Spoiler......This series just keeps getting worse and worse. Truthfully I feel a bit depressed, and very ticked off at what happened in this book. I've struggled with this series because the good guys never catch a real break, but this book was the worst. It is sad, and depressing. At this point I'm feeling that even if by some miracle the kids pull off saving Erdas from the 3 evil great beasts, the conqueror's have killed more than half the good people left, and they populate more than half of Erdas, really there are so far only 4 real characters left that the series tries to get you to love that haven't been killed, so what's the point? Most of they're lands, families, and friends have all been killed. And I'm feeling that if they manage to pull off the impossible, it's not going to make sense at all how they manage to do it. I'm going to finish this series just to see it through, but so far I can honestly say I never plan to purchase these books, and I won't encourage people to read them either, because so far I'm just frustrated, confused, and depressed by this series.