chapte 14: the battle continues

any formation that the luutons once had is lost as the luuton riders begin to individually choose their targets. spreading them among the scattered astran forces, though the largest of the group heads for the high king. gora looks around unsure what her next move should be. secomi has begun an indiscriminate rampage upon the luutons. while cofus and rex begin heading for the high king themselves. gora quickly runs over to utum and the Messor siblings and in a speedy breath tells them her plan."you three keep track of secomi im going with cofus and captain rex to fight Aklha Fon!"

and before any of them could respond she runs off again. leaving the three to themselves. Sicus looks having just finished changing his strings again looks around confusedly as his eyes were never focused in on the battlefield"where even is secomi?"

utum and Arvus frantically survey the sky before realizing they lost him in the madness of the battlefield while gora was asking them to not lose sight of him"well what now we cant just stand here?" elsewhere gora is running as fast as she can trying to catch up with cofus and rex. the battle field around her is only ramping up as she has to watch from every direction for the advancing luutons constantly swatting incoming arrows and dodging diving luutons.

As Gora charges across the battlefield she lays eyes on her grandfather fighting along side his sokaran warriors. taking a stand in the battlefield they boldly face the numerous luutons trying to collide with the high kings reinforcements.

for a moment gora turns to fight along side her grandfather but shakes her head focusing back in on the grand prize; the Aklha Fon. charging between the wave of luutons and astrans. an ally to the astrans attacking from the same direction as their enemy.

reserving her geia gora simply runs through the battlefield only attacking those that she can quickly finish off. watching from behind the Aklha Fon she witnesses the moment the uniter of the luuton clans clash with the uniter of the kingdoms of astra.

ice meets fire as waves of their geia collide. freezing and scorching those to the sides of the clashing elements. putting. these two great men by themselves as it remains unsafe to stay near them. once again causing the battle field to shift. As neither of them are able to receive allies as the opposing geias violently crash against each other causing them to disperse it to direction's in all directions.

Gora who intended on attacking the Aklha Fon from behind suddenly finds her plans halted as a suddenly shifting battlefield has caused many of the luutons to turn around in order to avoid colliding into the waves of geia smashing against each other and as they turn around who do they see but the sappy sokaran princess herself.

now coming to a halt herself gora finds herself alone on the battlefield completely surrounded not sure what else to do she quickly begins rotating her spear above her head again only this time spinning her whole body along with the spear."HOW DARE YOU STAND IN MY WAY! DIE LUUTONS!"

as she spins around Gora's geia forms a rotating orb around her person and with the last of her curse towards the invaders, she begins lifting her spear up and down as she spins around.

Holding her spear by the very end of its pole. she spins it outs on a rotating axis as the tip of her spear arks with any unlucky luuton within 40 feet of her. Though that's just the range from where Gora's geia crackles above head out in all directions. arcing every arrow in the sky sending smaller jolts of energy throughout the whole area maiming many and sending several poor souls to a firey death.

though taking down quite a number of luutons. They still continue to surround her and now off balance from all the spinning she stands on the battlefield looking around frantically once again unsure what to do she spins her spear above her head though this time not putting her whole body in it. the luutons have yet to fire upon her for now simply keeping their distance as a little group of them have started circling above her like vultures waiting for the opportunity to strike.

gora continues to swing her spear above her head though it seems shes unable to build up a charge as only small sparks crackle off the side of her spear though as her balance seems to be abit off. it does protects her from the odd arrow shot at her but she knows once the luutons begin diving at her and attacking her with their weapons and geia. simply spinning her spear above her head wont be enough to protect her.

And in her moment of doubt her worries are quite literally blown away as the airborne raiders are met with a powerful gale smashing the luutons against each other as the wings of their beast are splintered by the wind.

with the luutons distracted gora quickly stops spinning her spear. exhausted she turns towards the gentle breeze trying to soak in as much of soothing air as possible as just above head it forms into raging winds blowing her enemy's to pieces. though hoping for a minute of rest she instead tenses up for the source of these abnormal winds were none other than the god of the sky Grand Chief Dyues himself.

In his hands he holds the two massive paddles she saw before only now instead of simple oars the middles of the paddles have extended outwards into massive fans made from remains of dragons of Sokara.

