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Their camp nestled in between a few stalagmites, Gregor watched the city lights flicker in the darkness. The demons that flew above him, circled the air in unmistakable patterns as they routinely patrolled the immense cavern. If not for them taking shelter here, he had the feeling that they would have been found long before they reached the city. But that was not what troubled him. He was troubled by the fact that Daria had been right. He had almost gotten himself killed in his haste to see her again. It was the type of recklessness that had seen many men die, and he had thought he had grown out of it. And yet being here, in this dark unknown, he couldn’t help but imagine how Kira would be feeling. The years she had spent underground, living in this world full of monsters, it made his blood boil and his heart ache. To think she had suffered all this while, but if he had known a few years ago. Would he have come?

He honestly did not know. He would have said yes, but a part of him remembered how cold he had become after her disappearance. He had been a warrior with only one true calling left, and that was to do battle. But what now? He could not return to what he was, but that was what he needed to save her. He had to become the savage once more.

Glancing back at Daria’s huge sleeping form, he also knew he could not bring her with him. She would be his weakness, and the savage had no weakness.

Feeling the dull, black, emptiness inside, he lightly walked over towards her, her face almost soft in the light of fireflies that buzzed in the air, and knelt down beside her. Then with a whispered word of apology, he grabbed her by the head, and hammered her skull into the stone. Her groggy look of surprise as she looked up to him, transformed into fear as he struck again, knocking her unconscious.

Slowly rising back up to his feet, he leaned down to brush the braids from her mouth, feeling like a bellow-heart’s puke, but this is what had to be done. The swelling on the right side of her face would go away in time, he only hoped that she could forgive his betrayal. Even if it was done to save her life.

Taking one last glance down at her, he slipped out from between the craggy stones, crouched down, and began to creep towards the walls of the city. The stalagmites that filled the cavern’s floor, offered him plenty of cover from prying eyes as he circled along the edges. The empty pit inside of him, grew stronger the further he pulled away from her, until all that was left was a burning fury. His sense of awareness somehow sharpened to a point that he could see the gray contours of insects that scrabbled away, the tiny drops of moisture on the cavern’s walls, and the scent of smoke and sulfur that suffused the air. The creatures that saw him pass, left him well alone, their blood red eyes afraid. For he was the predator, and they were the prey.

Nearing the pitch black walls of the city, he could see the many folds and spikes that outlined its exterior, and without a care that he would be discovered, he began to climb. Blood seeped out from between his fingers, and metal grazed his body, but as if no longer able to feel pain, he clambered upward, when he sensed movement above him.

Waiting there in the stillness, he saw the shadow of a monster with wide golden glowing eyes, stare out into the bleakness, and felt the burning rage. Fingers gripping the spike, he moved, and in a single leap, he crashed into the beast, tumbling onto the ramparts. His hands squeezed the life out of its body as two slitted eyes gazed up at him in horror, the snake with the arms of a human, flailing at him, before the life fled its scaled body.

At any other time, he would have stopped and stared at this freakish half man half snake monster with its green scaled tail that shimmered in the darkness. But now, all he could think about was that he was hungry, and used his greatsword to chop its tail off. The blood that sprayed out, touched his lips as he licked them clean, and took several bites of raw flesh.

His hunger then sated for the moment, he searched around him for any more of these monsters, before he sought the stairs, and climbed down into the city's confines. The place, strangely quiet, with homes made of dark brown stone, jagged black towers that soared up into an infinite cavern, and streets paved with bones.