Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [76]
“Not fast enough,” Malfegor seethed. “Tell the necromancers we’re doubling our pace. No rest for the wicked.”
JUND
Ajani would have been standing firmly on solid ground, the rocky, pyroclastic floor of Jund, had the ground not been suddenly perforated by an enormous, rubble-covered, sandstone step-pyramid from his home world of Naya. He would have reflected on that, and how physically nonsensical it was, had he not been suddenly forced into the position of rolling down the steep and painful steps of that very pyramid as it erupted out of the surface of Jund. After he had managed to claw his way to a rough stop on those steps, he would have taken some time to catch his breath after his planeswalk and to sort out exactly what had happened with the worlds intermixing, had he not been suddenly surrounded by a clan of human warriors wielding obsidian-tipped longspears and crudely-constructed, two-handed greatswords.
“You’re just what we’ve been looking for,” said a muscular, broad-chested human man with braided hair.
“Sinzo, this is an excellent find,” said Kresh.
Sinzo grinned and shook her spear in the air. The other warriors hooted with glee—they knew as well as Kresh did, the white cat-man was a sign meant for them.
Ajani looked stunned, but not injured.
“Are you a ghost?” asked Kresh. “Are you the ghost of this temple of the underworld?” “No,” said the white cat. “But I do come from another world.”
The warriors murmured and nodded to each other.
“Are we to hunt you, then?” asked Kresh. “Or do we follow you, as a guide, to our fates?”
The white cat blinked. It didn’t look sure, which was strange. How could it travel all the way from the underworld, or whatever spirit-world it came from, and not be sure?
“I will lead you,” the cat-man said.
“Excellent,” Kresh said, and the warriors shouted their assent. “Where is it you will lead us, O death-guide? To the highest peak of the Boiling Slopes? Into the mouth of Varakna, deepest of the tarswamps?”
“Well, I was hoping that maybe you could help me with that,” said the cat. “I’m looking for a particular dragon.”
“Ahh,” marveled Kresh. “You are a powerful spirit indeed. You bring us on our final, our greatest Life Hunt. Truly, it is fitting. We shall meet good deaths on the hunt for the grandest species of life in the world.”
“So you know the dragon of which I speak? A dragon called Bolas?”
“Bow-loz? Boh-loss,” said Kresh. “I’ve heard this name. Some have claimed to see the dragon made of shadow blot out the sky.”
“You know where he is?”
“No. But I know a shaman who does.”
It was a lucky day, Kresh thought. He might be able to take vengeance on Rakka after all.
ESPER
The aven Kaeda returned from his sortie near the Esper city of Palandius, a small contingent of other soldiers and mages returning with him. Rafiq noted that he carried an object with him, a container. Perhaps they had actually succeeded.
“Scout Kaeda, report,” said Knight-General Rafiq.
“Sir, the mission went well. We located a group of Esperites who were transporting something—something that I believe is just what you were looking for.” The aven scout set down the heavy metal chest and smoothed down his flight feathers. The dunes of white sand provided good natural cover, but Rafiq knew that Esper’s winds blew the grit directly into his aven scouts’ wings.
“Take a look at your little present,” said Kaeda. The scout cocked his head and pointed his beak in a characteristically aven way, a gesture signifying the equivalent of a smile. He kicked the heavy chest at his feet.
Rafiq grinned with pride. “I hope you didn’t spend too much. All right, all right, open it already! The suspense is eating me up.”
The chest was mostly one solid piece of weathered, dark metal. Kaeda ran his talon over an ornate rune on the top, and a seam appeared around its middle.
“It took us a while to figure out how to open the thing. It takes a little practice.”
The aven pulled the top half off of the chest. Inside was an object wrapped in a healthy amount of cool blue silk