Jager

Grayish sands stretched in all directions, undulating listlessly beneath a baking sun. Here and there the pattern broke around a mound or an upjutting of some pale substance, worn and pitted by the action of years of wind-blown sand. The only movement on the plain was the constant writhing of heat shimmer … and an odd shadow beneath a towering trio of white, curving arches that leaned away from each other in a sculpture of defeat.

The shadow digging busily beneath the limited shade, however, seemed oblivious. Sand showered up behind it in regular spurts, accompanied by a soft muttering.

“Gard, gard, gardening! Inch by inch, row by row, wonder who this is below? Surely would be nice to know, before the sun goes down ….”

A rasping voice interrupted. “What’s an inch?”

The rhythm of the digging faltered. “About the width of one of your front claws,” the digger replied crisply.

“Ah.” The voice fell silent. The digger resumed work, mumbling softly. Before long its voice coalesced into words once more.

“Mad wolves and ember mice go out in the mid-day sun, and that’s good enough for some, I suppose. But someday my prince will come … at least if the map is any good … ah!”

The figure stopped digging, stretched deep into the hole, and began tugging at something beneath the surface.

“Something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, someth--oof!”

The figure sprawled backward in the sand in a puddle of dark rags, its broad-brimmed hat flying off. Large red eyes squinted painfully against the sun and with a hiss the Spiral writhed upright, retrieving his hat with a sweep of his tail and clapping it atop his head. He surveyed the broken leather strap still clenched in his talons ruefully, then set to digging once more.

The sun lay low in the sky when the Spiral finally sat back on his haunches against the tall heap of excavated sand and with tired digits worried open the large leather pouch he had exhumed. Clinking coins and a few gems spilled out, to be ignored while the Spiral dug further into the pouch and finally shoved his head inside, knocking his hat off again. He retrieved it absently with his tail.

“Sum and total of all my efforts: nothing,” came faintly from the pouch. The Spiral pulled his head out and shook it glumly, reaching up to pat the nearest rib bone. “Sorry to have disturbed you, old fellow. You are not the dragon I’m looking for.”

“Then can we get going?” rasped the voice from the opposite side of the upthrust ribs.

“In a moment, in a moment,” the Spiral retorted, scooping up coins and returning them to the pouch.

“We don’t have many moments.” Sand scraped against armored hide. A bony face popped into view, deep red fur ruffling around its horns. “There’s a sandstorm on its way.”

“Sandstorm!” The Spiral shoved the last of the gems into the pouch and tossed it back into the hole. “How close, Cicatrix?”

“If we start running now, we might make it.”

“Mother willing,” the Spiral replied, and sprang into the air. “Poor old fellow, all exposed, but the storm will take care of you. True, too, the sands run through, the hourglass days of our lives ….” The lilting voice faded as six wings took their wearer higher.

Beneath him, the plague goblin shook his heavy head, stretching his limbs into a ground-eating lope. “You’re the one needs taking care of,” he muttered.


The light of the sun had long since dimmed behind rising curtains of sand, and the pair moved in a greenish twilight. The freshening wind from behind became erratic. Cicatrix glanced upward yet again and scowled to see the Spiral looping stubbornly onward, hat shoved low over his eyes and ragged mantle boiling in the cross-breezes that forced him to constantly adjust.

“You’re a fool, Jager!” the goblin yelled. “Come down.”

“No need,” the Spiral retorted, and as if the words had uncorked something under pressure, he continued. “To wit, to wit, I flit, I flit. I’ll flit for a bit. Flit by flit, bit by bit, bit by a fit, bit by a … oh dear.” His wing beats faltered. “Cicatrix!”

“By Plaguebringer’s ragged wings!” The goblin made a desperate leap and just managed to catch the plummeting form in his foreclaws. Jager’s long neck weaved feebly and his eyelids fluttered.

“Time for one of my fits, I see,” he whispered, and passed out.

“Idiot,” muttered Cicatrix, winding the limp long body around the base of his neck. He sighed softly when the Spiral’s unconscious coils tightened instinctively, anchoring him in place. With a shake of his head the goblin settled his mane over his passenger and scowled up at the approaching wall of sand.

“Your eyes,” he muttered, and leaped away, broad pads skimming the sand.


