Viscera Crimson's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Viscera Crimson came to the Goblin Hunter Arcade to think, not to hunt. The Cinderskin Gargoyles had burned three villages in a month. Their leader, Sky Eater, still flew free. Crimson gripped the arcade joystick and watched skeletal knights die on the screen. He is the Sheriffs of Fungara's best tracker, and he had no trail. That was the problem gnawing at him. Then he saw the imps. Two small mushroom creatures huddled by the ice machine, whispering. One pressed a folded note into the other's stalk-hand. Crimson knew fear when he smelled it. He left the machine and drifted close, pretending to study a rusted axe on the wall. "Sky Eater pays double for the bud fields," one imp hissed. The other bolted. Crimson caught the runner by the collar. He pulled the leather roll from his coat and unrolled its batwing flaps. Inside sat small magic tools. He touched a glowing green vial to the imp's note. Hidden ink bloomed across the paper. A meeting place. An informant's name. The trail was thin, so Crimson rode to see Velaxo. His mount waited outside, a great black panther with green eyes and blood-stained leather straps. Poison dripped from its fangs. Velaxo answered only to the bravest riders, and it had carried Crimson through worse hunts than this. He climbed on, and the panther ran. Days passed with near misses. Every lead broke apart in Crimson's hands. Twice the imps slipped him. Twice he found only ash where witnesses had been. Frustration wore him down. At a lonely crossroads he uncorked his flask. The Devil's Rum tasted like a struck match. He'd won it from Beelzebub, the six-eyed Baroness, in a card game he never blinked through. His skin split red. Horns pushed up. In demon form he read the spirit realm, and there he finally caught Sky Eater's scent trail. A break in the case at last. The scent led back to the bud fields, where an informant waited. Crimson stopped first at the Sheriff Armory Tower. Its black bricks bristled with cannons. He loaded the Grimm Bolt, checked his nail pistol, and slid Hamhock into its sheath. He would not walk into the Gargoyles' territory alone. He needed a posse. At the bud fields Crimson found the tender, a lanky mushroom man in a mauve wicker vest, scattering plant food from a burlap sack. The tender flinched at the demon's shadow. "I don't want trouble," the mushroom man said. "But I'll talk. Sky Eater roosts in the Fungal Bulwark Pass. He's building an army." Crimson had his lead. He rode back and gathered his fellow Sheriffs, one by one, until a posse stood ready. Then the tender's last words reached him by messenger. Sky Eater already knew Crimson was coming. The hunt was no longer secret, and the Gargoyles were flying to meet him first.