The humans are closing the circle, drawing ever closer and cutting off every route of escape. I look around frantically for someone to lead our people, someone to stand up to them, for our hunters… That’s when my eyes get drawn to the blood on the blades.

The hunters…

Sonja, an older mother sees my agitation and places a hand on my shoulder. When I glance her way she shakes her head and mouths me; ‘They might not know.’

I quickly realize what she means, a simple truth here in the mountains. Anything could’ve attacked these humans out on this snow-covered wasteland, there’s no proof the red liquid belongs to one of our people. I nod, trying to convince myself that Dad and the others will turn up and we will weather this somehow like we always do, but… I just can’t get rid of this feeling of imminent doom.

“What do you want?” Sonja steps forward and calls out to the men and women approaching with the weapons ready.

Her voice is only met with snickering and lecherous eyes before a bald and scarred man steps forth. He’s barely smaller than any of our tribe’s men, meaning he could be considered a giant amongst humans. His armor is obviously shinier than any other and the massive spiked iron club he’s carrying promises impact like no punch I’ve ever seen.

“Listen well savages, because I won’t be repeating myself,” He speaks with a crusty voice after slamming his hefty weapon into the ground vertically and placing a hand on the pommel. “I hereby declare this land to be under the care of Derek Ashal, Lord Protector of Heleven and Savior of the North. You will now come with us and pay your respect to your new liege, don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be!”

That didn’t sound like an invitation to me, far from it.

Your lord has no right to our mountain, fuck off! is what I’d like to shout in their face, except escalating feels like a terrible idea. We’re outnumbered and those left behind while the hunters are away are the mothers, the elderly and the children, our weakest and most vulnerable.

“Please,” Sonja tries to ease the situation with a voice carrying both worry and anger. “we will move, you can have the land just-”

“You’d leave without your lord’s permission?” Their leader's voice seems offended but his wolfish grin betrays his feelings. Then he bursts out laughing. “Alright, enough with this farce raise the cage, let none of them escape! Gather all of them we have a city to build and these brutes look perfect for the task.” The humans begging to advance. “And don’t damage the wares, the best ones go to the continent. Tonight we celebrate people, we’re rich!” His words are met with a chorus of eager warcries from the horde he commands.

We huddle around the fire with the elders and mothers acting as a defensive line between the despicable humans and us… children.

I’ve heard of monsters like them before, merchants treating people like any other animal or object, looking at them as numbers instead of people. Slave traders. I’ve also heard what fate awaits those captured by them…

Before any of us could react the the skies rumble and six bolts of lightning strike the ground before branching out and interlocking with each other. The crackling energy solidifies and settles into and intricate net of buzzing light that locks every direction away from us. We’re trapped.

“Do not resist!” Sonja shout.

I whip my head at her with eyes full of disbelief and betrayal. How could she say something like that… Are we supposed to give ourselves up to them? Do we just simply surrender?

I can’t accept that.

With shaky legs, I take the first step, then the next one, each easier than the previous as I march past the adults to fulfill the role I chose for myself. I’m scared, terrified to face opponents this strong and numerous but someone has to-

“Don’t make it more difficult than it needs to be.” Sonja grabs me by the shoulder with a firm grip and whispers through her clenched teeth.

But fear is not the only thing causing me to tremble… I’m furious. Enraged at the humans for being worse than demons and disappointed with my people for accepting their fate this easily.

With some difficulty, I escape from the hold and take a few more steps until I have everyone to my back.

“Oh, we have a little hero it seems.” One of the men carrying two short yet wide blades chuckles as he draws closer.

[Warrior lvl ???]

I don’t stand a chance.

“Don’t come any closer!” My voice comes out nowhere as confident as I would’ve liked.

This of course earns another round of laughter that only goes up a notch when I lash out, trying to punch the bastard right in the nose. He dodges my strike effortlessly, hopping back and picking up some snow mixed with ice and rocks. And the others around him follow suit.

Soon a onesided snow fight begins as the humans stand around me and giggle like a group of Frostbite Hyenas, the nastiest predators around the mountains. Whenever I try to charge at one of them to retaliate they just back away, way faster than I could ever move while the others keep pelting me with snow and pebbles.