They were not quite out of the desert when the storm caught them, the hissing wind rising to a howl around the fleeing goblin and engulfing him in a moil of driven sand. Cicatrix slitted his eyes and hastened on for as long as the light lasted, following the faintly glowing red trail pointing him towards safety. But when the light faded to black--whether of storm or of night, it didn’t matter--the trace vanished. Cicatrix slowed to a trot, keeping the wind on his right hindquarter.

“Lady of the ragged wings,” he muttered against his fangs, “favorer of the strong ….”

The wind veered. The goblin stumbled to a halt.

“There is no forgiveness,” he sighed, and began to walk slowly ahead. The wind blasted sand against his rump, sizzling fruitlessly against his armored hide.

Some time later, Cicatrix stumbled over something in his path. His sand-crusted eyes flew open involuntarily, causing him to hiss in pain. Lowering his head, he snuffed at the ground while thick tears ran and dripped. One powerful clawed paw scraped across the ground, seeking, then grasping the thing that had tripped him. He sniffed deeply at it.

“Wood,” he muttered in surprise, then realized that the wind was no longer hurling sand against him. Raising his head, he peered gingerly about into blackness. The wind still pushed against him, but fitfully, as if battling something stronger than itself.

Cicatrix pondered. He had no idea how far he had come, drifting with the storm. Its weakening power told him he had likely reached the edge of the Wandering Contagion, and if he pressed on he could find water and shelter. But the boundary between the two subregions was vague, and in the dark his godsight could not help him. Pushing on blindly made little sense. Meanwhile Jager slept … for as long as he would sleep. The Spiral had burned a lot of energy in his digging.

Faintly, above the restless huffling of the wind, something howled. Cicatrix snorted--quietly--and curled up against the stub of half-buried tree. Things also wandered the night, and here in the boundary they might encounter creatures of both Boneyard and Contagion. While he considered himself a formidable fighter, only a fool went walking blind during the hunting time. The goblin settled himself to guard, ears and nose and useless eyes trained outward. When Jager awoke, his nocturnal eyes could guide them.


The long night dragged on. While the danger of being actually buried in sand had passed, the varying wind built up a ridge of it against his back that it fussed at and pushed in one direction, then another. Cicatrix could only wait for sunrise, knowing that it might not bring light. Meanwhile the pinch of hunger in his belly was something to be endured. Jager had provisions in a pouch under his thorny mantle, but the entire contents would not make so much as a mouthful for his familiar. He’d never been particularly fond of dried grasshoppers anyway.

Hunting calls sounded around him, howls and hisses and long wavering uluations. The wind tossed and distorted them until there was no telling how far away their makers were, nor where. More than once he wished vainly for Jager’s mobile ears. Once he had boasted to Jager that a goblin’s godsight far outweighed the usefulness of silly flopping ears. Now he wondered glumly if Plaguebringer had been listening that day, and decided to visit her version of humor on him.

The disgruntled chuffing of a roving lionsnake sounded faintly during one of the lulls in the wind. Cicatrix shrugged his heavy shoulders and flexed his claws. While formidable, lionsnakes tended to hunt singly, and he knew how to fight them. A greatowl could silently stoop on him before he knew it was coming, but the wind was his ally there: it made an accurate strike very difficult for a creature that depended on its hearing, so the owls were likely grounded for now. Spectral duskflappers posed a bit more of a concern, and he cocked his head often towards the sky, straining after their shrill cries.

The worst of it was knowing that sunrise, whether he could see it or not, would bring a second wave of hungry hunters. Serthis in particular would become active and they hunted in groups. The thought made Cicatrix work his claws in the soft sand, and he limbered his the bony lash of his tail often. Every time he laid it down again, he discovered that the wind had coyly pushed a little more sand into the hollow. He didn’t particularly mind. It gave him something else to think about.

Not for the first time, he wondered what drove Jager to take on these hopeless causes. Dragons wandered out into the Boneyard, and many of them never came back. He supposed it was tragic, but really, what could one expect? An outsider simply had no idea how dangerous this domain could be, and Plaguebringer saw no reason to make allowances. Either the traveler came prepared, or they failed. That was the way of things.

Yet Jager listened to the talk in the bazaar, out at the edge where Wind and Plague met. While selling and trading the odd things he found in the Boneyard, the Spiral sometimes seized upon the oddest notions. This time it had been the story of the long-lost scion of a Nature clan who had sworn to reach the Wyrmwound to plead with Plaguebringer to abate her anger at Gladekeeper. Supposedly he had been carrying a rare scroll as an offering. Privately Cicatrix thought that if the Guardian had perished in the Abiding Boneyard, then Plaguebringer had already made clear her opinion of both his plea and his offering. But Jager’s most persistent trait was his curiosity, and he burned to know what was in that scroll. Hence this current journey around the Boneyard, digging up Guardian remains.

