Zendikar_ In The Teeth Of Akoum Part 11

Smara held her piece up to the sun to watch the light diffuse through it before eating.

"How did you know the slug was there?" Anowon asked, licking the juice off his thin fingers.

"The birds were waiting for its eye to poke through that hole-they told me," Nissa said.

"I did not see anything like an eye pop out of that hole," Sorin said.

"It would not have," Nissa said.

"Why?"

"Because the slug was dead," Nissa said. "Had been for days."

Sorin shook his head and swallowed hard. Anowon looked away from the half-eaten slug.

n.o.body except the goblins ate any more of the slug. Then they sat against the rocks and watched the flies ply the gelatinous corpse, waiting for the mountain to hurtle down.

"I think we should run through now," Nissa said.

Anowon stirred in his torn cloak.

"If we wait here any longer ..." Nissa said. She did not need to finish. Even in her cold sleep she could feel the brood closing in on them from behind, and the others felt it too, she knew.

Sorin groaned and sat up. He blinked at the gap. Then he patted the pommel of his great sword. "But I love the shape it is in right now," he said. "It would not have the same charm if flattened."

"Walk around if you have fear in your heart," Nissa said.

"Fear in my heart," Sorin repeated. "I like that." He stood and yawned. Then he walked over to the gap, ducked calmly, and disappeared. Anowon hopped up and followed, and so did Nissa. Sorin repeated. "I like that." He stood and yawned. Then he walked over to the gap, ducked calmly, and disappeared. Anowon hopped up and followed, and so did Nissa.

n.o.body said a word while they walked under the mountain. Even Smara, who was last through, was absolutely quiet. Nissa put her palms on the damp rock above her head as she walked. Rough hewn, but split with the grain. No tool had done the work on the mountain. But what had, then? But what had, then?

Their foot falls echoed on the wet stone. The echoes that returned to their ears were affected by a strange chirping, so for a moment Nissa thought the brood must have entered the cleft from another part of the mountain. The more she listened, the more she detected the scurry of mice in the odd echo. But it was hard to tell.

Soon the line of sunlight opposite became wider, and Nissa could see rock through the gap ... and something else. She stopped and squinted. Sorin had seen it too. He was in the process of very slowly drawing his great sword from its sheath.

They could only see the bottom half of it, but what they saw was large-easily as large as a forest troll, but not quite as tall as the trench giants. It had thick arms, hands, and torso, but its legs were stunted and tiny. Its tail was long and thick like that of a rat. It was sitting with its body against the rock and its tiny legs sticking straight out. Its overall appearance was almost comical. But judging by the keen way Sorin had his sword at the ready, Nissa guessed he was not in the joking mood.

They neared the gap and could see the whole creature-its ma.s.sive shoulders and large-jawed, reptilian head ... and its closed eyes. Nissa watched as its chest rose and fell rhythmically.

"Asleep," Nissa whispered. She stepped out of the gap on tiptoe. The sun had grown bright and seemed to be s.h.i.+ning directly into her eyes. Still, she could see clearly enough the rusted, flattened remnants of armor and splintered bone strewn around the creature, and she could guess why the thing waited at the edge of the cleft. "The meat must already be well tenderized by the time he pulls it out."

Nissa motioned to the others and crept around the creature and through a cut in the rock. The huge thing smelled like rotting death lying in the sun the way it was, snoring softly. Soon Nissa saw why it stunk so badly-she pa.s.sed the pile of cast off parts. Bright red flies buzzed off the rotting pile as the intruders pa.s.sed.

But then one of the creature's eyes popped open.

Anowon noticed the open eye too late. The thing was up on its knuckles in a moment. The speed and quickness with which it swept its stunted legs forward and landed a kick on Anowon's chest shocked Nissa, and then he was tumbling through the dust.

Sorin drew his great sword with its blade as black as night.

Anowon was up on his feet the moment after he stopped rolling. His teeth were bared, and his long-nailed hands were up and ready for attack. Small trails of blood were falling from around Anowon's red eyes. A deep growl that Nissa did not like at all came from the vampire's throat. Then he charged at the creature.

Nissa drew her stem sword and swung, hoping to catch the creature before it reached Anowon, but it caterwauled forward and swung in on its knuckles for another kick. Just then Sorin's blade slashed through the creature's back.

As soon as the blade bit into its flesh, the creature's body began to shrivel. In two breaths it was no more than a dry sh.e.l.l. In three breaths it fell to a large pile of gray dust. Soon the wind was blowing it away.

Nissa exhaled and leaned against a rock.

"I thank you," Anowon said.

"Yes, you do," Sorin said, sheathing his blade. "And the Parasite Blade."

Anowon felt for his metal cylinders before smoothing his hair.

