As the overlay began, Rhammidarigaaz, lord of the dragon nations, roared a warning into the charnel skies of Koilos. Phyrexians were coming. His wings spread upon the hot winds. Powerful legs hurled him aloft. Muscles surged. The great serpent rose patiently skyward. Leathery skin caught the broiling air and flung it down in twin cyclones.

The rest of the dragon nations followed. The dragons of Shiv, Darigaaz's own volcanic breed, were first to launch themselves in the wake of their lord. After them leaped the dragons of ancient Argive, alabaster creatures that were more at home among clouds than sand. Like predators after prey, the swamp dragons followed. Their black scales glimmered in the storm of dust, and their eyes gleamed blacker still. The serpents of the forest lunged upward next and spread their cobra cowls out to catch the wind. Last of all, the sea dragons, who languished in this desert heat, vaulted toward hints of blue.

It was an awesome spectacle. These thousand dragons were the greatest warriors of the wide-flung dragon nations. They spiraled into the sky above human and Metathran and elf allies, above Phyrexian foes.

On the horizon, Phyrexian dragon engines approached. They were merely glints of metal now but in moments would tear apart their fleshly kin.

Darigaaz and his folk would fight fiercely but would die today.

It is a shameful thing you have done, Rhammidarigaaz, said a voice that coiled through his head, shameful to bring the dragon nations to the desert to be slain.

Even as he labored higher, Darigaaz glimpsed who it was that spoke-a god among dragons. Tevash Szat. He lingered below in his jet-black titan suit. Of the nine engines, his was the most draconic, with a fangy head, scaly armor, and barbed tail. Urza had designed the suit especially for the reptilian planeswalker, but the longer Szat inhabited the machine, the more he mutated it.

Darigaaz returned the thought. You too have come here, Tevash Szat, to die in the desert,

I never go anywhere to die.

Neither did we, Darigaaz replied. We came to fight for our world.

Szat was snide. Your world? You do not fight for your world. You fight for a mortal world, a world of humans and elves and dwarfs and minotaurs. A sadness entered the planeswalker's thoughts. Dominaria has not been our world for ages of ages.

I haven't time for wordplay, Darigaaz thought as he reached the peak of his climb. I have a war to win.

I agree. Let us be done with word games and begin our war.

Bolts of black power emanated from the titan engine and ripped the air all about Darigaaz and his flying folk. The energy literally tore the sky open. Through rents in reality, an unreal world of chaos shapes and hissing forms appeared. The tears grew wider. They joined. Holes opened in the sky. Serpents banked to escape the shredding reality, but the disintegration was too rapid. The beasts flew into chaos.

Just before the last tatter of sky disappeared, Tevash Szat in his ebony engine leaped in among them.

Darigaaz knew this place. The Blind Eternities was Urza's name for it. To Darigaaz it always had seemed the formless albumen of an egg, the seeming nothing out of which scale and claw, heart and brain would take shape.

I know your thoughts, Darigaaz, that these folk are your folk. I know your heart, Darigaaz, better than you know it yourself.

Why do you take us from battle?

I take you to a truer battle, to one you must win.

Suddenly, the Blind Eternities congealed into a coastal range of volcanic mountains. Lava pumped from dozens of cones. Steam and sulfur jetted into yellow clouds. Basalt channeled molten rock into the sea. Ash made false ground above boiling calderas. Obsidian glinted like glassy jewels in black hillsides.

The place had all the sights and smells of Darigaaz's homeland, Shiv, but nowhere in Shiv were there sheer cliffs beside the sea. Nowhere did the ocean cut so long and perfect an arc into the land. It was as though a gigantic spoon had scooped out a precise hunk of land, letting the sea flow into the space.

The dragon nations circled in confusion above the strange spot.

Here is where you must begin your true war, Darigaaz. Battle for your home.

This is not my home, Darigaaz replied.

Look again. This is what is left of your home, of Shiv, after Teferi took what he wished.

Teferi, yes. Knowing of the coming invasion, the planeswalker Teferi had phased out most of the lands of Shiv-the mana rig, the tribal territories of the Ghitu, and even many of the dragon kingdoms. This was all that remained. Down there, among those sea-shorn mountains, was Darigaaz's own aerie. This place was his home.

Teferi was wise, came the mind of Tevash Szat. His titan engine floated effortlessly in the midst of the circling beasts. A hundred thousand Phyrexians just now are shark food. Their portion of Rath overlaid not on land but in sea. But there are tens of thousands of others that ravage your homelands, Rhammidarigaaz. Will you let them destroy it, or will you fight for dragons as you have fought for mortals?

Only then did Darigaaz truly see. Figures marched across shoulders of pumice. They trooped like ants over crater rims and swarmed the boulder piles where goblins dwelt. They climbed cave walls to kill Viashino mystics. They marched up lava tubes to slaughter the dragon enclaves within.

Roaring again in command, Darigaaz led his folk in a long dive toward the land. The Shivan dragons soared with alacrity behind him. The others-this was not their home-hesitated. A glare from Szat sent them after their brethren.

Darigaaz angled down toward a column of Phyrexians. They marched across a narrow isthmus between two boiling seas of magma. At the far end of the land bridge lay a Viashino village. There Phyrexians slew lizard men with impunity. But not for long.

Darigaaz dived. His wings rattled with the searing wind. The pendants at his neck sparked scarlet energy. He gathered spells for the coming assault. In the elder dragon's wake, a score more of his folk sliced the air. Wind whistled from their scales. Their mouths gaped in exertion. Between spiky teeth glowed the fires they stoked in their bellies.

The Phyrexian column turned to look upward. They saw. Some stood their ground. Others stumbled back and fell from the sides of the isthmus. They plunged into the magma seas and their blood ignited immediately. Blue flames lined the land bridge. The rest of the column bolted for the Viashino village.

They wouldn't reach it.

Rhammidarigaaz swept low over their heads. From his mouth poured killing fire. It mantled the fleeing monsters. One by one, like com popping, they burst into flame. More ignited in a chain of azure. Black shells split to gush white innards.

Hearing the domed huts of the Viashino village, Darigaaz spoke an incantation. Power coalesced in the pendants around his neck. It shot out to the cuffs of his wrists and into clawed fingertips. Crimson beams stabbed downward. With utter precision, they found their targets. A Phyrexian trooper was torn in half while the lizard man beside him was spared. A mogg goblin turned to ash that sifted harmlessly onto two Viashino hatchlings. A slasher engine melted, its scythe arm unable to catch a fleeing elder.

Darigaaz came to ground at a run. He folded his wings and clutched up a scuta in each hand. They seemed only pill bugs, and then not even that. He flung the crumpled bodies away and thundered forward to where monsters ripped apart the village elders.