WoS Chapter 8

The stone dragon faltered for a moment and looked at Radu with eyes that showed gratitude, of all things. As his body fell apart, a loud noise like a crackling fire resonated from within him and a stone behemoth outlined in fire hung in the air before drifting away in a flurry of sparks. Where the creature vanished, another vortex touched down and began to reconstruct another stone behemoth from the ground up.

Kaldi was a flurry of scales, teeth and talons. Klakkra became bloody mess if they came anywhere near the now-red dragon. By chance, Salkethe saw black creeping into Radu's tail stripes and signaled to Kaldreiia. They flew up immediately and a knock on the head from behind was all it took to send Radu out of the sky.

The battle below was hopeless, cornered cavalry were worth nothing. Salkethe fervently cursed at their lack of pikemen. There was no turning back now and no less than twenty elves were already down.

A pillar of flame burned through the ranks of Klakkra that were between the city and the horses. The vortices vanished in a cascade of fire and shadow, as though water spilling from an urn. The horsemen fell back almost immediately behind the barrier, it offered little respite, but they needed all the rest they could get.

The moon was already far above the horizon and Malkuthe was still hovering where he once was, staring after the scream that had called to him so tenderly. It was his mother's body, he was sure, but her soul was not in there. That much, he could tell. With tears in his eyes he released all his newfound power down to where the two had vanished previously and burned a hole through reality in his anger.

A massive grey and black creature ran from seemingly nowhere. It seemed like a feral ceree, highly similar to radu's old rage form. It was eon in his rage form. The star mark radu had given him sparkled like it was made from obsidian, wrapped around his right leg was a purple and gold banner. He roared and ran into the fray

with his powerful talons he ripped klakkra apart. He slashed and cut his way throughh tons of klakkrain no time flat. Opening his mouth he fired out black fire and it burned the klakkra. Even ones it barely hurt, black marks appeared on their bodies and they broke apart into dust... Powers from the dark one had become the aid of the highwind

-- -- --
radu slowly descended to the earth. He fell onto the ground, his body shrank to it's normal form. The marks where still turning black... It had spread over all the marks on his lower body. He was hanging onto the edge of consciousness, far away from the battle. He could see it in the distance, it became blurry.

A strange mist began to slowly spread around him. A figure walked out of the mist, a large red ceree, covered in a black cloak. The mist seemed to be coming from him.

The figure placed it's large paw on radu, the black drained out of radu and his markings became yellow. Radu looked at him and blinked, he felt he was slowly dipping into unconsciousness. "dad?" he said as he passed out
"yes my son" spoke Thorn, radu's father

The entity of pure magic started releasing blasts of pure light at every corner possible. The beast placed his hands on the ground, and two enormous hands made of magic appeared and started holding klakkra and crushing them. Alerons that were as sharp as blades, at least twenty, pierced any being that was in his way. His breath, fire mixed with magic, was burning everything in site. The fortress of the Dark One was started to crumble, all because of this being of pure magic. One would say that this being was an experiment of the Dark One gone wrong. But all the ceree who witnessed all of this knew that this was Seraph, a ceree who had gone into a fury. He was virtually unstoppable, and no one can knock some sense into him. All they could do is pray to the Great Mother and hope that he would calm down eventually.

---

Noundele was still in Seraph's mind, trying to calm all the rage in him. " Kid! Kid! Calm down! This is pointless if you can't control this power. You'r letting rage fuel your power! If you can't calm down, then all the ceree that have sacrificed their lives for you will be in vain! So, CALM DOWN!"


Seraph heard everything Noundele had said and knew he was right. " You're right Noundele. There's no use if I use this power over rage. Right. I'll calm down."


They were surprised when they saw their leader just standing there, as if nothing happened. His fur was there, and there were no signs of injury on his body. Their leader then collapsed on the spot.

