The next morning Ripred woke them all up (again) and they set off looking for the "allies".
"Where are we going?" Gregor inquired of Ripred.
"The Firelands." he replied.
Gregor felt a pang of sadness as he remembered Thalia, the little bat that was friends with Hazard. She had been killed when the "Queen", a volcano, erupted. Gregor remembered his uneasy feeling last night and made sure to stay on guard. They rode on for a good part of the day before Gregor sensed something was wrong. The walls were strange and it took him a moment to notice that the eroded walls had different marks on them. Claw marks.
"EVERYBODY GET BACK!" yelled Gregor in panic.
That moment the walls exploded with flying figures, all coming straight for them. He yanked his sword out and swiped at the nearest climber, sending it's head in a dizzying arc through the air. He noticed dimly through his rager senses his friends were all fighting for their lives. Suddenly a climber knocked Luxa off Aurora and latched itself onto the big golden bat. Atlas dived towards her but a climber attacked them again. They pinwheeled through the air until Gregor finally killed the climber
"A friend will take a fatal fall" thought Gregor dimly through the battle.
He looked around and saw the last climbers spinning off into the darkness. The bats landed in a nearby cave and his companions had to wrestle Gregor onto the ground lest he jump right back on to Atlas to find Luxa. Longweb and Temp, who had been hidden in the cave by Aurora and Boots who had been carried here by Nike. She was now singing about the Itsty-Bitsty spider. Longweb was in a corner cringing away from Boots.
"Gregor she's gone. No one could survive that fall, not even me." said Ripred with gentleness that no one had known he had.
"Set up camp, we should set up camp." suggested Temp.
They all took turns standing guard except Gregor who was given the night off. He spent the entire night reliving every good memory he'd had with Luxa which wasn't hard since many of them included her anyways.