As he had expected, Carlos found himself faced with three additional prisoners. All were chain-linked together, bound by the infernal clockwork of a blood vice. The vices had been molded to resemble the snarling maw of a bear’s jowls. The teeth were wicked and pointed, stained a dark blotted red. Clumps of gnarled and clotted flesh stuck between the teeth of the ankle vice where it had auto tightened against the stirrings of the previous sneeze.

All four men were nearly naked, shirtless, and wearing only the most meager of trousers which hung in frayed and filthy tatters. The older man, the one called Elandris, had a dark stain that emanated outward from the center of his crotch. The smell of his self-soiling burned Carlos’s nose as he became more conscious of his surroundings. “It was odd”, Carlos mused to himself, “how much more aware of other senses you felt when once your eyes were uncovered”. Previously, he had been almost entirely unaware of its musky-moldy stench, his mind preoccupied with more abstract, existential concerns. Yet now it felt inescapable, choking him with its oppressive and offensive odor.

Two his right, Carlos saw his other two silent companions. The first man was a large ox-like man. A hulking bulging ripple of muscles that bulged across his frame like the rolling hills of the fjords of Ktholl. Thick golden fur carpeted his limbs and chest, flowing so thick across its surface that it seemed to wave back and forth with the breeze of the cave draft much the way the wheat fields of Ktholl dominated the rolling hills of the highland fjords for which his kind called home. Large and curled locks cascaded down and around his shoulders, shining, even in this weak alchemical light, with a golden splendor. His eyes, which were a brilliant resplendent blue, were glazed and distant. They reminded Carlos of the sea in the wake of a terrible tempest. Though their waters were now calm, they betrayed a hint of fury and destruction just beneath the surface. Yet now they remained glazed over; sullen, distant and broken.

Next to him, sat a man of significantly smaller stature. He was a tiny man, with long slender fingers and dainty almost lady-like hands. Although he was equally filthy and bore similarly tattered garb, something about the smoothness in his face and panic in his eyes made Carlos suspect he had known a life of luxury. His eyes were wild and not yet broken. Carlos suspected that this man was new to captivity and indeed misfortune. “If he was lucky”, Carlos mused “his misfortune would be short-lived” he guessed this would be so judging by the tautness of his skin stretching over and exposing the bones of his ribs just under the pale, nearly translucent hue of his skin.

The ape-like brute who had branded him now stood in the doorway of the cave-room. He paused for a moment, surveying the pathetic state of the prisoners as if he were savoring the air of dejectedness that they exhumed. In his hand, he carried two wooden buckets, both of which sloshed around as he moved. Their brown liquid splashed out and onto the floor in sickening plops. His hardened scarred mouth twisted into a cruel smirk as he approached the skinny frail man first. He first scooped into the steaming depths of his one bucket, then lifted a crude wooden ladle filled with chunky brown liquid to the lips of the young man, who cowered back and away from the brute in an instinctual flinch.

“Eat” the brute muttered in an almost unintelligible and low-toned grunt. Brown liquid stained his mouth and chin as it dribbled down his face. He seemed frozen in a panic unable to react, except to recoil away from the brute and his spoon as much as possible, which only caused the blood vice to sink its teeth deeper into the flesh of his ankle and arms causing blood to ooze out in tiny red rivulets.

“EAT!” the brute screamed, smashing the wooden ladle into the lips of the petrified young prisoner. The brown lumpy liquid spilled down the front of his bare chest in splashes. The brute dropped his second bucket and wrapped his large sausage-like fingers around the tender milky white flesh of the prisoner’s neck. His eyes bulged as large foamy bubbles of dull-colored broth sprayed around the edge of the wooden spoon as it was repeatedly forced down the throat of its victim.

At first, the young prisoner thrashed about, gurgling and sputtering as the food was forced down his throat. The mechanics of his clockwork restraints ticked dutifully as the blood vices tightened their grip in increasing intervals, the blood now welling in pools across his forearms and thighs. Carlos heard a sickening crack as the bones in the prisoner’s ankle splintered. The torn flesh was ripped away in bloody fleshy gore exposing the gleaming white of exposed bone.

The blood, bone shards, and sinew filled the inner maw of the blood vice. The blood which was now contained inside rose to fill in the glass eyes of the contraption. The eyes of the machine began to glow a bright shining shade of crimson and with a wet slosh, the teeth of the blood vice broke through the other side of the leg, severing it messily. Strands of skin and sinew dangled between the severed foot and leg as the foot swung in the space between the blood vice and his ankle. The eyes of the prisoner grew cloudy as the life slipped from his lips and out through the last few tiny bubbles around the spoon.

“Eat Eat Eat” The brute continued to shove spoonfuls of slop into the slack-jawed mouth of the dead prisoner even as the body grew limp and his bowels evacuated. The stink of death overwhelmed the stench of urine that had previously filled the air. “OK,” the brute let go of the corpse letting it sag in a limp heap against the granite cave wall to his right.