"It is called that?" Nissa asked, making a face as though she'd bitten into an unripe nectarpith fruit.

"Quite," Sorin said, patting the weapon's pommel. "It draws the mana from whatever it cuts. It can drain creatures to their doom, as you saw."

"Where was such a thing created?"

"You would like to know."

Nissa looked away. "No, I really would not like to know," she said. "It smacks of vampires."

"Rather," Sorin said. Then he said no more.

They left the pile of dust and continued walking. Nissa thought they were still on the trail, but it was impossible to tell for sure. There were no tracks to follow, and the rocky gravel they walked on looked pristine and untouched.

Nissa took out the map and sat down on a rock. Even with the map, she could not be absolutely sure they were in the right place. Clearly the trail was descending, as the map said it would.

"What was was that thing?" Sorin said. that thing?" Sorin said.

Anowon said nothing, but stared at Smara and the goblins. The kor was in an advanced state of excitement, blathering more than usual so that two of her goblins were stroking her hair and singing to her. Nissa could tell Anowon was listening to the kor.

"I think it was a hurda," Nissa said, without looking up from the map. "They're not evil creatures, but they do throw tantrums that can be dangerous. I would have expected him on the plains more than here. They are shameless scavengers, so I guess it makes sense, really."

"What does?"

"To see a hurda scavenging a meal where best it can," Nissa said, rolling the map up and sliding it carefully back into the leather tube. "It is the natural way of things."

Sorin shook his head. "Elves."

Nissa stood. "We should be coming out of the mountains soon enough. If we push we might be able to make the Fields of Agadeem by nightfall."

Smara talked, and Anowon took out a piece of parchment and jotted something down with a bit of charcoal.

They descended into the foothills by late afternoon. The sun was bright, and the air was cool. The wind that had plagued them on the ascent was blocked by the mountain itself, and the path was clear and easy going. Yet Nissa worried. Catastrophe was surely waiting in the Fields of Agadeem. There was no reason to think such a thing; she just felt it to be true.

Anowon stopped and put his arm up in a fist. Nissa halted. The vampire had been walking ahead and to the left. He brought his finger to his nose, tapped it, and made an exaggerated motion of sniffing. Nissa understood and took a deep breath herself. There was a sweet smoke in the air. She sniffed again and pointed left. They followed the scent down a side canyon until they spied a small force of kor with a fire burning on the ground next to them.

As they watched, a kor dressed in a robe of beads threw a bough on the fire. It burst into flames, sending thick blue smoke into the air. His barbells were so long that he had tucked them into his belt. The other kor stood, gaunt, off to the side as the kor in robes went to a bundle wrapped in leathers and hanging from a rope anch.o.r.ed in the canyon wall. He began to spin the bundle, wafting handfuls of the smoke against the spinning bundle.

Anowon leaned into Nissa and whispered. "There is a body inside. Next they will cut it."

The vampire's mouth was too close to her skin for Nissa's comfort, and she took a step back.

"They hack it up," Anowon said. "For the eeka birds to eat. The spirit flies away with the birds."

Nissa looked at the bundle spinning in the smoke, then at Smara. The kor had become very quiet. As she watched the ceremony she pushed her crystal against her lips. In that instant Nissa knew she could not stay and watch the kor funeral. She turned and walked back up the canyon. Sorin was smiling when Nissa pa.s.sed him. Anowon followed Nissa. She stopped and turned.

"That is horrible," she said. "To dismember the dead."

"Is it?" the vampire said."

"Is there anything else I should know about the kor?"

"Nothing you do not already. They give away one of their children to the wilderness, as you know."

"They what?" Sorin said. He bent close to hear what they were saying.

"The elf knows what I saw is true," Anowon said.

Nissa said nothing.

"Truly?" Sorin said.

"It's called a world gift," world gift," Anowon said. "Most die. Some wander out of the wilderness and are a.s.similated among other races. But many of those who were a.s.similated go back to the wilderness." Anowon said. "Most die. Some wander out of the wilderness and are a.s.similated among other races. But many of those who were a.s.similated go back to the wilderness."

Nissa found herself staring at Smara squatting in the dusty rock dust watching the burial. She spoke without taking her eyes off Smara. "Are the world gift kor that survive accepted back into the group?"

Anowon looked back at the ceremony. "You know they are not."

Nissa felt her breath catch in her throat. The kor priest kept the bundle spinning near the smoking fire. A tear edged down Smara's filthy face.

"Do they want to come back more than anything?" Nissa asked. She stared off at nothing as she spoke. "Do they ever try and see if their elders will allow them to return home and be part of the tribe again. Do they apologize?"