It hurts, their throws are so strong that every pebble feels like a small concentrated punch, some even drawing blood but their little game doesn’t last long.

“Enough you fools. Don’t damage it or I’ll deduct it from your pay! These one are too deranged to be used for pleasure already but at least these savages are strong, they’ll make fine pack mules.” Their boss yells and the barrage stops.

UGLY!?! Have you ever looked into a puddle only to be scared by your own reflection?

Only now do I notice the cries of my people as their pushed to the ground and bound with ropes and metal. Only now do I realize that there’s nothing I can do…

No, I knew it all along but I refused to sit idly by. I wouldn’t be able to look Mom in the eye when we meet in Malor’s domain if I did that.

“You heard the boss.” A woman walks up to me with a line of rope in her hands. ”Be good and this-”

When she gets close enough I smash her in the face with all my might and Power Burst enhancing my strength. Yet when my fist connects with her face… nothing happens. She doesn’t even budge.

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“Now listen here you little shit!” She grabs me by the neck and lifts me off the ground effortlessly. “You’ll calm the fuck down or even the promise of a pay cut won't be enough to-”

I punch her again, and again, and throw a few more kicks at her in defiance. If there’s one way to hurt her, even if just her comfort or wealth then I’ll take it. It’s better than silently surrendering.

After a moment of surprise, the woman’s eyes turn furious and she smashes me into the ground hard enough for my world to go dark for a second. Then she draws a knife. “I’ll gauge those defiant eyes of yours out you damn-”

“Veena, last warning.” I faintly hear their leader’s booming voice even as my world is in shambles from the impact. “Keep messing around and you’ll face me.”

“Tsk, whatever.” The woman clicks her tongue and I feel her grip tighten around my neck. “At least the bonus for catching this one will be good.”

Those are the last words I hear while clawing at her arm and gasping for air. The words of a human, an oppressor, and my enemies.

May the Gods curse the humans, smite the elves, and drag this whole cruel world down to the Abyss!

***

The next time my consciousness is rekindled if find myself lying horizontally with the rattling of wood meeting stone and metal clinking on metal surrounding me.

I’m cold.

After slowly blinking the haze out of my eyes I see a scenery so much different from anything I’ve known that I almost begin to doubt if I’m still alive or not. Patches of trees with plenty of green leaves, brown soil without any snow cover, and cubes of wood and stone, probably what the humans call houses.

But the pain and the cold, along with the other children from my tribe remind me that a world this cruel can only be Aelion. We’re bunched into a carriage with iron bars surrounding us and cold wind freely blowing through between our shivering bodies.

“Valka, Valka!” I’d recognize this loud voice anywhere, coming from my closest friend Bria. “Thank the Wilds, you’re finally awake I didn’t know what to- we can’t-” Her stuttering worsens until she breaks out sobbing. “They took the adults Valka, it’s just us.”

The news only make me wish I didn’t wake up at all… First the hunters, now the elders and mothers… What are we supposed to do now, and where are they taking us?

“We’ll figure something out,” I mutter the empty words. “we just need to stick together.”

I push myself up and huddle closer to the other children for warmth but stay on the edge of the group. They need the heat more than me.

No words are exchanged, only sobs and sighs as we wait to see where fate drags us next. Maybe this isn’t that surprising, our predicament. Our tribe has been on the decline for years now and it was only a matter of time before we joined the rest living on the mountains only in memory.

We’re clearly in human lands, with weather much warmer, green covering much of the surface, and life much more abundant. Our people could never allow themselves to compete for lands this rich against humans, orcs, elves, and beasts alike. We never stood a chance.

As the hours pass the carriage rattles on and we just sit here silently with hunger and despair gnawing at us constantly in tandem with the harsh winds. The weather is much more bearable than near the peaks, except the humans took everything, including most of our clothes, and gave us chains in exchange, to rob us even of our freedom.

Soon something new comes into sight, a monstrosity of stone towering over the surrounding lands and snaking on for as far as the eye can see. I’ve heard about these things before, the structures keeping the feeble humans safe against the forces of nature. A wall. A city.

