Don Torrentas,

 

            Let me at once put aside the fears which must have consumed you in not having contact from us in several weeks.  Travel became difficult once we left the main port city, and it was quite some time before we were able to send word of our progress.  We have, at this writing, crossed a large river and since having done so, the terrain has become level; though low mountains are in sight in the distance.  The land itself is worn, used; no doubt a product of the famines after the Fall.  Grass grows sparingly, but often dies brown and stiff, leaving stamped earth beneath.  The sun cannot often be seen, as thick tan clouds constantly shade us, and occasionally a viscous, oily rain falls.

 

            However, this message bears ill news, such that I can hardly write without sorrow and also fury for my failure as our leader.  Three days ago, we were traveling on a beaten road, having taken this way for nearly a week’s time.  As we started out after having halted for an afternoon meal, we were beset upon by five men.  Their clothes showed them to be native to the area; loose shirts and over-shirts, thick trousers held in place with makeshift belts, heavy boots, and everything dirty and patched.  They were of great strength and severely uncouth; accosting us in their language, of which we knew little.

 

            Mirta and Ellia had been behind the cart and pack-beasts, and when the natives saw them, walking as they were accustomed and holding hands, they roughly grabbed Mirta and held her.  We protested, and Puelo was also taken and thrown to the ground.  Two men beat him while the three remaining held us back.  Of Mirta, they spat on her and slapped her violently in the face.  It came to me that they had chosen Puelo for, as you remember, his mannerisms are quite feminine.

 

            Brandishing simple weapons, the native men threatened us in their tongue, before lifting Mirta and Puelo and bearing them off.  Dimitros and I ran after, but we were quickly knocked to the ground from the savage blows of their spiked clubs.  Alantar made to unhitch one of the horses to follow after, but I forbade it until we were sure of our companions’ fate and the authority of the bandits who had attacked us.  Ellia was in a state such that she sobbed and clung to Dimitros when he tried to reassure her.  To think, far from our country, and her lover cruelly pulled from her arms, now gone.  I looked to our cart, where our swords and bows were stored; we had disarmed when we stopped, and such proved our undoing.

 

            Fortunately, we have rations such as we might delay and pursue these enemies, perhaps even to learn where they have taken Mirta and Puelo, and also bring them to the attention of whatever law exists in this harsh land.  Have faith, sir, that we will not be turned until our friends are again with us, and then we shall continue on with our tasks.  By the graces of Heaven, this letter will reach you.

 

In Faith,

            Vandi Gontiez

 

*

 

 

Don Torrentas,

 

            This letter, I am hoping, will reach you soon after my previous message, for it has been five days since I sent it.  Mirta and Puelo are still captives, that has not changed, however, we have discovered a small village to the north of the attack, and are presently lodged there.

 

            The language of these people is strange to us, and only a few of the men speak Common, very little, making information they give us suspect and incomplete.  However, they were pleased to take our gold, and we have managed to renew our supplies, and procure a small one-room hut in which to stay while we plan a rescue of our companions.  This place, my friend, is filthy.  The people are crude dullards who live from day to day; simple farmers who seemingly till the dust to yield sickly crop which they sell at market.

 

            One man, who gave his name as Japheth, has been our primary contact while here in this village which has a name we cannot pronounce.  In broken speech, he expressed to us the fear his people feel for the, ‘demon brothers of the south’.  Apparently, these men act as a mix of anarchistic military government and roaming army.  Japheth has not told us what becomes of those captured, just cryptic references that are lost to us, however, he spat upon the ground when he talked of the prisoners, showing his disgust for them.  I begin to understand more and more.

 

            Ellia, while having recovered from the melancholy which seized her after Mirta was taken, still must be begged to eat, and refuses to sleep, instead keeping watch over us at night.  The gash on Dimitros’ face is healing well, though I fear he will bare the scar for many years.  He takes it as a measure of pride, and sharpens his sword daily, hoping that he will be able to soon avenge our party.  Alantar and I have made it our work to learn the surroundings.  We have precious little time, for I fear Mirta and Puelo may already be dead.

 

            On the third day we spent in the village, Alantar brought to our hut a small man with night-black hair.  His skin was olive-dark as ours, and I knew from the shape of his eyes that he was from the lands of the East.  This man, who spoke Common as if he were born to it, told us that his name was Qin Tze, and he was in fact a High Artisan from the mainland west of the Islands of the Sun.  He also had been traveling west many months ago, when the southern men, whom he called the Enforcers, killed the rest of his company.

