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by The Cashmere Romance of Alexandria Eschate. . 70 reads.

The Gates of Alexander

As Alexander marched East, conquering and scattering whole nations to the wind, his army eventually came upon a sprawling mountain range. A village lay before, and Alexander took his horse within to inquire as to what sort of peoples he would find waiting to the North on the other side.

He did not expect the reaction his query provoked from villagers:

"No one travels through these mountains."

"The nations lying to the North of this path are unwashed and unclean...unfit to be traversed by a civilized man."

"Barbarians."

Alexander was told tales of vast and disparate peoples who lived across this mountain range -- "If it can be called 'living'" -- and of the times in history when these Unclean Nations poured South through the pass to devastate the civilized world -- "leaving no stone atop another".

No local guide could be arranged for Alexander, and so Alexander set off with a few of his own men to see for himself what manner of people were these.

When Alexander returned, he returned alone and wild eyed. He spoke of nations to the North so varied as to baffle the mind, and yet so united in their barbarism.

And he spoke of little more, but set his army to work immediately in the construction of a great wall that would span the width of this mountain pass and rise just as high -- "lest those Unclean Nations again turn their eyes to the South."

Once completed, this feat of construction rivaled that of any great king's engine of caprice, and yet these "Gates of Alexander" stood to perform the most serious of work. Only upon witnessing the final stone set, could Alexander put his mind enough at ease to continue on his campaigns East.

We are the nations Alexander encountered. We are the Horde he walled up behind his Gates. Pray we do not turn our gaze South.

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