STREAMS of flame poured out of the sky at the boys as they leapt to another rooftop. Their only shelter was the various chimney stacks that jutted up out of the buildings. Kale and Emil ducked and weaved through them as they fled from the vicious airborne raptors dogging their steps.
A flash of light caught Emil's eye to their right. Two men were emerging out of thin air onto the rooftop of one of the buildings nearby-one light skinned and one dark.
"Father!" he shouted, drawing Kale's attention to them as well.
Both pairs of warriors were running across the rooftops in parallel.
"We've got to intercept them!" said Emil.
The young men adjusted their path and began to head for their fathers who were doing the same, several buildings away. The aerogores were a dozen strong in the skies overhead; reigning down their lethally combustible chemical mixture. A trail of singed asphalt and burning debris was left in the wake of the two young warriors as the flying predators sought to catch them.
The aerogores were several times the size of a man and had great leathery wings and four legs. They were rare to find anywhere near civilization, but extremely lethal and nasty tempered. The various obstacles the boys were ducking and weaving through presented some problems for their aerial attack, but they weren't going to give up.
Kale and Emil were only two buildings away from their approaching fathers now. As they approached another ledge and began to make the jump across, an aerogore swooped up from between the buildings trying to catch a meal. Emil sailed into the air toward the beast, adjusting his flight just enough to dodge the stream of chemical flame that erupted toward him. He bounded off of the top of the creature's head and cleared to the next rooftop.
Kale was right behind, sending his blade whirling ahead as the creature appeared. Just as Emil's foot touched off of the great lizard, Kale's blade sank into its head. Kale cleared the predator as it began to fall out of the sky; screeching in agony all the way to its death.
As the boys ran across the rooftop, Grod appeared from behind one of the structures-it was a small building labeled hazardous chemicals. Kale looked for his own father, who quickly appeared on the other side of the roof. They ran for each other as more streams of flame came splashing down on the roof after them.
Seeing their prey regrouping, the aerogores began to land on the building with their wings folded back to enable short fast sprints for the prized meal.
Grod and Emil ducked into the small building as the reptiles closed in on foot. Tiet noticed the warning written all over the structure.
"NO! Grod get out of there!!"
The aerogores spat flame at the structure which quickly erupted with tremendous force; killing the predators near it. Tiet grabbed his recall pack as the other aerogores closed in for the kill. They were so close-Tiet grabbed his son and leapt out over the side of the building, tapping the recall as they left the ground with aerogores lunging for them. But the beasts caught only air as the pair dematerialized out of their grasp.