Holding a rusted cog in her ivy-vined hand, Freyalise said, You seem all too impressed by those names, artificer.

Urza's titan engine almost shrugged. And why not? They are masterworks of design. Where Thran artifice ended, Phyrexian artifice began. Engines such as these have never been equaled on Dominaria- except in these suits, of course. And you would do well to show a little appreciation yourselves. Without these suits, the caustic atmosphere would rip your nerves to rags.

Daria coyly crossed the legs of her lithe and perfectly balanced titan suit-a feat none of the other engines were capable of, and said, And I suppose if we get killed, it's our fault, not a design flaw.

Urza peered out of the cockpit dome and gave a rare smile. And I thought you didn't understand me. With that, he turned toward the distant bomb factory. Let's go. Every

moment we wait is another moment for the Dreadnought to find us.

Above his piloting bulb, the energy fork flickered with an impending storm. Its blue reflection crazed the glass below. The bulb seemed a mad, glaring eye. Tripod feet crunched down atop piles of twisted scrap. Metal shrieked against metal. Two more steps, and Urza was at a full run.

Bo Levar surged up to one side. Clumps of Urborgan mud fell from the pounding legs of his titan engine. Tatters of tobacco dropped from the joints in his hand as he clawed past a metal pillar.

You ever done this before, Urza?

Attack Phyrexia? he asked curtly over the noise of the engines. No, attack an ammo dump, Bo Levar replied idly, because you're doing it wrong.

The words that returned were snide. And you're an expert because-?

The foes of free trade are known to assemble vast arsenals. I've made quite a few raids in my time. And what am I doing wrong?

Bo Levar reached down to the mud-encrusted knee joint of his suit and grabbed a clod. He shoved the wet stuff onto Urza's energy fork, diffusing the lightning storm.

First, you've got to remember that the ammo's not your enemy, the guards are. You go in there blazing lightning and rockets, we'll all be blasted to oblivion.

Stone chargers can't be set off that way.

But you don't know what other munitions can. Bo Levar let out a satisfied sigh, and the interior of his pilot bulb grew momentarily blue-gray. Windgrace and I will take point. Follow and learn. With a sudden burst of speed, Bo Levar outpaced Urza. Lord Windgrace's engine bounding up beside him. On all fours, it was the fastest titan. Side by side, Bo Levar and Lord Windgrace raced toward the installation. Urza followed shortly behind, with the other six in company.

It was only a mile away now, a roofless assemblage of demonic machines-toothy cranes, cobweb gantries, smelting buckets, smoking furnaces, rivers of molten metal, mounds of shattered crystal, and droves of artifact drones.

In their midst stood row on gleaming row of stone chargers, the most powerful bombs developed by the Thran. One stone charger could annihilate a huge city, scouring soil to bedrock and irradiating a hundred miles with deadly concentrations of white mana. It was rumored that Yawgmoth had used such devices to eradicate his rivals in the Thran-Phyrexian war. Now, those bombs would be used on Yawgmoth's own world.

The drones are no concern, Bo Levar advised. It's whatever watchdog guards the drones-

A huge and toothy mechanism rose suddenly before the titan engines. It had lain dormant amid piles of scrap, waiting for intruders. Now the thing lunged up from its well of metal. It had the configuration of a sea urchin, rods bristling outward from a central body. Each rod was tipped in a pair of jagged bear-trap mechanisms, ratcheted open. The vicious things swung out to clamp onto Bo Levar and Lord Windgrace

Without breaking stride, Bo Levar said, Here's what I meant. He leaped over the snapping jaws of the Phyrexian defender. Lord Windgrace did likewise. Both titans sailed through the smoky air.

Eschewing the advice of his lessers, Urza halted before the monstrous machine and loosed a pair of rockets. They surged from their wrist housings and corkscrewed toward the beast. The first missile struck a pair of snapping jaws and deflected upward to explode in clear air. The other passed perniciously through the forest of rods, screamed out over the intervening space, and struck a blast furnace. The detonation cracked away metal and brick, loosing a great river of molten steel. It gushed across an adjacent array of stone chargers, liquefying their shells and rendering them useless.

Clucking quietly in his piloting bulb, Bo Levar said, That wasn't so well done. With a nonchalant kick, he struck the back side of the defender mechanism, where none of the rods jutted. Like an urchin pried from its rock, the thing folded to one side.

Windgrace administered the killing Mow. Blue motes swarmed from the eyes of titan suit, struck the drive mechanism before him, and liquefied it. The mouths snapped a few more times spasmodically before they lay still.

Brushing the hands of his titan suit, Bo Levar said, Let's see what they've got for us next.

Look out! sent Kristina. Her weighty engine hurtled through the air above the destroyed mechanism and the other titans. She came down on the next guardian.

This monster was more muscle than machine. Like the dragon engines of the first sphere, its flesh was living metal. Unlike them, the thousand-legged giant millipede was too ferocious a predator to have free run of the first sphere. Its fang-studded mouth reared into the air.

Kristina ducked beneath the striking head. The titanium toes of her engine cracked into the back of the great beast. A quick spell made those toes razor sharp. Feet slid between folding plates of metal. With similarly honed fingers, Kristina crouched and grabbed handholds. She heaved, ripping open the back of the monster. Sparks spewed from ruptured wires. Pneumatic muscles groaned as she yanked again. Steel cables separated beneath the millipede's plates. Cords lashed.

Kristina was dauntless. She plunged her hands deeper. Titanic fingers grasped adjacent ribs along the millipede's torso. Spells heightened the tensile strength of her own gears. She pulled. With a pop and an acrid gray cloud of smoke, the nerve center of the beast separated. Severed halves of the monster flopped in biomechanical agony. Kristina continued her grim work until she had completely ripped it in two.

The joints of her suit steamed with exertion. Kristina rose triumphantly in the breach of the worm.

Commodore Guff arrived, his titan engine striking a dignified pose. Through a haze of smoke, he peered out of the pilot capsule and stared appreciatively at Kristina's handiwork.

By Belinus! You've got a way with bugs. We'd had critters like that back when I was a kid, and we ripped 'em in half too, but just to watch 'em grow a new mouth on both ends-

Kristina was too slow-they all were too slow. Both new mouths lunged for her engine. It seemed Yawgmoth had known the signature defense of living millipedes. The first mouth bit straight through Kristina's pilot bulb. Glass shattered and metal sheered. The bulb crushed like an egg. The second fastened onto the torso of her engine. In dynamic opposition, the two mouths ripped the head away from the body.

Had she 'walked? Had she 'walked? came Taysir's anxious thoughts.

With an animal shriek, Szat hurled himself between the two halves of the beast. He had learned from Kristina's mistake. You couldn't tear this beast apart. You had to kill it from the inside out.

Swallowing, one mouth lunged for Szat. He caught its jaws and roared, pouring fire down the metal throat. While the flame went from red-hot to white-hot, Szat also sent a cloud of corruption down the beast's gullet. Millipede teeth wept like candles. Metallic flesh melted from metallic bones. Neural networks turned to sparking goo. Szat's attack killed the brain of the thing. It went limp, settling like a long, deflated balloon.