Stay on her, commanded Darigaaz.

The Primevals' wings hurled back the skies. They only just kept pace with the dodging machine. A ray cannon blast reached from the ship's stern. It broke over Darigaaz's ruby hide and refracted in harmless beams.

Crosis and I will break away, he sent. We will linger in the clouds above the main volcano. Drive the ship there. We will stoop upon her from the skies and rip her apart.

Spreading his wings, Rhammidarigaaz hurled himself high into the sky. As black as onyx, Crosis rose beside him. Never had dragons ascended so quickly. The beginner of life and the ender of it pierced the blue. Stroke for stroke, their wing beats matched. They tore through the clouds and leveled out. The dragons nosed toward the volcano.

Crosis's thoughts brimmed with sarcasm. These were once your comrades, your friends. You fought beside them in Serra's Realm. Now you fight to destroy them?

Darigaaz resented the intrusion into his mind. Serra's Realm was long ago…

The death dragon coiled through Darigaaz's consciousness. He smelled death and followed it toward its source.

Your mother, Gherridarigaaz, died in Serra's Realm.

Before Rhammidarigaaz could stop it, the image of her death flashed in his memory: Gherridarigaaz rose before a killing spell. She spread wide her wings. She made herself a living shield, guarding Urza Planeswalker. The spell dissolved her, melting flesh from bone.

Rhammidarigaaz shut away the sight of it. Serra's Realm was long ago…

Crosis gloated. Do not feel ashamed. Yes, she made the wrong choice, sacrificing herself. Altruism is a mortal flaw. You are no longer mortal. Your mother chose wrongly, but she could not see all you see. She was not a god.

Through flashes of cloud, Rhammidarigaaz glimpsed the volcano's caldera below. Enough of pointless memories. Weatherlight approaches. He tucked his wings and plunged.

Crosis followed.

Darigaaz banked into a perfect intercept course. He watched his shadow jag across the rocky slopes. Weatherlight's shadow leaped up an adjacent hill. The dark shapes converged.

Darigaaz landed athwart Weatherlight's forecastle. He struck the planks with a profound boom. Claws clasped metal and shrieked. Wood groaned beneath his gemstone bulk. His tail lashed down to amidships and swept the portside gunner overboard. Clinging to Weatherlight, Darigaaz hurtled through the skies.

Crosis swept down to starboard, just missing the ship. It did not matter. Darigaaz was more than capable of doing the job himself.

In one foreclaw, he grabbed the port-side ray cannon. He ripped the machine up from its deck mountings. Metal bolts tore the living wood. Energy conduits ruptured. Green goo oozed across the deck. Hoisting the gun high, Darigaaz hurled it over the rail. The cannon tumbled, sparking and spitting as it went. It impacted the caldera and rolled into shattered wreckage.

It was a satisfying sight. Soon the whole ship would be down there.

Darigaaz turned about. There was no real reason to yank out more guns. The cannons were worthless against the Primevals. Instead, Darigaaz clawed to the amidships deck. Ahead lay the hatch. It led to the engine core. It would be a quick thing, an easy thing, to smash it to pieces.

Grizzlegom's army was not as it had been. A thousand minotaurs and twenty thousand Metathran had begun the war against the undead. Afterward, only six hundred minotaurs and twelve thousand Metathran remained-just over two legions. They were purified, leaner and more ferocious, but the question remained: Could the living warriors take the mountainside?

They faced an endless army of Phyrexians. Monsters flooded over the lip of the volcano. Il-Dal warriors, massive in red armor, il-Vec fighters fitted with gray cogs, mogg goblins, scuta, blood-stocks, troopers… The usual menagerie of monstrous horrors flooded toward them.

Grizzlegom's axe clove through the brain of a goatheaded Phyrexian. It fell. In its place lunged a thing with the mouth of a spider. It tried to snap the minotaur's head off. He interposed his battle axe. The blade cut through the beast's face. Grizzlegom rammed it deeper and twisted. The Phyrexian shuddered in death spasms. Grizzlegom hauled his axe free, only just in time to lop the head from an il-Dal berserker.

On either side of Grizzlegom, the minotaurs and Metathran were equally pressed. One blue warrior seemed a figure in a fountain. Oil sprayed up all around him. Nearby, a minotaur advanced with a Phyrexian on either horn. He slew a third foe with his fists. These victories were surrounded by defeats. A bull-man roared his fury as he died beneath a scuta. A Metathran clawed toward the front though his legs were gone. For every foot of ground they gained, the army of Grizzlegom lost ten warriors.

The simple math of it meant they would never reach the crest. Still, they fought. Metathran and minotaurs did not need a winning battle to fight on. They needed only a foe.

Grizzlegom gored an il-Vec monster in the gut. Its viscera cascaded from a mechanistic cavity.

Dead though it was, the beast clutched the minotaur's throat in four sets of claws. They constricted.

Gasping, Grizzlegom whirled his axe. It took off the thing's head. Its claws only tightened. Dizzy from lack of blood, Grizzlegom chopped loose one arm after another. Still the pincers clung to his neck. Grizzlegom holstered his axe and pried the dead claws from his flesh. He used one straight away, ramming its points into the eyes of the next Phyrexian. The minotaur commander drew his axe and finished it off.

We will never reach the top, he thought as he slew another monster.

With a sudden roar, his lines advanced. A tidal wave of warriors crashed against the Phyrexians. Gray-skinned Keldons were suddenly there in the front lines. They hewed hungrily into the monsters. Just behind them stood elf archers, who filled the air with deadly shafts. The combined forces advanced up the volcano at a run.

Grizzlegom could only stand, stunned into stillness.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. Grizzlegom turned to see the silver-haired face of an elf warrior."

"From your colors, I assume you command these minotaurs and Metathran?"

Grizzlegom nodded. "And from yours, I assume you command these elves and Keldons?"

The man returned the nod. "I am Eladamri of the Skyshroud elves."

"I am Grizzlegom of the Hurloon minotaurs."

Their hands clasped-glistening-oil sealing their unspoken alliance.

Eladamri nodded to the peak of the mountain. "Let's gain it."

Smiling-an uncommon expression for any minotaur- Grizzlegom said simply, "Yes."

They had taken only a single step up the hillside when more warriors arrived.

Gigantic lizards galloped upward. Claws scrambled over pumice. Scales shimmered atop rippling muscles. In moments, the huge lizards overtook their allies. They launched themselves over the front and landed among the Phyrexians. Lizard mouths gobbled down the nearest beasts. Tongues lashed out to grab those farther away. Fangs punched through armor and carapace and bone. The lizards literally ate through their foes.

"What are they?" asked Grizzlegom, gaping.

"They are Kavu," Eladamri replied in awe. "Guardians of a faraway place." He glanced up the hillside, where magnigoth treefolk battled dragons in the skies. "A friend of mine must have brought them."