Free Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum by Robert B. Wintermute

different in size, and the sweat was popping out on his forehead. When he turned his head, the knot above his ear was clearly visible. “Only an elf.”
    Nissa nodded.
Only the elf who saved your life
.
    Sorin grabbed a handful of Nissa’s sleeve and drew her to him. “I know about you,” he said, slurring his words. “I can tell you have left this place before.” He tapped his forehead. “I can tell.”
    Nissa yanked her sleeve out of his surprisingly strong grip. “I am sure I do not know what you mean,” Nissa said. But she did.
Planeswalking
. She turned her head so Sorin could not see her face.
    “Where is Lysene?” Sorin said.
    “There is no Lysene here.” Nissa said. She turned and eyed him critically. It would be hard to move him should he prove unable to walk. “Can you walk?” she asked.
    Sorin looked blankly at her and blinked.
    “Look,” said Anowon in his reedy voice.
    She turned. Four more crevice miners were mincing through the scree piles behind them. She knew that they would become more interested if she attacked them. And she could easily kill them, but more would be attracted by the blood.
    “He must move,” Nissa said. “I am not sure he should, but he must or we die here.”
    Anowon nodded. He casually took his long braid and brought it over his shoulder. The braid was as thick as Nissa’s arm. Anowon parted some of the black hair and opened the small metal door of a box buried within. From the box he carefully pinched out something white and shiny with a symbol on it.
    “Is that a tooth?” Nissa asked. The crevice miners were standing just out of a stone’s throw’s range, opening and closing their pincers.
    “It is.” Anowon said. “A molar imbued with a merfolk’s phantasm.” He made a fist around the tooth and threw it at Sorin. Immediately the outlander began to float. When his body reached shoulder height, Anowon took hold of him. “Without tethering, he will float away. And that would be such a shame.”
    Nissa shuddered at the thought of the tooth. One of the crevice miners stepped closer, and she had to throw a rock. It stepped back again.
    “That will work once, maybe twice,” Nissa said. She did not know if Khalled’s map said they should walk down the Makindi Trench, but she did know that it was the only direction open to them. “Walk,” she said. “Quickly and without turning. Miners are eaters of the dead; they like their meat bloated and tender. They do not favor attack, but the sight of wet eye balls can excite them into a frenzy. If they see us moving quickly, theymay just give up and consider us too much work.” Still, the crevice miners followed behind.
    The floor of the trench was wide enough for one hundred to walk abreast, but boulders and large rocks of various sizes were strewn across it. The field of boulders created a maze of tight passages which Nissa led them through. She heard the crevice miners’ carapaces clacking against each other as they struggled through. Soon the passages became so tight in places that even Nissa had to squeeze to pass. It was perhaps their only chance to out maneuver the beasts, and Nissa seized it.
    “Run,” she hissed.
    The crevice miners heard the sudden movement, and sensing that their meal might be leaving, they surged forward. But the lead creature became trapped, and the others crammed against it in a desperate rush, entangling their long, hairy legs. Sensing their predicament the miners struggled and became utterly entwined and stuck in a space between the boulders.
    Nissa and Anowon scrambled to the top of the boulders with Sorin in tow, and hopped from one to the other until they had put a good distance between the scavengers and themselves. But the effort was great. By the time Nissa stopped, her breath was coming out in rasps.
    The miners were far behind, clattering their hard shells against one another and making a high keening cry that drove the hairs on the back of Nissa’s neck rigid.
    Some time