Anowon frowned at her tone of voice. "Are you ill?" Anowon said. To Nissa, his tone conveyed anything but concern.

"I am not ill," Nissa said, searching his smooth face for any expression that might explain the comment. Finding none, she straightened and put her chin up. "I just happen to know something about exile."

"I am sure you do," replied Anowon.

"Let us be away. Ghet ..." Sorin said. His voice carried through the canyon, echoing off the walls so the kor priest looked up from his spinning. Sorin stood and began walking.

Anowon turned and followed.

Nissa caught his arm. "Why do you follow him thus?" she asked. "What power does he have over you?"

Anowon opened his mouth, then closed it. He was clearly about to tell her something. Finally, he shook his head and turned away to follow Sorin.

Nissa followed them both, and the sounds of the funeral and Smara's muttering trailed her as they all walked away. Soon she felt hot tears on her face and wiped them away hard with the back of her glove. She had been a young warrior. What did a young elf know about right and wrong? About proper and taboo? How was she to have known that the ability she possessed was something to be hidden away? But the truth was she knew, even then. She knew that she was different and she flaunted it. And when her mother and father exposed her to the Deep Council for displaying non-Joraga tendencies, it was exactly what she deserved. And she was better for it.

"Are you done with your little weeping?" Sorin said. "If it pleases you, we will leave now."

"I am coming," she said.

They walked into the foothills with no sign of pursuit. And by sundown the red foothills flattened to rolling gra.s.sland. Where the sward on the other side of the Piston Mountains had been bare, the plains were absolutely covered with huge diamond shaped stones-hedron stones. Most of the stones were the size of a houses, but many were smaller, and some were buried in the ground at various positions and depths. As Nissa watched, six stones pulled together so their tips touched and formed a huge star floating above the gra.s.s. She continued to watch as it broke apart and the pieces drifted away.

Most of the hedrons were floating above the ground with tips pointing at the sky and the green gra.s.s. On the horizon Nissa could see the dark shadow of the ocean topped by banks of purple clouds.

"Zulaport lies on that sh.o.r.e," Nissa said as she pointed. She could smell the salt air on the breeze. She glanced down at the rocky debris she was standing on and guessed that the trail had not been used for many weeks, and that it had last been used by goblins. She could see where the faint digs from their toenails had degraded with the rains and wind.

A hedron stone bobbed slightly as they walked past. Each of the stones was grooved with the strange designs found on all the crumbling edifices on Zendikar, but Nissa had never seen so many in one place.

"The Fields of Agadeem," Anowon said. "I have never actually seen them."

"The brood did not drag you this way?" asked Sorin.

He did not even turn at her taunt. "No, they did not," he said. He looked out over the fields as they walked. A bird of prey was perched on the tip of the nearest hedron. It watched them with s.h.i.+ning eyes as they pa.s.sed.

A bit further they found the blue striped, dead body of a juvenile sphinx. It floated in a knotted eddy of humid wind formed around a pack of stones. The mana in the gravity well refracted light like it was underwater.

Later, Sorin stopped and put his hand over his eyes to s.h.i.+eld them from the low sun. "What would that be?" Sorin said.

Nissa followed his eyes to a bit of movement on the plains below. She looked closer and saw a half-built structure cut into the turf. The structure was simple, no more than four walls built as high as Nissa's chin. Something was moving around the structure's sh.e.l.l.

"What are they doing?" Nissa said.

Anowon squinted. "They are brood," he said. "And they are building."

They walked closer, being careful to creep from hedron to hedron. But Sorin ignored Nissa's and Anowon's attempts at stealth and walked straight for the strange building site. The wind was blowing into their faces, which was a stroke of good luck-perhaps the only one they would get.

Soon they were as close as they dared go without risking detection, and Sorin stopped for a moment, then walked even closer. Nissa would have liked to have remained concealed, but they had no choice but to follow Sorin as he bulled ahead. Smara followed some distance behind.

Nissa felt like cuffing Sorin when she caught up, but one look at his eyes and she lost that feeling. He had drawn his great sword and was looking at the brood in a certain intent, unblinking way that spoke of violence.

The brood were dragging stones, or rather their vampire workers were dragging stones using harnesses bound to their shoulder and elbow horns. Nissa looked at Anowon's elbow horns. The vampire caught her staring and turned away.

There were perhaps thirty brood, including something she had not seen before: juvenile brood. At least that was what she thought they were. They were half the size of the other brood.

"We will take them unawares," Sorin said. "Elf"-he pointed off to the right-"you start there and sweep in. Ghet, you go there and run straight in."

"Straight in," Anowon said, without the slightest inflection.

"Yes, that's what I said."

"And what will we-" Nissa started.

"We will destroy them all," Sorin said.