The Phyrexian necropolis had become a true city.

The Heart of Yavimaya had been saved.

Out of corruption, a sacred race had been born.

Multani arose. He assembled himself from peeled leaves and stripped boughs. A bundle of ivy filled out his torso. The power he had gathered glowed out of every leaf tip. His aura drew to him great masses of foliage. Multani became gargantuan. He towered above the wooden warriors, who stood there, watchful beside the spikes that had once slain them.

The giant man knelt, laying his hand on one of the warriors. His consciousness leaped into the wooden man. There was Phyrexian fanaticism here still and the will to fight, but that was all that remained. This creature had become a child of the wood, a locus of Yavimaya's spirit and will.

Multani drew back. He surveyed the others-a sacred army. "You were once the damned. You were once Phyrexian. No more. Now you are born of Yavimaya. The forest brought you out of death into life. He who gave you first birth is no longer your father. She who gave you second birth, she is your true mother. For you, Yawgmoth is no more, and Gaea is all."

Thousands of clenched fists-gnarled in tough bark- rose to the sky with the shout. "Gaea!"

"Fight for her now. Fight the evils you once were to save the good you have become. Fight for Gaea!"

"Gaea!"

Phyrexians were thick in the elf kingdom of Civimore. They were thick everywhere. The great Kavu lizards grew fat on fiend flesh. No bloodlust or cunning was necessary for the Kavu. The Phyrexians were so thick a beast couldn't yawn without one falling in.

The king, of course, was dead. Half his elf subjects were dead too. The other half did what they could to hide. Occasionally they charged out to die, shouting oaths to their lovers and mothers- better than dying with craven pleas. That was one thing the forest would not do. It would die, but it would not plead for its life.

There was no end in sight. Either these gray-skulled devils would inherit Yavimaya, or these red-scaled lizards would. As for the forest folk-as for elves and apes, druids and green-men-they were merely shifted to the base of the food chain. Death descended on each one, extinction on them all.

What were these new beasts? They swarmed up the boles and bounded through the crown. More Phyrexians? They seemed it, with their brow ridges and horn-studded shoulders. Why, then, did they fall on their own kind? Why ram those claws beneath carapace and rip it out by its roots?

Phyrexians took exception. They turned on their apparent brethren. Fangs clamped down on heads but couldn't bite through anymore than they could have bitten into the side of a tree. Stingers struck against bellies and spattered their poison impo-tently on the surface. Claws did little more that scratch the beasts' hardened hides. Heedless, the wooden warriors killed their brethren.

So, what were these strange things? They seemed outward Phyrexians but inward children of the forest. They fought like the minions of death, but they fought for the minions of life. Garlands twined their knobby skulls. Sucker branches poked out between their claws. There were even little berries here and there-sweet-tasting berries that burst within Phyrexian mouths when they thought to taste brains instead. Deadly and sweet, tender and tough-these were strange saviors indeed.

And what was that gigantic mound of sticks shambling in their midst? Had it been smaller, it might have seemed Multani-but this thing was colossal! It stomped Phyrexians in their tens. It batted them aside in their hundreds. It destroyed them in their thousands.

Victory?

Could it be that the forest would not die, that it would kill the killers? Who could be thanked for such a victory?

There was no name for any of these mad beasts. Such things had not been seen in the world since the Phyrexians left it six millennia ago. The only word that came close to describing these strange monsters was the name chanted low on all their vined lips.

"Gaea."

Chapter 15

Gerrard stood on the deck of Weatherlight. The ship soared along Benalish shores through coiling rills of cloud. Lifting his captain's spyglass, he glanced abeam.

Other ships bobbed there, strange small ships-the remnants of whatever arcane air defenses Benalia had. They were drawn to Weatherlight as ducklings to their mother. Gerrard had not known there were other flying ships on Dominaria. He had almost blasted the first one from the sky before he had made out the symbol of the Seven Clans on its side. Then more came. While Weatherlight crossed Benalia, flying its refugee army away from the Phyrexian armada, it gathered this ragged fleet. Most of the other ships were small, one-person fighters. A few had crews. A rare few even had enough room to take on some of the prison brigade. A humorless smile lit Gerrard's face. Who would have thought he'd become the commander of a flying armada, leader of a small army, defender of Benalia, bane of spider women? Without trying, he'd become what everyone wanted him to be. They didn't want a saint. They wanted an honest fighter- someone who saw evil and tried his damnedest to knock it flat.

Even so, his damnedest hadn't been enough for Benalia. Tsabo Tavoc had overwhelmed it. Sometimes, a fighter's damnedest wasn't enough.

"Perhaps it would be better to be an infallible savior," Gerrard mused darkly, "to cast out demons and heal the sick-" A pang of guilt stabbed through him. Healing the sick…

Turning away from the ragtag armada, Gerrard hung his spyglass from his belt, strode to the hatch, and descended a stair to the companionway below. Weatherlight's engines sent a hum through the wood all around. The lanterns in the hall glowed wanly over sleeping warriors. Gerrard stepped past them to a door that spilled light into the corridor. Ducking his head, he strode into the sick bay.

It was overloaded. On bunks and floor mats lay folk injured in the brig battle. These were the worst cases- amputations, skull injuries, sucking wounds, lacerations, multiple contusions. Other, less infirm soldiers slept atop crates in the hold. Orim swooped back and forth among the twenty-some patients, giving what aid she could. Most were unconscious, whether from agony or soporifics. Gerrard headed straight across the sick bay to a single bunk.

"Hanna," he breathed, taking hold of her hand and brushing blonde locks back from her sweaty face. "Has the bleeding stopped?"

She looked up at him through a cloud of pain. "I'm not sure. Yes. Orim packed it tight." She tried to sit up. "I shouldn't be taking up one of these bunks-"

"Lie down," Gerrard soothed, easing her back. "Orim can't tend you unless you are here. You're here for her, not for you."

"I should be navigating."

"No," Gerrard insisted. "Sisay can do it. Besides, we'll not be planeshifting. We'd lose our armada." He gave a little laugh. "For that matter, we're not exactly sure where we're bound. I was counting on the old man's advice, but nobody can find him. He's probably squirreled away somewhere. We can use the time to rest, all of us-a little sailing before the next fight."

Hanna curled in a spasm of pain. She clutched her stomach.

Gerrard held her hand, staring at clenched eyelids. "Orim! Over here. Something's happening."

Orim looked up from the man she tended, a double amputee at the knees. Her eyes were grimly determined beneath the turban she wore. In her bound hair, Cho-Arrim coins gleamed. Drawing a white sheet over the twin tourniquets, Orim made her way across the crowded sick bay.