“Next one” He moved over to the large Kthollite man, once again lifting his wooden ladle. The Kthollite learned his lesson from the spectacle that had just occurred, lapping up each spoonful of slop without hesitation. His face contorted in a grimace, but otherwise, his eyes remained transfixed on the dark recess of the cavern floor.

Once finished, the attention was switched to Carlos. A glimmer of recognition flashed in the brute’s eyes as he faced Carlos. “YOU TAKE BEER RATIONS, I TAKE FOOD RATION” He scooped up a steaming spoonful of slop and plopped the entire contents into Carlos’ lap. The liquid was hotter than Carlos had expected, burning his legs with its heat.

Despite the discomfort, Carlos remained frozen in place, tensing his muscles against the instinct to retreat and squirm. He trained his mind on a memory of discipline. He remembered a field, filled with yellow poppies and cool green grass. He remembered the dirt lines of the range, the uncomfortable, yet the familiar weight of the rifle in his arms. He remembered how comfortably its buttstock had fit into the meaty pocket of his shoulder, the tight squeeze of the loop of its sling around his bicep. He recalled how peaceful it had made him feel to hold the weapon, to breathe in an easy rhythm, and watch the tip of its iron sights slowly bob up and down as it centered on the small black and white rings of the target. Back at that moment, he had become the rifle itself. All other worries slipped away from him, he ceased to be Carlos and instead was the embodiment of his own breath. Up, down, up, down he remembered what it was like to slowly pull his finger back, sliding it smoothly back against the curvature of the trigger as if his finger too were a part of the well-oiled parts of his rifle, moving naturally and in tandem with each perfectly fitted component.

He remembered how natural the sound of the weapon firing was to him in those moments; deafening, destructive, and beautiful, it always jolted him slightly in a surprise motion. He remembered how satisfying the little pop was, only a mere heartbeat after the bullet had left the chamber as the red-hot ball of lead struck the soft paper of target and later thumped into the sandy berm behind it. It seemed to him in these vivid memories that he could even taste the gunpowder that often clung to the air during these moments as he, together with the members of his company, set hundreds of rounds into the sandy berm.

The memory of these days, training on the firing ranges long ago, training for a meaningless battle in another far off place, was to him what meditation was to the Yogi. And so, he retreated into the memory, mimicking the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath. Up, down, up, down, up.

The brute laughed and hit Carlos hard with the ladle creating a wet, sloppy sound as it connected with the pooled up slop that was pooled there as well as with the flesh of his legs. “schlop schlop schlop!” When Carlos still didn’t budge, the brutish man grew bored and moved on to the elderly man repeating the process.

Once each man was fed (and thoroughly drenched in brownish liquid slop) the brutish man placed a wooden bowl at the feet of each of them excluding the dead man. He then filled each bowl with warm greyish water. He reached into the folds of his tattered and frayed cloak and produced a large key. He then proceeded to insert the key into the locking mechanism of the clockwork monster shaped shackles.

As he twisted the key into each slot of the blood vices, their internal mechanisms squeaked in protest before grinding into a click. Reluctantly it seemed; the jaws of the blood vices relaxed and let go of their captors. The brutish man stuck in his hand and pulled from the depths of his tattered cloak, old fashioned iron locks, which he affixed to the chains. He examined each shackle against the light of the alchemical lamp, turning and twisting it in the dull green light before placing them into the bucket which had held the brackish water, he had left for them to drink.

Turning away, he hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The remnants of the slop sloshed out its contents as he went. A moment later, the door swung open again. In the entrance stood two average men wearing dull blue colored cotton coats. The brass buttons were unpolished, and soot-stained much like their worn black boots. Their once white trousers were thick and reinforced, greyed by the soot of coal which was a hallmark of the miners’ trousers.

Their appearance was so distinctly ordinary that it was jarring. They seemed so out of place after the recent events that had befallen Carlos in those last few hours. Yet, upon closer inspection, Carlos noticed the emptiness in their eyes. Their eyes were white and pupil-less, glazed, and unthinking, they were stuck in an unblinking, unmoving stare.

The pair moved mechanically, cleaning the blood from the floors and administering a salve to the ankle of Carlos where the shackles teeth had sunk when the Kthollite had sneezed. As the miner bent down to administer the salve, Carlos caught a glimpse of a mechanical scarab affixed to the nape of his neck. Its legs were deeply embedded through the meaty flesh and its eyes glowed red in the same way that the eyes of the shackles had.

“Blood magic” Carlos shivered involuntarily. He had encountered such things before in his travels across the Khalmuki. The memories of the horrors they caused chilled his veins to ice faster than the frigid temperatures of that cave. Before departing, the two blue coats draped a blanket over the three remaining prisoners, hefting the corpse of their former companion over one shoulder and plopping the remnants of his severed foot into a wash bucket. They exited as soundlessly as they had entered, leaving the three prisoners chained together sharing the meager warmth the flimsy woolen blanket provided.