The Moons of Mirrodin (22 page)

ASSAULT

“What the flare was that?” shouted Kane.

“Don’t talk!” replied Glissa. “Just run.” She jumped up and pulled Kane to his feet.

The two elves raced into the Tangle. Rounding the next tree, they came face-to-globe with four of the flying constructs that had attacked Taj Nar.

“Split,” shouted Glissa. She broke to the right. The tingling came again, and she dived to ground and rolled. Two blasts singed the ground next to her. Glissa came up, sword in hand, and swung at the first movement she saw. Her blade caught the silvery tail of one beast, slicing off the barbed end. The second creature banked left to avoid a Tangle tree and come back around, but the one she had cut couldn’t make the sharp turn. It flipped its shortened tail to the left and lifted its right wing, but that wasn’t enough. The beast smashed globe-first into the tree. An azure explosion nearly drove Glissa to the ground.

She turned to see how Kane was faring against the other two. He had dodged behind a tree. Glissa could see two scorch marks on the trunk but couldn’t see the metallic birds anywhere.

“If you feel a tingle on your neck, dodge!” she shouted as she scanned for the returning flyer.

“Got it!” he called back. “More friends of yours come calling?”

“Just watch yourself,” she replied. “This isn’t a game. It’s a hunt, and we’re the prey.”

The all-too-familiar tingling returned. Glissa dropped and rolled around the trunk, but the bolt didn’t come. She heard two loud cracks from the other tree and knew the flyers had gone after Kane. The elf jumped to her feet and scrambled up the tree to the lowest spire. She crouched there and surveyed the forest again.

The the two flyers that had strafed Kane disappeared around another tree. He was still on the ground. Glissa scanned the trees and found the third flyer. It was heading straight for Kane. She screamed and launched from the spire toward the flying beast as it flew past her, but the silver-winged creature was faster than she realized. She had hoped to drive it to the ground, but instead she fell past. Desperate, she stretched out a hand and caught the beast by the tip of its tail.

Elf and flyer slammed into the ground. The creature’s tail slipped from her grasp as she hit, so she dropped her sword and caught it with her other hand. Glissa rolled over with the beast and got both hands on it. It flailed in her grasp, flapping its wings and flipping its tail, trying to wriggle free. She wanted to slam it into the ground but was afraid it would explode. Instead, she fought to get to her feet while controlling the creature.

When she got to one knee, the beast flipped its tail again. Glissa lost her balance and stumbled back to the ground. When she looked up, Kane was standing beside her. His sword was raised, ready to stab the beast.

“Not the head,” she screamed, but she was too late. Kane’s sword slammed down into the beast’s bulbous head. Glissa rolled to the side and covered her face as the globe exploded in a shower of electric energy.

She was spared the brunt of the blast, though her arms and legs were bloody from shards of glass. The elf scrambled to her feet
and searched for her friend. She found him sprawled beneath a nearby tree, his sword lying in pieces nearby.

As she bent over his body, she felt the tingling return. The beasts were coming in fast, much faster than she had ever seen. They had evidently tired of playing with the agile elves and intended to end it once and for all. Glissa dodged away from her fallen friend and sprinted toward another tree just as twin bolts of lightning slammed into the ground behind her.

She had no idea how long until the next bolts would come and hoped she could reach the tree. The flyers gained on her with each step. She could hear their wings flapping behind her. They were ten feet back … eight … six. As Glissa reached the tree, she could feel the tingling build on the back of her neck. The blasts were coming.

Glissa jumped high into the air. Behind her the beasts spat bolts of lightning. She grasped a low-hanging spire and swung her legs up from their path. Her momentum carried her around the spire. She pulled her legs in to gain speed, then kicked them back out as she came around. Her feet slammed into the backs of the flyers, sending them careening toward the ground.

Glissa dropped and ducked behind the tree as both flyers hit the ground and exploded. She could hear glass shattering against the trunk. Her arms and legs quivered as the released energy washed past her. She peeked around the tree to make sure both creatures had crashed, then jumped up and ran back to Kane, picking up her fallen sword as she went by.

