It made his mind wander. Who were the ancient builders? What knowledge did they possess? And were the rumors true that they built their empire with sorcery?

To reinforce the pact between the holy empire of Glaeria and Lands of the Citadel, an expedition made out of joint Glaerian and Citadel forces was sent to the wall. Or, to be more precise, to the large, trading village close to the wall. They were encamped outside of the village, their large group split into smaller parties of just a few people, each with their own campfire. Medics of both lands shared their experience, soldiers compared their heroic deeds, and historians and archaeologists from the Citadel were… quarreling.

Not among themselves, but with priests from Glaeria. Where historians and archaeologists were men of fact, priests were men of fate. Where historians saw the cause of the most recent plague in the golden city to be the rodents, filth and poverty, priests saw it as a punishment from god. Where archaeologists marveled at the ideas and notions of new artifacts to be found this close to the wall, priests were going on and on about a race of twisted monsters and devils made by the god’s eternal opponent.

Iarvahr sat on the ground with his back laid against the trunk of the large oak. The night was beginning to fall, but the warm, summer air drove away the chills and the smell of roasting meat and bubbling stew made his mouth filled with saliva.

With a pipe in one hand and a mug of weak beer in the other, he watched the wall. He wasn’t interested in bickering and quarrels, he enjoyed the beautiful nature around him - green hills and fields of grass and wildflowers, strong, old trees around them, the scent of bonfire and food… It was beautiful. No blood around them, no rot, no broken bones or screams of pain… Everything was as it should be in the world. Beautiful and peaceful.

“Marvelous, isn’t it?” A mechanic by the name of Leonie Mair sat down next to him, taking his empty mug and giving him another full one. “I wonder how long they were building the wall.”

He chuckled silently. “Glaerian records state that it was built in a month by the forces of evil.”

“They are strange folk. Very different from us.”

He nodded and handed her the pipe. She inhaled a strong lungful and coughed. “You have made it a bit stronger today.”

“One of their soldiers… eh, can't remember his name. Cayan, Fayan, something along those lines, he gave me a small pouch of his own tobacco. Strong stuff, as you say.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Iarvi, you remember his name. You also remember the illness you have helped him to treat.”

He chuckled. “You are right, as always, Leo.” He caressed her golden hair with a gentle touch and she laid her head against his shoulder. They watched the wall together, silently enjoying each other’s company.

She turned her head towards him, gently kissing his cheek. “Let’s go to the tent. I’m getting… chilly.” She whispered in a luscious voice. He chuckled. “I really doubt that.” he said as she was leading him by his hand to their tent.

***

Her naked body was the most beautiful thing Iarvahr has ever seen. Running his fingers along her belly, he was smiling like a boy that laid next to a woman for the first time. She laughed softly. “After all this time, Iarvi? I’ll never get tired of seeing you looking at me like this.”

“I can’t help myself.” He whispered as he squeezed her inner thigh, which led to a soft moan from Leonie. He moved his hand between her legs, feeling her wetness, as he kissed her beautiful, dark red lips. In a response, she embraced him tightly, getting on top of him and teasing him, rubbing her body against him. He did not wait, could not wait. He grabbed her hips and with a quick, yet gentle move, he entered her.

They were in a tight embrace, never letting go of the other, his mouth kissing her neck, her mouth moaning softly to his ear. Her grip tightened, as she was nearing the climax, and Iarvahr stopped, rolled her off him onto her belly, grabbed her arms, held them behind her back, and entered her again. Gentle lovemaking turned into a wild, almost animalistic sex, and she moaned louder. “Yes, yes…” she whimpered, pushing her nails into her own hands, curling her toes and biting the soft pillow her head was buried in. The pillow muffled her scream as she climaxed, and Iarvahr grabbed her hair, pulling it with just the right force to make it that much more pleasurable. He came into her and after a few last thrusts, he crumbled next to her, exhausted. She smiled at him, softly biting his arm. “You really do know how to make me happy, Iarvi.”

They laid next to each other in a soft embrace. Even after the second round of sex that evening, they did not want to let go of one another. She fell asleep quickly, and Iarvahr was on his way to follow her into the dreamland…

***

“What the hell is this?” He shouted as glaerian soldiers brought to him one of their own, his armor eaten through by a volatile acid, revealing his blister covered flesh. “What have you done?”

“The deformed came from inside the cave. We’ve cut them down, but their blood…” The soldier pointed at his screaming brother in arms.

“They have attacked you? They came from the closed gate, and attacked you?”

“No they… came at us…”

Iarvahr slapped him hard with his glove made of haraag sandsteel. “Did. They. Attack. You.”

“Yes.” Another soldier with armor made of shining, brass scales said in a resolute voice. Iarvahr did not believe him one bit. He turned to a victim, but before he could do anything, he was dead.

“How many of them have you slaughtered?”

“All of the beasts that came at us…”

***

They have explored the unnatural cave system for the better half of the day. Everything around them was precisely cut, right angles or perfect oval shapes everywhere. It was not made by nature, that he was sure about.

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“They are so different from us.” Leonie whispered to him. Iarvahr nodded.

“As well as this… cooperation started, I am starting to regret ever joining.”

“Why do they immediately just kill the deformed? Have you ever seen them actually attack us? They just shamble, walk slowly towards us with limbs stretched to us like…”

“Like they want our help. Like they need our help.”

“I wonder what was the purpose of this room.”

Iavahr looked around. “It looks like a surgical suite. The tables and the tools lying on the sterile tables all around them… It is all strange to me, I admit, but it evokes something… familiar in me.”

A scream from the corridor outside the room startled them, and they ran out, weapons in their hands.

***

“You have no right!” Leonie screamed right in the face of glaerian soldier.

