“Santa was dead, to begin with,” the storyteller stated.
Nine pairs of innocent eyes went wide and anxious at the statement, even though they knew what was coming. Even though they’d heard the story every year since the beginning of their lives, even before they could properly understand it. It was tradition, but it was also necessary. For children who didn’t heed the lessons of Santa Claus ended up much like him, often without the benefit of what followed.
“What happened to him, Miss Jaz?” asked Nova, a little Khatoyant, young enough that this was her first year of Understanding. Her eyes were wider than the others’ and terrified as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to Understand—and even wider still because she was, after all, a Khatoyant.
Jaz leaned forward on the stump, eyes deep and serious with meaning. “That’s what I’m about to tell you, so listen close and take it to heart.”
“Ugh, Jaz, don’t traumatize them!” Pix groaned from her stump across the way.
“Nonsense!” Jaz replied. “A little entertainment-based childhood trauma is good for a person. Builds character.”
“Jaz, no!”
“What?” Jaz retorted. “I said just a little trauma. Obviously, too much of anything is a bad thing. Especially trauma.”
Pix rolled her eyes and returned to her flagon of spiced cider. She was not as eager to mess with the kids as her hunting partner, least of all because her hunting assistant was part of the audience. Khatoyants were small, ambipedal cat people, no taller than three feet in most cases. Still, at any age, they maintained childlike proportions, especially in their deep, expressive eyes, which they often weaponized to great effect. Past a certain point, it became hard to distinguish adult Khatoyants from children, except by attitude and monster hunting experience. However, despite having some hunts under her belt—well, flowery dress-like armor—Nova was definitely still a child. Even so, she was still very much a Khatoyant, such that any sadness in her eyes was a natural, palpable force that shot out and grasped onlooking hearts like any barbarian would break a real, throbbing heart. Anyone would do anything in their power not to feel their heart crushed in that way.
So Pix kept an eye on the situation. “Which version are you telling them?”
“The one with the Candy Goose,” Jaz replied.
“That doesn’t narrow it down!”
“Where the goose eats his family.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down, either!”
“Tell us the one where he hunts the goose and melts it into goo and makes it into lollipops so the kids can eat its corpse!” an orckin yelled from within the group. Pix recognized the young part-orc as Killian, named in the great orcish tradition of including a “kill” somewhere among the syllables. He was young enough to still be in the group but old enough that he’d absorbed much of the lore of Santa Claus—and yet still approached it with an unhealthy fearlessness, especially for a child of Skull Harbor.
Or perhaps because he was a child of Skull Harbor.
Children were uncommon here, to begin with. Most hunters who became parents opted to return across the sea to the relative safety of the Wondrous Continent, with its developed cities and general lack of monsters showing up to ruin perfectly good days.
The Monstrous Continent, meanwhile, was defined by its monsters. People came here specifically to hunt—er, research—them. Or, more accurately, for the adventure of living in a largely unsettled land where giant, magnificent beasts were as common as house pets and as fascinating as any storybook adventure made them sound.
But again, it was not a place for children.
The Monstrous Continent was the continent of fuck around and find out, and while the adults had long since refined that to an art, the children who fucked around in the jungle—generally found out in ways that filled a monster’s belly.
It was why the story of Santa and the Candy Goose was such a significant one for the children who remained and why Jaz was elected to tell it. Because of all the hunters in The Society for the Exploration of the Monstrous Continent, she was most adept at spinning ridiculous-sounding BS into believable tales of awe and terror.
Moreover, Jaz, as a person who occupied a strange space between adolescence and adulthood, was often wide-eyed with childish wonder, enthusiasm, and mischief. The mischief was the bridge between the two spaces; while it drew kids to her like goslings to a mother goose, she also took more pleasure than she should have from seeing the seasonally appropriate terror on the youngest ones’ faces.
“Tell the story already!” Killian roared. “I want all the gory details!”
Nova raised a timid hand. “I would like only a little trauma, please. The bare minimum.” She glanced nervously at Jaz. “Just enough to build character.”
Jaz paused at the request, then took a slow breath as she deliberated how to satisfy the demands for both a savagely gory story and one that was only mildly traumatizing. But the scent of cinnamon, sugar, and cider in the air must have invigorated her brain and provided the answer.
She leaned forward again and let the campfire light her face from beneath, casting her pointed features in shadows.
“Are you sure you can handle it?” she asked, with a grin that didn’t particularly care.
“Yeah!” Killian raged.
“Probably not, but I’ll try,” Nova replied meekly.
Jaz nodded to acknowledge the group as a whole, then continued:
“Santa hadn’t always been dead. Nor was it even the first time he’d been dead. He’s dragonkin, after all.” She indicated the pointed tips of her own long ears. Most people under the Dazzling Skies were part dragon. While their dragon blood manifested to various degrees, it always manifested in pointed ears and increased resilience and sometimes manifested in near-immortality—namely, the ability to regenerate, even after a particularly messy death.
“This was the worst of his deaths, though,” Jaz continued, “and it was the death that changed his life.”
