Nissa snapped her staff back together and raised it. Only about half of the nulls were incapacitated, and the rest would clearly not stop until they were playing in their blood. Nissa raised her staff above her head, feeling the power rise in her like the sap rising in a spring tree. She moved her mind to the one creature she knew could destroy all of the creatures. She only hoped it would take a mortal wound before it got to her and the rest. Soon the rough outline of an Onduan baloth appeared in her mind.
Will they not Sorin began. She heard him grunt, and the next moment he was falling over the edge of the tower. Nissa received a blow from behind that knocked her forward and against a crumbled rampart. Darkness came abruptly, and she remembered no more.
She woke to a rhythmic jostling. Something was running as it carried her. Her eyes hurt, so she didn t open them. A sharp jab of pain spread through her head with every footfall, and she felt as though she were being torn apart. When she cried out, the running stopped, and she was thrown down on the hard ground. When Nissa regained consciousness, she opened her eyes and found that something was pulled over her face to keep her from seeing. A moment later the hood was yanked off, and the bright sunlight stabbed into her eyes, causing even more pain.
Nissa forced herself to make note of her surroundings. She was still in the high foothills, that much was obvious there were some small plants eking from a fissure.
A blurry figure approached. Nissa shook her head so the figure came into view, and soon wished she had not. A female vampire bent so her head was almost touching noses with Nissa. Her breath, rank with the smell of blood, was all over Nissa s face. A lip curled back to show one stout incisor, pointed and white.
It moves, the vampire announced. What a shame. I was hoping for a broken spine. The female vampire pulled a pink tongue over her white teeth. Easy meat.
Nissa looked past the female vampire. About eight nulls stood around them, their mouths gaping and drool running down their chins. Nissa noticed that many of the null had ruined limbs that dragged, or gashes and other signs that they had been in the brutal battle Nissa and the others had given.
You will rue the day you survived that fray, meatling, the vampire said. Rue the day.
It is you who will regret, Nissa said under her breath.
It speaks? the vampire said. Insolent animal?
The vampire backed up and turned, snatching a long, obsidian-tipped bampha stick from the hands of a skeletal null. She was dressed in tight leather with her head shaved around the side, front and back so that only a swath of black hair grew in tangles. Her skin was as pale as a null s, and she was almost as thin.
But as she took the bampha stick and swung it, she appeared to be the lithest thing Nissa had ever seen. She executed a complex hand over hand spinning attack that took a split second to execute and concluded with the obsidian tip coming to an abrupt halt an inch from Nissa s right eyeball.
Nissa could no more have dodged the attack as she could have flown on golden wings. But when the female vampire looked down, Nissa had slipped the top of her foot around behind the heel of the vampire s foot. Nissa lifted her other foot and pushed on the knee. With the vampire s heel caught on the top of Nissa s foot, the force of Nissa s push transferred to the upper body, and the vampire pitched backwards. She fell on her back, dropping the bampha.
Nissa did not have her staff, but even without it she was able to call down the mana and channel it into her mind where the outline of a giant Onduan python had formed. The huge coiled serpent snapped into being next to the female vampire and opened its mouth.
A second vampire appeared by the serpent and touched its scaly side. Immediately the animal shook and dropped its head. A moment later its head raised, a pale glow emanating from its eyes, and its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth.
The second vampire turned to Nissa. Thank you, elf, the vampire said. We need more bodies in our troop after you and your associates had your ways with us.
He turned to the female vampire, who picked herself up and snatched her stick off the rocks.
Biss, the male vampire said. Would you scout ahead for us?
Biss bowed and left, casting a hard look at Nissa before departing.
We have been tracking your progress for days, the male vampire said, turning to Nissa. And her hatred of the Mortifier is very great indeed. As is mine. The vampire raised one hand and snapped his fingers.
Behind the vampire, the zombie python began to writhe, knocking one of the nulls against a rock with its huge coils. Then it lay still. The male vampire looked at Nissa and shrugged.
What can I say? I love to kill things, he said.
Plus, it would have been another mouth to feed.
Why am I still alive, blood slave? Nissa said. They had called vampires that when she d been younger and in the jungles, mostly because vampires hated the name. But the vampire only smiled.
A good question, the vampire said. And you may call me Shir.
Shir must have sensed Nissa s disappointment that the name she called him had not angered him. His smile widened so that Nissa thought for a moment that he would lean over and bite her. Every yellowed tooth in his mouth showed as he spoke.
I would expect names such as that from one who travels with the Mortifier.
What is this Mortifier you speak of, blood slave? Nissa said. Or are you as dim as the rest of your kind?
The vampire studied her face for a moment. Could it be that this elf is not aware of whom she travels with? he said.
Perhaps she does not know what the Mortifier is?
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
They stopped only briefly. At Shir s orders, the nulls seized Nissa and ran with her bound on its shoulders. The nulls ran like they were being chased with Biss and Shir at the front and back.
At several points Nissa had to pull into herself, into the forest within, to avoid the pain of the thrall s sharp shoulder blades impacting her ribs, and to avoid the mineral smell of its breath in her face.
They ran all day and most of the night for two days, and by the second day they had passed through the foothills and onto a wide plateau surrounded by the jagged aeries of the Teeth of Akoum.
If she had her staff she could slice them apart, but it had been left at the tower she guessed, most likely among the bodies of her dead comrades. At one of their short and infrequent rest stops, Nissa attempted to connect with her mana and summon a creature, but when she reached her mind out for the lines of power that connected her to her known places, she found herself too weak. Once she managed to summon a gravity spider, but Shir simply touched the animal, and it rotted before her eyes.
Nissa was neither fed nor given water and by the second day was passing in and out of visions of her homeland of Bala Ged. She was near death when they stopped in the middle of the grasslands of the high plateau. The null threw her down in the sharp grass, and Biss stood taunting her. When Nissa did not reply to Biss s ridiculous questions she received a kick in her already excruciatingly painful ribs.
Null, Biss would scream when Nissa rolled over to protect her face. Roll her back over.
The nulls were the only creatures treated worse than she. Two of them fell and could not get up on the two-day run, but the others kept running. Biss even laughed at the struggling wretches.
But when they stopped on the high grasslands of the plateau, Nissa knew it was no rest stop. Shir had been stopping frequently to look at the dirt. At one point he even took a pinch of the dry earth and put it on his tongue and tasted it. Then he put his hand over his eyes to protect them from the sun as he scanned the distance.
There, he said, pointing, and broke into a run.
One of the remaining nulls grabbed Nissa s feet and began dragging her. When they reached the place where Shir and Biss stood waiting, they released her feet. She was scraped and bruised but also interested in what Shir was doing.
The male vampire fell onto his hands and knees and began touching the ground, feeling for something.
Why are we running? Nissa asked, but nobody said anything.
Nissa noticed some oddness in the grasses of the area as the vampires searched. Some looked a bit trampled, as though others had already been to that particular spot. And she saw signs in the dusty soil signs that Biss and Shir were not bothering to examine, which meant they knew who had made the tracks.
Or thought they knew who had made the tracks. As Nissa looked at the tracks the pulse of blood through her body began to speed up. Soon it was hammering at her temples, and it was all she could do not to smile. She looked around the great expanse and saw no forms in the distance.
Why are we here? Nissa repeated. Why were we running?
Shir looked up from his searching. There was sweat on his forehead and a sour look on his face. Somehow Nissa knew that the vampire did not like to have sweat on his face.
Null, he called. Come here and look for a seam.