“No right?” He asked her back. Iarvahr watched the bound deformed, wrapped in thick linen ropes being dragged towards the wooden carriages. They moaned, drooled and begged in their own, unfamiliar language. But they did not resist.

“They are living, thinking beings! They have been humans once!” Leonie stood just a hand’s width apart from the soldier.

“Shut up!” he growled back at her and pushed her strongly. She stumbled and landed on the ground. “They are as far from humans as dogs are from rabbits! They serve the dark god, and look what it made from them. Monsters. Freaks. Deformed, sins against humanity.”

There were six of them against twenty glaerians. He looked at the newest deformed that was being dragged out from the cave, the only one of them that was actually resisting. It… She cradled a small child, with a few strands of blonde hair on its head. It looked… healthy. No blisters, fur, claws or animal-like visage, no additional limbs, not deformed in any visible way. The deformed mother’s eyes caught his own, and her face, however twisted it was, had one clearly visible question written in it. Why?

They ripped the crying child from her long, unnaturally bent arms. A soldier hit the mutant-mother with the hilt of his sword, and something snapped loudly.

Claws, tendrils, teeth, the deformed had it all… But none of them attacked. They didn’t even defend themselves. This situation was evil in its purest form.

His eyes fell on Leonie on the ground. Without thinking anymore, he bashed the skull of the nearest glaerian with a heavy head of his axe. It went right through the brass helmet, with almost no resistance whatsoever, and even before the soldier fell on the ground, dead, the axe was already flying towards the second soldier. He did not think. He threw the glass bottle of sterilizing alcohol towards the glaerian soldier that carried the lit torch, only to engulf him in bluish flames. A sword was flying towards him, but he stepped out of its way, thrusting his armored gauntlet against the swordwielder’s throat.

Leonie reacted quickly, sending shot after shot from her revolving pistol against the brass clad glaerians. Three fell to the ground before she had ro reload.

They were still outnumbered, but not outmatched. Two historians and two archaeologists that came with them did not join the fight with weapons in their hands, for they carried none save their small knives. Instead, they started to cut the deformed free. The deformed, perhaps startled by the notion of somebody fighting for them rather than killing them, started to resist their bindings and their oppressors, and glaerian soldiers suddenly had to make a choice - to let go of the bound freaks, or to join the fight and let the deformed go.

They chose the third option. They ran. But they ran the wrong way, not towards the relative safety of the expeditionary camp, or even towards the trader’s village. They ran towards the Bashen wall that was dangerously close to the cave entrance.

Streams of liquid fire colored all shades of blue and green rained down upon them, melting their armor, burning their bodies to a crisp. None of them survived.

Only one glaerian had the wits to jump on his horse and flee towards the village. Leonie sent six shots after him, but hit him only once, and she only hit his shoulder.

Iarvahr stood above the dying glaerian captain that shoved Leonie. The soldier still tried to unsheathe his blade, but it was hard for him to move with lower spine crushed from the gunshot.

“You…will…” He gargled through bloody bubbles coming from his mouth. But Iarvahr was not interested in his words. He hit the captain's head with his armored fist, again and again, screaming with pure, unchecked rage. When all that was left was a mash of blood, brain and bone, he stopped. He slowly stood up, and looked around.

The deformed stood around him in a circle, motionless in their silence.

“Go hide.” He murmured. As if they understood him, they turned as one and started to shamble towards the cave.

***

“Will they ever stop trying?” Leonie was panting, her hair, gray and black from dust and blood stuck to her tired face.

Only fifteen survived the massacre that happened at the joint encampment, and all of them went looking for Iarvahr and his group. Out of the fifteen, five were dead, killed in relentless assault of glaerians.

“They are dumb. The more of them there are, the dumber they act.”

Two hundred soldiers were waiting in front of the cave entrance. They were left inside, besieged and without supplies…

***

He held her dying body in his arms, tears streaming down his blood and dirt covered face. She was shivering, moaning from pain, and her once beautiful body was covered with large blisters and burnt skin. He was unsure which glaerian threw the primitive firebomb, but it served its purpose. He could not help her.

“Kill… me… it… hurts…”

He knew it was the humane thing to do. She was suffering, dying slowly but surely. He should end it in one quick stroke of the blade… But he could not bring himself to do it.

“Please…”

He sobbed. She grabbed his hand with her last strength and squeezed it softly.

“...love you…” She whispered, as he slit her throat. A smile of her cracked, burnt lips was the last thing he remembered of her.

***

“That’s the last thing I remember… I was mad. Insane with grief, or perhaps with some… I… I’ve lost it. I know that I’ve killed glaerians, I remember bashing their skulls with my own fist, breaking their armor apart with my axe but… I don’t know when or where. First thing I remember clearly from that time is the dense forest. Starved as I was, I ate everything around me I could find - berries, bird eggs… I found a half eaten deer, and I ate its meat raw like a savage. Only then did I start to think. Where was everybody? Where was… Leonie? I cried, I screamed, begged the forest for death…

“I have failed them all. I have lost them all. I have lost Leonie… I could not protect her. As I walked back to the Citadel, alone, with my thoughts… It broke me, Suri. For a time, I thought that I got over it but I never did. And this, everything around us, it Brought it back. I have seen it all, you know. Devices similar to these around us. In the caves of the deformed, near the Bashen wall…”

Suranihr was silent, listening to the old friend’s breaking voice. Iarvahr was openly weeping, but there was a question he had to ask. “Did you ever tell your daughter?”

“She was away… Healing other people’s mistakes somewhere I bet. And when she came back home… I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t face her…”

“And so you ran away. With me.” Suranihr finished.

Full of shame, Iarvahr nodded. They sat for a good ten minutes, silent, thinking. Suranihr stood up.

“We should gather something from here, the mechanics would love to take a look at this stuff. We need to find our way out.”