Humans swarm all around carrying stones and tools since the thing is unfinished yet houses much bigger than the ones I saw outside are already rising behind the barrier soon to be finished.

This is where the strength of humans lies, their numbers and ingenuity to create something in order to overcome the odds. I would respect and almost admire them for it if only their greed wasn’t as boundless as their creativity.

When we get closer I notice other races besides humans toiling in the shadow of the wall, mostly beastmen and orcs, with one thing setting them apart from the normal workers. Chains and rings of metal around their necks.

I know we’ll join their ranks soon as slaves forced to serve the people who wronged us and work under their watchful eyes on the wall. As much as I hate to admit it we, the Nephilims, are almost perfect for the task. We’re stronger than humans, and more resilient while also less dumb than the orcs. The beastmen… they are a varied race. A bearkin is stronger than us but the same can’t be said about a wolf, a squirrel, or a hare. At least they have fur to protect them against the cold.

When we finally reach the settlement, or the parts that are already standing, our carriage turns into a spectacle as people gather around us to inspect the… booty. Yeah, we’re just like the prey the hunters would return with, except our job is to work instead of feeding the victors.

I’d rather be dead honestly, if not for Dad. He always poses as the big and indomitable leader of the pack but inside he’s fragile with a big and soft heart, especially so after we lost Mom. The people he loves are his weakness and with only me left, I’m the only thing keeping him going. I hope he’s alright.

***

As much as I hate to admit it, the last two weeks haven’t been as terrible as I expected, pretty bearable really. There has been little abuse thanks to some outrage from several humans after one of our supervisors was about to go on a whipping streak after a small mistake. Maybe because we’re young or perhaps because our looks make it hard to distinguish between us and them or maybe just because they felt like it. I’d put my money on trying to keep our ‘resale value’.

We mostly dealt with mocking from the people who seemed the poorest and most miserable of the thousands of humans around us. Let’s just say they didn’t like ridiculing my eyes any more than my snow-white hair they found abominable…

What I mean by pretty bearable is the fact that we had a stable place to sleep, enough food to get us through the day even with the hard labor they forced us to do, and just general safety. Not once did anything try to bite our heads off nor did we have to cover behind our families in hopes for the hunters to drive the beasts away.

They even spared us from the collars and chains because it’s not like we can blend into the crowd and more importantly, none of us are that much of a threat compared to actual adults. We’re just not worth even the metal used for those bindings.

The only problem we faced was the workload really. The humans had little regard for age and attributes such as Might and Endurance when they assigned our tasks, be it washing the stone blocks or carrying them. We all had a quota to fulfill to earn our meals and the young ones, especially the kids without the Journey Guide holding their hands had no way of carrying the material often as heavy as themselves.

It fell on us, the ten or so older ones to go above and beyond, working till we could no longer stand only to save us all from starvation. I knew what a tough workout looked like, Dad, and especially Mom, had no mercy when it came to muscle training but this… My whole body was screaming at the end of every day and even after weeks it became no easier.

It isn’t even that the humans slacked and cackled as they watched us struggle, rather the construction progressed with so much haste that even the tens of Mages, hundreds of Labourers and Artisans, and lastly us, the muscle doing the dirty work and numbering in the thousands weren’t enough to keep the schedule.

I saw houses built, brick by brick, every wooden pole, bags of dirt and gravel carried without end, and a city rise from the dust. I dug the roads, breaking through the hard soil and digging at least knee-deep only to fill it up again for as far as the eye could see day after day. I hauled the stone blocks that the builders placed on top of each other to grow the tall snake of stone the humans love so much.

It was an incredible amount of work even with mages sliding the heaviest materials on ice, or master craftsmen whipping up multiple houses every day…

Not once did I understand their hurry but today, on this restless night the truth finally reveals itself, the reason behind the breakneck construction and ridiculous workloads… Orcs, numbering in the thousands. A few torchlights flickering in the distance were the first signals of their arrival, quickly growing in number by the second and soon followed by the sounds of an army marching to war.

The fortifications we were building by sweating blood were all in preparation for this army and we still ran out of time.