J. King - INVASION

A new rain began-muscle instead of shafts. From their lofted perches, great apes dropped in their hundreds. They hurled living Phyrexians after dead ones. They ripped limbs from Phyrexian troopers and bit chunks from Phyrexian heads.

This was all in the first moments, before there was a foe to fight. These were holes underfoot, arrows and spells out of darkness. With the arrival of the apes and the spidermounted mages, though, the battle had changed. Phyrexians knew how to fight such creatures. With howls of fury and hunger, monsters attacked.

Yavimaya's horrors were nothing compared to the terrors of Phyrexia-elongated skulls, fang-choked gobs, horn-tipped joints, clawed arms, leg pods, tentacles, talons, stingers. The black tide crashed against the spider mages. It was all bug flesh in those first moments. Then the spiders were shredded, and it was elf flesh and ape flesh flung on dark winds. Spells misfired. Wild magic jagged through treetops. It hurled up the hackled shadows of Phyrexians.

Multani entered vines, lashing them across the monsters. He plucked them up in ones and twos and threes and threw them from the bough. It was not enough. He could not open knotholes-not with elves and apes among the monsters. He could not grow suckers to grab whatever fought above. Behind the slain mages were ragtag armies of elf infantry. They died as quickly and surely as the mages had. There was simply no stopping these beasts.

Even as he fought onward, Multani sent his mind out to Gaea. Massacre. They cannot be stopped. We must withdraw.

Gaea did not speak to him. He knew what she would say. If you withdraw now, they will never be stopped.

Help us. Help your children. Bring the others. Bring every child beneath your canopy. Else, we are lost.

Why do mortals ever pray? Multani wondered to himself. Why do gods never answer?

The elves were dying like elves. Unflinching, they sacrificed centuries of life.

Phyrexian corpse crews followed in the wake of the advancing lines. They dragged fat chains tipped with long hooks. Wherever the monsters found a body, dead or alive, they would thrust the barb through the soft flesh of the ankle. Four or five elves would fit on a single hook before the corpse crew would swing it away to dangle beneath the cruiser. The chains cranked upward. The specimens were loaded on the ship for study.

Gods might never answer, but Multani would.

He emerged from the tree. He took his form from the quick of the bough. A huge hillside of living wood, Multani flung his fingers out in wooden spikes. They pierced Phyrexians in their scores.

The monsters writhed like spitted roaches. Multani gripped them, splitting them open. This was vengeance pure and simple. While he slew scores in his fists, hundreds flooded past him.

He was losing the Battle of Mori Tumulus. He was losing the Yavimaya war.

Then new allies came. From the volcanic caves beneath Yavimaya, they galloped upward. Never before had Multani's mind laid hold of such creatures. They lurked forever in the twilight world beneath the forest-half green and half red. Their skin was part scale, part rock, their bodies part saurian, part ground sloth. They had tigers' teeth and bulldog faces and feet that were claw and hoof both. The smallest were the size of a man, and the largest the size of two elephants. Most amazing of all were their tongues-longer, more powerful, more dexterous than elephants' trunks. They galloped up the tree boles as if charging across flat ground.

The druids had summoned them. Their enchantments had awakened the slumbering lizards. Kavu. These things were called Kavu-an ancient druid word meaning "ever watchful" and "carved from stone."

Up every bole, Kavu swarmed. In a heartbeat, they fountained out of the darkness and crashed into the Phyrexian lines. Lizard tongues lashed out, snatched up carapaced monsters, and drew them into fangy mouths. They crunched them. No sooner was one Phyrexian swallowed than a second was caught and a third…

Phyrexians withdrew up the bough. The hundreds that had flooded past Multani now fled the other way. He snatched up handfuls of them and crushed them. Kavu got the rest. Soon it was a full-scale retreat.

Forgive my mortal terrors, Gaea, Multani thought. I should have known you had defenders other than me. You are the world mother, not the forest mother.

Gaea did not respond. She never spoke to Multani, but he sensed what she would say. You have other defenders as well- allies from old foes.

Yes, Multani said in realization, allies from old foes.

Most of the Phyrexians had flooded back onto the black bough where their cruiser waited. It was their beachhead, their haven from which they could launch new attacks-or so they believed.

Multani reached wooden hands into the heavens. A throat opened in him. Out rolled incantations as ancient and dark as those that had summoned the lizards. Words vaulted into the black heavens and called down an even more powerful, even more venerable foe.

Lightning leaped from the black sky. It cracked through a hovering plague ship, transfixing it. Energy poured through its top and out its keel. It leaped onward, through two more ships before its killing hand reached down to the pitching treetops. The bolt scintillated through a cloud of battleflies. They dropped, red-hot, from the air. With clear intentionality, the lightning strike slammed into the beached cruiser. Smoke rose from every seam. Flame burst from rotten wood.

Trapped in flames, Phyrexians oozed glistening-oil from countless cuts. Their blood caught fire. They thrashed.

The lightning gripped the black bough like a hand. It did not let go, did not descend through the tree as natural lightning would. Instead, it held on and shook the bough. Burning Phyrexians fell. Desiccated wood flamed. The cruiser caved and cracked.

Welcome to Yavimaya, my old foes, Multani thought. Welcome fire and lightning!

The rot-riddled bough exploded. Hunks of wood and metal and Phyrexian flesh shot into the night.

Phyrexian cruisers filled the night sky above the prison yard. Ships hovered scarcely a hundred feet above the walls. They hung so low that Gerrard could see the flush ports where Phyrexian waste spattered down.

He reached a shackled hand out of the guard tower window, grabbed the lantern that burned there, and cracked it from its casing. He hurled the flaming thing at the belly of a ship. It struck the lip of a sewage port and smashed against the dripping edge. Lamp oil splashed across the black base of the ship. A crimson jet of fire roared up through the waste dump, ignited methane, and set off an explosion that bulged the undercarriage of the ship. Fiery hunks of bug-flesh dribbled from the spot.

The brigands in the yard cheered, united by Gerrard's defiance. Their hope was short-lived.

Hundreds of black cords uncoiled from the rails of the cruisers. They seemed the deadly tentacles of enormous black jellyfish. The cables unrolled to dangle just above the upturned faces of the prison throng. Down those threads slid Phyrexians. Hackled and homed, avatars of death, they plunged toward their prey.

"Free the others!" Gerrard shouted even as the beasts dropped among the prisoners. "Fight for your lives! Fight toward the ship!"

Ship! That single word ignited the yard. There was hope for escape.

Phyrexians claimed their first victims even before setting claw to ground. Talons clamped on heads and crushed them like eggs. Spiked tails gored and lifted gapmouthed prisoners. Stingers sank into eyes and pumped blackness. Hundreds of prisoners died in that first moment.

Hundreds more fought back. From the guard armory rose crossbow bolts, piercing the black hordes that dropped from the skies. Those prisoners who had swords used them, chopping legs out from under monsters. Others used the shackles or iron bars that had formerly held them captive. Even the bricks of the prison turned deadly. Torches rammed in Phyrexian mouths. Hunks of glass slit throats. Whatever came to hand became a weapon-even the dead claws of the killers, even the sand of the yard.