As she approached Kane’s prone body, all the missed opportunities of her life flashed through Glissa’s mind. Kane had been her best friend, the only person outside her family she remembered after her first rebuking ceremony. Over the past hundred cycles they had grown even closer. Now she might have lost him without telling him how she truly felt. A hole opened in her heart.

As she approached, Kane moaned and grabbed his head with both hands. Glissa smiled broadly and wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks. She ran to his side and hugged him as he tried to sit up.

“What the flare was that for?”

“I thought you were dead,” said Glissa. “I’m … I’m just happy you’re okay.”

“We’ll see about that,” he grunted. “My head is throbbing.”

Glissa helped Kane to his feet, then smacked his cheek. “Well, it should hurt, you thick-headed elf!”

“Ow,” said Kane. “You … Oh, never mind. What
were
those things?”

“That was the power Strang sold us out for,” said Glissa. “Constructs. Tools of my enemy. They attacked me once before and dogged me all the way back to the Tangle. I saw two of these things with a robed figure Chunth called a vedalken—some evil race that wants me dead. And no, I’m not being paranoid. That’s who Strang sold us out to. Look, I doubt he only sent four of them. We should get back to the Tree of Tales. Can you run?”

“I think so,” said Kane. He looked around. “My sword!” he cried suddenly. “What happened to my sword?”

“What almost happened to your head. Come on. We’ll get you a new one. You’re lucky that’s all we have to replace.”

*   *   *   *   *

As the two elves ran back through the Tangle, Kane asked the questions Glissa had been asking herself. “Who are these vedalken? Why do they want you dead?”

“I wish I knew,” said Glissa. “But I intend to find out.”

Near the Tree of Tales, Glissa slowed and grabbed Kane by the shoulders, pulling him behind a tree. He opened his mouth, but Glissa held up a finger.

“Do you hear anything?” she asked.

“No. It’s quiet.”

“That’s what worries me,” said Glissa.

Kane thought. “It’s still pretty early.”

“Yes,” she replied, “but if there were more of those constructs attacking Tel-Jilad, we’d hear sounds of battle. If not, don’t you think there would at least be some commotion over Chunth’s death?”

“Maybe,” said Kane. He looked unconvinced.

“Humor me,” said Glissa. “Let me check this out. You stay here—and be careful this time.”

“Okay,” said Kane. “I’ll watch your back.”

Glissa hesitated. After everything that had happened in the last few days, she didn’t want to wait another moment before telling Kane how much he meant to her. But now was not the time. She needed to concentrate on staying alive. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“What the flare was that for?”

“That was for later,” said Glissa, smiling.

She slipped around the tree, sword drawn, and surveyed the small clearing in front of the Tree of Tales. There were no guards at the main entrance. Kane should have been missed by now. The council would have reinforced the entrance with a squad of Tel-Jilad Chosen or troll Elite Guards. Something was definitely wrong.

Glissa crept toward the entrance, her sword in front of her. She waited for the tingle in her neck to announce the approach of the silver-winged constructs but felt nothing. The Tangle remained quiet save for the dull sound of her own footsteps. Midway across the small clearing she stopped and listened again. Something rustled above her, but it could have been the wind moving through the spires or a vorrac racing along a terrace.

The elf scanned the trees and spires, watching and waiting. She was just about to call Kane from his hiding spot, when they
appeared from behind the Tree of Tales. A dozen or more globe-headed flyers swarmed from either side of the great tree. They must have been clinging to the trunk out of sight, waiting for her to return. Glissa ran for the entrance.

The flyers swept around the tree, two curved lines of death winging their way toward her. The tingle ran down her spine as the air around the silver birds began to crackle with building energy. One after another, they unleashed blinding arcs of lightning. Glissa dodged back and forth as bolts slammed all around her. She dropped to the ground as one bird screamed right at her. She rolled twice, then pushed off to the side as another bolt tore a hole in the ground where she had been.

