Hey, guys. I'm back for chapter 15. This chapter is one I've been planning since the very first chapter. I was so ready to write it, but I had to have the right way for it happen. And I think it came out perfect. I want you guys to read it so I'm done talking. Read and enjoy.

Chapter 15

"Where exactly do we plan on searching?" Gregor said to Luxa, as they flew side by side, the air filled with the beating of wings. The ground flew by underneath them, barely able to be seen with the naked eye as the light from Regalia faded away.

"I am not sure. Roderick thought to search the river, but I did not think that Stellovet would. It is too obvious of a choice."

"I agree. If she went this way, she would have continued this way. It is the simplest way to go and her flier could stop if they needed to rest."

"Exactly," Luxa replied. Both of them fell silent, their eyes searching for any sign of Stellovet. Each soldier carried a torch and held them aloft checking the surroundings of the cavern. They flew at various heights to check every cave, ledge, and nook on the walls of the cavern.

Gregor was the lone man without a torch. He flew on Artemese, his tongue clicking away to take in every surrounding in perfect clarity. The sound of the beating wings was too much for him and it was making it more difficult to detect anything as the sound was reverberating around and bouncing off the walls.

"Artemese, can you fly ahead for a bit? It'll make it easier to search for me. There's just too much noise here."

"Of course, Gregor," Artemese replied as he speed up and flew ahead of the main group of soldiers. When they were about a hundred yards ahead of the group Gregor slowed Artemese down and resumed his search. It was much easier for him to detect the smallest crack on the wall, the boulders on the ground ranging from the size of a house to the size of a potato. It was very effective searching.

Several minutes later, Gregor noticed something odd on the cavern floor. The rock had been torn up and pounded into bits as if thousands of strong legs had ground into it, tearing it apart. Artemese also noticed it and the two dove down to the ground.

The damage, while not deep, was extensive. About an inch of the ground had been crumbled into bits of rock and powder. In the overland Gregor had rarely seen anything like this and when he did it was isolated to small spots. And the thing that did it was a jackhammer. Chiseled and motor powered to thrust into the ground over and over with force enough to shatter concrete and rock into little pieces in a small area. The thing here though was that the damage stretched across the cavern from wall to wall and extended down the tunnel for quite a while.

The stingers he had seen hadn't done anything like this, but he had never seen them move with much haste. If they were running or chasing after something perhaps their legs could turn into something like a jackhammer and churn rock into dust. It was the only plausible idea for what could have done this. There was no other species he had ever seen that could possibly have done this to the ground.

A small rush of air told him that a bat was landing just behind him. He stayed where he was, crouched on the edge of the chewed up ground, when Luxa appeared next to him. "What has happened here, Gregor?" she asked him.

"It looks like a large number of something, stingers is my guess, were coming this way at a rather high speed. But they stopped and turned around otherwise this mess wouldn't have ended until it reached something to stop it."

"What could have stopped them?" Luxa asked, probing Gregor brain. Gregor sat quiet for several moments his brain working to think of any reason for them to have detoured from their intended purpose. A reason for them to have turned around.

"I can't be certain of what it is. The stingers down here have a different social nature than their smaller counterparts on the surface. Up above they are much more likely to live alone or in a pair than in large number. There is no central queen hive mind that controls them all. With that in mind I doubt an order could have reached them fast enough to turn them around. There is obviously no obstruction to have stopped them either. That leaves me only one idea. They found someone or something of interest that they took back to their leader. My thought is that it is Stellovet."

Luxa was quiet as she stood next to Gregor. Gregor could see that she was processing every little detail he had said and was trying to figure out the situation with her own mind. The struggle on her face told Gregor that there was only a few options left in her head and that she could not figure out which made the most sense.

"I agree, but we cannot be certain," Luxa said her face showing that she had determined her choice. "We shall continue at haste and look for any detail that could point to my cousin having come in this direction." with a simple signal Aurora swooped down and picked Luxa up on her back. Gregor remounted Artemese and flew after them. The rest of the troops had also landed and were soon following after Gregor. Gregor signaled one of the men forward to him.

"Prepare the messengers. Should we find anything, I want them sent out at top speed to find and report to each search group. Things could go bad fast." The soldier nodded and dropped to the back of the group to relay the message. Gregor grew silent then, focusing intently on every small detail of the ground, looking for anything that stood out as showing that Stellovet had traveled this way.

