The Battle Cry ~Chapter One~

Instructions

Saza's POV When Saza awoke that morning, the morning of Solosa, her life changed. Forever. I’ve always hated how my mom, a prophecy reader, would never speak in the first person. Instead of saying something like “Today I went shopping,” She would say “Today Sola went shopping.” I always hated it. But now, I would do anything to see her warm smile. It had been two days since Solosa, and I was still in a small cave, no longer crying, that had ended after a few hours, but in shock. I missed my family. Those horrible Raylas attacked that day they knew we wouldn’t be ready for an attack, it was Solosa, a major holiday of celebration and peace! I don’t know what they did to the rest of my kind, all I know is I escaped by hiding in tree branches. The Raylas… I thought hard. My mother, Sola, said they were building an empire. That they were going to attack and conquer every bit of land they could. Why? I don’t know, she didn’t tell me. She had nearly collapsed after the strain of delivering that prophecy. After thinking about this, I finally went outside. It was quite nice. The sun was shining brightly in the sky, Havlos were screeching. I was hungry. Sure, I could probably last months longer without food, but still. Food. I slither over to a nearby bush that held beautiful, bright orange berries. As I bend over to pick some with my teeth, a voice rings out behind me. “You shouldn’t eat those.” “Why not?” I ask, looking over to see what had spoken. It’s an emerald green creature, with large wings. It resembled a Grassholder, a presumed extinct type of dragon. If they were extinct, why was one standing in front of me? “Those are Sasko Berries, highly poisonous. If you swallow one, you will die,” He says, looking at me. “Are you a Grassholder? I thought they were extinct!” I look into his bright green eyes, which almost had the same colour as mine. “We were kidnapped by the Raylas to help build their empire,” He rolls his eyes as if this was knowledge everybody knew. “The Raylan Empire, they call it,” His piercing green eyes look into mine. “What type of creature are you?” “I’m a Sonza. My name is Saza. What’s your name?” I say, immediately realizing I shouldn’t have told him my name. “Are you working for the Raylas?” “My name is Gergado, and I do not work for the Raylas,” He says. “Gergado?” I ask. Such a strange name, maybe only for Sonzas, it could be a common name anywhere else. “Yeah, it is. Common among us,” Gergado says to me, his eyes gazing into the trees. “Okay then. Why are you here?” I ask him. “I escaped the Raylas. I’m trying to gather an army to destroy them.” An army? “Well then. What can I eat?” I ask the dragon. “Well, don’t eat Sasko Berries, they’re highly poisonous, however, you can eat Sozla Berries. Those bright pink ones up there,” He points at a tree that has dark brown bark, and light green leaves. The upper branches are littered with pink berries. I begin to slither towards the tree. “What are you doing?” He asks me. “Climbing this tree,” I say, curling around the trunk and up the tree, weaving between branches. “Catch!” I called, smacking a branch that held the berries. The berries flew down and did his best to catch them. Several smacked him in the face. I laugh at him as he wipes berry juice off his face. “Well, I caught most of them!” He yells up at me, his face splattered with pink juice. “Good enough!” I say with a grin, slithering back down the tree. “So, when did you escape the Raylas?” I asked, changing the topic. “How did you? I heard their prison camps are practically impossible to escape.” “Not when they think you can’t fly,” Gergado says to me. “They forgot to break me and some of my friends’ wings. So we flew off as soon as we could. We’ve been on the run for about two years,” He went silent. “When I was escaping, I saw them fighting the other Grassholders, probably my family,” He has a sad look on his face like he was about to cry. “And over time, my friends have gone missing as well.” “I’m really sorry, my family is missing too, so I understand what you’re going through,” I whisper to him. “Oh, when did that happen?” He asks. He’s really curious. “We should go. The Raylas’ were here just a few days ago,” I look at the sky, deliberately changing the topic, it was a sensitive topic. “You’re right. I can fly us away from here.” Gergado says. “Hold on,” He grabs me. “HOW DO I HOLD ON WITHOUT HANDS?” I screech at him as he starts to fly off. “WRAP YOUR TAIL AROUND MY LEGS! YOU CAN DO THAT, RIGHT?” He screamed back at me. I obliged. “Wait. WHERE ARE THE BERRIES!?” I yelled. “Relax, I have them,” Gergado said. “Okay,” I said as he showed the berries. After hours of flying with the occasional scream, I pointed out(With words, not claws) a large mountain. “That has to be at least three hazas tall!” He said. “Well, you aren’t wrong,” I said flatly. This was the most interesting thing that happened as he flew me to his base. When he landed, I slithered off of him. cont down there