Pushing theses fans that could be no less than 5 feet long through the air slowly, directing the wind as he wants, as behind his gentle strokes lies a strength only something as ancient as dyues could exhibit. As with one quick swipe through the air the soothing winds become a unrelenting currents of air that blows anything it comes against apart.

walking through the battlefield as if it was his garden as he channels the wind. slowly approaching his granddaughter with a heavy gaze of pity and disappointment. Only for his gaze to be met back with a look of spite and anger from Gora dispete her grandfather having just saved her. "Gora what are you doing on the battlefield alone? have you forsaken your astran allies now too?"

griting her teeth just moments ago she stood there exhausted leaning on her spear. She now boldly stands up to her grandfather, looking him straight in the eye."I didn't need your help grandfather. i was following the two astrans that originally came to our home asking for our aide."

dyues continues to look down at his granddaughter without a hint of anger only disappointment as he firmly speaks to her"I never said you needed my help gora, but where are those strangers now hmm?the battlefield is not a place one wants to be alone"

Gora enraged she locks eyes with her grandfather griping her spear tightly."Grandfather i have not come all this way. Traveling between our peoples back and forth for the last 4 months to be lectured by you! we are in the middle of a war!"

for once dyues raises his voice getting angry with gora as his eyes crackle with lightning and voice becomes a thunderous roar"THEN WHY HAVE YOU COME ALL THIS WAY!?!. this is not our war gora! we sokarans have fended off the luuton hordes for centuries and now that the kingdoms of astra are the target of these merciless marauders we are to help them? when never in all my years have they helped us fend these invaders off."

and while for once dyues raises his voice for once gora has nothing to say. she almost begins to say something but is unable to find the answer. her eyes dart away from her grandfathers cold gaze only able to mutter a bitter response under her breath"i don't have to explain myself to you, i've got nothing to prove"

dyues scoffs abit at her statement as he looks down on her"and who are you trying to tell that to? me or yourself?"

gora turns around unable to face her grandfather seeming to have lost her fire as she now sets her eyes on the the great leader of the luutons from behind."whatever lets just go defeat this Aklha Fon guy and end this war grandfather."

dyues sighs and nods letting go of his anger returning to his usual stoic demeanor "fine then if we must. the astran king is rewarding us with a lot of territory and gold in the name of this alliance."

without saying another word to each other the two sokarans advance forward with dyues controlling the wind to protect them from any oncoming volley of arrows.

though the closer they get to the quarreling rulers the more extreme the temperature begins to fluctuate. as one moment a blast of hot air hits them only for it to be soon met after with winds rivaling those raging through the most northern mountains.

running through this miserable whiplash inducing storm of the two extreme gora pushes on"grandfather can you please do something about these winds? at this point id rather you just pick one or the other! This constant switching between the two is just horrible!"

dyues laughs still just gently paddling the wind seeming unbothered by the abrupt change in temperatures."no sorry gora for im simply channeling the wind around us im not blessed with the lisads ability to control the winds the best i can do is focus them around us but whatever temperature the air is not something i can control. Just stop thinking about it between the two you wont overheat or freeze what your body is telling you is simply an illusion to get you to back down."

gora sighs unhappy with her grandfathers response but deeps down knows it to be true and closes her eyes for a moment as she runs runs across the battlefield. opening her eyes only after slowly exhaling reopening them with a new sense of purpose as she avoids thinking about the raging winds."fine if your not good enough to protect your only grandchild from the elements i guess i have no choice but to rely on myself"

dyues gasps hurt by Gora's impudent remarks"NOT GOOD ENOUGH?!? if it wasn't for me you'd be filled full of arrows by now!"

Though gora scoffs simply looking away not bothering to respond only furthering the wound inflicted onto dyues heart as his granddaughter seems to appreciate nothing he does for her.

though dyues is forced to bury his feelings as they march onward though not getting far as suddenly the cold wind starts winning over as their charge is halted by a luuton on a particularly massive drake while not a dragon like that of the ahkla fon. this drake seemed impressive on its own rights just like the man sitting on top of it. a massive warrior of the the northern mountains the luuton general looks down onto the two sokarans with a benevolent rage as he slowly begins descending in front of them the winds from the wings of his beast smashing through dyues shield of wind he had been sculpting around them as a bone chilling gale pushes through them."sokarans why are you here the luutons have not requested tributes from your lands in quite sometime so for what reason have you come here to die in a war that you were not forced into?"Gora eyes flare bolts of electricity standing up her hair as she grits her teeth as a wave of blood lust hits her, though before she can say anything dyues sticks his arm in front of her as he begins to speak"You Luutons think so highly about yourselves as you soar above us but we peoples of the valley could not possibly think lower of you. for centuries we have been subject to your miserable raids like the beast of the old your peoples have disrupted the progress of man as you go by the ways of old. while my reasons for personally joining this war is questionable i can not lie and say i have no love for my new enemies i see your leader rides a dragon and i hope it is the last of its kind so that i may do upon to your people what yours have done to mine"

the luuton general gripping his spear tightly looks down upon them with jaded anger as he begins to dive towards the two sokaran nobles"so you have chosen to die rather than be put in your place, so be it you will perish from this world along side the Astrans!"