She paused for dramatic effect, and the children leaned forward with bated breaths.
“He’d been a toymaker in those days. He had a way with crafting. The monster loot that you and I turn into armor and weapons, he turned into any variety of wondrous, magical contraptions—a mechanical wyvern with actual wyvern leather for its wings, tiny clockwork hunters with shields made from Onyxaur scales, dolls with hair of the softest, glowing Radiant Scintilion fur.
“He made them for the children of his village—way up in the north of the Skull Harbor Jungle—but he especially made them for his own children, whom he loved so much he had a heart only for them. He would have had space in his heart for one more—and had, at one point, a wife who was as radiant as any Scintilion. But one day, the two of them went into the jungle to hunt, and there she met her fate.
“They came upon a goose—and not just any goose, even though ordinary geese are terrifying, too. This goose was as tall as three hunters. Its body shimmered with pearlescent feathers and sprouted with jagged, shining shards of what looked like gems but, he discovered after the fact, were actually hard candy.
“The fact was this: The goose was hungry and savage, as even ordinary geese are, and as adept at hunting as the two were, they were no match for the Candy Goose. It shattered their armor with its talons, snapped their weapons with its beak, and pummeled them within an inch of their lives—and when it looked upon his wife, decided that last inch would be delicious.
“Santa could only watch as the Candy Goose devoured his wife. He felt a piece of his heart bitten off with each snap of the monster’s fanged beak—but he quickly remembered the other pieces of his heart, back home in his village and in danger as long as this beast existed. But, armor shattered and sword broken, he was in no position to fight it.
“And so, he ran back to his village to warn them of the threat.
“The village armed up, as hunter villages do, and searched for days, then weeks, then months, but the monster never reappeared, and soon the monster and the wife’s death were passed off as a hallucination, a trick of the mind played by some other clever monster.
“But Santa remembered. He refused to ever go into the jungle again, choosing to barter with neighbors for monster parts to make his toys. He poured his grief into his work, distracted it in the love of his children—and forbade them from going out into the jungle.
“But his children lived in a village of monster hunters … and, well, you know how kids are.”
Jaz nodded to indicate her audience, and all nine nodded mischievously, knowing exactly how kids were.
“So one day, his kids decided to venture into the jungle. Not far. Just within sight of the village wall. And do you know what was waiting for them?”
“The Candy Goose …” Nova breathed, suspecting the terror that was coming.
“Yeah! The Candy Goose!” roared Killian, knowing what was coming but thoroughly pumped for it anyway.
Jaz continued, “Santa heard the noise and knew exactly what it was, and so he snatched what gear he could and sprinted into the jungle to save them.”
“What gear did he grab? What were its stats?” Killian insisted.
“What? I don’t know. He didn’t have time to strategize.”
“You knew last year!” Killian shouted.
“I BSed it. No one knows what gear he wore. It’s a legend!”
“You mean Santa and the Candy Goose aren’t real?” Nova squeaked, sounding both disappointed and relieved at the same time.
“Oh. No, they’re definitely real,” Jaz replied.
Nova started crying, but Jaz continued over her.
“Anyway,” she continued again, “as fast as he moved, he was still too late. By the time he reached the scene, the Candy Goose was all that remained in the clearing, the evidence of its deed splashed all over the surrounding jungle.
“In that moment, Santa felt the rest of his heart empty. Rage flooded into his eyes. He clamped his hands upon his greatsword and rushed the monster in a berserker fury, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He fought the goose tooth and nail until it shattered his armor again, his sword broke against the monster’s armor once more, and it took him.
“He remembered dying. He remembered feeling his soul fly into and past the Dazzling Skies. You don’t forget something like that, even after you come back. For, being dragonkin, he did come back.
“He instantly looked for his children. But though his children were part him and thus part dragon, they were not dragon enough.
“He waited. Days. Weeks. Months. But his children did not regenerate.”
“It was then that Santa made his oath:
“He would hunt the Candy Goose to its end, and he would die as many times as it took to kill the monster and protect the children of the Monstrous Continent. So when you look up to the Skies on Hallowmas week, beware. If you see a silhouette on the moons of a hunter riding a Red-Nosed Paindeer, it means Santa is near—and so is the Candy Goose. Hunters get to join Santa in his quest—but children… children best hide.”
Jaz leaned back and let the fire cast more natural light on her face.
“So basically, the moral of the story is ‘Don’t go in the jungle, or you’ll make Santa sad and won’t get any Hallowmas candy and might get your face eaten by the Candy Goose.’”
“Hey!” Killian objected. “I didn’t come to hear a moral. I came to hear about Santa killing the goose!”
“You did say, ‘Santa was dead, to begin with,’” Nova pointed out. “That means you were just beginning. So there’s more.”
“Of course, there’s more. He’s been hunting for, like, three hundred years.”
“Please. I need to hear about the hunts!” both Killian and Nova begged.
“Fine,” Jaz huffed, “but only if you give me some of your Hallowmas candy. The good stuff. Not those weird brown things no one can identify.”
