As twisted as Tahngarth had become in the torture chambers of Rath, Greven was more twisted still. Every muscle of his body bulked beyond natural dimensions. The cords of his neck, the sinews of his eyelids, and the muscles of his scalp all bulged beneath gray-black armor, but the most deadly modification was the mimetic spine that had replaced his own. It had made him the absolute tool of Volrath and now of Crovax. The evincar of the Stronghold could see through his eyes and hear through his ears and fight through his hands.

Greven swung his polearm. Its head was a pair of crabclaw blades set among spikes. Its butt was a mace that sprouted curved horns. Just now, those horns cracked Tahngarth's own.

The minotaur snorted. He bulled forward and rammed the polearm back toward Greven's face. Tangling his horns with the man's weapon, Tahngarth brought his striva in a two-hand slash across Greven's waist. Well-tempered metal cut through the thick leather straps that corseted the mimetic spine. The striva laid open muscle, stopping only when Greven hurled himself back.

"Your transformations have made you powerful," Greven said through teeth locked in a grin. "Let me finish what I began, and you will be a creature to be feared."

Tahngarth's eyes flared. "I already am."

He charged. His striva swept downward in a brutal blow.

Greven backed up. He lifted his polearm to block the stroke. Hands clenched and teeth gritted.

There was too much rage in Tahngarth's attack. The striva sparked as it struck the haft of the weapon. It sheared right through. The cleft ends of the polearm dropped away. The striva continued on, striking Greven's rib guard. It cut through that as well and severed the flaps of muscle laced through his sternum.

Tahngarth continued forward, shoving the blade into Greven's chest. "I want your heart, if you still have one."

Braced against the stern rail, Greven brought the two ends of his polearm around before him. The mace dug its curved horns into the minotaur's chest. The crab-claw blades sliced across his shoulder.

Tahngarth backed up. The striva came away from Greven, trailing blood.

"I will trade you wound for wound, Tahngarth, and you will die. I am a Phyrexian. You are a half-thing, a nothing. Surrender, and you yet might serve me."

Bloodied but unbowed, Tahngarth snorted. "Serve you? You don't even serve yourself. You are a man with someone else's spine."

Tahngarth attacked again. His striva sang as it sliced the air. It struck the crab-claw blades and bashed them back. In the same motion, it blocked the horned mace.

Tahngarth drove onward. His blade sank into Greven's jaw. It clove skin and muscle to bone, cutting away the lower quarter of his face. "Not so cocky now, are you?"

The mace and the claw blades converged on Tahngarth. One would spike his head and the other sever it.

Tahngarth ducked beneath the blow. The weapons crossed above him. The spikes impaled one of Greven's shoulders, and the claw blades chunked into die other. Tahngarth butted die beast with his horns. One point gouged through the torn leather corset.

Gored, Greven vomited blood on the minotaur's back.

Ignoring it, Tahngarth lifted his foe across his horns and hurled him down.

Greven struck the deck with a boom. His armor dug into the planks beneath him. He bled profusely at shoulders, face, and gut.

"I will never serve you, Greven," Tahngarth said, pointing his striva at the creature. "It is you who must surrender."

Laughing through bloody teeth, Greven barked, "Surrender?" Despite his wounds, he struggled to his feet. "You still don't understand. You do not speak to Greven. You speak to Crovax. You could never best me, Tahngarth, not when we were shipmates and certainly not now. No, you will serve." Greven launched himself at Tahngarth.

It was a suicidal attack. Whether Crovax tossed a useless weapon at his foe or Greven took the final moment of control from his master, Tahngarth would never know.

The striva fell. It clove Greven's head down the middle. The blade did not even cease until it struck Greven's mimetic spine. The captain of Predator fell, his split face striking the stern castle of Weatherlight.

Panting, bloodied, still full of battle fury, Tahngarth stared down at the riven form. He had his revenge on the man who had so tormented him.

Obscene sucking sounds came from Greven. Something moved within the split brain case. It nosed forward from the cleft. Its head was a collection of bulbous nodules. Its body was a long centipede of armored cords. Metallic cilia undulated along its length, dragging it forward.

Tahngarth took a step back. "Spinal centipede."

Lifting its pointed tail, the thing bounded toward him.

With one smooth stroke of his striva, Tahngarth bisected the mimetic spine down its middle. Sparking from severed conduits, the two halves fell away from each other. They landed on the planks, snapping and convulsing beside the corpse of Greven. Tahngarth chopped them up as if they were snakes.

Even when Greven was dead, Crovax still lashed out. He still hoped to make Tahngarth his own.

While Tahngarth dispatched the captain of Predator, Gerrard did the same to the crew.

He bashed a battle axe aside, deflecting it to the head of an il-Dal warrior. While the owner of the axe struggled to haul the thing free, Gerrard felled him with a thrust. He climbed over that warrior to the next and the next. He had one goal in mind-Squee.

The goblin lay beneath his gun. He bore a horrid wound down his back, from shoulder to hip. Muscle and bone were laid bare. The fact that it still bled meant Squee still lived. The fact that it bled so profusely meant he would not live much longer.

Gerrard blocked another il-Vec axe and shoved its wielder over the rail. A severed grapple line told that Karn had been along here. Soon he would snap the last lines, and the ship could pull free of Predator. The final few cables whined with tension. As long as they held, more invaders could cross over.

Gerrard's sword made quick work of the il-Vec. Two more toppled, and he reached Squee.

Gerrard knelt beside the goblin and stared in uncertainty at the long gash. How could he bind it? Reaching to his shoulder, he ripped the sleeve from his shift and dragged it off his hand.

"Here, let me," came the voice of Orim. Word of Squee's injury had reached her, and she had fought through the gauntlet. "Cleaner this way," she said, pressing her hands to the wound. Silvery magic glowed beneath her fingers.

"Thanks!" Gerrard said heavily. He stood in time to stab another il-Vec who had clambered over the stern. He fell sloppily beside them, almost landing on Orim.

"See if you can't keep the air clear," she suggested.

"Oh, I'll clear the air!" Gerrard growled, gripping the fire controls of Squee's ray cannon. A few pumps of the foot treadle, and the gun hummed with life. "How about some of this?"

The cannon blazed. Crimson destruction belched from its muzzle. Rays ignited the foundering Predator. Sections of the vessel exploded. Crew disappeared in the blasts or tumbled in flames toward the volcano's crater. A second barrage ripped the lower forecastle clean away from Predator. With it went the grapple mounts. Weatherlight ground free of the disintegrating ship.

Gerrard smiled viciously, leaning toward Orim. "See? We were doing it the hard way. Don't snap the grapples. Destroy the ship."

Sisay retreated to the helm, and Karn to the engine room. The last of the il-Vec had been dispatched. They covered the stem castle. Crew members busily dumped bodies over the rail.

Tahngarth loomed up suddenly beside Gerrard. He held overhead a massive corpse-the horn-studded figure of Greven il-Vec. With a look of triumph, he hurled the body overboard. It arced from Weatherlight's stern to the gunwales of Predator.