Time ticked by and Gregor was losing hope in his hypothesis. They were out to search for Stellovet and he may have subconsciously used that as a reason to go after the stingers. He wasn't quite sure if that was indeed possible for him to do because the logic in his head had seemed solid at the time, but as they flew farther and farther it seemed to be just a bunch of bogus ideas he had thrown together in a hope to find Stellovet. For all he knew one of the other groups had already found her and she was back in Regalia resting.

"Damn this entire thing," Gregor mumbled under his breath. Artemese lifted his head when he heard the words, but he did not speak. Gregor was glad because he didn't want to involuntarily bite off his friends head. And during that moment's thought, he noticed something odd laying near the cavern wall. The rebounded sound sounded different against his ear. "Artemese, I think I see something on the cavern floor."

Artemese immediately circled down to the floor of the cavern with Aurora right behind him. Before the bats feet had even touched the uneven, chewed up ground, Gregor was leaping off. His feet slid in the chunks of rock as he ran to the wall. What he saw caused him to stop in his tracks and with bad footing he fell backwards onto his butt. He didn't even notice the odd pieces of rock protruding into him as he stared at what lay before him.

A pair of hands grabbed him and lifted him to his feet. Luxa walked ahead of him and reached down to pick up the sword that lay in the scattered rocky debris. It was slender, but not nearly as slender as Luxa's own blade. The hilt was carefully designed and it looked very much like something that was custom made.

"This is my cousin's blade. Send word out to the others and tell them to follow us with all haste." Luxa slid the blade into her own sword belt before turning back to Gregor. "Should we wait here or follow further?"

"We follow," Gregor replied, determination dripping from his words. "We have no clue just how far ahead the stingers are and how much danger Stellovet is in. It is best if we find out and if it is possible try to rescue her." Luxa didn't argue, but agreed immediately. The two jumped back onto their fliers and were off at top speed. Behind them, the soldiers struggled to keep up and three others flew in the opposite direction to relay the groups findings.

The ground streaked by below them as the wind whistled past Gregor's ears, kicking his hair up. Luxa's hair billowed out behind her head like a flag. His eyes watered from the sting of the wind against his face and eyes. It was like flying on the outside of an airplane or being outside in a hurricane. It hurt but Gregor didn't care; he just leaned further down over Artemese's neck and bit his lip to distract himself. His heart was throbbing away inside his body and he could feel his pulse racing in his neck. He was anxious for what was coming and his body was getting ready to do what it did best. His body was preparing itself to kill. The adrenaline would soon start to fill his bloodstream and his rage side would soon join in.

The sound of movement started to fill the air and the hair on Gregor's neck rose to the occasion. He could hear the banging of the stingers shells against each other, which sounded dully like someone clacking together two coconut shells, but about a thousand times louder. Gregor signaled for them to slow and land as soon as he heard the sound. It was better if they had a game plan instead of charging in on them.

Each soldier dismounted and stood in front of Gregor. Luxa joined the men and left Gregor in sole possession of the leadership role. Gregor could feel his nerves starting to rise. He hated public speaking and leading. He was the follower; the person who took order not gave them. But here he was in front of the eager and terrified soldiers, each one armed and armored, but also had never faced the deadly opponents that stingers were.

"Men," Gregor started just loud enough for each one to hear him. "We may be standing at death's door. There is an enemy just ahead of us and we do not know what we are facing. But that does not stop us from doing what we do best. We are soldiers, each and every one of us. None of us are royalty, none of us hold any kind of important role in anything. We are not in charge of what happens after this battle. But yet we go and fight. We do it for those we love or because it's our job or because we want to kill shit. Hell, it could be a combination of those three for all I care. Let's just go out there and do what we came to do. Let's get back Stellovet and get our asses back to Regalia. All of us. I'm not leaving that battlefield before any of you do whether you are dead or alive. I will stay till the last man. I promise that."

The men let out a silent cheer for Gregor's words of encouragement. It was the right thing to say. Each man was proud to know that they had the best fighter in the underland at their back and that he was there to help them if they got into trouble. But they also knew he spoke the truth. They all would not be making home to see their friends and families again. Gregor waited for the quiet cheer to die down and silence to reign again.

"The plan is simple. We do not go in swords first. We will go and see what they are doing. But to be safe, I want fifteen men to place torches around the cavern, so we all can see. If it comes to battle we need our eyes. You may pick the men to do it, the ones with best fliers perhaps or the ones with the best hands. Every torch counts because the more light the better."

