The air reeked of sulfur and rotting flesh. A purplish mist stagnated above a meadow of flowers of the same hue, a color that evoked nothing living, rather a necrosis that refused to end. Under an oversized, pale moon, thousands of silhouettes advanced with heads bowed, dragging their feet. Elves with pointed ears mingled with half-beasts of prominent features in the same undifferentiated tide.
They were naked. Their skin, mottled by the cold and covered in the gray dust of the ground, no longer bore any trace of dignity. Their empty eyes resembled those of corpses forced to walk. The clinking of the chains on their ankles and wrists marked the rhythm of their advance, punctuated by the hiss of the whips.
"Move, cattle!"