Cicatrix snorted softly. At least this time the motivation was curiosity, pure and simple. While it meant no end in sight to this venture--until Jager lost interest--it was better than the time Jager had gone looking for one particular shattered serpent with a chipped left fang. That project had nearly gotten him eaten several times.

A tremoring in the coils around his neck alerted him. Cicatrix shifted into a crouch, head flicking from side to side, ears straining for any sound in case some other predator might have chosen this worst possible moment to move in. Scales rasped as Jager tightened his body, pawing sluggishly until one foot snagged painfully in his familiar’s mane. Cicatrix gritted his teeth.

“Ahhh …” Jager mumbled, then his head snapped up. “My mouth tastes ghastly!” he shrieked.

“Shut up,” Cicatrix retorted, staring into the gloom that pressed in on them from all sides.

“Why?” the Spiral bellowed. “Where are we? What are you worried about?”

Cicatrix resisted the urge to grab his partner’s face in one clawed hand. When waking up, Jager always spoke as if half-deaf. In a terse undertone, he explained their situation.

“Dark? Oh.” Jager’s tone abated somewhat. “Nocturnal predators. Give me a moment.” Cicatrix felt the rapid scramble of feet and slipping of coils as Jager hoisted the front third of his body high into the air. Soft scraping noises and the occasional hollow pock announced the working of the Spiral’s long ears against the brim of his hat.

“Mm,” Jager said thoughtfully. “Lionsnake, owlcat … yes, that’s a pronghorn stomper … mm-hmm, duskflapper.”

“How close?”

“Not very.” Jager unwound himself a little further. “There’s a trio of hainu that’ve caught something; they’re no threat.” He leaned forward, ears swiveling. “Another lionsnake. That one’s in a rotten mood. It’s not full dark, you know.”

“You could fool me.”

“No, no, I can make out the horizon.” A pause. “That’s definitely a webwing alpha tuning up. Which means ….” His voice trailed off and the coils around Cicatrix’s neck tightened suddenly. “What is that?”

Cicatrix cast swiftly about in all directions. “What? What?”

“What a peculiar noise.” Jager murmured, raising himself higher. “There it is again.”

“I don’t hear it.”

“Not surprising. It’s very faint.” Jager began drumming the claws of one hand against his familiar’s horn.

“Will you stop that?”

The claws rattled faster. Jager snaked his head in one direction, then another, his weight lurching from side to side. The tip of his tail quivered. Cicatrix, all too familiar with this pattern, suppressed a groan.

“Ah-hah!” Jager’s head fixed on something and he stopped drumming. With a great rustling and rasping he uncoiled himself entirely, balancing on his familiar’s back. “I must go find out what’s making that noise,” he announced.

Cicatrix reared up hastily, sending Jager grabbing for his horns. One big taloned hand slapped down over the Spiral’s squirming body.

“Ouch! What are you doing?”

“Just hold on,” Cicatrix snarled. “You want to find out, fine. But you’re going to wait until it’s light enough for me to see!”

Jager wriggled. “Surely you can see now.”

“I’m not nocturnal,” the goblin retorted.

The flight-ready tension in Jager’s body eased. “How long will you need?” he asked plaintively.

Cicatrix huffed softly through his fangs, blinking hard. Off in the distance, he could just make out an irregular line of dim, dark red. Jager was right. Somewhere beyond the murk, the sun was starting to push back the night.

“Not long. I’ll tell you when.”

Jager sighed and took a promissory wrap of his tail around the goblin’s neck. “The wind’s dying,” he noted in a conciliatory tone. “Might as well wait for dawn.”

As the light slowly seeped into the sky, the wind dropped to a mere whisper. Grudgingly, the air began dumping its burden of dust. Not far off, a narrow twisted silhouette emerged from the dim dusk, then another. Before long it became apparent that they stood amid a fair-sized cluster of long-dead trees half-buried in the sand.

“We’re on the edge of the Wasteland,” Jager remarked with interest. “You must have carried me quite some distance.”

“Couldn’t say.” Cicatrix didn’t want to think about what their deity might think of his actions, since there could be no doubt Plaguebringer knew. He reminded himself hastily that collapsing spells were common in Spirals. Therefore, rescuing Jager hadn’t been coddling a flawed individual, it had been adapting to a normal physiologic condition in his partner.

