(Trigger Warning: If violence/gore disturbs you, do not read this chapter)

Haraq was dead-still as he sat in an iron chair, his surroundings shrouded in a thick bloom of darkness that enclosed him from all sides. His golden eyes were the only light to be found in the entire room, glinting dimly as they were directed towards the floor. His wrists were strapped to the armrests by thick bands of steel, and his legs were bolted against the legs of his chair with great pointed rivets.

Rivets that had been driven straight through his bones.

As such, his legs were broken and mangled, his shins shattered and cracked while the skin that ripped covered them had been torn into tatters. Bloodstains covered his ankles, and were also smeared across his body from countless other gashes, bruises and grievous wounds. His flesh was like a macabre art project, gouged and beaten with a thousand scars and more. His mandibles were missing several teeth, each pried out by the roots, and one of his four eyes was either shut or missing completely - in the darkness, it was hard to tell. His pink skin of his upper-right chest was seared red and flaking, the patterns of a branding iron printed against his body like a rune of dark magic, and his thumbs were flat - broken in multiple places as their bones, one-by-one, had been slowly cracked and crunched into dust.

The captive Sirthon coughed, a burst of purple blood frothing from his mouth and dribbling down his torso as he did so.

Out of the darkness came the familiar sound of a sliding door bolt, followed by the tooth-grinding shriek of squeaking hinges and grinding metal. Blinding light blasted into Haraq's eyes while his ears were filled with the sound of a heavy door rolling open, then slamming shut.

Darkness enveloped him once more, and peering through the darkness were two sets of three glowing eyes. Eyes with slit-like pupils arranged in a triangular pattern, and who drew nearer to him, the sound of clawed feet clicking on stone punctuating their movements.

Soon, two figures towered over him, asserting the superiority they believed they had. They were Xan-Klar, both of different scale colours.

The first, the one closest to him, was a tall and powerful thing coated in glittering silver skin and layered in deep grey body armour. A long red cape bearing fiery decals hung from his broad shoulders, the fabric covering the tail that snaked behind his legs. His golden eyes were dour and grim, as if heavy with the weight of previous conflicts.

The second, lurking in the background, was a shade of pungent purple - the shade of Sirthon blood - and the three horns sprouting from his skull were each dark as obsidian. His pale teeth were visibly as his mouth hung open, an ecstatic shimmer in his bright green eyes that glittered like knife blades amidst the gloaming dark.

Haraq did not move, and at the sight of his refusal to show fear, a noise echoed through the gloaming shadows of his cell.

"Impressive."

The noise was a deep, rumbling voice, coming from the fanged mouth of the silver Xan-Klar. He looked down at Haraq with a firm, yet fiery stare before speaking again.

"You have endured much, Sirthon..." the alien said, folding his arms over his chest. "My brother tells me that most of your kind break within the first few days." As he spoke, he gestured to the purple-scaled one behind him. He then surveyed Haraq with a clinical, examining eye. "If you had not allowed yourself to be captured, I might have considered you a worthy opponent."

To Haraq's surprise, the Xan-Klar did not speak in the guttural, growling language of his own kind. Instead, he spoke in the Sirthon tongue - an amazing feat for an inferior being.

In the background, Haraq watched as the purple creature lurking in the background struck a rock against a piece of metal, sending sparks into a large black bowl of iron. As the darts of light landed, a crescendo of bright flames burst up from the brazier's depths, illuminating the room.

As the light rose, the pupils in both the Xan-Klar's eyes narrowed, the edges of their scleras getting closer together. In the bright glow, Haraq's damaged eye socket was revealed - a concave pit with its contents bloodily ripped out days ago.

Another thing was also revealed - a thick sash of leather hanging over the shoulder of the purple Xan-Klar, a thousand glinting metal implements hanging from its frame. Pliers, hooks, screws, vices, flaying whips and vicious-looking knives, their blades viciously serrated and curving in all sorts of directions.

Many of these had already been used on Haraq... and yet he still hadn't said a word.

As his comrade took a knife from his collection and began to heat over the flames, the silver Xan-Klar spoke again.

"I don't condone the actions of my brethren... but this is a grim necessity."

