Kanzaz fell to the ground, stones digging into his skin. 'get up, Worm' muttered the wingly who held him. Standing shakily Kanzaz hurled curses at the group of winglies that had captured him. 'Dammit' he muttered to himself, he should not have been so careless to be captured and then beaten, he would not have survived the arena by being careless but he could have sworn they just stepped out of thin air. As the party stopped to make camp Kanzaz was thrown into a tent and beaten nearly senseless.

When he awoke he could not move and realised he was strapped onto a wall. The door opened and two winglies strode into the room. 'didn't anyone tell you, slave, that gladiators don't run away?' said the first wingly.

'I…d-didn't… run… I won…My Freedom' the last words were a shout and he collapsed the restraints cutting into his wrists. Then the second wingly spoke 'slaves do not win their freedom they live and die in the arena'. Then another wingly stepped in, this one wore a red tunic and carried with him a bag filled with knives pokers and cages of rats.

'Torture him and try not to kill him' then the winglies walked out and I was left to stare into the eyes of the torturer. He smiled.

'now which shall we do first' he mused as he walked towards the bag then he picked up three pokers and stuck them in a brazier until they were glowing red and threw them with perfect accuracy into the palms of my hands and through the centre of my chest. The wounds did not bleed. 'curious  about that are you, well you are in two places at the same time your real body is being racked by pain but not bleeding or even being cut and your mind is here so that you can't have a heart death or anything like this. I can torture you for the next five years and your body will be kept perfectly fine. Welcome To Hell'.

In my mind I made a promise that I would not scream. I broke that in an hour. I then pledged I would not beg for mercy. He took a week to break that. Slowly and inevitably I slipped into madness.

Shirley screamed curses at Rhuarc. 'what do you mean we can't look for him he could be in wingly hands at the moment we have to find him' Rhuarcs expression was the same as it had been all morning. 'we will but we have to get to stariak first when we get there we can capture a wingly and interrogate him for information but we have to get to stariak first, it's only a days ride so we can find him soon'.

Knowing we could not win we all moved as fast as we could to get to stariak. Syuveil could walk now but he was still very weak.

Stariak was the most beautiful city of the ancient times. Every building was coated in marble and  in the centre of the city stood a 50 foot high fountain which stretched a mile in all directions from the centre. Huge gardens with trees which rose hundreds of feet were sprawled everywhere in the city. Since the winglies found the city impressive they let a hybrid of human and wingly rule there as a sign of their good faith there was no poverty anyone found begging or starving were trained as a gardener and set to work. Violence was outlawed, if you were caught being violent or vandalising property you were sent to work in Alakrios, a separate city which was built in Death Frontier.

Free from wingly rule they were very highly advanced in technology which was designed to defeat the winglies, one of these was the spear shooter which it delivered to Gloriano as a sign of goodwill.

Maintaining the Great Fountain were the Sprites, half mermaid-half wingly and in some cases part human too although this was very rare. Rhuarc led us there first, to disguise himself Rhuarc had taken the form of a short man who looked decidedly node script. As we walked towards my eyes searched around and locked on a young girl flying quickly around diving in and out of the fountain. Suddenly she stopped and her wings dissipated screaming she fell. The drop was high and none of the other sprites could have reached her in time but someone did. Shouting Syuveil ran and jumped, his wings snapping out and he shot through the sky and caught the girl just before she hit the ground.

Settling down Syuveil set the girl onto the ground. 'T-t-t-t-t-Thanks very much, my names Damia, What's yours?' Syuveil grinned warmly 'Syuveil and these are my friends Zieg, Belzac, Shirley, Rose and Rhuarc'.

'Hi, well thanks very much again, by the way would you like to come over to have dinner at our house tonight, my mothers an excellent cook, and all your friends can come too, we don't have many visitors, my mother would be glad to have so many,  c'mon please, say yes?'.

Syuveil looked a little startled at the torrent of words but he kept nodding 'y-yeah of course I'd love to.

