A zombie can fight without its viscera. It pulled itself from the impaling horns and greedily dragged the severed corpse back toward the quicksand. It hurled the body into the deeps. The current dragged it down. In days, perhaps hours, the dead Phyrexian would rise from the sand too, a new member of the shambling army.

Agnate laughed. It was not the victorious laugh that he had voiced so often in battle. It was a more human sound- a recognition of absurdity.

An angry grin spread across his face. He whirled to slay another Phyrexian. His axe hewed as if through firewood. It was fascinating to watch the way they came to pieces. Each chop sent power up the haft of his axe and into his arms. It was as though he harvested the souls of his victims.

Suddenly, there were no more Phyrexians to kill. In a fever fight, Agnate, his troops, and their undead allies had slain them all. Even now, ghouls dutifully dragged dead Phyrexians into the sandy slough.

Setting the head of his axe on the oily ground, Agnate leaned on it and laughed. He could feel the eyes of his warriors on him, but he didn't care. Their shock made it only funnier. Agnate wiped gritty tears from his eyes.

Shaking his head, he muttered, "What has happened to me?"

"You have gained a new ally," answered an ancient and craggy voice.

Agnate raised his eyes to see a tall, strong figure in ornate robes. Within sleeves of embroidered silk, the man's powerful arms spread in a regal, welcoming gesture. Above an upturned collar rose a stout neck and a rugged face. The smile on the man's lips seemed almost boyish, and a fragile light shone in his deep-set eyes. Gray hair stood in an unkempt halo around his temples. So friendly, so familiar was that visage that Agnate at first did not realize the man's flesh was mummified.

"I am Lord Dralnu," he said, bowing deeply. "I command these folk who have saved you. I invite you and your men to celebrate our new alliance in the halls of my palace."

In stunned respect, Agnate bowing his head. A lich lord? He was allied now to a lich lord?

Worst of all, Lord Dralnu looked like Thaddeus, back from the dead.

Eladamri and Liin Sivi rode great mountain yaks up a long, rocky ascent. Colos, these beasts were called- huge, shaggy rams. They were powerful mounts and utterly surefooted. Eladamri was glad. He and his Skyshroud commanders climbed a cliff face beside a gigantic glacier.

They did not ride alone. The leaders of Keld rode with them. As strange as the colos were, the Keldons were even stranger. Massive and gray skinned, the average warlord towered an easy foot above Eladamri. Savage helms and breastplates in rust red covered tattooed flesh that was tougher still. Scars crisscrossed their flesh. Among the Keldons, a missing ear and a split lip were beauty marks.

Indeed, when these warriors had first encountered Eladamri, they couldn't believed so short, slight, and unscarred a man-so unKeldon a man-could be a warrior. They were wrong. Eladamri had fought through the Stronghold and the Caves of Koilos. The Keldon scouts issued a two-word challenge, clear even in their barbaric tongue: "Prove it!" With Freyalise's help, Eladamri did. He killed the first rival, so ferocious was the attack. The second limped away sorely wounded, only to fetch more.

Ten warriors returned, accompanying their field commander. This young man was different-leanly muscular. His eyes shone with bright intellect within his scarred face. He studied the dead scout. With a long sweep of his eyes, he took in the strange, green forest laid down in the icy fastness of his lands. The sights sparked something in him, something he'd heard or read. These elves were no mere invaders. They were emissaries from another world and from the black future.

The young commander jabbed a thumb toward his chest and barked a single word, "Astor."

Astor proved an uncommon Keldon, equally versed in war and lore. He knew many Dominarian languages and took pains to teach Eladamri the rudiments of Common Keld. His rulers, Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin, arrived within the week. The former immediately ambushed Eladamri with his crescent-bladed scythe. The weapon opened a long wound from the elf's right temple to his jaw. Without pause, Eladamri responded with a slash of his sword. He struck an identical wound on the doyen's face. Their bloodied blades met between them and locked. Neither man could throw back the other. In moments, the duel was done. Without words, they had achieved detente.

Even now, as the colos climbed the ragged mountainside, Eladamri was still proving himself to Doyenne Tajamin. She rode to his right and poured out a long narrative in Common Keld. She spoke of the end of the world, of Twilight. Most Keldons believed Eladamri and his forest home to be harbingers of this end time. As Keeper of the Book of Keld, Doyenne Tajamin was harder to convince.

Her colos leaped, surging to a narrow shelf of basalt. Snow fell in easy cascades beside the beast's hooves. Aback it, Doyenne Tajamin looked down with fiery eyes.

"True, the books of Twilight speak of allies from another world, but also they speak of invaders. You claim you are allies- perhaps-but you are undoubtedly invaders."

Eladamri smiled winningly, the expression rumpling the stitched scar across his face.

In Common Keld, he replied, "The Twilight legends are yours, Doyenne, not mine. You are more eager than I to make me fit." Eladamri's steed leaped up beside hers.

Tajamin smiled as well, a predatory leer. She lifted an ancient war cudgel. The age-blackened wood was carved deep with runes.

"This weapon will decide. Some folk believe the sword cuts to the truth. We believe a cudgel divines more surely. Only those who can stand beneath its blow are true." Tajamin flipped her arm.

Eladamri braced for another attack. Instead, Tajamin rode her mount up to a higher ledge.

"So, once we are out on the battlefield, I should expect you to club me?" Eladamri asked.

"A true warrior is ready for anything," she responded.

Two more bounds of her mount brought her to the top of the cliff. Glacial light broke over her face, showing up each scar that crossed it. Her wry and dangerous look melted away, replaced by a solemn joy.

Digging his heels into the shaggy sides of his colos, Eladamri surged up over the ridge. He too saw.

A vast glacier extended from the hooves of his mount out to distant black mountains. The ice shone white beneath silvery rafts of cloud. It was a veritable sea of snow, held aloft by an ancient range of volcanic peaks. Numerous lateral glaciers descended from higher valleys to join together in this one enormous ice sheet.

From two of the lateral glaciers marched divisions of the Keldon army. They had taken a slower but less treacherous approach. In their midst rolled massive war engines-trebuchets, catapults, and greater ballistae. Larger than even these machines of war were Keldon long ships on huge runners. At full sail, their bladed bows could rip through enemy lines and their vast rams could smash a twenty-foot-thick wall. Hoardings lined the rails of the warships. Through their loopholes, archers could pour quarrels on troops and battlements alike. Among these enormous machines rode twenty-five thousand heavy colos cavalry. Seventy-five thousand Keldons filled out the warhost.

Eladamri was glad to see his ten thousand elven troops marching among the arrayed might of Keld.

These were grand sights, true, but they were not what lit the face of the doyenne. The grandest vision of all stood to one side of the glacier.

On a conic peak among craggy mountains perched a tall, black city. The base of the structure was crowded with countless dwellings. Their steep roofs dumped incessant snows. Lights shown minutely in their windows. Farther up, the buildings grew dark. In the midst of the dwellings rose a tall pyramid of stone, open on two ends. It seemed almost a hangar for an airship, but the space could have held a vessel five times the size of Weatherlight. At the pyramid's pinnacle resided a lofty citadel. It lurked among the raveling clouds.