The ride went on in near total silence for Christian Ddraig. He might have been seated within the Bee with his teammates, but his mind was in another time entirely.

The world around him was a disconnected as he sank deeper and deeper within his mental space as he thought about the elf, Pyrrha Ulster.

He was brought from his musings by a hand resting upon his shoulder and slightly shaking him. The world returned to focus and Chris could see the confused faces of his teammates and some of the others within the Bee.

He turned to his left where Hamanymu sat, with his hand still resting upon Chris's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Hamanymu asked him.

"I am good, just... just thinking about the game plan when we get down there... You know... Just... Just in case we run into something nasty. " Chris almost winced as he forced out such a obvious lie.

"Okay..." Hamanymu's face and tone of voice gave it away that he didn't buy anything that Chris had just said.

"Anyway, you never got to meet Munales teammates. You kind of just rushed in here," Hamanymu added on and Chris felt his face heat in embarrassment as he looked at the five people seated opposite of him.

Munale Livingstone looked ready to burst out laughing and Chris cursed this day and all the curve balls Leza had just decided to throw his way.

"I am so sorry about my absent mindedness. Please accept my apologizes," he nervously responded as he dreaded what they must have been thinking of him now.

"It alright, but here are my boys and girls. This is Margaret Tioch, " he said as he pointed to a woman who looked like some sort of strange crossbreed between a knight and a sister of the temple.

Though the massive war hammer that lay at her feet seemed anathema of the message of peace and none violence that the brothers and sisters of the temples preached about.

Margaret excitedly reached out her hand to him and he accepted it. He fought back a wince as his unprepared hand was crushed in her insanely strong grip which was bellied by her rather small frame.

"It is truly a honour to meet you, your grace," she spoke with with such enthusiasm that it would have almost distracted him from her ever tightening grip.

"Same" he responded as tried to suppress his natural desire to whimper in pain. Thankfully she let go of his hand and Chris praised Leza and Sophia that his hand bones were not dust.

Chris might have fought off the urge to wince, but the others noticed because Munale suddenly looked mortified while Margaret bent over and placed her face in her palms as she whimpered in horror.

"Are you okay?" Ursa asked.

Chris sucked in a deep breath of air in the hopes of calming his flared up nerves before responding, his voice strained, " I am fine... just got a cramp in my arm."

Margaret began trembling and Chris was sure that she was sobbing by the muffled sounds coming from her face which was still squished in her palms.

Munale nervously coughed before he turned to another one of his teammates as fast he could and his finger fell upon a young man. He wore a near pitch black piece of armor that reminded Chris more of an assassin than a Knight. A jagged scar ran across his cheek, giving a paleness to that section of his brown skin.

He was deep into reading a book without so much as lifting his head or acknowledging that Munale had mentioned his name.

"Kalunga Dunda. He might not look it, but our boy here is one of the few trained in Dark energy," Munale said with a smile, "Why don't you show us a little bit of the shadow?"

Kalunga rolled his eyes, though he didn't bother raising his head as he said, " We have had this conversation before Livingstone, Dark energy is difficult and volatile to use. I will not risk trapping all of us in the realm of shadow just so that you can have a party trick."

"Maybe we might see it on the ground?" Munale asked optimistically.

"Doubt it," Kalunga replied and Munale deflated in defeat.

"You never give me what i want," the Fae groaned.

"Someone has to," Kalunga replied with a smile upon his stoic face.

Chris extended his hand and he shook Kalunga's hand, though he could not help but fight a shudder as he remembered that cold substance which this young man could manipulate .

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Kalunga spoke with a cold dispassionateness as they shook each others hands.

"Same."

Kalunga promptly let go of his hand and he returned the book which had so engrossed his attention before.

The next person who Munale turned to was not a Knight, but rather an Elvish Asikari and the only person amongst them who was letting his facial hair grow out in full.

" And this is our resident Asikari, Ashur Belu," Munale said with a smile as he pointed at the elf.

"Nice to meet you, your grace" the Asikari said as he reached over to shake Chris's hand.

"I guess we are not shaking hands with those guys," Hamanymu said as he looked back to another row of seats, upon which Theseus Troezen and his team sat.

