"We've got to go lower," Orim said.

"If we grip land, the ship will rip in half," Tahngarth noted.

Orim scanned the fields ahead and then signaled Sisay lower.

Weatherlight swooped down. The anchor trailed under her keel. It twirled about its shank. The flukes spun like drill bits. Into the troops they descended. It ripped into them, stabbing, cutting, grinding, macerating. Hundreds of Phyrexians were torn to tatters by the spinning thing.

"Quite a weapon," Tahngarth approved.

"I need whole bodies," Orim said flatly.

The stock cracked against a boulder, flinging the anchor up to clang against the belly of Weatherlight.

"This isn't working," Orim growled.

"Wait," Tahngarth said, "look."

Striking the ship had stilled the anchor. With slow, easy motion, it swung down into the Phyrexian troops. Its bills impaled a pair of Phyrexians, driving the flukes through them and out the other side. The two beasts squirmed on the throats of the anchor while a third and a fourth were impaled.

"Pull up!" Orim shouted, motioning to Sisay. "Pull up!"

Weatherlight soared up from the tumbled plains. The anchor followed it skyward, bringing four impaled Phyrexians. Tahngarth shoved a pin into the capstan and leaned against it. Orim set her own pin and lent her back as well. Two other crewmembers saw the need and helped.

A massive bolt of black mana soared overhead, narrowly missing the ship and crashing into a hillside below. The charge ripped a deep chasm in the land.

Five cruisers pursued Weatherlight. The foremost ship sent another mana blast.

A barely perceptible wave spread from Weatherlight's bowsprit through the air. The jump envelope enwrapped her and the four Phyrexian captives jolting up her side. It spread from stern to stern and closed just before the black mana blast arrived. Rath folded up and slid away, leaving only the hissing space between worlds.

Chapter 22

Agnate was stalled out. He and his forces battered an immovable wall of Phyrexians. The front was a slaughterhouse.

Metathran blood-vermilion from the air that suffused it-crazed across the ground in ankle-deep puddles. Higher than ankles it rose, up armored calves, past massive thighs and powerful stomachs. The Metathran were baptized in their own blood. They gave as good as they got. Powerstone battle-axes flocked in the sky, darted like eagles, and cleft Phyrexian heads. With Metathran blood mixed the humors of Phyrexia. Glistening-oil, gray matter, orange acid, black venom, pink lymph, yellow bile-the Metathran had cloven every tissue and organ in the vile monsters. They had cut their way straight through but could gain no ground for all of it.

"Forward!" Agnate growled as he hauled his battle-axe down from overhead.

The blade chunked through a scuta's cranial shield. It found paste within-only a shallow layer of vestigial nerve. The axe bit deeper, sliding between bony plates. It macerated white-matter but did not stop the scuttling beast. There were no pain receptors in the organ, and the motor cortexes lay deep beneath the knobby crest. The scuta drove on, a gigantic horseshoe crab, and rammed Agnate.

He fell atop the scuta's skull shield. Blood-slick, he would have slid down to be picked apart but for his axe. Yanking on the haft, Agnate climbed the beast. He kicked a foothold in the vestigial face. Agnate rose and chucked his axe free.

The scuta bucked, struggling to throw him off. Agnate crouched and caught a handhold in the bony wound. He swung his power-stone axe again. It clove into the thing's head. Metal stuck in bone. It was just what he wanted. Gripping the axe haft with both hands, Agnate hurled himself off the beast's back. He hauled hard on the weapon. The axe quivered in the bony cleft but did not pull free. Agnate's weight flipped the creature. Its thin legs lashed the air, struggling to roll over.

This was how you killed a pill bug.

Since his axe was mired beneath the beast, Agnate drew his sword. He hacked between the rows of legs. Viscera within fountained black. Legs spasmed in agony. Agnate struck again, slicing through flesh and straight back to grind along the skull shield. A final attack divided the wriggling beast in half. Agnate strode through the severed middle. He reached through streaming muck and yanked his axe out.

It was a victory, hard-won, but Agnate had not gained an inch of ground for it. Scuta lay all around. In their midst lay dead Metathran. What good was such slaughter?

Hewing a Phyrexian trooper, Agnate sensed sudden jubilation. He lifted his head above the horrible tumult and saw a glorious sight.

Thaddeus and his command core had broken through. They ran in a thick pack through the inner ranks of the Phyrexian soldiery, killing as they went.

Agnate's growls turned to cheers. He could kill forever in this awful battle if only Thaddeus could advance.

The charge was glorious. Thaddeus ran at the head of a hundred of his best fighters.

Most of the warriors were members of his personal guard. They had survived the trench worms, spinal centipedes, and Metathran zombies to charge beside their commander. Others were fleet-footed grenadiers who pulled hand-bombs from their shoulder sashes and hurled them in their line of charge. They paved the way with shattered hunks of Phyrexians. The rest were heavy infantry-massive Metathran bred with extended shins, knee caps, pelvises, and ribs, so that their own bones formed subcutaneous armor.

In addition to the Metathran fighters were Urza's war machines. Tolarian runners loped like metal emus and shot exploding quarrels from ports along their sides. Dog-headed su-chi warriors pounded in their midst, with hands powerful enough to tear the mechanical forelegs from a Phyrexian bloodstock. Falcon engines shrieked down in waves overhead, impacting monsters, grinding in their guts, blasting through the far side, and rising to swoop down on other beasts.

It was a glorious charge. These hundred warriors and two score machines were cut off from the main army, yes, but they tore the belly out of the Phyrexian lines. They each killed hundreds. Every slain Phyrexian brought them ten running paces nearer to the Caves of Koilos.

There, the Phyrexian command center lay. In those tight confines, a hundred Metathran would be equal to ten thousand Phyrexians. Thaddeus and his troops would plunge through to the command core, slay the land-army's leaders, and press on to shut down the portal. This bloody business could be concluded in the next few days.

"To the caves!" Thaddeus shouted, lifting high one of the swords he held. "Break through to the caves!" His forces took up the call.

A wave of Phyrexians swept toward them, perhaps five hundred strong. Falcon engines screamed into their midst, impaling one in five. They flopped to ground as their innards were ground away. Four hundred more rushed onward. Grenadiers hurled their bombs in great overhead arcs. The crude devices fell in the midst of the running wave. Gray smoke belched out, shrapnel tearing through the Phyrexian lines. Many fell in pieces. Others struggled on with stumps of leg or arm streaming golden. Two hundred more came, unaffected.

So, it would be two to one. Thaddeus smiled. His teeth were limned in vermilion. It was for fights like this that he bore two swords.

The first blade struck a charging bloodstock. Thaddeus sidestepped the attack. His sword lanced with the precision of a marksman's arrow. It clove between flattened ribs and speared through the bloodstock's heart. The beast opened its mouth to scream. Only blood emerged. It pitched forward, dead as it ran. Its mechanical forelegs did not need a heart to live, and they struggled on. The bloodstock's head dragged on the ground, battered bloody by its own thudding hooves.