And the Drounge moved on.
Nothing could stand in its way, and the perceptive got out of it. Those that were incapable of movement prepared themselves as best they were able, and expired as readily as those living things that could. The Drounge handed down no judgments, passed no resolutions, essayed no assessments.
Only solid rock barred its way or altered its course. Water it passed through as freely as it moved through air, sliding with damned grace into lake or pond and advancing by means of repeated humping motions. As on land, so it was beneath the surface of waves large and small.
Water plants withered and collapsed to the muddy bottom. The shells of unfortunate mollusks bled calcium until they deteriorated beyond usefulness. Abscesses appeared on the sensitive skin of amphibians, and the gills of passing fish swelled up until suffocation brought on a slow and painful death. Wading birds that ate the dead and dying fell from the sky as if shot, their eyes glazed, their intestines rotting. Emerging on the far shore, the Drounge left behind a body of water as devastated as any town or field. As always, in the aftermath of its passing, only the patient insects prospered.
The Drounge continued to move northward.
Eventually it reached a region it might have called home, had it possessed any thought of so removed a notion. For the first time in a long, long while it was able to advance without killing anything. Not because it had suddenly become any less lethal, the essence of itself any less virulent, but because there was so little life in its new surroundings to slaughter. It could not kill what did not live.