 

            Qin Tze, having no gold and no supplies, was unable to reach the shore and return to the civilized world.  So, he had started back east, and settled in a similar hut on the edge of the village.  The people here shunned him openly, and so he crept by night liken unto a scavenger.  As he seemed not of ill intent, and to be quite intelligent, I asked for his aid in tracking the Enforcers, and in return we would bring him with us on our return.  Qin Tze agreed.

 

            We have taken two days in preparation for this journey, and my mind burns with having to wait.  Perhaps I should have let Alantar pursue the Enforcers that first day, myself, Dimitros, and Ellia following as soon as we were able.  Should our companions be dead, Don Torrentas, it is I who am to blame for tarrying so long.  I wished not to be caught unawares by anything that might lie to the south, but in doing so I may have sealed Mirta and Puelo’s fates.

 

            Japheth has told me that there is a Relic not far from the village; an elemental rail, he called it, though from Qin Tze’s description, it seems to be an iron pike inlaid in the ground which runs south.  Such material in this place must be a remnant from before the Fall, though I was led to believe that no Relics had survived in this region.  Tonight we will leave, following the rail south to the area where the Enforcers are believed to inhabit.  Should we not return, and this be my last communication to you, my friend, please tell those we have left behind of our love for them, and that we will await their arrival to join us one day in Heaven.

 

In Faith and Sencerity,

            Vandi Gontiez

 

*

 

 

Don Torrentas,

 

            The affair is ended.  I present the events in chronology, for to do otherwise would surely drive me to madness, and I have come close enough to that to last until the day I die.  ‘To all things, their time’, as my father, god bless him, would always say.  Ah, to be again a child, blissful, and innocent, to never again feel the filth of this land on my skin.  You, Don Torrentas, who have been as a father to me since mine own died, perhaps you might understand one day.  It is my fervent prayer that you never do.

 

            We, Ellia, Alantar, Dimitros, Qin Tze, and myself followed the Relic for three days and nights, seeing nothing but the flat, arid, barren land.  In some places, stunted, twisted trees grasped for the torn sky, but little grass or greenery could be seen.  Still, there was no sign of the Enforcers having passed this way recently.  Even Ellia, with her skill as a tracker, found only scant evidence of our enemies.  Still, we marched.

 

            On the forth night, a light shone in the distance, and when we reached it, we saw a small shack in which people were living.  Qin Tze advised us to pass it by, for we knew not if we were yet in Enforcer territory.  However, Dimitros disagreed, saying that we needed information on the area, if nothing else.  He advised that one of us should inquire directions from the inhabitants of the shack, and perhaps avoid scrutiny.  I, after much council on the matter, decided to let him speak with the native people, but only with the rest of our party, weapons ready in case of an ambush, waiting in the shadows.

 

            Dimitros knocked at the entrance of the shack, and was soon allowed within.  From where I was standing, I could not see inside.  Tensely we waited, and after many minutes, Dimitros stumbled backward out of the shack and fled out over the plains while the shouting voices died down.  We returned to the Relic, where he recounted what had happened.

 

            The two people in the shack, and aging man and woman, had invited him in, for the man spoke sparse Common and understood Dimitros’ question.  The woman had been shocked and frightened by my companion, but the man told him that he was no far northeast from what he called ‘the valley of purification’, then asked why he was going there.  Dimitros told him that he had friends who had been captured, and when he said that, the man rose and threatened him, calling him dirty and dark, and saying he kept the company of unnaturals.  The woman began screaming, and Dimitros had run.

 

            When Qin Tze heard our location, he began drawing in the dust, and told me that according to what he remembered from his travels, to the far south of the Enforcers’ valley, there was a river that ran east.  Once we had Mirta and Puelo, we could escape to that river and ride it to where it led to the ocean.  As I remembered an outlet river when were in the main port city, I knew what the man said to be true.  Should we manage to reach the river, we were safe, and could, from the port city, find passage back to the civilized world.

