Rhizomes 2

The drakes saw them almost immediately, and they took to the air a second later. Nissa clutched her staff and ran as hard and as fast as she ever had, skipping between the larger boulders and trying not to slip on the gravel. She d seen drakes before but always been careful to avoid them, knowing that in their way there were more dangerous that a dragon. A Zendikar dragon would not normally bother itself with two or three beings, but preferred lazy activities like sleeping in a deep hole or sitting in Glasspool soaking its scales.

***

The drakes were on them before they reached the hill. Nissa had her stem sword out and managed to lop the leg off a drake that was extending its claw for her. She dodged another who had landed in her path and attempted to bite her.

A third drake swooped down and seized her in its claws and bore her up, at the same time it bit down at her head. But when it opened its mouth for the lethal bite, it received a thrust from Nissa's stem sword which traveled through the top of its palate and into its brain. Mana from the sword pulsed through the drake's body. Nissa had a flash image of rhizomes spreading out from the stem and constricting around the drake's brain and spine.

Nissa was able to land first with her feet and roll out with no injury, except for the deep gashes in her shoulder where the drake's claws had been.

***

In the Teeth of Akoum, Chapter 21