Fifteen men were picked and they collected the torches in their hands. Each man carried three of them and would have the quick job of jamming them into the walls many cracks and crevices. These men were the only ones on fliers. Gregor had seen how difficult it was for him to fight on a flier's back against a stinger. These men would be eaten alive before they knew what hit them. The fliers would help where they could, whether saving the wounded or attempting to kill stingers however they could.

Gregor took the lead and set a comfortable pace to cover the last few hundred yards to the stingers. The torch men on the fliers flew above them, shining the way ahead. When they saw the first sign of stingers they darted off towards the walls of the cavern and light started to flood the area. Gregor got a good look at the number of stingers in front of them and it was staggering. They had fifty or so men, excluding himself and Luxa. The stingers numbered easily over one hundred and probably closer to a hundred and fifty. And the big ones were big. Really big.

Most of them were on a size Gregor had seen and fought before but some of them were monsters that seemed to tower over their smaller brethren. They had to be over twenty feet long and their stingers were impressive things extending over two feet out from their tails. But none of these seemed to even be close to the largest one in the cavern.

The creature seemed to fill the space. It had to be over thirty feet long with pincers the size of small cars. Gregor guessed it was the leader from just how far away from the front line it was and how many of the largest stingers surrounded it. The oddest part was what Gregor saw on its back. There were people seated on its back. On closer inspection, Gregor could see exactly two people.

"Luxa, I can see Stellovet."

"I can as well. She is with somebody, though."

"Yea, I can't tell who it is. But whoever it is I can tell that there is something different about them, but I can't put my finger on just what it is. I'm too far away."

"Then we should get closer," Luxa said and Gregor nodded in consent. The group followed as their two leaders forged forward. The stingers took notice of them when they were only fifty feet away. The closest ones moved forward, but an odd screeching sound stopped them in their tracts. Gregor's blades were in his hands within a second and the sound of drawing weapons was music to his ears. A hand pressed against his arm and Gregor looked over at Luxa.

"Lower your weapons for now. Let us see what will happen. They have not attacked us yet and we shall not attack them first." Gregor did what she said and lowered both his blades to his sides, but his eyes never left the wall of stingers. His eyes followed as the massive stinger started to move towards the front, the smaller stingers moving to the side like water to the brow of a ship. It stopped just behind the front line of stinger and Gregor got a good look at the other person on its back.

It was a man dressed in tattered clothing and had a large silvery white beard on his face. A large scar ran across his face from his left ear, across his nose and to the far right of his face. The top of his head was bald and his eyes were a deep purple. Gregor almost mistook them for black. The man jumped off the stingers back and Gregor could see the strength in the man even though he was relatively small and thin. Each muscle seemed to be pulled to a tautness that was uncommon among people. The man approached them.

"I am assuming you have come for the girl," he spoke, his voice rough and harsh.

"Yea. We came for Stellovet. Give her to us and there will be no fighting," Gregor replied keeping his anger under control. There was something about the man that just didn't seem right.

"No fighting indeed," the man replied, laughing the entire time. "I care not if you fight. You are outnumbered and outsized. It matter not that you are here, warrior. You can not stop them all."

"You know who I am, but I do not know who you are. I think it's time for introductions." Gregor was having an even harder time controlling his urge to rip the man's throat out with his bare hands. The snide tone he was using was getting to Gregor's head and it was obvious for everyone to see.

"You need not know who I am. I know you and you queen. Your men are irrelevant. But I think the talking is over. You know I am here and that does not fare well with my plan. I will keep the girl and you shall all perish." The man turned and strode away, not even listening to Gregor's shouts of his cowardice and the numerous curses that were thrown at him.

A pair of arms wrapped around Gregor and pulled him close. "Be careful, please," Luxa said to him before she let go.

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. You're the one that needs to be careful. If you need me just shout my name." Luxa nodded before focusing on the ensuing battle. The man had just climbed back onto the giant stingers back and whispered something into its ear. A piercing shriek filled the cavern. The battle had begun.

Thirty stingers flowed out of their ranks and Gregor charged towards the nearest ones. His men scrambled into groups to try to tackle the vicious enemies that would be able to decimate them. There was no true plan to the battle. There was no strategy besides fighting to survive.

A stinger stood to Gregor's right and one to his left. The adrenaline was rushing through his body and his rager sense kicked in. Weak points flashed through his head and his sword sung and struck the first point: a pincer joint. The pincer fell to the ground and Gregor skipped out of the way of a tail as it slammed into the ground where he had been standing just a split second earlier. He danced to the side again and again dodging the striking stingers.