holding his spear back as he accelerates downward waiting to get within range to attack. dyues not keen on that happening quickly throws his harms backwards holding the massive fans behind his head as he looks upwards to the diving luuton. as if he were going to clap the geia infused fans he quickly closes the distance between the palms of the fans. sending a unrelenting jet stream of wind crashing against the side of his beast sending both the luuton and his mount crashing to the ground.

gora for once looks at something her grandfather did with amazement, as with one quick motion he effortless flung the luuton off his beast without ever using his geia. though her amazement is cut short as both rider and mount slowly stand themselves up the large warrior of the north simply dusting himself off.

dyues and this great luuton warrior meet eye to eye. only a few scratches seem to lie on the luutons body as he once again gives dyues a look of unbridled rage."I am Dalavch of the Luu mountains a warrior of the sky and frigid cold, second in command of the grand armies of the almighty Aklha Fon, speak your name sokaran so that i may remember the name of the only man to ever knock me off my beast!"

dyues looks at the warrior before him calmly and confidently not letting the luutons anger infect him. they seem to meet eye to eye neither man being taller than the other though one thing dyues does seem to see to his advantage is the lack of white in the luutons hair only having a few odd stripes going down the side of the warriors head."i am Dyues Kalos grand chief of the land of sokarans and you have pointed your spear at me and my heir i will soon do much more than simply knock you off your over-sized lizard"

no more words are said as the two warriors charge towards each other gora watches with amazement as the luuton named Dalavch clashes with her grandfather. catching the sides of dyues fans with his spears as dyues continuously raises and swings downward with the both of them holding them to their sides as not to get any air resistance almost attacking with them as if they were a sword or club.

though Gora's gawking is cut short as the tempered breath of the injured drake looms over Gora's head its beastly gaze focused on nothing else but her.

eyes wide gora quickly dashes backward instinctively throwing her hand up to blast the beast with geia. the cold blooded winged monster wrenches as its singed with Gora's geia across the left side of its face causing it to throw its back upwards as it stand up straight slapping Gora with its wings throwing her backwards as it revels in its pain.

landing on her back gora quickly plunges her spear into the ground allowing her to stop herself from rag dolling across the battlefield. dusting herself off as she gets back up, now with a foe of her own gora faces down the large winged lizard standing on two legs intensely holding her spear with both hands pointing it toward the beast, preparing for it to attack"well come on then you think im afraid of you?"

the beast lets out a screeching roar as it runs on its two legs holding its wings out to its side for balance as its mere presence chills the air. Gora though shows no signs of faltering as she begins charging towards the abnormally large drake.

The angry drake once again swipes its wings at gora.though this time dropping to her knees gora slides under the beasts attack. Stabbing its side shallowly as she slides under its wing coming out from behind by the beginning of its tail. though her attack is soon countered as the winged creature spins around swinging said tail into Gora's torso knocking her off of her feet.

letting out a painful gasp out as all the air in her lungs is knocked out of gora Though refusing to let the beast get the best of her she grabs the monsters tail with one arm as she plunges her spear into its scale ridden tail jumping on top of it wrapping her legs around it as she wiggles her spear in its tail sending the beast in a wild pain filled tantrum all while gora is hanging on for dear life"slap me with your stupid tail! Lets see if i cant rip this dam thing off!"

Plunging it through the beast's tail she starts more violently pulling on it as it swings her around using the wild movement of its tails swings to further pry on it widening the hole. Though as the wound is opened even more causing Gora's spear to come loose causing her to come flying off.

Landing abit away from it. the beast turns to lick its wounds as gora slowly picks herself panting heavily as she uses her spear as a brace to help herself up. Though even in her tired state she lefts one of her arms arrogantly to point at the monster."ya how you like that you stupid lizard!?!"

