As if in answer, another baloth howl drifted slowly through the trees, and Nissa started to walk.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
They walked once again into the deep forest, and buried the fallen elf Hiba near a young jaddi tree. While Nissa kept watch, Anowon dug a hole with a length of turntimber bark. With a face that betrayed neither thought nor emotion, Sorin watched the vampire sweat in the humid air. When the shallow grave was dug, Nissa dropped down from her high perch and placed a green paphian flower picked from a clump she d found growing in the crotch of a jurworrel tree in Hiba s gnashed fingers.
An hour later they were traveling the branchways of the turntimber. Nissa, in the lead, was careful not to shy away from the serpents that hung like vines in that part of the forest, careful not to show her strange traveling companions any sort of weakness.
At sundown they stopped at a huge hedron stone, pointed at each end and broken in two enormous pieces, with a huge jurworrel growing out of the largest fissure.
We dare not stop for too long. Nissa said. She wondered how long it would be before the Onduan baloth caught up. Before it tore them apart. A baloth was a creature that floated at the edge of every action in the turntimber a pure predator that could cut through bone and muscle with the slightest slash of its claw, and which possessed an appetite large enough to devour a whole Tajuru squad. Those who lived there never left the safety of home without thinking, however briefly, about the likelihood of encountering one.
Sorin nodded once and looked back the way they had come. Fool, Nissa thought. He has no idea. She climbed to the top of the ruined hedron and cupped her hand to her long ear. They are eating our scent even now.
Sorin yawned. He casually took a handkerchief from an inner fold of his black cloak and dabbed his brow. You are the fool, he said. His voice was soft so soft that Nissa found herself leaning in to hear him, unnerved that he had somehow read her thoughts. You are a fool if you do not understand the true nature of the danger we are in. Do not trifle over whatever is following us. We must watch for the brood, and hope they haven t grown too powerful to counteract. He put the handkerchief back into the folds of his cloak and cupped his hands around his mouth. Ghet! he yelled.
Anowon looked up from where he had been peering at the hedron stone s inscription. Even though his wrists were bound, he had managed to pinch a small book between his thumb and first finger, and was copying the engraved symbols into the book with a bone pen.
Find me food, Sorin commanded.
Nissa hopped down off the hedron. I can bring you game.
But Sorin was looking ahead at the rising mesas in the distance.
The Ghet will acquire my food. I have special tastes.
Nissa looked from Sorin to Anowon, who was tucking his small black book into a little pack he d rigged from vines strung through the leaf of a gourgi bush. The vampire walked over to Sorin, who untied his hands.
How do we know he will not flee? Nissa said. Or waylay us to our doom, she thought.
He will not, Sorin said, looking at Anowon, who kept his eyes forward. He is an archaeomancer; his interest lies in the magic of this ruined empire. He has no use of such things as ambushes or bold combat. Anyway, he wants to take us to the Eye of Ugin. Don t you, Ghet? Sorin s voice raised in volume and pitch. DON T YOU? he repeated.
For a moment, Nissa could feel the weight of Sorin s ominous words float in the air like a physical presence, and then they settled onto Anowon. The vampire s pupils dilated, Nissa noticed. He nodded once, then turned and walked under a branch and disappeared into the high grass.
Nissa looked at Sorin. Why would a vampire do what a human ordered him to do? she wondered.
He will meet the baloth, she said. And die.
You don t know vampires, Sorin said.
And you do? Nissa thought. She moved her staff to her other hand.
You don t know baloth. A vampire bleeds like anything. I have proven that many times.
He raised an eyebrow. Yes, but they have the rather unerring ability to sneak up on things. A bit like elves, I must say, Sorin said, laughing.
The shrill screech of a barutis bird rang out in the high canopy.
Where do you want to travel? Nissa said, once her pulse had calmed. The barutis s cry, so senseless and without reason, always shocked her.
I have told you. Akoum The Teeth of Akoum, Sorin said.
But do you have a path in mind?
I believe it is called Graypelt now, Sorin said. He was looking into the west again, at the high mesas.
Graypelt? Why travel through Graypelt? Graypelt is full of trappers and stinking humans, Nissa said as she looked down at the ground and cursed herself inwardly. Of course there s nothing wrong with humans, she said. Humans are fine.
Humans? Sorin said, drawn out of his own thoughts. Oh yes, humans. They re wonderful. Such large noses!
Soon the sun fell in the sky. The forest took life, and the crash and hiss of insects was so loud that Nissa s ears rang. Something loud but slow crashed through the forest to their right. Probably a fang deer, Nissa thought. Or worse. But it was no baloth Nissa knew that from the sound. One did not hear baloth.
She gathered wood and stood it with the tips together over a small wad of special moss that had been soaked in flammable sap.
No fire, Sorin said, suddenly loud in the total darkness. With her elf eyes she could see him sitting cross-legged. His lips were moving, but she could hear no sound. An incantation of some sort perhaps. She wondered if he could see her as well as she saw him.
Baloth hate fire, she said.
Brood lineage love it.
Brood lineage love it, she repeated. What are the brood lineage?
Sorin s lips stopped moving. He turned to her in the darkness. How can you not know? Have you not traveled? he asked.
Only a bit. I am from Bala Ged on the other side of the ocean, Nissa replied, sensing a trap. Tell no one of your abilities. It was more of a curse than anything else this ability to planeswalk. It allowed her to lose her family and be exiled from her tribe and people. And to make matters worse, it wasn t worth it.
Sorin s lip curved up and to one side. Only a bit, he said, his turn to repeat.
He knows. How can he know?
Sorin cleared his throat. Do you know the Eldrazi? he asked.
A childhood fable the ancient ones of Zendikar.
He nodded. They are no fable, he said. Believe me. These are their children, free at last.
The Eldrazi are real?
Did we not bury your little friend in the forest? he said. Did you not interact with their brood today?
Nissa felt the sweat on her forehead in the cooling night air.
And these brood dance in their crumbled palaces and eat sky mushrooms and steal children? Like the stories say?
They are both children and minions