With both Saffyre and Malkuthe's power at the Ceree's disposal, the Klakkra were of little significance. The cavalry had its rest behind the barrier as the heavens rained their wrath upon the Klakkra. When Gods were on your side, there was little that anyone could do about it.

All of a sudden, there was a sharp note that seemed to come from everywhere. Under its influence, the barrier vibrated and began to crack. Moments later, it shattered completely, but in an entirely different manner. Large slabs of magic began to fall from the top, crushing the horsemen that were unawares below them. The wall was still tangible, although the magic that had held it up was already gone. Horsemen and magi alike came running for the city as Klakkra cheered their victory.

A mist seemed to seep out from where Malkuthe had burned the hole in reality and a sinister darkness fell over the forest only to vanish moments later. The entire battlefield was silent except for the rhythmic clopping of horse hooves. A skittling sound was heard from the misty depths and a frenzied clacking came.

An injured black dragon fell outside the mist, only to be devoured by Traighluhn. Riding on the head Traighluhn was the Dark One. He smiled evilly as he commanded the attack. The roar of triumph came from the Klakkra and the droves overtook the men and Ceree who weren't fast enough to run towards the city. When everyone was within safe distance, Malkuthe nodded to Saffyre and they slammed down a dense barrier of magical energy between the klakkra and the city that spanned the entire width of the continent.

"Run for your lives Ceree!" shouted Saffyre. "We will hold them off for as long as we can!" she continued.

Eon growled and stayed with malkuthe and saffye to try and hold off the traighulun. He growled as he saw the dark one, his markings plusing in anger. The dark one notice eon in his rage form and laughed "eon... Come to your creat-off!!" his words where stopped due to a fireball in the face, which didn't do more than surprise him "very well..."

--
elsewhere a different fog had filled the forest. In it's epicenter was a clearing in which thorn stood over his son Radu... Agee a timeradu stirred and woke up. He stared at his father "dad..." he managed, unable to hold himself back he jumped at and hugged the ceree, tears dripping down his muzzle, thorn hugged radu back

finnally they came apart and stayed silent for awhile "why did you leave? Mom missed you... I barely got to know you" he wiped his eyes with his paw. Thorn sighed "I had to... Some force, not lord amteth or any of the other ancestors. A force from outside this plane came to me, told me that if I didn't leave you and your mother you would die. I left and I was sent to transcend time and space, I traveled aimlessly for eons, watching the planes from start to finish, all except this one" thorn smiled "so I'm here to watch over this plane... And you"

thorn smiled "I can't tell you how proud I am of how far you've come" radu looked embarassed "dad, this moment is great but this plane will be in serious trouble if we don't get back to the fight " thorn nodded and the fog suddenly swallowed him and radu

When Seraph came through, everyone was overjoyed. Seraph stood up and spoke in a raspy voice. " Everyone, we'll go to Malleithen."

The others were suprised. "Chieftain, it is impossible for us to go to Malleithen since we cannot fly."

Seraph's eyes turned red. " Then we shall shadow travel! I will open a portal to the shadow world and maintain it, while Seraph will guide you to Malleithen. It would be take some of our power, so we shall transport only 3 at a time."

Everyone responded. " Yes lord Noundele!"

Noundele opened a portal and a cloud of smoke exited Seraph's mouth. The cloud went in, and the shadow world appeared. Seraph transported three at a time. Since there were forty wielders and thirty two soldiers left, it would take some time to transport everyone.

---

After a horrible long time of transporting the ceree, Seraph and Noundele reached Malleithen, seeing what they had expected, a battle.