And as if the beast could understand her it quickly stops tending to the massive hole in its tail and begins charging at an unready gora swiping her with its wing again though this time unable to dodge as shes still catching her breath, as once again shes is sent flying from the beast.

Just a few feet over dyues sighs seeing his granddaughter sent through the air once again. Though his disappointment is short lived as Dalavch who would be pushing back against his spear. dalavch seems annoyed with his opponents attention being divided."if i were you i would worry about myself old man and not her!"

Suddenly Dalavch steps to the side letting dyues massive fans fall downward as Dalavch tilts his spear. Once falling to his side he quickly pulls his spear back to stab dyues."now die!"

Though as he goes to attack dyues the fan in his left hand he parries the attack from the luutons spear smashing against the side of it as he thrust forward ,as Dalavch spear is pushed aside dyues raises his fan out to his side holding the flat part out swinging it towards the staggered luuton. Though instead of being smashed by the flat part of it dyes swings within an inch of Dalavch's face. Turning a full 180 dyues turning his back to his opponent.

Dalavch blinks confused how his opponent could miss such a close range attack. Though before he can take advantage of Dyues's back facing him a sudden gale of wind smashes into the side of Dalavch's body sending pushing the warrior over and blowing him quite a few feet.

The cold blooded warrior looks confused as he feels the damage done to him. stifling his rage for a moment he eyes meeting dyues like daggers as the cold hatred filled look chills the air"you are a sokaran but you use the wind how odd. I guess one can master anything with time, but if you ask me dyues i would of stuck with the geia of your people"

Gripping his spear tightly a sudden wave of ice cascades down his arm and onto the spear not only lengthening the spear but as the ice splits and diverges out ward it creates many points that sticks out to the side of the spear angled forward as to go in the direction of his thrust. Resulting in a massive ice club fused with his arm with ice spikes protruding out of it at all sides.

Dyues though does not seem intimidated by his gaze, his warning ,or his new improved weapon. Simply returning his look with own. Dyues stares confidently into the mans eyes. simply unwavering and with that confidence lied pity as for the first time in his life the grand warrior of the sky feels looked down upon, as dyues has yet to react to anything he has done. Simply looking upon him as if he felt bad for what he was about to do."and if i were you i would have never crossed the mountains."

The grand chief spreads his stance collapsing his two fans onto each other. Now forming one much thicker fan"Dalavch may your ancestors forgive your impudence for i left none alive to tell the tale of my strength had you not chosen to fight me alone you may have survived"

And for the first time the marauder of the northern mountain has felt fear since he was a boy. For as dyues begins to channel air backwards a heavy breeze begins to push from behind them.

Without any further delay the luuton charges in rage no longer considering holding back his anger as he charges at dyues pulling his ice covered spear back as he gets ready to smash it into him once as he gets closer and closer. Though it was never meant to be for the moment Dalavch gets within 5 feet of dyues the grand chief in a split moment fully swings his wide heavy fans from the furthest extent on the left of his body to the furthest extent to on his right.smashing davalchs spear to smithereens as the grand general is blown away across the battlefield along with anything else 60 feet behind him. Chunks of the very earth being blow away as Dalavch is smashed against the battlefield his body rolling and skipping across it like a flat rock on water.

For a moment gora and Dalavch's beast stop Fighting as they watch its rider sent across the battlefield. Though not one to gawk gora quickly rebounds deeply thrusting her spear into the beast as its distracted by its masters defeat."Hah got you now!"

The beast's screams of pain as it's quickly overwhelmed by its bellows of agony as gora unleashes her geia in the beast through her spear. In a panic the drake begins flapping its wings lifting itself upwards and unplunging itself from Gora's spear as she pulls it out once the beast takes flight. Standing against the wind gora looks to the flying creature unamused"you get back down right now mister we have a fight to finish!"

The beasts furiously roars and retracting its wings as it begins diving right for gora"oh come on!"

Making a scramble to get out of the diving monsters way gora narrowly missing the beast as it hits the ground. sending dirt flying as it smashes into the ground. Though even after creating a small crater in the ground Dalavch's mount simply stands back up screeching at gora once again"oh yeah!"

Gora unimpressed by the creatures durability simply jumps on top and begins repeatedly stabbing its back. Leaving a massive collection of shallow holes on the beasts back."how do you like that!"

The reveals in pain rolling over to throw gora off and not allowing the beast to roll over her she instead jumps off avoiding being crushed to death."that the best you got?!?"