Haraq looked up from his position in the iron chair. This Xan-Klar was one he hadn't met before, unlike the purple one. That one had been trying to extract information out of Haraq ever since he had been brought here.

After Major Marcus Winter, another enemy of the Sirthon people, had willingly handed him over.

But this did not matter. Both Major Winter and this Xan-Klar were the enemy. True Sirthon, true sons and daughters of the Republic, did not bend to the enemy.

"Just get it over with, Striikanaak." Haraq finally spoke, spitting his words out from between his mandibles as his throat continued to fill with blood. "I don't know or care who you are, nor what you do to me today - it will change nothing."

The Sirthon word for 'Xan-Klar' was 'Striikanaak', which meant 'accursed beast'. A fitting name for such despicable creatures as the two who stood before him.

The silver-scale's nostrils flared as he blinked slowly. "I am Gendros Kazoran, the Burning Blade, Master of the Fireheart Wardens and seneschal of this sanctuary." He declared his name in a calm, even and self-assured tone, his mannerisms bearing no sign of offense or anger. "You continue to endure our interrogations out of the desire to serve your people." he then said, talking as if he knew Haraq. "Admirable, but futile. Your comrades are all dead, or will soon be so."

His tone of pride did nothing more than make Haraq scoff. These creatures spoke as though they were superior, that it was their birthright and destiny to rule over everything they lay their eyes upon.

But that was the destiny of another. The destiny of the Sirthon. Such was inevitable and true beyond doubt.

"You think us defeated, Xan-Klar?" Haraq asked mockingly, fighting to speak as the agony of his broken teeth and mangled body yanked at his muscles and nerves.

"No. I only think you're a fool. You and the rest of your Hand of Reclamation." Gendros replied. "You seek to protect your people by inciting greater hatred from those who already hate you. Your attack at the human Embassy killed many Xan-Klar, true, but three-score more of your own died upon our blades." The silver-scale knelt down, bending his legs to look Haraq in the eye. "And what did they die for? Nothing. If you continue this, your kind will wipe themselves out. fighting for a dead nation. Trying to preserve something that we Xan-Klar destroyed, just as we will destroy you."

Three golden eyes met three golden eyes, and the two aliens held each other's attention for a long, silent moment. And then Gendros spoke;

"Tell us where your leaders are. End this madness."

There was another long silence. But then, Haraq's mandibles peeled back, revealing the thin slit of a mouth he had hidden within the recesses of his face. And, with glee in his gaze, he smiled.

"You can think whatever you like to me, Xan-Klar. But you and all your kind are living on borrowed time. Soon, the Hand will come for your pathetic Empire and tear it down piece by painful piece. No matter how long it takes, my brethren will finish what we started so long ago on your festering husk of a homeworld - the complete extinction of your entire species, from the Emperor himself to the last mewling hatchling."

Haraq twisted his neck, more blood dribbling from his face as a look of agony "Humans, Nalyr, Xan-Klar and Kropen will all soon kneel before us. For we are the spectres of the Sirthon War. We are the wrath of the vanquished. We are the Hand of Reclamation... and none who stand in our way will be suffered to live."

The only sound heard was the flickering fire. Gendros looked at him coldly, before shaking his head and rising to his full, towering height.

"I thought I might find wisdom in one your kind..." he said, blinking slowly. "It seems I am still to find it." He turned, his long cape billowing behind him like a pair of wings as he said in low, grim voice. "He's all yours, Dakarel."

The purple-scale grinned menacingly, the light of the fire painting his snouted face in a blend of vicious colours, from deepest black to purest red. "My pleasure, Gendros-ur."

Haraq remained firm, bracing himself, thinking back to his people to find some refuge against what was about to come. For as Gendros walked away, the Fireheart Warden's resident torturer stepped to take his place, his jaw twisting into a sadistic grin and a red-hot knife, glowing like plasma, gripped by its handle in his claws.

A harrowing, seemingly neverending scream soon followed as the blade was stabbed under the Sirthon's fingers and slowly tilted back, tendons and ligaments slowly snapping one-by-one as Haraq's nails were slowly and agonisingly pried out of his skin.