The agile elf landed on her feet in a dead run and zig-zagged toward the entrance to Tel-Jilad. She leaped through the open doorway just as three more bolts hit the tree around her. Inside, Glissa rolled to the side and put her back up against the wall. A single silver bird flew through the opening. Glissa whipped her blade straight up, slicing through the beast’s wings and spine.

The blue globe continued on, slamming into the back wall of the entrance chamber. Glissa shielded her eyes from the resulting explosion. Dropping to one knee, she leaned around the edge of the entrance to see if any more would try to enter the Tree. What constructs she could see were heading from the little clearing.

Preparing for another attack run, thought Glissa. She’d seen their tactics and knew it would take them a few moments to turn around for their next assault.

“Kane,” she called out. “Move it now! Before they return. You can make it!”

He raced from behind the tree. Glissa was ready to run out and distract the silver birds if they came back. What she saw instead made her shudder with fear. A robed figure stepped out from behind another tree. It raised an ornate staff and pointed it at the Chosen guard. Glissa screamed, but with a quick flick of
his wrist the mage sprayed azure energy that streamed toward the running elf.

The bolt slammed into Kane’s back and enveloped him. He screamed in agony and dropped to the ground. As Glissa raced from the Tree toward him, she could see his face twisted in pain. The muscles in his neck bulged, and his arms flailed uncontrollably as the energy cascaded up and down his body.

Glissa stopped, horrified. The metallic parts of his body—his arms, thighs, and shoulders—were melting away! Glissa dropped to the ground next to his writhing body. She was afraid to touch him as the energy continued to crackle across his body and could only watch. Now half the warrior’s body, had turned to liquid, pooling around the remaining flesh. Kane stopped screaming, but his body continued to twitch until there was nothing left but his head and a bloody torso.

*   *   *   *   *

Glissa stared at Kane’s remains as the mage approached. She glanced up as he drew near. What she had mistaken for a gleaming head was actually a globe like the heads of the silver flyers. Inside the globe she could see a misshapen, bald face with bulging cheek bones and an over-large skull. The robes concealed an extra set of arms she had not noticed before. He stood holding his staff and smiling at her.

“I thought that would bring you from hiding,” he said. “Now it is your turn.” The vedalken—so Glissa assumed he must be—raised his staff over his head.

The mage began to mumble, and the tip of his staff glowed with blue light. Glissa stared, motionless, and thought how easy it would be to let the vedalken win. She glanced down at her friend’s bloody remains, and something snapped inside. All the feelings she had for Kane over the past two hundred cycles—the
slow progression from simple friendship to something more—boiled over and turned to rage.

“Nooo!” she screamed at the mage. Her sword slashed up and around in a blindingly fast arc. Tendrils of green energy licked at Glissa’s hands as she slashed the blade through the mage’s staff, sundering the weapon just above his upper hand. Blue energy coalesced around the top of the staff as it fell toward the ground, exploding in front of the mage’s domed head. The force of the explosion slammed Glissa to the ground and sent the vedalken mage flying backward into the trees.

Glissa scrambled to her feet. The tendrils of energy flickered up and down her battered and bloodied arms. Her face was flush from the explosion and the rage that seethed within her. She wanted to stain her sword with the blood of the murderer who had stolen every piece of her life from her, but he was nowhere to be seen. She could hear him laugh. The sound echoed through the trees.

“A point to you, Glissa,” said the laughing voice, “but my aerophuis will soon bring this game to a close.”

“This is no game,” muttered Glissa. “It’s a hunt.” She headed off toward the surrounding trees, but then her neck began to tingle again. A dozen aerophuis dived toward her. They had spread out and now streaked toward her from every corner of the clearing. She had nowhere to run. The green strands of energy enveloped the elf’s arms and chest, but in her blind rage she took no notice. She thrust into the air, ready to spear the first hawk that got too close.