The Seven Hungers: Crimson King: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure by Quaid Morgan

Author:Quaid, Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

13. A World Subdued

I lead the group across a land plagued by crimson rot. The ground, it’s every surface, is layered with a thick, mossy substance which seems to heave and pulse as we tread on it. The crimson moss is slick to the touch, but not so slippery that we can’t keep our footing.

“Is this how you remember it?” Winter asks, joining me at the head of the group as Janus and Rook discuss everything and nothing behind us.

“Not really, no. Not at all, in fact.”

She frowns.

“Looks like some kind of infection, or an invading parasite.”

I nod.

“Must be something to do with the Crimson King. I didn’t spend much time in the Fourth Hunger on my way to the Seventh. Just passed through really, and it was more desert than…whatever this is. This could be the Third Hunger rebelling against his rule, but that seems odd given that he’s been here for some time.”

We reach a cluster of blood-colored bushes that lean in our direction as we draw near, their stalks capped with bulbous protrusions, like tumors or displaced organs. The bulbs burst open, sending red spores into the air in a sickly mist that seems to claw its way toward us in pulsing movements, like an airborne jellyfish. Winter and I give the spores a wide berth, motioning for the others to do likewise.

The air itself is thick with the ether, stale, yet warm and sticky at the same time. There is no breeze, no sense of the clean airiness you feel in wide open spaces in our own world. This place is choking beneath that oppressive moss, a fetid sore on some gargantuan beast on who’s back we travel.

The sky above is tinged red, a perpetual dusk which adds to the feeling of claustrophobia engendered by the pervasive moss. It feels as though we are walking through the inside of some vast creature, parasites seeking passage in the miniscule world beneath the flesh.

We walk on and soon the truth of this world is unveiled to us. The ground in the distance falls away to reveal an undulating landscape punctuated with ruined buildings of all sizes—a city swallowed by the crimson rot and left to fester.

“We must be on a bluff of some kind,” Winter offers.

I move closer to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the sprawling city below us, hidden from view until this moment. I scan the city, looking for signs of life or any movement. This land is curiously free of either. That makes a twisted kind of sense. If the Crimson King is using the blood price to send markers to the Hallowed World, it makes sense that he would utilize every form of organic life he could in the process.

As if in defiance of that thought, a shriek cries out to my left. Three grotesque creatures fly from a large tree I’d previously thought to be a cluster of rocks. The tree’s limbs are so thoroughly infested with the red rot that its branches droop to the ground, their weight practically breaking its spine.

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