The Fifth Dawn (6 page)

“Breathing okay. Not dead,” Slobad assured her. “But we’re gonna be if we stay here, huh?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” said a familiar voice, and Glissa felt a pair of meaty hands clamp onto her arms.

“Banryk?” Glissa said.

“Going to beg me for your life? Make it worth my while,” Banryk growled.

Glissa snapped her head back and heard a sickening crunch followed by the sound of Banryk crumpling to the ground, unconscious.

“Wish I could do that,” Slobad said.

“I wish I could stop,” Glissa said, clutching the back of her aching skull. “He’ll be all right.”

“Gonna need a new nose though, huh?”

“I hope he does,” Glissa said. She returned to Lyese.

Glissa saw the outlines of a youth she knew, and the eyepatch and cropped haircut of an adult she’d just met. Her sister was breathing softly, and was probably safer than Glissa was for now.

“Okay, Slobad. Let’s get out of here before the rest of them make it down the tree.”

“I would, but there’s one problem, huh?”

“What? Is it Yulyn? I don’t see anyth—” Glissa stopped when she heard the sound of hundreds of flapping metal wings, buzzing like giant flies and growing louder by the second. The last time she’d heard that sound had been on the ramparts of Taj Nar.

“Nope. We got company. Not just elves, huh?” Slobad said. “Have to talk to sister elf later. Ol’ crab-legs not want to stay dead.”

Bruenna spared a glance over one shoulder. The aerophins were gaining on her, in seconds they’d be close enough not to miss. She pulled hard on the steering controls of her stolen vedalken combat flyer and forced the limber, lightweight vehicle into a steep dive as another bolt of blue fire lanced overhead.

She couldn’t keep this up. Eventually, the aerophins would land a shot, and she wasn’t sure if she could still summon the energy for flying magic. That’s why she’d taken this craft in the first place. She had to reach the Tangle soon, or she was doomed. If the ’phins didn’t get her, the fall would.

Or the crash, if she didn’t pull out of this dive. Bruenna’s golden tresses whipped back into her face as she leaned hard on the stick, turning the dive into a roll and leveling off much closer to the ground. She was at the edge of the Tangle. If she could get below the tree canopy she’d have cover from the energy blasts, but sacrifice speed. With luck, any aerophins that followed would have the same difficulty. Bruenna poured on as much power as she dared and entered the forest.

Even with the wind whipping past her ears, she heard the swarm of aerophins enter the Tangle behind her. It sounded like all of them had given chase. “Very well,” Bruenna muttered. “Have it your way.”

The magical energies of the Tangle felt strange and wild to the
mage from the Quicksilver Sea, and she had trouble shaping the power to her purposes, to say nothing of the fact that she had to control the flyer at the same time.

The flyer had not been easy to come by. The levelers that attacked her village had been only the first wave. The vedalkens personally led the second, riding flyers like this one and, at the rear, this fleet of damnable aerophins.

Bruenna hadn’t even had time to mourn the dead. She had to survive long enough to find Glissa and warn her of the vedalken resurgence. She decided to risk slowing down a bit, and concentrated on her home, feeling the distant lines of power sending her what she needed. The familiar mana let her tame the wild magic of the forest.

Directly behind Bruenna, the ground erupted. Jagged silver spires packed tightly together like predator’s teeth shot upward through the forest floor, rising to a height that rivaled the tallest Tangle tree.

The results were better than the Neurok leader had hoped. She heard a series of tinny explosions reverberate through her temporary magical wall as several waves of flying constructs found the sudden appearance of a silver wall too much information to take in at once. Bruenna risked another look back.

The aerophins were still coming. Her trick, while impressive, had not appreciably decreased their numbers.

The wall had been the last major spell she had in her. Bruenna was running out of options. She also realized with some dismay that she had no idea where specifically in this vast forest she had to go. All she had to go on was a name: “Viridia.”

Bruenna broke through the thick woods and emerged on a narrow trail that was just open enough to give her room to maneuver and concentrate on magic at the same time. Behind her, the buzz of ’phin wings grew to a roar, and again she was forced
to waste time and energy dodging a barrage of energistic flame that shattered the copper tree trunks and tore up the soft metallic duff that covered the trail floor.

Viridia. Bruenna might still have enough for a magical trace. Glissa was in Viridia—that much she knew from the scrying spell she’d invoked before everything went to hell. Now Bruenna didn’t know where else to turn.

Centering herself on the trail and praying no ’phin would get off an accurate shot before she finished, Bruenna cast her mind out to the Tangle, sensing every living thing in the forest.

Okay, too much. Focus.

A blast from a closing aerophin clipped Bruenna’s robe. A tree took the second shot and exploded in a hail of jagged copper shards just in front of her. Splitting her concentration, she dodged most of the shrapnel, but felt a few tiny knife-like blades pepper her face, arms, and chest.

The spell was done. It wasn’t flashy. Bruenna simply became aware of where the elf girl currently was, as if it was the road to her own home.

Not that Bruenna had a home anymore.

