It had a brownish-green coat of patchy fur over its lumpy, mutated flesh. The animal was a Yao Guai, like a bear from before the Harrowing, but bigger, meaner. Ahead of him, within the shadows, the great beast slumbered. Decaying carcasses were mixed with sweat and something else, something he had never smelled before. He reached the cave’s turn to the right and was immediately hit with an unimaginable stench. The man began to edge his way into the cave, tightening his grip on a crude spear. The shaman had warned this was more than just a hunt, the whole fate of the tribe rested on his shoulders. The world had gone strange, hues of purple and blue, after he drank, but his hunter’s instincts had not failed him in tracking the beast. The man steeled himself to enter, but his mind was still reeling from the concoction the shaman had given him, some drink made from the sacred datura. The sandy floor was churned up from the passage of the beast’s claws, and dried blood covered the ground. The entrance was wide open and marked by the bones of past victims. The cave was just off a canyon, sheltered within the towering reddish-tan walls. The beast had led him across the desert scrubland, through several canyons, and finally to its lair.
The man had been stalking his prey for the whole day, and he was finally beginning to catch up.
0 kommentar(er)