"I doubt that our dear lord and savior will desire our presence" Munale whispered.

"Come now, they are all not that bad" Thor said, though he was more focused on Meghanada, than the entire team.

Everyone with any sense looked at Thor with amusement as he tried and failed to hide his infatuation with Theseus's stepsister.

XXXXXXX

The rest of the trip was uneventful, though Chris saw the remains of past settlements poking out of the sand and in some areas he caught sight of the remains of the beast's that had leveled these cities.

Like the thirty meter tall skeleton of some abomination that he could not identify. He wondered how many ancient warriors had been needed to kill it.

Finally the Bee landed with a thud as the thousand ton aircraft came to a rest upon the great desert. The aircraft's ramp opened up and the archeologist's with the excitement of children quickly walked out of the Bee.

Chris was getting out of his seat to follow them when a familiar figure came to a stop in front of him and he instantly felt the ice in his blood become a living fire.

"Pyrrha," his voice was strained from anger and disdain so thick that it should have manifested into true venom.

To anyone who knew the two of them, Chris and Pyrrha shared a strained relationship on the best of days and on the worst Chris cursed her with a death so horrible it would be too graphic for even the most violent of sadists.

"Christian, it's nice to see you again," Pyrrha sounded meeker than he had ever heard her.

"What do you want?" his voice had a slight growl to it and Pyrrha flinched.

"I just wanted to say hello. I haven't gotten to visit since well..." Pyrrha said nervously scratching the back of her neck.

"Since Thermonia Keep," Chris answered bluntly with that incident still etched into his mind.

Pyrrha lowered her face in shame though Chris didn't notice and he didn't particularly care, "Chris..."

" Don't call me that, only my friends call me Chris!" he snapped.

"Of course, i am sorry Christian

... It's been twelve years and I... I just want us to start afresh."

"Alright then, how about you stand over there and pretend that I don't exist while I sit here and do the exact same thing. That's how we start fresh, by ignoring that the other exists, " he snapped at her.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The elf looked ready to argue, but she simply sighed in defeat before replying, "It was nice seeing you again."

She slowly walked away leaving Chris glaring at her with such contempt burning in his heart, it might have been a bonfire.

"Can you believe her?" he turned to Hamanymu and Ursa who had confusion etched across their faces.

Ursa just shook her head while Hamanymu whispered, "What was going on between you two. Is she your ex or something?"

Chris felt his body shudder in disgust at Hamanymu's question, " Don't ever suggest such a thing."

Hamanymu and Ursa never got a chance to respond as he walked out of the Bee and into the sun beaten ocean of sand known as the Athdargan, the old tongue for a place of sorrows.

And this land fit the bill. The sun was even hotter here and it was almost like he was two centimetres away from a the burning celestial sphere. The winds were like whips that struck his face from their speed intermixed with the sand.

" We shall set up our dig sight," the head archeologist shouted before he and his team began pulling out maps and other equipment that Chris could not identify.

"So this is it, doesn't look like much," Ursa said as she walked past him and onto the sand, a crunching sound being made with every step that she took.

Munale walked up next to her and responded, "Maybe not now, but over two thousand years ago this was one of Avalon's most wealthy regions and a bread basket for the rest of the realm."

"What the hell happened?" Ursa asked.

"The Fourth Night Terror Incursion happened, and then the battle of Burning Waters when a few noble idiots decided to rebel against his grandparents and meet the threat on their own. Their army of sixteen hundred thousand got massacred down to barely a few thousand, and this region became the first to experience the Age of Sorrows, nothing has grown here ever since."

As Munale explained what had occurred to Ursa, Chris began noticing things which had partly hidden under the sand. Rusted swords and pieces of bone that had long ago turned a dull brown colour. He was not sure if it was the remains of the doomed rebels or their descendants who three hundred years later fought in the reclamation.

" Must feel strange," Ursa muttered, drawing Chris out of the hypnotic trance that the echoes of the past held him in.

"What?"

" For your grandparents to have lived multiple millennia."

"Kind of, though it was worse for them. The original new magic didn't allow people to live as long as we do now, it was only two generations before my father's birth who finally managed to reach a five hundred year life span. Everyone else before that aged at a somewhat normal rate, at least in comparison to what you had on earth, they lost plenty of friends on the way."

