Something approached, something otherworldly.

Eladamri stared in amazement.

A ship. A golden ship. Through this black underworld, a ship sailed in utter calm. Her main was full-bellied, as if she harnessed the winds of another world. Her hull breasted the waves in perfect trim. Most glorious of all, the lanterns upon her decks gleamed across a crowd of warriors-Keldons and Steel Leaf elves and Skyshroud elves… and Liin Sivi.

She lifted her lantern at the bow. Her eyes searched the darkness. She looked for him.

It could not be. This was a hallucination. No ship could sail these waters. No ship in all the world was so huge. This was a delusion, concocted by Eladamri's mind to ease the moment he would leap into the flood.

The long ship neared. Liin Sivi's lantern spilled its light across him. A smile lit her face. "Eladamri, you live!"

"I am not so certain," he shouted above the roaring tide. The ship drew even with him. In moments, it would be past. "Where are you going, Liin Sivi? Where is this Golden Argosy bound?"

She hurled a shimmering line out toward him. It splashed into the water by his ankles and dragged along.

"I am going where we all are going, where the water goes." Her eyes implored. "Join us, Eladamri. Grab the line."

Numbly, Eladamri looked down at the snaking rope. If this were a delusion, to grab it would be to plunge into the water, to die. But if the ship before him were a true thing, to grab the line would be to live.

Either way, he would be with Liin Sivi again.

The Golden Argosy pulled away.

The tail of rope lashed past.

Eladamri lunged. He seized its slender tip. The line yanked him away from his perch and back into the hungry flood. It dragged him down to darkness.

Chapter 25

Commander Grizzlegom hated this fight.

His striva laid open the breast of a Phyrexian trooper. The blade severed ten ribs and wedged in the eleventh. The trooper was unconvinced of its death. Claws raked deep wounds in the minotaur's shoulder.

Grizzlegom tilted his head and rammed a horn through the trooper's skull. He flung the body away and yanked his striva free.

The blade would not be quick enough for the next foe. Grizzlegom's elbow did the job. The bloodstock's neck cracked, and it fell.

A scuta swarmed over it, lashing Grizzlegom's hooves. He leaped on its shield and kicked through it. Vaulting from the dead monster's back, he advanced up the volcanic slope.

Grizzlegom hated this fight. It wasn't that he minded killing Phyrexians. That part was splendid. Hurloon's debt of vengeance would be repaid. What he hated was fighting alongside the dead.

A ghoul advanced beside him. The flesh was gone from its fingers, leaving only bony claws. Its lips were ripped away. Yellow teeth opened wide and bit a hunk of flesh from a Phyrexian's face.

The Phyrexian ripped an arm from the ghoul and ran scythe-tipped fingers across its belly. Desiccated organs tumbled free.

Grizzlegom ended the struggle with a chopping stroke of his striva. The blade passed through shoulder of the Phyrexian and bisected its heart. Both beasts fell in pieces at Grizzlegom's hooves.

What honor was there in fighting alongside rot?

Above the dance of blades, Grizzlegom made out Commander Agnate, leading a charge. There was the honor. The man fought on despite the plague that ravaged him. He fought with a fury worthy of a minotaur. That was the honor in this fight. In his very flesh, Agnate rectified the living and the dead.

Next moment, Agnate fell beneath a Phyrexian swarm.

"Charge!" Grizzlegom shouted.

He drove toward the place where Agnate had fallen. He did not so much fight the Phyrexians but fought through them like a man cutting cane. A forehand slice mowed the goat head from one Phyrexian. A backhand jab impaled the belly of another. While his blade cleared foes to one side, his fist dropped beasts on the other. Phyrexians had glass jaws. An uppercut to the throat of a bloodstock drove its lower fangs into its brain. A roundhouse felled an infantryman before it could bring its sword to bear. Fist and striva were less deadly than horns. With them, Grizzlegom bulled up the talus slope. One horn impaled a trooper. Grizzlegom pitched his head, hurling the body down. The other horn rammed into a huge wall of muscle.

Hauling the gory tip out, the minotaur staggered back. A gargantua loomed before him. The thing stood on a pair of huge, clawed legs. Massive arms reached for Grizzlegom. An enormous claw knocked his striva away. The other closed over him and lifted him toward a wide mouth lined with curving teeth.

Grizzlegom kicked. His hooves struck nothing. He pitched his horned head. The points flailed in air.

Like a man tossing nuts into his mouth, the gargantua hurled Grizzlegom inward. He landed atop a tongue coated in thick goo. Teeth closed in a cage around him. The tongue convulsed. The gullet opened wide. Grizzlegom slid down into a sac of hot acid. Powerful muscles clenched him. Stones battered him-a gizzard that could grind a man to meal.

Grizzlegom was no mere man. Arching his neck, he drove his horns through the stomach wall. The points shot through muscle and fat, skin and scale to jut from the thing's belly. The stomach clenched tight. With a roar, Grizzlegom twisted his head. The horns ripped a wide hole in the thing's gut.

He lunged toward the light. Bloody and streaming acid, his head jutted free. He drew a deep breath and fought his shoulders out. The stomach contractions only aided him. Amid a grisly cascade of gastroliths, Grizzlegom spilled upon the ground.

Breath burst from his lungs as he landed. He hadn't the luxury of lying stunned. The gargantua tipped toward him.

Grizzlegom clambered aside. His legs barely dragged free of the gargantua's shadow before it struck ground. The beast hit the hillside, which bounded beneath it.

Grizzlegom's momentary triumph ended when a pair of Phyrexian troopers leaped on him. The minotaur gripped one in either hand and cracked their skulls together. Their heads shattered. Glistening-oil poured down on him. It soothed the anguish of the acid. Grizzlegom rubbed the stuff all over himself. Gripping a body in either hand, he pummeled his way to Agnate.

"Push them back!" Grizzlegom ordered. "Secure this spot!"

Minotaur troops rallied to their battle-mad commander. One returned his fallen striva.

Grizzlegom dropped one corpse and took the striva. He held the other body as a shield. "Form a wedge around me and fight forward!"

The minotaurs complied but at a distance.

Grizzlegom glanced down at himself and knew why. Mantled in Phyrexian blood and gastric acids, he was a horrid sight. His once-fine hide was now a mottled white and brown. His tremendous rack of horns had been bent downward. He had been transformed by his passage through the monster, made into a twisted thing.

Grizzlegom reached Agnate. He chopped a charging bloodstock in half and knelt.

"Drive on!" Grizzlegom shouted to his troops. "Drive on!"

They fought forward, moving the battle away from the commanders.

Grizzlegom sheathed his striva and turned Agnate over.

The Metathran's eyes were haunted. "Tahngarth! What are you doing here?"

A sudden flush of pride moved through Grizzlegom. "I am not Tahngarth. I am Commander Grizzlegom."

"Forgive me." Agnate shook his head blearily. "I cannot walk. I cannot even rise."

"Where are you wounded?"

"It is no wound, but the plague."

"You should not have fought on, in your condition." He took a ragged breath and was suddenly weak. His limbs convulsed, and he lost his balance. Grizzlegom slumped beside his Metathran counterpart.