An idea popped into his head. He gained himself and leaped onto the back of the nearest of the two stingers. He danced around on top of its shell as it tried to swat him off. The other stinger took a shot of its own and Gregor's plan fell into fruition. He rolled away from the tail and the foot longer stinger sunk into the stingers head. Within the time it took someone to blink, Gregor had jumped onto the other stinger and plunged his sword down into it's head with enough force to pierce solid steel. Both stingers lay dead and yet the battle had only been going for a minute or so.

Gregor quickly caught his breath, but in that short time he saw men dying. Swords snapped against shells or barely even penetrated them, and the stingers took their opportunities. Tails thrust foot long stingers through chests and pincers crushed whatever they could grab. Screams of agony filled the air and the coppery smell of blood assaulted Gregor's nostrils.

And then he was back into the action. A man was screaming for Gregor's help as he tried to dodge a stingers tail. Gregor ran by and without thinking slashed the tail clean off, leaving not even a foot of it left. The man's sword sank deep into distracted stinger's face.

Two stingers had several men pinned against the wall. Pincers were snapping and the men were barely able to hold them off. Gregor sprinted towards them, but he was not alone. He jumped onto the back of one and Luxa onto the other. Almost simultaneously they sunk their blades deep into the shells of them. The men thanked them, but Gregor hadn't heard a word of it. He was gone at breakneck speed off to fight another stinger. There was one that he hadn't even seen attack anyone. It was large, almost twenty feet long and Gregor wanted a challenge.

He sprinted towards it using his momentum to fuel the overhand slash that he brought down on to it. The blade slashed through the thick shell and sliced off the pincer. That got the stingers attention. It spun towards Gregor bringing its other pincer around to try to grab him. But Gregor was not there. He had run to the side and he started to take off the stinger's legs with precise slashes to the joints. The legs fell off and blood spurted out covering Gregor in the sticky, nasty smelling stuff. Off balance the stinger was useless and Gregor knew it. He took his dagger and quickly thrust it into the stinger's face just above the eyes. It dropped dead to the ground.

In the time it took him to take care of that one stinger the number of his men dwindled even further. On a quick count he saw only fifteen of them left including himself and Luxa who seemed relatively unharmed. Gregor was the only one with no wounds. His training was really paying off more than he had hoped. Even after being wounded and hospitalized for a week he still had the endurance and stamina to cut through the stingers without getting tired. It also helped that he wasn't wearing armor that weighed him down and made him tire easier.

He fought his way towards the remaining survivors, cutting down three more stingers on his way. They had died easily after he had sliced off a tail or pincer making them near weaponless. His sword was piercing shells left and right and yet the number of his men kept falling. There was only eight of them left when he got to them. There was no way they were going to make it out and there was no chance for a tactical retreat. The fliers had no chance to try to pick them up. He had seen them taking the wounded away, but he wasn't sure how many that was or how many of them had survived.

They were backed up against a wall, four stingers ready to strike them dead. Gregor stood before them all Luxa at his side. His blood drenched hand dropped his dagger to the ground and grabbed Luxa's free hand in his. She squeezed his and looked at him. A cut was open above her eye and blood ran down her face.

"Luxa, before I do what I'm about to do I want you to know-"

"I know Gregor. I love you too." Gregor nodded and let her hand go. He picked his dagger back up and prepared to take on all four stingers by himself to try to save the other seven.

Gregor took a step and opened his mouth to let out a yell of fear, pain, and anger, but the sound never left his mouth. The moment his foot had hit earth a sword had sliced clean through a stingers tail and a rats tail sliced through anothers. Reinforcements had arrived. Ripred sank his claws into a stingers face and Eisen's spear flashed down through the shell of a stingers back. And then Gregor was back in the action. His sword cut through another stinger's shell and then his dagger finished the job.

Luxa and another soldier had finished off the fourth one alone and the rest of the soldiers were fleeing to a safer position. More stingers came out from the stingers line and these were larger than the last ones. Gregor looked to Eisen and Ripred and nodded to them suggesting they charge. They were the last three fighters. Or so Gregor thought.

As the stingers came out of the line they were met by something even Gregor had not seen. Fighter's on fliers dove down upon the scorpions their swords flashing and cutting into the scorpions. Tails flew off and some dropped dead. He didn't even notice how, but some of the stingers had caught on fire and were literally cooking to death inside their shells.