Chris had always noticed the melancholic air that rested upon his grandparents, every time they spoke about the past. He only hoped that they had been reunited with their friends.

" That's kind of sad."

"True, but they are with them now," he replied.

"We are going to need to split up into teams. One to remain guard here and another to act as a reconnaissance, just so that something does not sneak up on us," Pyrrha stated and Chris had to bite his tongue back from a snide remark.

"We can just do it with our usual team structure. I volunteer my team for Reconnaissance," Theseus stated.

"No, we are all operating as one large unit, it is best that we mix up a bit..." Pyrrha spoke and Chris for once agreed with Theseus on something.

"That seems unwise," they both said in a perfect unison.

"I don't want to be anywhere near this scumbag," he thought.

"I am afraid that those are Imparetor Monzes order's," the elf looked apologetic as she spoke, but Chris just hated her some more.

Pyrrha looked amongst them, from right to left and back to right again as if she was taking mental note of who exactly that she needed.

"The reconnaissance team shall consist of Aris Ddraig, Aris D'Arc, Aris Tudor, Aris Tioch, Aris Troezen and myself" she said and Chris instantly felt his stomach drop as she continued speaking "...Aris Troezen, you shall remain in charge of everyone else."

A grin grew upon Theseus's face and he turned to face Chris with the most egotistical smile upon his face before he said, " It is good to have your merit and not your pampered position to get you in places."

Chris was tempted to step forward and to take a swing at the smug Fae standing before him, but he was halted by Pyrrha's words.

"We are leaving."

" You should hurry up and join her, Aris Ddraig," Theseus's tone of voice and his body language made Chris's stomach churn with rage.

Chris tightened his fist as he fantasized about rearranging every single one of the teeth resting in the Fae's mouth, but in the end logic won out and he walked away.

XXXXXXX

Pyrrha led them further and further into the end the ever expanding sea of sand dunes. Occasionally she would cast a glance back towards him, and he would respond with a scowl.

"Where do you think she is leading us?" Ursa asked.

Chris opened his mouth to respond, but Margaret Tioch cut him off by responding instead, "I have no idea either. But I think that she may have sensed something out here, I can feel a certain tingling in my spine."

Ursa raised her head from the book and she seemed taken aback at the sight of Margaret, as if this was the first time that she had seen her.

" You are a sister of the faith?" She asked as she looked at the strange armor which Margaret wore.

"Yes.... and well no. I trained in the temple for a little while but I was forced to leave, I didn't have much of a temperament for it," Margaret replied nervously.

"And so you became a knight?" Ursa asked.

"I tried a lot of things, but nothing seemed to fit my particular skills and personality. But here as a knight things are fu..." Margaret stopped talking and her eyes flashed with a pale fire.

"That was Divine power," Meghanada Troezen whispered in awe.

"Stop!" Margaret shouted, halting them all, she then turned to Pyrrha saying, "We have two minutes."

" Two minutes for what?" Chris demanded.

"Draw your weapons," Pyrrha said as she put on her helmet " You are about to find out if the Provincial Ministers words are true."

"What?" Chris didn't understand until he felt a familiar chill run down his spine.

The coldness had an unnatural touch which almost made him want to hurl in disgust. Chris had only felt such a feeling a few times before and it meant that there was a miasma of Dark energy everywhere.

"Night Terrors," he whispered as he drew Lucius-Aurora from his scabbard.

The blue blade shimmered under the sunlight so brightly that almost appeared to burn, like Excalibur, the blade it was built in copy of.

The rumbling of thunder was followed by a great black cloud that cast it's shadow upon the land. From the shadows materialized twenty obsidian horses whose their riders wore patchworks of worn armor.

Tied to their waists were half rotted away heads, their moving eyes and roaring mouths making it clear that though they looked it, these were not true dead men, these were the headless horsemen of the Night Terrors, the...

"Dullahan," Chris whispered as the riders got closer and closer, their weapons drawn and their decapitated heads screaming out in blood drunk war cries.

"Tudor, join me," Meghanada shouted as she raised her bow and she pulled upon the bowstring as a projectile formed.

