J. King - INVASION

The plague bomb struck to one side. It tore through the thatch as if it were air. It smashed the king beam. The roof slumped massively beneath Liin Sivi's feet. A thunderous boom came below, with a brittle, crackling sound. The hiss of the plague spores was unmistakable. So were the shouts of the elves.

The plague hadn't time to kill them, though. One wall of the high court caved and fell inward. A hundred tons of wood toppled in giant killing sheets. Dagger-splinters stabbed down afterward.

The roof buckled and failed. It crashed like a bellying wave.

Liin Sivi rode the green tide. She could do nothing else. Timbers crashed to the floor. Giant knots fell in blood puddings that once had been elves. White, killing spores seeped smoky through every crack. Liin Sivi fell to her knees on the shuddering thatch and braced herself.

The far wall crumpled under the roof's plunging weight. Beams roared as they tumbled over each other. In four sections, the thatch crashed to the floor of the ruined high court.

A sudden quiet filled the air. No more crashing. No more screams. Before Liin Sivi stood the tall doorway where even now the last of the refugees fled. Behind her lay the silent wreck of the high court. Not a single moan came from the tumbled ruin. All the elves had been eaten by plague. There were no humans except-

There she lay, red hair tangled amid thatch. A cracked rafter had run her through, spearing the gray rot that filled her back.

Liin Sivi bowed her head. Takara had been a worthy companion. To die this way, twice killed, in the midst of strangers… She'd chosen her time.

"Good-bye, Takara," Liin Sivi said. "You will be missed."

Another whistling shriek mounted above.

Drawing a ragged breath, Liin Sivi strode to the giant doors and entered the resinous darkness within. They made not a sound as they closed over the bright world. Liin Sivi set the bolt and descended after the refugee crews. She descended after Eladamri.

Eladamri led the refugees down the royal passage. No king had been this deep in centuries. No lamps lit the way except those torn from walls higher up. The ragged stairs, carved from dead heart-wood, spiraled down around a vast emptiness. A fall would bring death by lance-long slivers on the way down. It was a certainty… proven many times over already.

Screaming began above. The refugees knew what that meant. They pressed up miserably against the walls and waited for the body to plunge past. It did, narrowly missing an elf woman and her son. Into the dark pit the man fell. His screams grew hollow. They were interrupted by glancing impacts and ended at last by death.

"Downward," Eladamri commanded softly, leading the way.

In time he reached a region where giant webs had caught a number of the bodies. Eladamri advanced, cutting the gruesome figures free, lest their presence bring hungry spiders.

"What am I doing here?" he wondered under his breath, holding a flickering lantern high to stare at one of the bloodied victims. "Why am I leading these people?"

More screams above interrupted his thoughts. He glared up, clutching the wall. Lanterns showed the spiraling ascent. They lifted to see what came down the shaft. Voices joined themselves to the rolling scream. Something pounded one wall, ricocheted off, descended across the emptiness, and impacted the opposite wall. It struck the folk there, seemed to stick a moment on pulverized bodies, and tumbled downward again.

"A plague bomb!" Eladamri hissed in dread realization.

Once it came to a stop, its panels would open and spew contagion. It would contaminate them all and even the caves below, where they had hoped to shelter. All was lost, unless the contagion could be contained…

Dropping his lantern to the stair, Eladamri swung his sword along the stairway. The blade cut through fat cobwebs. He gathered them in a net in his free hand. Once there were enough strands, he sheathed his sword and experimentally spread the web. His timing would have to be perfect.

If only he were the perfect man he was believed to be.

The plague pod bounded down, followed by a flurry of tumbling bodies.

Eladamri gritted his teeth and flung the net outward. It enveloped the globe. Its sticky bands wrapped around the spore panels in the side of it. The sphere tore past. Eladamri released it, though the clinging strands yanked jealously at his hand. He hunkered down to keep from getting hurled into the void. The racing ball almost ripped his hand off before the strands tore free. Beyond the edge of the stair, Eladamri glimpsed the ball as it plunged away through webs and darkness.

Perhaps the strands would hold. Perhaps the spores would not emerge. Eladamri had done all he could, and it would have to be enough.

Bodies fell past in a wet, conglomerate paste.

Eladamri snatched up his lantern and picked his way farther down the spiraling stair. "What am I doing here?"

Multani moved through Llanowar, awakening great tree spiders. Their webs would save the wood. Their webs and the ingenuity of this Eladamri. There was more to this elf than the man himself realized.

As Multani rushed from tree to tree, mustering the defenders of Llanowar, he felt new power surge into him. It was Molimo. In his reticent and reluctant way, the spirit of Llanowar lent his strength to this foreign spirit. Multani smiled with mushroom teeth. The forest needed champions, mortal and immortal, and it was making them-Eladamri and Multani both.

"There it is, see?" said the blind seer somewhat absurdly. He jabbed a withered old finger beyond the prow rail. Wind tore at his white hair and old robes. "Llanowar." "Yes," Gerrard responded grimly. The vast forest spread in all directions beneath Weatherlight's bow. Llanowar's once-green crown was black with Phyrexian corruption. Spidery figures moved en masse through the great canopy. Above, in blue air and white cloud, huge black shapes clustered. From them dropped thousands of bombs. There were no aerial defenders here. With impunity, the monsters rained plague down on the forest.

Gerrard leaned to the prow speaking tube. "Battle stations, everyone. Signal the fleet. Prepare to engage those… whatever those ships are."

Turning to the blind seer, Gerrard said, "Thanks for the tip. With Benalia fallen, Llanowar especially will need our help."

"Help them, and help yourself," the old man said cryptically from the shadows of his broad hat.

Gerrard's brow furrowed. "We could have been here hours sooner if we'd been able to find you. Where were you?"

"I live half in truth, half in dream," the man replied evenly. "When I cannot be found in the one, I can be found in the other."

Gerrard sighed, shaking his head as he strode toward the port-side ray cannon. "You've wasted time."

The seer took a deep breath and murmured, "I never waste time."

Gerrard strapped himself into his gunner's harness. He powered up the machine and turned it through all three axes. Across the forecastle, Tahngarth did likewise. The two amidships gunners climbed into position. Crew scrambled across the decks and up into the bridge.

Turning in his traces, Gerrard glanced toward the bridge. He saw a familiar figure clamber into the navigator's seat.

"What the…!" he hissed, flipping open the speaking tube. "Hanna! What are you doing in there?"

"My job." Her response came curtly through the tube. "You've called battle stations, Commander."

"You can't navigate in your condition."

"Take us up, Sisay!" Hanna called suddenly. "Those aren't ships!"

Gerrard turned about, seeing the black, hovering mass in the clouds. No, they weren't ships. They were nothing at all, holes opening and closing in the sky.