With new vigor Gregor rushed forward, Eisen and Ripred right behind him. They were like a three man wrecking crew. Stingers fell before them, each one helping the other. It was soon obvious that with the three of them the stingers would start to retreat. It was already obvious when the front line drew back leaving the last fifteen of them in combat with the humans. Gregor and Ripred dispatched one while Gregor at the same time assisted Eisen with his. And that's when he heard it.

"Gregor!" Luxa screamed from somewhere behind him. Hw spun around and started to run, leaving Ripred and Eisen in his wake. Dust flew up behind his boots as Gregor rushed forward, but he could see that there was no time for him to save her. Luxa was face to face against a stinger that was larger than any Gregor had fought. It was easily over twenty feet and it had Luxa right its sights. Time seemed to slow down as he watched in horror as the massive tail arched over the stingers body and right towards Luxa. As it came down he watched her roll to the side pulling her body away at the last minute and popping to her feet. "If she keeps dodging the tail, I can make it and kill that son of a bitch," Gregor thought as he put all his energy into running.

But then something he had never seen happen, happened. The stinger whipped its tail to the side from in front of its body, the stinger poised to strike sideways instead of down. His mouth dropped open as he saw there was no chance Luxa could get out of the way. He drew left arm back and threw his dagger. It sailed forward, but it wouldn't reach the stinger in time to stop it.

As the tail came towards Luxa, Gregor screamed inaudible words. He felt hot tears hit his cheeks. Luxa was mere feet from death as the massive stinger would rip through her body like it was butter. But something completely different happened.

The stinger was coming towards her, but it never reached her. Instead it pierced another person's body. A soldier had dove in front of the stinger and it went into his chest. His body was carried with the tail and it slammed into Luxa. She was thrown back and her head slammed into the ground.

Gregor changed direction as soon as he saw his dagger fly into the face of the stinger. It had been the best throw he had ever had. It sailed clean through the air and sunk the entire blade into the soft tissue of the stinger. But Gregor didn't care about that. He was racing towards Luxa, who was laying unmoving on the ground. Something wasn't right with her. Something was protruding out of her stomach.

Gregor slid to a stop next to her and saw a blade sticking through her abdomen. It immediately registered as Stellovet's blade that Luxa had been carrying on her. When she hit the ground the blade had broken and the broken piece had punctured her through the back, impaling her. Gregor fell to his knees beside her.

"Luxa, you'll be okay. Lux, stay with me okay. You hear me Luxa. Don't leave me. Stay with me. Stay with me." Gregor kept repeating as he held her hand in both of his own. Tears were blurring his eyes as he felt someone grab onto his shoulder. Gregor shrugged the hand away. A strange dampness covered the knee of his pants and he knew instantly that it was Luxa's blood as it started to pool up beneath her.

"Gregor, let go of her hand," he heard someone say. "Howard is here to help her, but you have to let her go." Gregor didn't release her hand, and he felt something wrap around his chest; he was yanked away and his hands lost contact with hers.

"Let me go Ripred!" Gregor screamed at the rat that now held him in place. His fists beat against the rat's tail, but it was no use. Ripred would not let go of him. Gregor cleared his eyes and watched as Howard and several other medics carried Luxa's body over to Aurora and quickly took off back to Regalia. Ripred finally released Gregor then.

Gregor ran to Howard and grabbed his friends arm. "Will she be okay? Will she be okay?!"

"I believe so. It is hard to tell right now though. My mother will do her best. Luxa is her niece." Gregor was deflated. His anger and grief wiped away and replaced with worry.

"I know. I know." And then his anger flared back. "But this whole thing is dumb. We fight and fight to save you dumb sister and then the stingers just runaway like cowards. And they took her with them. All these lives were lost for nothing! For fucking nothing!"

He stormed off towards where the stingers fled. He kicked at the corpses of the dead stingers as he passed them, his hatred for them flowing out with each violent strike. His blood was boiling and his fists were bunched so tightly he could feel his fingernails digging into his palms. At the edge of the battlefield he stopped and stood still. A scream of rage left his body.

"I will kill every single one of those goddamn bastards if it takes me ten years! They will all die for what they did! All of them!"

Oh yea. I did what I just did. You guys can be mad if you want for whatever reason. I did what most people don't do. And its only gonna get better from here on out. So tell me what you think guys and girls.

Question: What is the extent of Luxa's injuries?