A tall man with squared shoulders and a muscled physique walked through the devastated forest.
The trees had suffered attacks from things that could rip and burn and melt, some trunks shredded to splinters, others charred black, still others warped into shapes that wood should never hold. Whatever had passed through here had left nothing untouched.
He emerged from the treeline, and an enormous wall rose before him. Though calling it a wall understated the thing—it was an outgrowth from the mountain itself, stone veins running down from the peaks into worked fortification. The people of ancient Drywall had found a way to build atop their impossible terrain. They'd turned what could have been their greatest unmaking into their greatest making.
"What an irony..."
The man shook his head slightly, ashen hair flowing in the wind like silk. His grey eyes held a coldness that wasn't the absence of emotion. For some uncomfortable reason, it was monstrous to behold.