 

            We continued marching throughout the night, and it was midday before we came to what I might only call a thicket of wood and spikes, so dense in many places that it could not bee seen through.  The walls were hewn, and had been drug there from another place, for they had the look of a work of man rather than that of nature.  It appeared that we had come to the Valley of Purification, however, I would soon have the urge to rename it; Valley of Death, Hell, Suffering, Torment, yes, they would all have been correct.

 

            At this point, I sent Ellia, Dimitros, and Alantar down the eastern side, while Qin Tze and I took the western half.  The artisan and I walked for a quarter of a mile before we saw anything, and for that sight, may my eyes never see again.  What must have been the bodies of half a dozen men were lying in the dirt, harassed by carrion birds.  These cadavers bore no clothes, and from what remained of their deep brown skin, I saw that they were probably from the Sovereign Nubian Empire, or descendants of such stock.  In my minds were the words the native used against Dimitros, dark, dirty.  What kind of monsters had done this?

 

            While I blessed the bodies, Qin Tze became ill, and looked at the sight no more.  I did not mention to him that some of the meat appeared to have been taken off by the knives of men, and not the beaks of vultures.  We continued deeper into that place, and it was only the through of preserving Mirta and Puelo from such that gave me strength.

 

            We presently came to an area where many men and women were tied to a large pike.  They wore only the barest of clothes, and looked of death itself.  When these people saw us, they moaned and cried out, too weak to speak or stand.  One man wept and clutched his feet, which bled from sores.  His eyes met mine, and for a moment, I felt that I could not breathe.  Taking my sword, I cut the ropes from the pike, and as Qin Tze begged me to go further, I removed my boots, the boots that I purchased before leaving so long ago, and gave them to the man.  All the people, who were emaciated and sickly, began crawling back from the way we had come.

 

            Don Torrentas, I shall spare you from a full description of the horrors that I witnessed.  Let it be said, that any torment man might receive in all levels of Hell, do not compare to that filthy place.  That men might die in such terrifying ways, I wish that I had been struck blind rather than to see that valley.  The stench of death and rot was heavy as air in the heat in which the prisoners writhed, on the ground, in the dust.

 

            The last of these places will be forever stained on my mind, and still do I see it when I close mine eyes.  Amongst heaps of bodies, we at last saw Mirta and Puelo, alive.  Qin Tze and I hid ourselves behind the thicket.  The guards, a group of six Enforcers, were beating Mirta, until finally she collapsed upon the ground, quietly chanting Santa Therese, Santa Phillipos, Santa Joachim, Santa Christof, Santa Anna, Santa Joseph…  One great brute smashed her in the head with his club, and she moved, chanted, breathed no more.

 

            Of Puelo, who had been held by a guard, was thrown to the ground, and beaten, made to unspeakable things with the corpse of his dear friend.  His faced twisted as he tried to push himself away, but the Enforcers beat him until he was weak, and they played on their vile sport.  I heard Puelo chanting as Mirta before him Madre Maria, sanctos, sanctos…  Blood ran from his face, and he rose and charged a guard.  I saw Puelo end.

 

            From that moment, I knew little of what transpired, only that Qin Tze brought me out of that place of perversion and evil.  Ellia, Dimitros, and Alantar were waiting at the southern end of the valley.  Qin Tze told them that we had seen the bodies of our companions; he need never tell them the sickening truth.  To die, like that, as nothing more than an animal.  To die, for living, for daring to live, to die, in defense of the sacred.

 

            It was Alantar who made us march, urged us to reach the river, and our way back to the world of men.  I walked as a specter through those blasted gray plains, my feet on fire, and when I looked, I saw that the land beneath my feet was made of dust and bones.  This place was where they must have dumped the bodies, for all the ground was shards of bone and dirt.  There followed me a trail of bloody footprints, for mine feet were bare.  Qin Tze ran back to where I stood, offering me his own boots, but I did not take them.

 

            I walked, no longer feeling pain.  Sanguis Christi  I walk on saints, martyrs, I walk on god himself.  It is only because you, Don Torrentas, told me once that the men here were once truly as we are now, that I strive to see them as anything but cruel savages.  What must have been here before the Fall?  Perhaps those creatures that till this dust truly fell too far.  We shall return with all haste to Espain.  For I shall relive that day in dreams, for as long as I draw breath.  Let the blood of us all be on their hands.

 

In Sorrow-

--Vandi Gontiez

The End.