Jager had hoisted himself into the air again, oblivious to his partner’s inner turmoil. “I really do want to get started, before whatever it is gets away,” he fretted. “If I fly slowly, do you think you can follow?”

“Probably.” The visibility at ground level still wasn’t very good, but at least he had enough light to discern colors. It was a pity that the godsight couldn’t give him focus on two different things at the same time. He’d have to keep it directed towards spotting movement around them, rather than tracking Jager. Dividing his attention like that always gave him a headache.

Instead of darting immediately into the air, Jager paused. “I’ve got a fix on where the call was coming from. I’ll make it a straight line for you.”

“Except for trees and big rocks.”

“Ah … yes. Except for those. Sorry about that.” Jager patted the goblin’s horn again and launched himself in a flurry of wings.

True to his word, Jager limited the speed of his flight to that of a comfortable fast trot for his friend. Cicatrix still found it necessary to weave around or leap over obstacles that Jager hadn’t noticed, but he could tell that the Spiral was trying. Unfortunately, before long Jager’s busy thoughts took over his voice. In between calling out warnings of course changes--“straight” was a difficult concept for Jager--he discoursed on the odd creatures he’d heard about and recited fragments of lore regarding a wide variety of random subjects. Cicatrix let him talk, there being little point in trying to stop him--it would be like asking him to stop breathing. At least it was a reassuring sign that Jager was back to normal. He did, however, wince when Jager broke into song.

“Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo!” Jager caroled ecstatically in complete disregard for anything that might hear. Cicatrix shook his heavy head. At least he had enough light now to see quite well, and there was literally nothing moving except themselves.

It was also possible that Jager might be frightening off anything else. Even the wild creatures, unable to understand Draconic, could probably tell that this dragon was behaving oddly. Plaguebringer had been known to challenge her domain’s inhabitants with diseases that caused madness.

Cicatrix was reasonably sure Jager was not infected.

“Tooby ooby walla, nooby abba nabba … eh?”

Jager’s head jerked and his wing beats fell out of rhythm, sending the loops of his body into a wild tangle. With a curse Cicatrix lashed his tail, spinning off a planted forehand and driving with his hindquarters. He caught up just in time for Jager to crash down across his shoulders and tumble to the sand.

“Oof! Oh dear, not a knot!” Jager snatched up his tail. “Not the time, not the time ….”

Cicatrix reminded himself that falling out of the sky and spontaneous knotting were also normal Spiral traits, and sat down to wait.

“Not the time for this!” Jager reiterated, working a loop of his tail loose and oblivious to the stealthy tightening of two other loops upstream. “Slip, slip … time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ … aagh!”

Cicatrix reached out a talon and hooked the knot out of Jager’s reach. “Leave that alone until you calm down.”

Jager looked up at him, bereft claws twitching. “But I heard an answer!”

“An answer. To that gibberish?” Cicatrix snapped his jaws shut on his tongue, cursing himself.

Jager gave him a wounded look. “It’s a song, Cicatrix. Lyrics don’t have to be words.” With great dignity he twitched his tail free of the goblin’s claw and stood on tiptoe to snatch a double handful of mane. Cicatrix stood quietly while the Spiral scrambled up onto his shoulders, silently berating himself for breaking their unspoken compact regarding Jager’s odd habits of speech.

Jager took a good grip on Cicatrix’s horns. “Now listen,” he ordered, then raised his head and his voice. “Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo!”

“I don’t hear anything,” Cicatrix muttered after several dozen heartbeats.

“Hmm. It probably carried better from the air.” Jager banged his knotted tail against his friend’s side. “Proceed, please. Let’s keep trying.”

The pair trotted slowly on. Every dozen strides or so Jager would lift his head and warble more of his song. Cicatrix wondered how long they would have to keep this up, but held his silence, still angry at his careless tongue. All of a sudden Jager jerked downward on his horns.

“There! Do you hear it?”

Cicatrix staggered as Jager’s full weight came down on his horns, the Spiral gripping them with his hind claws and hoisting the rest of himself into the air, wings wide for balance. Jager hissed then, and slapped Cicatrix’s flank with his tail. “Hurry!”

He was still traveling blind, with no idea what Jager could see, but at least with Jager now suspended midair out in front Cicatrix could see the direction the Spiral was pointing. With a warning snort he broke into a gallop, Jager wobbling and weaving overhead.