Liara ran to where Radu had fallen, but he disappeared in a plume of mist. She could only stare at the spot he had been in moments before, the sound of Klakkra and Traighluhn alike filling the battlefield behind her, and she fled towards the safety of the barrier. Radu must have transported or something, he wouldn't just leave like that...
Liara couldn't stop herself from feeling guilt at leaving the site of his disappearance. What if he came back, then what? He would be torn apart by the Traighluhn! Roaring, Liara went to return to where she'd last seen Radu, but a new barrier came up, and she threw herself against it with a mixture of rage and grief.
'Run for your lives ceree! We will hold them off for as long as we can!'
'No, no, no, no!' Liara shook her head, scrabbling at the barrier. 'I can't...can't leave Radu like this...' Her words were too quiet for Saffyre to hear, swallowed up by the din of the oncoming hoard. 'Not like this...'
It seemed wrong that a ceree who took delight in killing others of her kin not so long ago was helping them now. Perhaps it was because the Dark Lord threatened her power? If he was destroyed, would she return to her brethren-killing ways?
In a small way, Liara hoped so. It would mean that her intense hatred for Saffyre would be justified by current - rather than past - events, no matter how horrific and terrible the crime.

It turns out that traveling through fog is like going through a long tunnel. The floors where only semi solid so one would have to step forward before you began to sink through... At least this was what it was like for radu, thorn walked through easily his talons clicking with each step like walking on a stone floor
"this is immpossible" radu growled as he was pulling his feet out of the floor yet again. He grabbed his fathers tail and pulled himself out
"it takes practice" thorn chuckled as he came to a small area of stone where the fog tunnel forked in two directions. Radu gratefully stepped on the stone block "which way do we go?" he asked
"it's not my choice, it's yours" thorn began "the right path will take you to the battle where you can fight The invicible traighulun until either you die, or they give up, or you ecentully fly away yourself.... Or you can take the left path which will take you inside the barrier to your beloved liara wh-" he was interuppted by radu
"how'd you know about liara?" he said turning pink in the face
"I just do and good choice by the way" he smiled then became serious "where you can have her watch over your body while you go commatose and amteth helps fight "

radu stood there for a long time... He ran down the left path.

A strange mist began to gather around liara, seemily from nowhere. It began to thin as radu came out and embraced liars "thank god your okay" he cried. Thorn the red ceree sat back smiling under his hood as he watched

Seraph had heard the purple ceree, whose name was Saffyre shouting outside a barrier. " Run for you lives ceree! We will hold them as long as we can!"

" What can we do Noundele? I must go help them out. They can barely hold against the Dark One!"

" Hold it Seraph! I sense those two have become Eternals. They are more powerful than the Dark One. I'm pretty sure they can handle themselves. But what I'm worried is about the others here. They can die if we do not retreat to another place. I'm pretty sure those two know it as well. Alriiea is pretty much isolated and the most dangerous place to retreat. Malleithen here is almost on the verge of being conquered. There is only one possible place to retreat, and I just hope the inhabitants will be nice to us."

Seraph was puzzled. The only continents he knew who have inhabitants are Alriiea and Malleithen. " Who are the inhabitants of that place?"

" The inhabitants of that continent were a mistake. They were never supposed to be in Sylfe. Better blame Salkethe for hteir existence. They were once his children. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about humans."

Seraph was surprised. " You mean humans still exist? I thought they were wiped out during The Great Disaster. Their continent of Galaria is now under the sea."

" Yes that is true. But there is one place in Galaria that still stands, Ha'San Mien, Sanctuary from the waves. I think that's where we'll retreat when Malleithen is conquered."

Seraph knew this was the only choice they had if they would lose this battle. He decided to take care of the injured. He would properly have to introduce himself sometime.

Liara was worried by the red mist, but Radu's sudden reappearance relieved her.
'Radu!
'Thank god you're okay.'
'Same with you,' she smiled, leaning forwards to him. 'I thought you were trapped back there with those...those things.'

Radu smiled " well o got knocked out, and he saved we" he pointed at the red ceree, radu seemed totally delighted "I'd like you to meet my father thorn!"
thorn walked over to liara and bowed to her "ahh, it's nice to meet my son' beloved, liara" he smiled "radu you've choisen a fine young girl here"
radu seemed a bit embarassed about that