She smiled and turned so she could look at all of us, and then I noticed that she had extremely strange features, blue hair and blue eyes of the mermaids, mixed with the high nose and cheekbones of the winglies and a generous mouth which probably came from a human heritage since both winglies and mermaids have small mouths.

'you'll have to put your weapons in the armoury, I'll show you where it is'. And with that she strode off leaving us to run and catch her. When she finally stopped we were standing outside a massive building with a sculpture of a gauntleted fist. As we walked inside a dozen men in full battle armour and carrying maces swords and axes stepped out and surrounded us. Loosening my sword I glanced around warily and saw the others doing the same.

'What is your business here' said the man in front?' then Damia stepped forward 'we have come in acceptance of the laws to surrender our weapons so that no harm may derive from them while we stay in this fair city we entrust the safety to you' then she motioned for us to surrender our weapons, grudgingly I drew my blade and handed it to a scowling man. The others did the same and soon we were out of the building and on our way towards Damia' house to have supper.

Damia' house was small and cosy with a domelike outside shape and with three rooms, two bedrooms and a kitchen. The kitchen was large with a round table and near it was a piece of wood sticking out of a wall with a woman standing at it chopping vegetables and dropping them into a pot sitting on a strange contraption which was giving off steam.

She turned and smiled as she saw Damia but her smile turned to a frown when she saw the rest of us. 'Damia who are these people?'.

Grinning Damia spoke ' this is Syuveil he saved me today when my wings lost their power' 'you wings lost their… how?…no I don't need to know I'm just glad you're safe, and who are the other people?' 'this is Shirley, Rose, Belzac, Zieg and Rhuarc' they're friends of Syuveil'.

'…and you invited them for dinner didn't you…oh well I can make more'. And in an hour we were sitting at the table eating and telling our story, with a few changes to avoid suspicion. '…and now we are looking for my friend Kanzaz'. Damia' mother was smiling 'it's a good story maybe not the truth but a good story nonetheless, do you want to stay the night, you can sleep on the floor if you wish' 'thanks very much' said rose, and Damia' mother walked out into her room and closed the door.

Lying down I took a blanket out of my pack and threw it over myself. The others did the same and soon I drifted into sleep.

When I awoke there was someone banging on the door. I go up and answered it. There was one of the guards from the armoury and a wingly stood in the doorway. 'Are you Zieg Feld?'

Startled I stood there open mouthed, no-one knew my name so how did this wingly know it. 'yes it is, why do you wish to know?'  the man from the armoury drew a massive two handed sword in one hand and a dual bladed battle axe which was nearly as long as the sword in the other. 'you and your allies, Rose Kintark, Shirley Litsu, Belzac Flint and Kanzaz Shrik are all under arrest for suspected murder of winglies and the girl Damia Lorin is under arrest for ,  now get your friends and then you will be brought to the holy capital of Kaddessa'. Walking back in I woke up the others and told them what the wingly had said, and a flash of silver light filled the room for a second and a wingly now stood there, holding a long blade that shimmered silver with a black hilt. 'this is a problem but I believe we can overcome it'

My hand shot down to where my sword lay and closed around empty air, the sword was still at the armoury, I cursed and charged the wingly but a wave of force knocked me back a few feet and then a shield appeared around the wingly and a voice in his mind spoke you have a quick temper 'don't you' finished the wingly I told you I would 'join you after you found Damia but I did not think' Kanzaz would be captured so 'we will have to get to Alakrios, I will rescue Kanzaz and meet you in Alakrios now I will transport you to the armoury so get your weapons and a few more to be safe then steal a glider and fly into the centre of the fountain then dive at the mosaic of the tree of life, it's a teleportation device and will bring you to death frontier in the dungeons of Alakrios, when you get there tell the guards that soon the eagles will fall and he will let you stay at the castle so now here we go' and there was another flash of silver and we stood in the armoury surrounded by weapons I searched then found a two handed  Damascus sword with a red hilt, a three foot long Tulkan knife, a Tulkan short sword and Tulkan chain mail and some Tulkan  light armour. Tulkan was a blue-greyish metal which was brilliant for making armour and small weapons but it had to be mixed with steel to be created into Damascus, which while it was stronger was much heavier, that was used for making large weapons. It's particularly abundant in death frontier where it is used for making weapons such as spear shooters.