Before long the sighing yowl of a frustrated lionsnake teased his ears. “Is that our target?” he demanded.

“Yes! Hurry!”

Finally, a fix for his godsight. Cicatrix gave a triumphant growl as the red trace snapped into existence before him, and lengthened his stride. A low rise lay ahead, and as he pounded up it he heard the lionsnake yowl again, to be answered by a weird, gravelly chattering. It sounded vaguely familiar somehow.

The best way to deal with a lionsnake was to surprise it, and so as Cicatrix crested the rise and spotted the curling, twisting form pacing swiftly about the hulk of a carpyx tree, he drew a deep breath and roared. The lionsnake’s body rippled violently in shock. As it whirled to face him, jaws stretching wide in warning, Cicatrix saw it wore the patchy mane of a young adult. Desperate and hungry? Or just mad with curiosity? No way to tell. Cicatrix roared again and charged, lashing his tail, the heavy bones cracking and popping loudly against one another in staccato threat.

“Gliddy glub gloopy!” Jager shrieked, flailing his wings.

“Gloop! Gloop!” something yelled back from the tree.

The lionsnake’s nerve broke. Golden-striped hide swirled as it flung itself past the tree. Cicatrix clashed his teeth after its fleeing tufted tail and skidded clumsily into a turn, feeling Jager launch himself from his horns as they passed under the tree. Good, that got him out of harm’s way.

Growling, Cicatrix chased the lionsnake until it hit its full stride and began to draw away, then slowed to a halt and gave his tail a few more fierce cracks for good measure. The lionsnake never looked back, vanishing into a scraggly stand of grass that matched its hide. Cicatrix snorted, satisfied, and trotted back to the tree.

Jager was perched on one of the tree’s stubby branches, wary of its saw-toothed ridges. To Cicatrix’s puzzlement the Spiral seemed focused on undoing the knot in his tail, but one ear remained cocked rigidly towards a particular thick spray of the tree’s spiky leaves. As he worked, Jager sang his nonsense song softly, coaxingly. Cicatrix stopped short when the cluster of leaves began to rustle.

“Gloop?”

“Yes indeed, gliddy glub gloopy, you can come out now,” Jager crooned, slowly passing the last of the tangle through his claws.

A dark beak protruded from the leaves. Within the shadows, a vivid green spark shifted anxiously to and fro. Still not looking directly at his neighbor, Jager laid his tail down and gazed meditatively at his claws. “La la la lo lo,” he murmured.

The beak opened. “Lo lo,” the hidden creature agreed. Cicatrix heard that strangely familiar clattery sound again.

“Tooby ooby walla?”

The leaves rustled. “Abba … nabba.” Suddenly, with a little hop, the creature emerged from hiding.

Cicatrix sat down, curling his tail about his foreclaws with a soft clicking of bone. “A hazebeacon.”

“Yes,” Jager replied equally quietly.

The skeletal bird shifted its wings nervously, flicking its tail. Vertebrae rattled against each other and Cicatrix finally recognized the sound he had heard before, amid the drifting murks. The little guides rarely showed themselves for very long; travelers generally followed their lights and the sound of their rattling tails towards the nearest revelry.

“What’s it doing out here?”

Jager shrugged, digging in his wrappings. He held out a dried grasshopper. The hazebeacon tilted its head sideways, eye sparks bright, then reached out and delicately took the grasshopper. The insect disappeared into its beak and did not reappear.

“Just like you, Cicatrix,” Jager remarked. “Parts of body are in different planes.”

It was Cicatrix’s turn to shrug. “Plaguebringer made us that way.”

“Indeed.” Jager dusted his claws together. “Well, this mystery is solved. I’d like to find the nearest water and have a bath, and we both should hunt. Then we’ll figure out where we are.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Gloop!”

They both turned to look at the hazebeacon. It grated its beak at them, then reached into the cluster of leaves and tugged. There was a clank, and the bird’s head re-emerged with a small lantern. The lantern swung gently as it cocked its head at Jager, then at Cicatrix.

“Did you want to come along?” Jager asked in surprise.

The hazebeacon raised its tail and shook it vigorously.

“I’d call that a yes,” Cicatrix drawled, privately amused at the growing delight on Jager’s face. The mystery was not at an end. The goblin wondered if the opportunity to study one of the mysterious guides might even distract Jager from his wanderings for a while.

And with a lantern clutched in its beak, it should at least be quieter.


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