Gatecrash

She commanded her elementals to stop, and they came to a slow halt at the periphery of the Boros plaza, even as more Selesnya troops poured past her into the fray. The elementals began to turn their great forms away from the battle, but then they stopped in mid-turn. Emmara willed them to quit the battle once more.

They hesitated, shuddering like oak trees in a strong gale. Then, with a moan of their twisting trunks laden with masonry, the elementals stepped back toward the Boros plaza.

“No,” said Emmara. “No! Stop!”

She was still channeling mana into them, but her control was unraveling. They no longer responded to her commands. She was riding with nature-giants that apparently had plans of their own.

She looked to Trostani. She saw the three dryads undulating, their arms interlacing in a complicated spell. Emmara recognized part of the ritual as Trostani’s signature magic, a spell that replenished the warring Selesnya troops below with a constant stream of living energy; this is what kept every Selesnya commune in the Tenth District relatively protected from harm, and it was powerful magic to cast over an army. But the dryads had merged their signature magic with another spell, one with which Emmara was personally familiar. It was the elemental magic they had taught to Emmara.

That was why the elementals no longer obeyed her. Trostani had taken over command of the elementals, and was forcing them into the thick of the battle. Trostani’s power was far greater than hers, and she couldn’t wrest the creatures away again.

With the power of the great elementals behind them, the Selesnya army plowed ahead, ripping through the Boros defenses. Emmara had to duck as the topiary beast on which she rode passed through a stone archway. The arch wasn’t quite tall enough to accommodate the elemental, and the curved structure scraped a mane of brambles from the elemental’s head, sending a spray of burrs and woody vines at Emmara and nearly knocking her off its shoulder. Trostani continued driving the elementals across the square and through a main thoroughfare, with the Selesnya army massing around them.

Emmara scanned the battle, looking for Calomir, though she didn’t know whether she was looking for the comfort of his face, or looking for someone to blame. She spied his white rhino, and saw it charging ahead after having dispatched a pair of Boros legionnaires—but Calomir was no longer in its saddle. She looked over the bodies of fallen Boros and Selesnya warriors as the army passed through the Boros zone, and more than once she thought she saw him among the dead. But he was gone.

The Selesnya army cut through Boros territory and into a run-down industrial district that billowed with hellish smoke—a region controlled by the Rakdos.

“Onward, soldiers of Selesnya!” cried Trostani, spurring forward the great elementals with her magic. Hooves and boots and claws marched into the Rakdos zone, and wings swooped into the thick smoke above. “There, ahead, is our target!”

Emmara looked into the haze ahead, and saw a private club building marked with the demonic symbol of the Rakdos and the name “The Rough Crowd.”

“Woodshapers! Elementals! Cavalry!” Trostani called. “Shake it to the foundation!”

As the Selesnya army neared, Rakdos warriors began pouring out of the club as if it were a barracks. Emmara balled her fists.

***

Jace had already fooled the Rakdos with minor illusions. Parlor tricks wouldn’t sway them again. But there was no way he was going to beat an army of demon-worshiping sadists with individual psychic attacks. It was time to unleash major magic.

Ruric Thar and his band of Gruul brutes were already slicing into the Rakdos, and the war party’s savagery was shocking. Bodies of broken cultists went flying as the Gruul slammed into the horde, swinging great blows of blunt might. But the Rakdos horde kept coming, and they surrounded the Gruul in moments, tearing at them with jagged blades and spiked whips.

“Look, my pets!” came a crazed female voice. In the middle of the rampaging Rakdos horde, the blood-witch Exava stood atop a war tower, carried aloft by Rakdos minions. She had spied Jace, and pointed him out. “It’s I-Go-By-Berrim!”

Jace made a show of conjuring a spell. His cloak whipped dramatically, and dark mystical smoke curled off his body as he intoned eldritch syllables. His eyes went black as coal, and he raised his crooked fingers from the ground to the sky, as if dragging up a great weight. The ground split, and great chunks of the street fell away into the hellish light below. Sulfurous fumes emanated from the crack, and a demonic bellow resounded.

“Ancient lord, I call you!” Jace screamed, and obsidian fire blazed from his hands into the sky.

To the amazement of the horde, a demonic monstrosity the size of a building climbed out of the fissure in the pavement. It had a great burning pitchfork and a regal rack of horns, and it breathed fire from its nostrils.