Elayra cringed when Ghent’s knee smacked the edge of the half-wall. She had to at least give him some credit; he hardly reacted to the hit, and did, at least, manage to stay on his feet. 
	 “Quite the acrobat, Featherhead,” she muttered, smirking, as he drew even with her. She turned to follow him. Ahead, Drust stepped into the narrow, decay-scented alleyway.
	Realizing there was a last, important warning they’d forgotten to give him, she reached out to grab Ghent’s arm.
	“Ghent.” She leaned in close so he’d hear her whisper. “If… if you’re not used to seeing death,” she began, a stiff solemnity replacing her playfully taunt, “keep your gaze locked on one of us, and nothing else. And use this.” She tugged at the hood on his shirt. “It’ll help.”
	A low, but shrill whistle drew Elayra’s attention to the alley.
	Drust, the source of the whistle, glared at them. His head jerked in gesture to follow. With a secondary twitch, his scowl momentarily twisted into something more sinister.
	Elayra prodded Ghent onward. She took a deep breath, taking in a last lungful of this fresher air, then followed.
	With glass shards spearing out of one side, the alleyway wasn’t large enough for them to walk side-by-side. Elayra settled on keeping Ghent in the center—though closer to Drust, from the back, she could keep an eye on him. On [i]both[/i] of them.
	The town’s stench amplified in the narrow space. A few bones littered the earthen entrance, though whether they were human or animal, she couldn’t tell.
	Drust paused at the exit. He held a hand to his side in gesture for his charges to stop, then peered cautiously into the wider street beyond. Satisfied, he beckoned for them to move on, then entered the backroads of the town.
	Elayra hesitated, steeling herself for what she knew awaited them. She made sure her hair would help conceal her uninfected eyes, then followed. In the wider road, she moved to walk beside Ghent, keeping as close to Drust as she dared.
	A main cause of the town’s stench became immediately evident; the Cursed didn’t bother to bury their dead.
	Corpses in various stages of decomposition lined the road like macabre snow-drifts. More bones and a few fleshy limbs spilled over into the cleared center of the road—some attached to bodies, others not. Blood and other things Elayra didn’t want to contemplate pooled in the cracks of the broken cobblestones.
	Flies buzzed about in swarms. Startled at their approach, a rat hissed threateningly from near a pile of half-eaten bodies. The size of a small housecat, thin veins of black wove through its fully red eyes. 
	Drust growled down at the thing, then [i]hissed back,[/i] his whole body twisting menacingly with the sound.
	Elayra nearly tripped on the rat as it fled, scurrying between her and Ghent’s feet. It dragged something rust-colored along in its mouth, leaving a glistening trail in its wake.
	Elayra swallowed back bile. She struggled to not react, to not let herself think about what they were walking through.
	The Curse-ridden relished in this. The smell of death. The décor of liquid life. The cries of anguish and agony. 
	Violence. Chaos. Ruin.
	It was a truth Drust had made sure she understood long ago. But knowing that had never lessened the impact of seeing it like this.
	Outside of cities and towns, the damage was minimal. The wilds were more wild, yes, but it was open space with mostly animals to deal with. Nature did its thing there, time burying the dead itself. But here, it was condensed, trapped inside the walled streets and spurred on by the creativeness of the human minds the Crimson Curse had warped.
	Even if the town center was only a block over, it [i]still[/i] wouldn’t have been close enough for Elayra’s liking.