"Ready when you are," Ursa stated as she followed Meghanada's example and she also drew upon her bowstring to the same result.

"Ready?" Meghanada asked her.

"I have eyes on them" Ursa responded and on that, the two archers let their arrows fly.

The projectiles flew forward with a earth shattering sonic boom and within a second the hypersonic projectiles had struck their targets with the force of artillery shells.

The conflagration sent multiple riders flying off their mounts, while the unlucky ones were torn to pieces and devoured in a mixture of sand and fire. Ursa and Meghanada drew back their bow strings once more and within seconds, twenty arrows flew from their bows in rabid succession of each other.

But that was not enough to stop all the Dullahan and some did get close enough to strike. The first one to do so took a swing at Pyrrha with its rusted sword, but the elf, much to Chris's chagrin, managed to not only skillfully avoid the sword, but she countered with her spear which she drove through the Dullahans chest.

The spear bore through the breastplate of the fiend and the Dullahan howled in mad agony as burst of flames came to life across Pyrrha's spear.

Soon the flames erupting through the Dullahans body, in a sickening implosion of fire and half rotted viscera.

The rest of the Dullahan got closer and Chris would not wait for them. He rushed forward, feeling the ice rushing through his blood and he slid forward, ice coat the the sand ahead and sending him towards one of the headless riders.

The creature swung its great axe, but Chris managed to slide underneath it and he grabbed a hold of the creatures left leg and with a great tug he pulled it off its mount before throwing it into another rider with enough force that the second rider and his steed were knocked to the ground.

The knocked down Dullahan leaped back onto its feet with a roar of defiance and it charged at him. Chris drew into the threads of magical power within him and around him a small mist began to take form as he stitched the mental tapestry of spell work.

He took the mist and he sculpted shadows that bore his shape. The mist wraiths that he birthed into being howled like a wind as their bodies engaged in a rhythmic dance of mimicry with him. He sent the wraiths flying towards the Dullahan in a mad dash.

The wraiths may have been simple mist, but that didn't stop the Dullahan from raising its axe to protect itself as the wraith vanished upon contact with its body, leaving the creature unharmed.

Chris didn't give the creature its chance to react, he rushed forward and Lucius-Aurora danced through the air and leaving the Dullahan in two halves.

To his right he could see Ursa still firing her arrows and every time a Dullahan snuck up behind her, they would begin screaming in pain and panic as sand began flowing out if their eyes and ears.

"That's a nasty curse " he thought as he remembered the hours that she had invested into studying that Grimoire.

His moment of distraction would prove costly as he only managed to catch a glimpse of a blade coming no more than ten inches away.

Chris instinctively raised his arms to protect himself and the blade smacked his gauntlets. The force of the blow knocked the prince seven meters into air and Chris landed hard upon the sand with a sickening thud.

"Mind your damn surrounding! " he thought in a voice very reminiscent of his teacher, Morrigan.

Even with a fire burning in his head, Chris still tried to get up and to his horror he saw a new Dullahan coming his way with its sword raised and its grotesque face, twisted into a half rotted away grin. He tried to reach forward to grab his sword and protect himself, but he was too slow.

The sword was brought down, a scream of pain followed and a body collapsed dead. The headless body leaked a foul purple substance that passed for blood amongst the Night Terrors as life left the Dullahans eyes.

Chris wanted to say something, but his body was frozen from the shock of his near death and the identity of his saviour. Pyrrha Ulster stepped over the dead Dullahan as she pulled her bloodied spear out of its body.

"Are you okay?" she asked him as she stretched out her hand.

"I... I am fine," he replied, ignoring her hand and getting up on his own.

"He almost had you. Good thing that I saw him," she said with a smile and Chris felt a prick of shame interlaced with irritation.

"I had him," he replied with a rather childish posturing.

A blast of purple lightning bolt descended from the heavens and its landing left a massive crater in the sand. From the crater came another Dullahan, but this beast was greater in size than the others and it wore a crown upon its decapitated head.

Avalonian's had kings and here stood a creature that was supreme amongst its Dullahan brethren, this was a Elder Night Terror and now Chris felt a sense of dread kicking in.