Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

Slobad just stared, and folded his stubby, clawed arms across his chest. “Got far enough to give directions. Wasn’t easy to convince sister elf, but Bruenna helped.”

“Look,” Glissa said. “This might not kill me. It’s dangerous, but I’m not suicidal. And I need you to look after Lyese. Slobad, you’re the only one I trust. Don’t you know that?”

“What about Bruenna? She big-time mage, huh?”

“Right,” Glissa agreed. “She also worked for the vedalken for a long time, and she’s just lost all of her people. She seems fine, but I’m not sure she’s stable. Please, Slobad.”

“Only if you say you come back, huh? Not going to let Slobad be a ball of string for Kha?”

“Okay, I’m coming back,” Glissa said. “Now go, will you? This enchantment won’t last all day.”

“But-okay,” the goblin sighed. “See you soon, huh?” Slobad added, veering off toward Taj Nar. Glissa watched him go for a precious pair of seconds, then continued on course. She glanced down to check on the levelers.

The constructs had completely stopped. Glissa was alarmed to see that many of them seemed to be watching a tiny, flying speck of goblin soar overhead. Once Slobad had passed the chittering levelers, something even stranger happened.

Half of the levelers followed Slobad. The other half continued to chase Glissa.

“Flare,” Glissa swore as she headed back after Slobad, half-expecting to drop out of the sky at any second. “What do you want with him?” Her voice raised to a shout as she closed in on the goblin. “Slobad! Wait! Come back!”

Slobad came to an immediate halt, turned, and headed back toward her.

“Hey, what they want with Slobad?” he asked when he got within earshot.

“That’s what I want to know. But we don’t have time to find out,” Glissa said. “You’re just going to have to come with me. You were right. I’m going back inside.”

“Slobad knew it!” the goblin barked.

“But first, we’re going to get that to help us,” she said, pointing at a large shape that had burst through the treetops just ahead.

“A slagwurm!” Slobad shouted at Glissa as the wind whistled past the elf’s pointed ears. “How you gonna talk to a slagwurm, huh? They’re monsters.”

“I know,” Glissa said, getting a good look at the thick, legless reptilian wurm as it whipped its toothy maw in the air, letting loose a keening screech that rang inside her head even at this distance. “But this one’s hungry. Hear that? It’s calling for its kin.”

“That’s how it says ‘soup’s on,’ huh?” Slobad asked, natural curiosity overcoming fear. Glissa knew that Slobad was fascinated with big things, though usually he reserved his adoration for large machinery. Like golems.

“Yes,” Glissa said and pointed at the swarm of levelers tracking them on the ground. “But it’s not getting another wurm for dinner this time. Look past the wurm,” Glissa said. “What do you see?”

“Trees, sky, a big … round … clearing. The lacuna!” Slobad exclaimed. “Wait, that full of monsters too, huh? Giant rats? Big bugs? Ring a bell?”

“You’re the one who said I was crazy,” Glissa said. “Now stay with me-we’re going to get close.” She explained what she had in mind then peeled off toward the writhing slagwurm.

Slagwurms were probably the largest creatures on Mirrodin, by simple virtue of the fact that they never stopped growing. Glissa had learned about their life cycle as a youth. They were not truly reptiles, despite their thick scales and plates of metallic armor. Slagwurms actually began life as foot-long grubs that hatched from egg clusters laid by the hermaphrodite parent.

They were also cannibals. The strongest, or sometimes simply the first, slaggrub would wait for the others to hatch then consume its kin ruthlessly as their writhing mouths broke through the rubbery shells. Each egg cluster generally produced a single wurm that reached maturity in under a week, though fortunately slagwurms laid them only once a year.

Slagwurms never lost the taste for the flesh of their sibling, and that was the only reason their populations hadn’t taken over all of Mirrodin. For the most part, the only thing that could kill a slagwurm was a bigger slagwurm.

This one had the rusty coloring of a mountain variety. It must have burrowed into the ground under the Tangle, and surfaced only recently. Glissa was sure she would have noticed the monster’s path on their recent walk from the lacuna to Viridia. As they drew closer, she could make out the patterns that covered the wurm’s armor plates, and smell the sulphurous odor of the enormous annelid.

“You remember what to do?” Glissa asked.

“Yep!” Slobad nodded.

“Go!” Glissa shouted, and the pair dived straight for the writhing torso of the towering slagwurm. Please, Glissa thought, stay in the air. Keep screeching. Keep your head up, you big ugly wurm. Don’t drop just yet….

Just before the elf and the goblin would have collided with the wurm’s armored hide, they split, peeling off in opposite directions, missing the wurm by inches. Glissa reached out with one hand and caught the lip of one armored plate, then swung herself around and grabbed hold with the second, which left her half-hanging, half-floating two hundred feet in the air. She heard Slobad squeal as he did the same.

“Here they come!” Glissa shouted. “Wait for it!”

The single-minded levelers treated the slagwurm as if it was just another part of the landscape, something to be overcome on the way to their prey. The levelers began to climb the mammoth annelid, jamming their sharp claws into the wurm’s side. So far, the creature was paying the levelers no more heed than it had Glissa and Slobad, but the elf knew it would have to notice the extra weight soon. Just then, the slagwurm screeched and started to wave more vigorously against the sky.

“That’s it, Slobad! It feels them! Let’s get out of here!”

“Don’t need to tell Slobad twice, huh?” the goblin shouted from the other side of the slagwurm. The pair continued on at top speed to the still-smoldering hole in the ground that would lead them to their enemy-and would hopefully lead their enemy’s minions to their doom.

Behind them, the wurm screeched again, a sound now filled with pain. The creature’s death scream was soon followed by a tremendous crash as its massive bulk flopped back to the ground like a heavy chain. Glissa checked back over her shoulder. The wurm was thrashing in the midst of the swarm, tossing silver bits of levelers and a growing spray of its own ochre blood all over the forest. She felt a pang of regret that the majestic wurm was going to die-she had held out a faint hope that the creature might be able to take on all the constructs, at first-but in its death throes the slagwurm had cut the number of levelers by a third.

She silently thanked the wurm and pressed on. Pitting the monster against the levelers had been a trick of opportunity. Her real goal was just ahead.

The lacuna looked even bigger from above. Surrounded by trees and foliage knocked flat by the shockwave of mana that had launched the new moon into orbit, the hole that led to the center of Mirrodin resemble an enormous pressed bladeflower.

Glissa was gratified to see-and feel-that the residue left by the passing of the moon still pulsed with magic. Giant vorracs snuffled around the lacuna’s edge, baffled at what from their perspective must have been a suddenly shrunken world. Massive porcine djeeruks scampered over the wrecked trees, shattering any semblance of calm with the thunderous crash of cracking metal. Here and there, patches of debris had woven themselves together into shambling parodies of magical walls, covered in thousands of skittering stinger monkeys picking for tasty needlebugs. The average pack of stingers numbered around a dozen.