Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

“I’ve got to try,” Glissa said. “Otherwise, Viridia’s going to be destroyed.” Privately, she didn’t think she had it in her, but she was Viridia’s only chance.

“Let me help,” Bruenna said, brushing flecks of copper and oil from her robes. “Together, maybe we can-”

“No, I’ve got to do this myself,” Glissa insisted. “You three need to get someplace safe. Someplace where there might be an army big enough to take on Memnarch.” She turned to the goblin. “Slobad, you’ve go to lead them to Taj Nar. Raksha might be able to help. At the very least, he deserves to know what’s happening. And I can’t think of any safer place on Mirrodin right now.”

Slobad shook his head. “Oh, no. Where you go, Slobad goes.”

“Viridia’s my home, too, Glissa,” Lyese interrupted. “If you’re going back there to fight them, I am too.”

“Both of you are being foolish,” Bruenna said softly. “Glissa is right-she must go alone. I’ve seen how many there are, and we wouldn’t last five minutes. But if Glissa’s magic can do it all at once …”

Lyese looked from Bruenna to Glissa then back the way they had come. She placed her hands on her hips and stared a dagger at her older sister. “Okay, go. But if I find out you’re just going back to help them finish the job, I’ll kill you.”

Glissa grimaced, but nodded. “If I don’t succeed, you probably won’t get the chance. But I’ll try and save you a piece. Now please, go with Bruenna and Slobad. You can trust them, even if you still don’t trust me.”

“Glissa,” Lyese said, “just go.”

Glissa turned from her sister to Bruenna and spread her arms wide. “So, think you can get me airborne?”

Bruenna grinned. “I can do better than that, now that my feet are back on solid metal.” The Neurok woman closed her eyes and began summoning the magical power of flight.

Glissa caught up to the levelers a few hundred yards before they would have swarmed over Viridia. They were well over a thousand strong, each one bristling with blades, claws, teeth, and armor, gleaming green in the moonglow. The constructs flattened most of the smaller trees in their path, skirting the larger trunks that even levelers would be hard pressed to bring down. But Glissa wasn’t concerned with the plant life, destructive as Memnarch’s creatures were. The unsuspecting people of Viridia were hers to protect now, for better or worse.

Bruenna’s flight magic gave her complete control over her movement in the air, meaning she could hover as she concentrated on calling forth the destructive energy that had wiped out the aerophins. It had worked before against levelers, though she’d never faced this many at once. She closed her eyes, willing the destructive green fire to rain down on her foes.

Nothing happened. With renewed urgency, she cast about deep inside herself, picturing the levelers bursting apart. Nothing. The power had been exhausted defeating the aerophins. Either that, or it was gone altogether. Glissa didn’t want to consider what that might mean.

If she couldn’t stop them, maybe she could warn the Viridians in time. Maybe that Sylvok could use some kind of druidic magic on the things. Glissa opened her eyes to check on the levelers’ progress.

The levelers were no longer advancing on the village. They weren’t advancing at all, not horizontally. As she watched in horror, the clattering silver beasts clambered over each other, slowly creating a mountain of levelers directly underneath her.

“They weren’t coming after Bruenna,” Glissa muttered. “They’re after me.”

To test her hypothesis, she flew back and forth in a straight line over the levelers. The crude pyramid of constructs attempted to shift direction as she moved, always tracking her.

And that meant she could still save the village, power or no.

Glissa shouted taunts at the levelers below, daring them to follow her as she started to circle, slowly widening her arc and moving away from Viridia. The swarm of machines moved like a giant living shadow, trying to keep up with their prey and snapping futilely at the flying elf girl. The role of bait wasn’t her favorite, but at least she was dangerous bait. If this worked, Viridia should survive. She hoped. The only problem was where she would lead them and whether her borrowed flight magic would last long enough to get there. But an idea was beginning to form.

However this situation worked out, Glissa had lied about meeting the others at Taj Nar. She wouldn’t be coming back until she had Memnarch’s misshapen head on the end of a sword.

Glissa tucked her chin to cut back on drag and gained just a little more speed. The army of levelers faithfully gave chase, still not comprehending they couldn’t catch Glissa as long as she flew above them. She wondered if, like the mindless nim zombies of the Mephidross, the levelers simply followed an order until given a new one.

Or maybe, Glissa mused, they know I can’t do this forever, and they’re waiting for me to drop. It didn’t strike her as likely that Memnarch would use constructs that weren’t at least smarter than the average walking corpse.

By following a wide slagwurm trail that led in the general direction she wanted to go, Glissa was able to keep the constructs from leveling too much of the forest in their wake. Even so, a cacophony of hoots, cries, and howls arose on either side of the army as wildlife fled in terror. For a second, Glissa’s heart jumped when she thought she saw a wolf, but it might have just been a shadow or her imagination.

Of all her lost friends, the death of Al-Hayat, the giant wolf, had been especially brutal. The ancient forest creature had joined her cause simply because it was right. Memnarch’s forces had cut him down, and the wolf’s heroic death had saved Glissa’s life. Bosh had been a marvel, and a good friend, but in many ways the golem had been like a child. Al-Hayat had been more like a surrogate father who had come along to protect Glissa just when she’d lost her own. Sometimes she missed the big wolf almost as much as her mother and father.

The elf girl returned her attention to her flight path, the construct army still clacking and rumbling along after her. The slagwurm trail had grown fresher over the last few minutes, and Glissa realized that this might work even better than she’d planned. A slagwurm could inflict some real damage on the leveler army. The mammoth, legless monsters spent most of their lives underground-well, underground depending on your point of view, she supposed, remembering the dazzling interior of the world-and only ventured onto the surface when hunger drove them to it. If this slagwurm was still above ground, it could prove a potent, if unwilling, ally. She didn’t see it on the trail ahead, but it could easily be concealed under the thick Tangle canopy. She hoped it was. With her spark-driven power apparently drained, she needed every advantage she could get.

Glissa glanced down. The levelers were still keeping pace, scattering stunned fauna and flattening inconvenient flora. Slobad passed languidly by and rolled so he faced upward. “So where we goin’ huh?”

“Slobad!” Glissa blinked. “How long have you been following me? I told you to go to Taj Nar!”

“What?” Slobad replied. “Hard to hear up here, huh? Where we goin’?”

“You-I said you should-”

“Yeah, thinking you want excuse to go back down that lacuna, huh?” Slobad continued. “Need someone who knows what’s going on, huh? Who knows better than Slobad?”

“Slobad, you might get killed,” Glissa said bluntly. “Especially if you don’t fly a little higher.” She nodded, indicating a wobbling tower of stacked levelers that snapped at the goblin’s feet. “Please, go back,” she said, gripping Slobad’s shoulder as he rose. “I’m not losing you, too. And they can’t find the den without you.”