The creature's wings beat with a thunderous boom, propelling it forward, and it cut at her chest. She spun out of the way and slashed at its throat, but it parried.

In the moments that followed, Kotara decided that her foe might well have been holding back hitherto, for now the infernal knight's sword was everywhere at once. Its cuts kept her so busy dodging that she rarely managed an attack of her own, and when she did, her foe invariably bashed it away with a forceful parry. One actually knocked her off balance and threatened to send her weapon spinning from her grasp. Clutching frantically at the hilt, she managed to hold on to it, but the shadow sword was streaking at her again. Her wings beat, but she knew they couldn't carry her out of the way in time.

The shadow sword halted inches shy of her head. For an instant she had no idea why. Then she felt the surge of magic in the air and realized that her last series of advances and retreats had landed her inside Sabul's ring of luminescence. Discerning her plight, the young wizard had commanded the enchantment to shield her.

Her foe attacked again. As she desperately evaded his blows, heart pounding, sword arm half numb from the pummeling it had endured, the dark blade plunged closer and closer to her body. She was tiring, slowing, and that meant that soon, perhaps in scant seconds, the shadow sword would cleave her flesh. A shrill voice inside her, one she'd never heard when she was an angel, yammered that she must save herself by fleeing. She ignored it as best she could.

At her back, magic glittered and seethed in the air as Sabul's conjuration built to a conclusion. But it wasn't accumulating rapidly enough. She was all but certain that the fiend would dispatch her and turn on the mage before he could finish.

She had to buy Sabul some time, and she could think of only one tactic that might serve. The knight of darkness cut at her, and instead of seeking to avoid the shadow sword, she simply threw herself forward in an all-out counterattack.

Her enemy's weapon ripped through her breastplate and into her shoulder. Though she didn't feel any pain just yet, she sensed that the blow had done hideous damage, nearly severing both her arm and her wing. But at the same instant, the point of her blade punched into the monster's throat and out the back of its neck. The fiend hadn't expected her to abandon all hope of defense, and her reckless ploy had caught it unaware.

Kotara collapsed to the floor. It required a titanic effort merely to turn her head sufficiently to see how the knight of darkness was faring.

The hulking creature had dropped to one knee. Making an ugly choking sound, its wings shaking spastically, it took hold of the weapon transfixing its neck and began to pull it free. It emerged in a series of little lurches, one agonizing inch at a time.

But at last it was out, and the twin bubbling wounds started to close. The fiend gave Kotara a leer that told her, as plainly as words, that her sacrifice had been for nothing. Then it picked up the fallen shadow sword, sprang to its feet, and pivoted toward Sabul-who calmly spoke the final word of his incantation.

Power sang through the air. The fiend staggered, the holy magic as damaging to it as the infernal energies released by its summoning had been to Kotara. Shaking off the effect, the foul creature sprang at Sabul. Perhaps it imagined it could dispose of him before the spell, whatever it was, took hold.

If so, the fiend was mistaken. Stone and timber crashed down as some irresistible force wiped the ceiling out of its way. A white, scaly, translucent claw as large as the creature's entire body plunged through the ragged opening, gripped the dark spirit, and lifted it out into the night and up to a set of colossal jaws. Stray bits of the fiend showered back into the chamber as its nemesis chewed it up and gobbled it down.

The dragon, assuming that its hind feet were planted on the ground, was taller than Sabul's tower. From its prodigious size and ghostly semitransparency, Kotara realized that it was no summoned creature like the fiend or herself but rather an artificial thing the Guildmage had fashioned from his wizardry. It swallowed a final time, then simply melted away.

Sabul flung himself down at Kotara's side. For the first time she observed the charred hole in his vestments and the blistered, seeping skin beneath. The marble diamond had burned him when it burst. He had a scraped, bloody mark on his brow as well. Probably a piece of the roof had clipped him as it fell. Gripping her numb, useless hand, he said, "Kotara, I'm sorry! I'm a healer, but-

"I know," she said, "no one could mend this wound. The fiend cut too deep."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "for everything." She could barely make out his face now. The chamber seemed to be growing darker, though she knew the gloom was actually in her eyes.

"I forgive you," she said.

"What"-his face twisted-"what will happen to you when you go?"

"How can I guess," she whispered, straining to force the words out, "when I no longer even know what manner of creature I am? I'm not afraid. Perhaps I'll be reborn into my former state. I was still a bit like an angel, wasn't I, at the end?"

He started to reply, but she never heard what he wanted to say. The darkness flowered into prismatic light, and she was elsewhere. Reprisal Tom Leupold

It's late, but I'm too excited to sleep, A young man like myself with little experience rarely gets such an opportunity. But I'm determined to make them proud. I'm determined to serve my nation honorably. And there's no telling where it might lead.

– from the journal of Finroy of Tyarel

I grew up in the tiny village of Tyarel, some eighty miles outside Jornstad, the seat of power of Eastern Kjeldor. Although Tyarel was a small town, it was located along a major trade route. It was constantly busy, caravans and travelers arriving at all hours of the day, soldiers and diplomats faithfully executing the orders of the king, and merchants offering their wares to those who passed through.

My uncle was one such merchant. He was a successful jeweler and a man of deep wisdom. When my parents succumbed to the plague, it was he who took me in and raised me as his son. He taught me to think critically, and he taught me his trade.

We both knew I was not destined to be a jeweler. I wanted to be an historian, and my uncle graciously agreed to provide financial support. So the day after my eighteenth birthday, I left for Jornstad to pursue my studies at an institution of higher learning.

Although I was anxious to leave home, I did not relish the journey. By law, we were required to travel under armed escort. Dangerous creatures of both the two-legged and four-legged variety roamed the wilderness.

The Dominarian landscape had been changed forever by the Brothers' War. The fury unleashed by Urza and Mishra had caused massive climate shifts from which the land still had not recovered. The apocalyptic war ravaged the whole world, bringing with it colder weather and upsetting nature's balance. The lower temperatures caused terrible food shortages, and creatures that did not die outright became more aggressive hunters.

Some of the larger ones were notorious for harassing travelers. Giant insects, dog-headed serpents, beasts of every ilk ruled the wildlands. Of these, the most feared were the wurms: massive creatures that slithered upon the ground, similar in every respect to their dragon cousins but without wings or legs. One in particular was said to plague the city of Jornstad. Indeed the locals had named it Rhindle. He was enormous-even for a scaled wurm-with sparkling, orange eyes and the scars of a thousand battles, or so I was told.

Many a merchant's caravan was lost on the road between Tyarel and Jornstad. I don't know how many went down to Rhindle's wicked claws, but survivors told frightening tales. They told of a massive creature, as stealthy as a shadow that lurked just beyond torchlight and waited for the proper moment to strike. The beast was said to possess an unusual intelligence, and perhaps that was the most frightening thought of all. Few people ventured outside of town after dark.