J. King - INVASION

"Squee go to see him, too!" The green little man vaulted down from the bow gun and clasped hands with his friends.

Karn reached out, wrapping the group in an almighty embrace that lifted them from their feet. He strode purposefully across the deck and leaped over the rail. He fell weightlessly but landed like a hammer on an anvil. The folk in his grip smiled with chattering teeth as he walked into the cave.

Sisay managed to speak for them all. "Thanks, Karn, but I need the exercise."

Considering, Karn tromped to a halt, set his friends down, and gestured ahead of him.

"At least let me lead. I may not be a fighter, but I'm a fair shield."

"A shield?" Sisay said, eloquently staring him up and down. "You're more of a wall."

Squee leaped onto the silver golem's back. "G'won, Karn. You lead, long as Squee rides here."

Satisfied, the massive man tromped down into the Caves of Koilos.

This had been a particularly harsh cul-de-sac. Gerrard had lost ten soldiers to only four Phyrexians. As before, he took out his anger on the bugs' corpses.

Tahngarth and the others meanwhile laid out the bodies of the brave fallen. A torch lighted their heads. There were no longer cloths enough to cover faces. The ten lay staring at the ceiling. Stalactites dripped on them.

Gerrard's sword chopped again into scale and meat. Tahngarth no longer tried to halt the mutilations. Perhaps he understood. Gerrard was only doing to these bodies what their plague had done to Hanna.

Wordless and grim, Tahngarth led the rest of the contingent out of that slaughterhouse. They crowded through the narrow exit and into the passage beyond. Their voices made watery echoes as they headed deeper into the cave. With them went the angry light of the torches.

Gerrard was left with his own torch and the one that tended the fallen.

Cold darkness closed around him. It felt deadly. Gerrard was at home among deadly things. The smell of glisteningoil wreathed him. Positioning a torch at the heads of the four Phyrexians, Gerrard raised his sword. It hung there like a scorpion's tail. The blade fell. A monster's head rolled free with a sound like stone grating on stone…

Gerrard whirled.

A huge, round stone rolled down a track beside the door. With a boom, it sealed off the chamber's only exit.

Gerrard rushed to the stone. He grasped its cold edges and heaved. It did not budge in its track. The corridor beyond was silent and empty.

A rushing sound came behind Gerrard. He spun. Something vast dropped from among the stalactites. Numerous legs riled, outlined in the light of his torch. It was a giant spider-Tsabo Tavoc.

She landed on the torch, extinguishing it with her abdomen. In the sudden murk, legs clicked.

Gerrard lunged, sliding across the bloody cave floor to his fallen comrades. He snatched up the second torch and rose into a crouch. He waved the torch before him. Its fingers of flame were too tepid to reach the chamber's farther spaces.

Gerrard hurled the torch, end over end. It fell atop the Phyrexian dead. Fire leaped to puddles of glistening-oil. With a sudden whoosh, the tiny flame became a great blaze.

Shielding his eyes from the intense illumination, Gerrard scanned the darkness. Lurking beyond the glare, enshrouded in blackness, stood Tsabo Tavoc. She watched the burning corpses with glad fascination. Her compound eyes threw back the raving light.

Gerrard strode steadily toward that horrible apparition, calling out to her. "I see you, destroyer. I see you, Tsabo Tavoc. You took my country. You killed my love. Now, I will kill you."

Her voice buzzed like insect wings. "Such delicious hatred. You will make a fine Phyrexian." She withdrew deeper into the shadows. Only the thinnest sheen traced her legs. She seemed a mere phantasm.

Gerrard stalked dauntlessly forward. He himself had become a creature of shadows. "You killed her."

His sword lashed out. It caught one of the spider woman's legs in the conduits behind the knee. Wrenching his arm, Gerrard severed the leg. It rattled against the stone floor.

Tsabo Tavoc backed deeper into the shadows. The light from the burning corpses was faltering. The rear reaches of the cave were utterly dark. "You are powerful. Fearless."

"You killed her!" Gerrard bolted into the blackness.

He glimpsed a fish-white belly before him and rammed his sword up into Tsabo Tavoc's gut. Blood, black in that murk, sagged beneath the impaling blade. He lunged, intent on plunging the sword deeper.

Tsabo Tavoc's legs hurled him away.

Gerrard clutched his sword tightly. It ripped free of the spider woman's body. He tumbled head over heels. Stones bashed him as he rolled. The spider woman's gore looped him. Sprawling against the wall of the chamber, Gerrard panted.

He laughed. His thumb wiped some of the hot stain from his sword, and he tasted it. Salty, acidic-it tasted good.

Gerrard dragged himself to his feet and heaved a glad sigh. "Do you know, that wound I gave you-it's exactly where your plague bomb struck Hanna. That's where the rot began-the rot that ate her away." He strode into the darkness, sword lifted before him. "I'm going to tear you apart the way you tore her apart."

Tsabo Tavoc dropped on him with such speed and force, he was flung supine to the floor. His sword clanged and slid away. Three of the spider woman's legs wrapped about him, constricting tightly. She pressed his chest to her thorax. Blades in her joints cut into him.

Gerrard struggled. It was an inescapable grip. The gore from her belly wound ran down onto his face.

Tsabo Tavoc stared coldly at him. Her compound eyes gleamed in the last light of the burning bodies.

"You have the soul of a Phyrexian, Gerrard, a soul of hate. It makes you powerful, but infinitely malleable."

He felt a sudden, sharp pain in his back. Something gored him. It punched into his spine and poured out a hot, hissing substance. The stuff flooded Gerrard. His limbs shook. His skin blazed with fire. His vision grew acute- angry black lines slashed down around everything.

It was glistening-oil, liquid hatred infused into his spine. He had never known so powerful a passion. He wanted to rip Tsabo Tavoc apart, to kill everyone, to kill himself, but his body was not his own. Hatred burned away his nerves until he hung in hopeless, seething paralysis.

Good, my child, Tsabo Tavoc purred directly into his mind. Now you understand what it is to be one of us. Had you been my trophy, I would have fitted you with a mimetic spine, here and now. You belong not to me, though, but to Yawgmoth. This infusion makes you mine until we stand together before him.

Gerrard hung there beneath her, incapable of moving. He belonged here, clutched in his mother's legs.

She stalked forward a few paces. Her steps slowed, as if she were thinking. Think of your beloved, Gerrard. Think of Hanna, of how I killed her.

The pangs of hate cut deep, slaying Gerrard.

Mother was pleased. She purposefully crossed the cavern, scuttling past the burning Phyrexians and the Benalish dead. Reaching the door, she rolled back the stone as though it were a pebble and carried Gerrard away into the bowels of Koilos.

Karn, Sisay, Orim, and Squee followed the path of destruction carved out by the Benalish brigade. It led them ever downward, at last to a vast, deep chamber.

There, Eladamri and his Metathran troops had joined Tahngarth and the Benalish brigade. Together, they battled a horde of Phyrexians. Every moment, more beasts arrived. They filed through a huge, shimmering portal on the far side of the cave. The Dominarians were outnumbered two to one, and soon three to one. As long as the portal remained open to Phyrexia, there would be no hope of holding Koilos.