When I walked into the centre of the room all the others were standing there with weapons, Rose held a long Tulkan rapier which had a hilt that slipped onto her wrist, she had also donned some light armour. Belzac stood coated in Damascus chain mail and dual layered master armour which would have made Zieg collapse to the floor unable to mover if he had worn it, holding a massive axe that was two foot or so bigger than him and Belzac was nearly nine foot. Damia held a long hammer in her hands and was wearing a thin coat of chain mail. Syuveil stood in a similar armour to mine and held a thick spear which instead of ending in a traditional spear point had a three foot curved blade at the end.  Rhuarc had discarded the form he had held and now stood in his true form and held a night black sword in his hand which flickered and never seemed to hold one form and Shirley had a long bow slung over one shoulder and a quiver over the over, also she had a bag of twenty quivers each holding fifty arrows strapped to her back and a long sword sheathed in her belt.

Forcing a smile I spoke 'Damia, Do you know the way to the Gliders?' 'they're stored in the armoury the room is this way' she led us into a room where rows of silver pieces of metal which curved up at the sides and had a long tail of metal at the back, it had a three pieces of some substance I didn't recognise with a round ball at the top and buttons around them Damia knelt behind three of them one after another and they started to hum then she motioned for us to walk over and explained how to control them, Rhuarc took one look at the gliders and said he would fly and so should Syuveil and Damia.

In five minutes we were hurtling through the skies towards the Great Fountain when a fireball shot past my sled and hit Roses sled. As it started to fall I swooped below it and caught her as she jumped off , Shirley caught the controls and kept us going towards the fountain a ball of blue energy shot out and struck the wingly that had shot at us, straight into the chest. We were very close now to the fountain  as we angled towards it for the last time a massive ball of fire came hurtling out of the mosaic and engulfed the two sleds, Rhuarc, Shirley and Syuveil.

As the fireball struck only one thought occupied my mind.

Pain.

Soul dropped into the castle Pandemonium and sliced the guards throat then exploded the door and looked at the prisoner, pressed into the corner of the cell his eyes bulging was Kanzaz Shrik. Walking over Soul  saw  no marks on him except marks from his fingernails digging into his palms. Reaching into his mind I saw a waking nightmare of him being tortured but the nightmare was being maintained by a spell. Reaching out he launched himself into the dream world.

A icicle slammed into the torturers heart and out of his back, and the cords binding Kanzaz unravelled. Kanzaz' eyes opened and he saw another wingly pull the icicle out of the torturers chest and then turn and stand up.

'Kanzaz Shrik, my names Soul I'm here to Rescue you so now before we can talk you need to Wake Up!'.

Kanzaz opened his eyes to see the wingly watching him with a kind smile, and as it usually happens after a dream his sanity drained back into his mind until he was as sane as he was before…nearly…

'I'll talk to you in a minute but first we need to get back to Alakrios' and there was a silver flash and then darkness.

In the Throne room of Alakrios, High Lord Satek sat bolt upright as the sphere under his left hand started to glow with a blue light as a teleportation was initiated from Stariak, calling a squad of guards he teleported down to the dungeon. When he got there he saw six people and a monster lying on the floor with bad burns all over their bodies stepping in he looked as one of them turned their head and spoke in a rasping and broken voice. 's-soon the eagles w-will fall' giving orders to have them brought to the rooms of healing  he grinned soon the rebellion would begin.

Soul appeared in Satek' throne room he grinned at the young lord who ruled Alakrios.

'Soon my friend it will be over'

"The Rebellion has begun"