Both opponents look like they're getting close to their limit the harsh winds of the battlefield no longer matter the two fighters simply enjoying the breeze.

Gora tiredly looks over to her left only to find her grandfather standing to the side peacefully channeling the winds. "Why aren't you helping me with this thing! Grandpa!"

Dyues continues about with his movements not giving gora his full attention"don't grandpa me you've made it very clear you Don't need my help"

Wanting to argue more gora begins to say something only for the beast to begin charging at her screeching like a wild banshee blood dripping from its many cuts.

Tired and covered in mud and dirt gora begins running at the beast as it charges towards her."fine grandfather i didn't need your help anyway"

As the two opponents get close to each other Dalavch's beast opens it mouth attempting take a chunk out of gora as it goes to bite her. Though its attempt is faltered as the sokaran princess shoves her spear through the bottom of the mouth pushing it all the way through to where it barely sticks out of the bottom of its jaw.the beast bites down narrowly missing Gora's hands as shes forced to let go of her weapon leaving it stuck in mouth of this monster"well that's not good"

Gora jumps back as the drake pushes through the pain and continues to try taking a bite out of gora forcing her to continues leap backwards to dodge. Sweaty dirty and tired Goras forced to keep moving never given a moment of rest as the beast has now gone on a biting spree its eyes locked in on Gora's every movement.

Though every time this massive winged lizard makes an attempt at biting through gora it pushes the spear further and further out of the bottom if its jaw. Causing it eventually falling out of the beast leaving Gora's beloved spear on the ground out of her reach as Dalavch's beast continues to try and end her."dam you beast im going to make a pelt out of you!"

Tired and out of options gora throws her hands in front of her and releases the last bit of her geia point blank into the creatures face singeing its left eyes sending it backwards as it revels in the pain. actually falling onto it's back as it screeches in agony. Pushing past the exhaustion gora runs in a frenzy her hair now a complete light brown lacking any of the previous blond she usually shows off. While still in an open sprint gora leans over to grab her spear once in hand using every last bit of her strength she plunges her spear into the belly of the beast once again causing an uproar of its woes as it violently thrashes on the ground unable to push the young woman off as the beast can feels its loosing its strength as gora slowly pushes the spear further and further into the belly of Dalavch's mount.

Eventually the thrashing starts losing its vigor as it becomes more of half-hearted wiggle before the beast stops all together leaving gora standing on top of it victoriously. Though tired she quickly falls to her knees as she begins pulling her spear out from the carcass of her her foe.

With her spear covered in blood she still grips it tightly as she slowly climbs off the beast. Using it as a walking stick as she walks past her grandfather"see i dont need anybody "

Dyues sighs patting the exhausted Gora on the head"everyone needs someone gora if you had such a hard time with beast by yourself how do you suppose you'll take on the luutons grand leader?"

Gora looks behind her as the two kings are still having at it waves of fire and ice crash against each other. The Aklha Fon circles around the high king blasting him with ice only for the high king to release a column of fire to smash against it. Gora looks onto the grand leaders in awe of their power"how can those two still be throwing around their geia like that?!"

Dyues shakes his head disappointingly at his granddaughter"gora you're focusing on the wrong thing. They're are two leaders that have fought hard to unite their people they stand at the top of this world in every way this battle is to determine which of these two people will rule these lands "

Gora looks back at the the two leaders again then back at her grandfather. exhausted, dirty and slightly bruised"and where does that leave us huh?"

Dyues looks into his granddaughter eyes emboldened with the presence wisdom and confidence"where we have always been. the higher you get in life the more people wish to take you down and the harder the fall to the bottom becomes. That was the fate of the lisads and the beast of old. i have no doubt that the astrans and the luutons will meet the same fate."

Gora frowns and shakes her head and stands back up straight"i see no truth to that grandfather the lisads lost their kingdom because they were unable to change. They relied on the ways of old. When their hunting grounds dried up their power went with it they have spent the last 400 years as cowardly pacifists and have allowed all of their neighbors to chip away at their kingdom."

Dyues strokes his beard once again gazing at the two battling rulers"the ways of old were once the ways of today and the ways of the present will one day be the ways of the past when that time comes gora do you think you could change change with the world?"

Gora's grip on her spear tightens as she turns away from her grandfather her eyes locking onto the Aklha Fon"if i must I'll lead that new world"

And before dyues can give his thoughts gora begins to run off. Dyues sighs watching her leave before turning around and walking in the other direction.