"Now we have our army! Every great warlord who ever lived joins us. They join us to fight the final battle of Twilight!"

Swarming downward, the first of the ancient warriors reached the base of the cliff. They drove the Phyrexians before them.

Rising to her feet, Doyenne Tajamin stared in awe. "With the eternal champions fighting for us, we cannot fall!"

Eladamri spoke, his voice quiet with dread. "But… they do not fight for us."

Doyenne Tajamin stared toward the front lines, where the ancient dead of Keld slew their own living warriors. "Atrocity…"

Chapter 15

As Weatherlight tore the air above Urborg, Tahngarth tore the ground below. His ray cannon laid a highway of fire across an Urborgan slope. Beams ripped up grasses and dirt before striking the first Phyrexian bombard embrasure. It flared and melted, its crew buried in molten metal.

Across the forecastle, Gerrard was ranting. "Where the hell is Agnate!" he shouted. His cannon echoed the sentiment. Rays darted down into a swamp. Light ignited gases, which burst in a sudden blue glow. Azure fire wrapped a contingent of Phyrexians. They burned, white smoke pouring from beneath peeled black armor. Gerrard gritted his teeth in satisfaction. "We can't fight the land battle too. These Metathran are worthless without him. Where the hell is Agnate?"

Weatherlight vaulted on, above a slough of skeletal trees.

Tahngarth considered grimly. "Perhaps he has fallen."

"Then the land battle is lost," Gerrard roared. "Look at them!"

As Weatherlight shot out beyond an ancient brake of thistle, Tahngarth looked down. Lowlands opened before the ship. There, a contingent of ten thousand Metathran crouched in shallow trenches. Their battle-axes lay idle beside them. Instead, they set powerstone pikes against impending attack. The woods beyond teemed with monsters, gathering to charge.

Gerrard sent a blistering shot down among them. It blasted a few Phyrexians but did little more.

"The damned Metathran entrench and wait! They brace for attack! Who's commanding them? With Agnate, they advanced."

Tahngarth snorted. "Without a great commander, the Metathran are nothing. We need new troops. Another army. Too bad Weatherlight can't carry more than a thousand." He loosed a single shot that moaned as it descended toward the trees. "If you found the right army, where every warrior was worth ten…"

Casting a wicked glance over his shoulder, Gerrard said, "Excellent idea, Tahngarth!" He leaned to the speaking tube. "Sisay, prepare to planeshift."

Her voice answered from the tube. "Where to?"

"Tahngarth's homeland."

Tahngarth sagged in the traces. Ever since he had been tortured in the Stronghold, he had dreaded returning to his people. To minotaurs, appearances mattered. A handsome beast was a virtuous warrior. A twisted creature was a monster. Under the torments of Greven il-Vec, Tahngarth had become a monster. He was certain his folk would reject him. His hands went numb on the fire controls. Urborg scrolled, watery and black, beneath him.

"I've got the coordinates laid in," Sisay replied.

"Take us there," Gerrard said. "The rest of the fleet and the Serrans can hold the skies while we're gone. Do it."

Sisay sent Weatherlight, in a long, steady climb up the skies. Her engines roared. Her airfoils tucked. The Gaea figurehead drove up through racks of cloud. In moments, the island shrank to stern. The prow carved a hole in the heavens.

With a clap like thunder, Dominaria vanished. Blue sky dissolved into gray chaos. It buzzed in deadly disarray just beyond Weatherlight's power envelope.

Tahngarth stared bleakly out at the Blind Eternities. This nowhere place somehow soothed him.

The planeshift was done all too soon. The envelope around Weatherlight turned to sky and water. Suddenly, all the world was blue and white. Above the hurtling ship arced a cerulean dome. Below it stretched an endless sea. The two were halves of each other, brilliance and darkness. Weatherlight slid between them, her prow pointing toward the arrow-straight horizon.

"Where is it?" rumbled Tahngarth.

"I don't know," replied Sisay. "The coordinates are correct." Her words faded away to the roar of the engines.

"What do you mean?" Tahngarth asked. "How can a whole continent disappear?"

Gerrard snapped his fingers. "Teferi!"

"What?" the minotaur barked.

"Urza said something about his phasing out Zhalfir- magically taking it. He said only the sea remained. He must have taken the Talruum mountains too."

Tahngarth stood and peered at the choppy sea. He couldn't believe it. "He took the whole continent?"

Gerrard shrugged. "That's what Urza said."

It was a brutal irony. A moment ago, he feared rejection from his people. Now, they didn't even exist.

Faltering, Gerrard added, "Urza said something about refugees. He said a contingent of Talruum minotaurs went to Hurloon."

"Next stop, Hurloon?" Sisay asked.

Eyes blazing with fire, Tahngarth growled at Gerrard, "Why are you doing this?"

Gerrard cast a glance behind him. "You said we needed another army."

Eyes darkening, Tahngarth crossed his arms. "How are you going to enlist their aid?"

Gerrard shrugged. "I don't know. Honor? The promise of a brutal fight? What do you suggest?"

"Don't expect me to be your liaison, Gerrard. They will hate me."

Gerrard shot back, "They just don't know you like I do," Turning to the speaking tube, he said, "Captain Sisay, take us to Hurloon."

"Aye, Commander."

Tahngarth closed his eyes as the engines took hold of his stomach. He felt the beaming sun go out of existence. His shoulders grew cold. The tearing winds of the deck died to nothing. The whine of Weatherlight's power core was dampened, sound slipping away into the Blind Eternities. Tahngarth did not watch. He could not bear to see the world dissolve again.

Sound changed. The engine's clamor rebounded from ground. Sudden wind tore at Tahngarth's hide. The cold of evening wrapped him, the wet of alluvial plains. Wood smoke hung in the air. This would be Hurloon. He opened his eyes.

Immediately he wished he hadn't. Below, in the last glow of the day, stretched an enormous wasteland. It had once been the city of Kaldroom, a garrison ground for centuries of minotaur warriors. Now, the city was in ruins. Every roof, every fence, every wooden thing had burned away. Only stone foundations and rubble walls remained. They twisted away to the horizon. Within them lay bodies, minotaur bodies-bulls and cows and calves. They had died where they had stood, slaughtered by the same fire that had destroyed their city. The streets of the city were lined with craters. Smoldering fires lit the darkness. They sent gray smoke skyward. Weatherlight shot among them, stirring the smoke in twin vortices.

Tahngarth pulled himself from the gunner traces and stood at the rail. He stared with bald horror at the scene below. These had not been warriors. These had been merchants and teachers and families. The fire that had slain them had not fallen from the sky. It had burned on Rath as the world overlaid. With utter precision, the Phyrexians had turned a whole city into an oven.

Lifting his head to the skies, Tahngarth released a roar. It mixed with the thrum of the engines and the shout of the air. Long and furious, the sound pealed out across the plains.

The minotaurs of Talruum were gone, and those of Kaldroom were slaughtered wholesale. Better to have disappeared into the ocean than to have died like this. And what of the other cities? Was Tahngarth the last of his people to live? Twisted into the semblance of Phyrexian monstrosity, was he all that remained of the once-proud race?