J. King - INVASION

On only two legs, Tsabo Tavoc tottered. She drew one leg away from Gerrard, setting it down before her and struggling to break from the golem's grasp.

Karn was implacable. Above the shrieks of the Phyrexians, his thunderous voice rang out.

"No more. If I must kill the guilty to save the innocent, I will kill!"

He ripped away another of the spider woman's legs. Before he could get another handhold, Tsabo Tavoc leaped away.

She dropped one more leg from Gerrard and ambled away from the silver golem. Her captive hung limp in the grip of a single limb.

Karn struggled to pursue, but the mass of creatures bore him down. He fell Like a steel door, impacting the floor with a resounding boom.

Tsabo Tavoc skittered up to the shimmering portal. Her forces sluiced through around her-faithful children everywhere. Spiracles panting, the spider woman turned to gaze out at the battlefield. She smiled. Segments bristled on her face. Her eyes shone with the glossy glow of exquisite pain.

Climbing onto the mirror pedestal and the glass book, Tsabo Tavoc shouted, "You are finished, Dominaria. You have fought me bravely and lost. No mortal can ever defeat Death. I am Death. Embrace me, and I will lead you down to death and up again into deathless life.

"You think we are destroyers. You are wrong. We are saviors. You are but larvae, but pupae-white and unformed maggots. Until you die, you cannot become more. We bring you your death. We bring you to greater life.

"Now, fight if you must, Dominaria. Flee if you can. Either way, it will be the same. We will drag you down to death and save you…"

Glorious words. Glorious, my mother, Gerrard thought, hanging in her grip. At last, I have lost all to you. Parents, foster parents, family, mentors, friends, and now myself. Only now do I understand. I love you, Mother. I love you with every fiber in me. Thank you for this. Thank you for killing me to make me greater.

He had never known such love. It made him weak. It made him mad. It made him want to stab her, to tear out her eyes, to rake her brains. If only his body would respond, he would cut his way into her.

Never had he known such love!

Once, he thought he had. Hanna had been her name. He remembered so much of her-golden hair, bright eyes, quiet smile-but nothing of wanting to kill her. He must not have loved her-not like he loved Mother.

She had killed Hanna, Mother had. Mother had killed so many, some with claws, some with minions, some with disease. That's how Hanna had died. Mother had loved her enough to send tiny machines crawling through her. Hanna had been furious. She had not wanted to transcend. She had not wanted…

Gerrard's mind struggled to assemble the thought.

Hanna had not wanted… She had not wanted… to die.

That forbidden thought spread through his mind.

Hanna had not wanted to die.

That single truth killed the manifold lies that swarmed in his head. Love is what he had felt for Hanna. Hate was what he felt for Moth-, for Tsabo Tavoc. The rest had all been lies, had been glistening-oil.

Truth spread through his once-poisoned spine and out along a million neural branches and into the tissues they touched. It gave him back his mind and his body.

He hung there still, his strength returning. He could feel Tsabo Tavoc's leg around him, could hear the cicada drone of her oration. No longer was she in his head. How to escape? It would take monumental strength to break the hold of even one of her legs.

"Pssst," came a sound near Gerrard's ear.

He slowly turned his head and saw a beautiful face- green and wart nosed, with feverish little eyes and barbed bits of bug leg between yellow teeth. Squee. It was no wonder he had passed unnoticed among the monsters in the chamber-hideously beautiful as he was.

"Here," the goblin said, shoving forward the hilt of a sword. Gerrard's mind was his own-his arm, his fingers. They clutched the pommel. There was no hesitation. He hurled the blade upward, past legs, past gripping thorax, past even the first cut he had made in Tsabo Tavoc's white belly. His blade bit through skin and muscle. It jabbed into gut, slicing it open.

Tsabo Tavoc's words ceased in the air. Her children watched in shocked horror. She jolted and stared down, stupefied.

"For Hanna!" Gerrard shouted. He heaved the sword again into Tsabo Tavoc's belly, ripping it wide.

The spider woman convulsed. Blood gushed hot from her. She gasped, clutching the filthy laceration.

Her minions winced back in shared agony. The leg that held Gerrard shuddered, loosening. "Let death improve you," Gerrard growled. He lanced the tip of the blade into the leg socket that held him.

Wires severed. Sparks flew. The leg went limp, dropping Gerrard. It felt glorious to fall that way, away from the feverish metal, away from the horrid mother of monsters.

He landed atop the book of glass and metal, atop the mirror pedestal.

Tsabo Tavoc hissed. Her three good legs gathered themselves to lunge.

Suddenly, the portal flickered and disappeared. A rock wall stood where once there had been a door to Phyrexia. The monsters that had been marching through that door were cut in half. Hunks of scale and flesh pattered down in a ghastly hail.

Tsabo Tavoc whirled. Her route to Yawgmoth was gone-her legions of demons, her escape. She didn't even have enough limbs left to hold Gerrard and walk.

Gerrard scrambled off the giant book, swinging his sword before him to clear a path.

The portal reappeared. Without even looking back at her quarry, at her armies, Tsabo Tavoc launched herself for the spot.

"Get back on de book!" Squee squealed. "Shut de door!"

Gerrard dived.

Tsabo Tavoc ambled over the corpses of her own troops. She flung herself through the portal.

Gerrard landed on the book.

The gate slammed shut. Only the blank cave wall remained- and the severed right cheek and arm of Tsabo Tavoc. The two hunks of meat flopped to the floor beside a bulbous cross section of her abdomen. The rest of her was on the other side, in Phyrexia.

"She escaped," Gerrard hissed angrily.

The Phyrexians, so long enspelled by their mother's words, now seemed to wake from a standing sleep. She was gone-they knew that first-and wounded and beyond their reach…

But only as long as the portal remained closed…

A wall of hackles, fangs, and claws rose up to tear Gerrard from the book. En masse, the Phyrexians lunged on him.

Gerrard swung his sword. Four of the beasts flew back from the blow, hurled to the ceiling. Two were impaled on stalactites. Two more were broken by the impact. Before Gerrard could even swing again, another beast slumped forward across the pedestal, its torso shattered as though by some incredible force.

Gabbling, Gerrard raised his eyes to see the incredible force. "Karn!"

Gerrard's oldest friend and longtime guardian answered with a nod. The silver golem swept out his massive arms and clutched five more Phyrexians. He wrapped them in an embrace that broke them like shells in a nutcracker.

As he let their bodies slump sloppily to the floor, he rumbled, "For you, Gerrard, I will kill."

The man on the book nodded back, hacking his blade through beasts. Side by side, Gerrard and Karn fought the minions of Phyrexia.

The prison brigade lifted their swords in a cheer and brought them down in a killing hail. Phyrexians fell in scraps. An elven war cry ululated through the cavern. The Steel Leaf warriors fought with a new vengeance. Metathran blades carved monstrous flesh.

Cut off from their mother and their homeland, Phyrexians died. There were no more reserves. There was no escape. Dominarians marched down from chambers above, and they gave no quarter.