shrugged.

"Well, if you think it'll be quicker-"

"Get the keys!" the Weatherlight crew shouted in unison.

Squee cringed beneath the auditory assault and retreated to the body sprawled beyond. Deft hands won the key ring free of tangled clothes. Squee brought them back to the door. Griping under his breath, he fitted key after key into the slot.

"Dis just cuts it. Squee save your butts in Mercadia ten hundred times, and now he save your butts here, and all you say is 'Get dose keys, Squee! Get dose keys!' "

A loud boom sounded above, and a small landslide swept down the stairway, burying the guard.

Gerrard watched feverishly from the other side of the cell door. Quietly, he advised, "You'd better hurry, Squee."

" 'Hurry up, Squee! Hurry up, Squee!' " the goblin groused.

Down that landslide ambled inhuman creatures. They had claws the size of butcher knives and serpent-slitted eyes. They climbed over the body of the dead guardsman and charged the cell door.

"Hurry up, Squee!" the goblin told himself. "Hurry up, Squee!"

The lock clicked. Squee hauled on the door, yanking it open. He rode the swinging bars back, keeping the door between him and the charging Phyrexians.

Tahngarth followed the door out. He burst from the cell with a full-fledged roar. It echoed through the trembling chamber as though the brig itself screamed.

At that sound, even the Phyrexians faltered. They paused in their charge, glimpsing a great mass of muscle headed their way.

Tahngarth barreled into the front two Phyrexians. Horns that had been twisted in a Rathi torture chamber caught and gored their first monstrous victims. Golden oilblood rained from the beasts as Tahngarth lifted them to the ceiling. He shook his head. The horns eviscerated the monsters. Guts tumbled out on either side of the minotaur. Like impaled bugs, the Phyrexians writhed on his horns. A brace of their comrades charged Tahngarth. He hurled the dying beasts from his horns, toppling the others.

Gerrard and Sisay rushed from the cell to the minotaur's side. Sisay clenched her teeth in fury.

"What do we use for weapons?"

Gerrard demonstrated with a roundhouse. Knuckles impacted a Phyrexian jaw, just between a pair of venomous horns. The bone beneath cracked. The beast reeled and dropped like a plank. Grinning, Gerrard blew across his knuckles.

"These, I guess."

Nodding philosophically, Sisay ducked the swiping claws of another beast. She kicked out, breaking its leg at the knee. Four Phyrexians were down, but dozens more flooded down the stairwell.

"We're done for, you know?" she said blandly as she stomped the head of the creature she had just felled.

Before he could respond, Gerrard drove the nose of one beast into its brain. He peeled the thing's claws from his own bleeding throat.