Bruenna wrenched on the flight controls and tore off through the Tangle in search of her last hope. She saw the clearing in the trees that had to be Glissa’s village, and angled in for what she hoped would be a soft landing.

Bruenna shouldn’t have bothered—a pair of aerophins scored direct hits on her tail. The control crystals exploded, temporarily blinding her with sparks and oily smoke. She pulled mightily on the steering yoke, but shouldn’t have bothered. As soon as she did, the magical engine that drove the flyer sputtered and died. Bruenna’s stomach lurched as the sky dropped out from under her, and the flyer’s nose dipped toward Mirrodin.

Glissa had hoped she’d seen the last of the vedalken aerophins. The sound of the winged artifacts was umistakeable.

But Pontifex was dead. If the vedalken artifacts were attacking now, someone else was behind it. It had to be Memnarch.

“Why you stand there, huh?” Slobad said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away from Viridia.

Glissa watched the sky, but also listened with sharp ears. The flapping wings were drawing closer, and amid the hum Glissa could also hear elves descending the Trial Terrace. Below it all, something strange, but also familiar, coming in ahead of the aerophins. Then she heard a small explosive popping noise and the familiar sound cut out.

“Slobad, did you hear that?”

“I see it! Duck!” Slobad slammed into Glissa’s side, knocking the elf girl flat as a sleek silver object moving impossibly fast narrowly missed a perfect opportunity to deprive Glissa of her head. The whoosh of displaced air was followed by the grating screech as the speeding, smoking thing collided with a tree.

“What was that?” the elf girl gasped.

“Don’t know, but the ’phins were chasing it,” Slobad observed. “And here they come!”

“Wait!” Glissa cried. “Lyese! Slobad, I can’t leave her lying here.” The elf heaved her sister over her shoulders. “Okay, lead the way. I’ll keep up.”

Slobad jogged ahead of her and away from the encroaching roar of flying constructs. A barrage of sliver-blue fire struck a few feet away, shattering the ground. Glissa stumbled after Slobad as best she could with the weight on her shoulders, for once thankful that goblins had such short legs.

Another volley of crackling firebolts exploded in the canopy
above them. Glissa yelped as bits of shattered copper peppered her hind quarters, sending her stumbling over an exposed root. Glissa tumbled face-first to the ground. Lyese fell limp and rolled a ways ahead. Slobad stopped, scooped up Lyese on his own back, and kept running.

“Slobad! Run! I’ll catch up,” Glissa said, turning to face the ’phins. She’d had enough.

“Are you cra—never mind, stupid question,” Slobad shouted back.

“I can handle them. You have to get Lyese out of here. Please,” Glissa said.

“Don’t get killed, huh?” Slobad said.

“’Course not. Just get to whatever crashed up there. If it’s the vedalken who’s behind this, and it’s still alive, try to keep it there until I’m finished. And don’t drop my sister,” Glissa said. “Go, they’re almost here.”

Slobad nodded and charged ahead as best he could. The elf girl returned to the problem at hand.

“Great,” Glissa muttered. “No weapon, no goblin. No problem.” Despite their bizarre vedalken design and deadly energy blasts, the accursed things were still just constructs, after all. Glissa had a way with such constructs. She felt a familiar tingle in her spine as they drew closer.

Looking inward, she called forth the jade fire. Glissa’s copper skin began to crackle with energy, and her eyes glowed with eerie light. Glissa pulled her hands toward her chest then flung them outward. A wave of green fire slammed into the forefront of the aerophin formation then split in a fractal pattern that resembled a pane of shattered crystal in the sky.

Glissa poured death into the killing machines, and they died in droves. Tendrils of swirling, smoky energy snaked around each individual artifact. Glissa felt each one as the energy
slammed into their magical power sources, causing some to shut down immediately, making others attack allies, but causing most to simply explode like a goblin cannon.

Glissa felt quite peaceful, and very strong. Was this what it felt like to be a planeswalker, to touch that power?

The aerophins’ formation crumbled. With the mental equivalent of a snapping lute string, Glissa felt the last aerophin die, and the spark energy dissipated as rapidly as it had coalesced. She opened her eyes, which she realized she had held clenched shut the entire time. She’d somehow seen the aerophins anyway.

The aerophins were dead, but their corpses hadn’t simply vanished. They’d built up considerable momentum, and now thousands of burning, twisted hunks of jagged metal rained down. Glissa raised her hands again, hoping to stop the tumbling wreckage somehow, but the power had either been spent or left her entirely. She tried to run, but her legs refused to move, and her vision began to blur.

Heavy, booted footsteps crashed through the foliage behind, and Glissa slowly tried to turn. Whoever approached was running into their doom. “Slobad? Stay back!” Glissa called, “They’re going to hit any second!”

“I’ve lost enough family recently,” a distinctly ungoblinish voice replied, scooping Glissa up and slinging her over steady, armored shoulders.

“Lyese!” Glissa coughed as the rough movement knocked the wind out of her.

“Just shut up,” her younger sister replied. “Before I change my mind.” Without another word, Lyese bolted away from the hail of burning wreckage.