“Aww,” the children muttered but then agreed, “Ok.”
Pix listened from the table nearby as her partner continued the story of Santa and the Candy Goose. Nova listened in intrigued terror as Killian begged for stats, and Jaz continued to BS them—then a commotion from across the beach snatched Pix’s attention.
A group of hunters had randomly started singing Hallowmas carols, and those who heard responded by pelting them with what looked like those nasty brown candies until the fracas somehow evolved into a sugar-fueled pose-off, all in the course of ten seconds.
Pix rolled her eyes and decided to look elsewhere.
Skull Harbor was rampant with mischief and hijinks on any normal day, but the Hallowmas season only intensified the ridiculousness.
No one knew precisely how Hallowmas began, but Pix did know she’d never observed it before she came to the Monstrous Continent. This meant that despite the near-religious fervor of its observance, someone had probably made it up as a joke some centuries ago, and it just spiraled from there.
What it had spiraled into was a bizarre combination of several different gift-giving, costume, and candy-centric holidays, such that the beach had been rampant the past few days. Hunters trading presents, over half of which exploded into pranks; eating exorbitant amounts of candy and other sweets, even by their usual indulgent standards; and parading about in sexy costumes crafted from monster parts.
It wasn’t true of everyone; strangely, Jaz, of all people, had opted for a more sedate wardrobe this night—possibly because she didn’t want to inspire any of the kids to hit puberty prematurely, but just as possibly because she knew people expected a sexy outfit from her and changed it up solely to mess with them.
Pix had never seen Jaz in armor that did not involve some variation of hot pants and a bikini top. Still, today she’d opted for a short, fluffy-edged green dress and matching leggings that were nonetheless shredded as if she’d fought a monster before arriving. She’d topped it off with a pointed green hat of similar design. This, combined with her long ears, made her look something like the High Elves that had nursed Santa back to health after his death in the more epic retellings, then applied their considerable crafting talents to grant him the gear he’d use to defeat the Candy Goose.
Pix herself just sat there sipping hot cider in the latest Ugly Hallowmas Sweater Jaz had given her, pulled over her newest armor set just in case a monster appeared to disturb the proceedings. This year’s sweater featured a knitted backward-facing Raging Buttlord—a monster with precisely the features its name implied—framed by a halo of letters that spelled “Happy HallowmASS.”
She kind of hoped a monster would attack as she took another sip from her drink. Not a bad one—an easy one like a low-level Pirazhka, just challenging enough that the sweater might get destroyed while fighting it.
Nothing as strong as the Candy Goose.
“Miss Jaz, do you think Santa and the Candy Goose will ever come here?” Nova asked, eyes wide as if she was both curious and uncertain if she wanted that.
Jaz shrugged. “I don’t know; y’all don’t look very delicious to me. But to a Candy Goose—?”
She was interrupted by a great, crystalline flash in the sky, and a shriek.
The hunters were accustomed to weird shrieks, and even shrieks they’d never heard before, what with new monsters regularly falling from the portals in the sky, but this was stranger and more horrifying than even those.
Namely because, once the echo finished ringing through their ears, they realized it was not a shriek but a great, demonic, multi-tonal honk.
There were many goose-class monsters with similar horrible honks, but in this season, on this night, there was only one goose monster it could be.
The hunter had long ago stopped marking his time in years.
There were only two seasons—when his prey was alive, and the hunt was on, or when his prey was killed, and whatever it claimed for a soul retreated into the nothingness to be reborn anew in a place he could never predict. That was time he used to take stock of the damage done. To tend to his equipment and otherwise occupy his hands and mind until the time came to ride his Paindeer into the Skies and listen for tales of a bloody massacre.
Though he no longer marked time, he could still trace his memories back to the day time stopped for him.
He had felt time stop in him, or something like it when he’d seen the smeared remains of the people who had shaped meaning into his life.
It was a savage injustice that something so magnificently complex, so immeasurably valuable, could be ended in a mere second of monstrous violence.
Yet, it was not merely the memory of his family’s death that had driven his early rage, but his own. He remembered the pain of dying, of course, but what he remembered most was the feeling of absolute smallness, that he’d lived a good life and raised a good family only to see it all end in the teeth of one monster.
He was a speck of stardust shooting through a grand, infinite sky that was indifferent to everything happening beneath it.
He’d never lost that feeling of terrible smallness.
But he also could not be still. The rage kept too strong a hold on him. It needed a place to go, a purpose to serve.
He would never be a great man. He’d seen how vast the Skies were and knew that greatness was impossible.
He was a small man.
And so he would do a small thing.
He would hunt the Candy Goose to the end of its days, so that no other person would feel the smallness that he did, so that no other person would have the child-shaped pieces of their heart snatched from them.
Since that day, he’d devoted his entire existence to a singular purpose—a vocation. He’d honed the grief in his heart to a lethal edge guided for one thing and one thing only, and he’d become a master at it. His continuous hunt no longer felt like a hunt, but a meditation, a thing of bizarre peace, wrapped up in the knowledge that his every step in this dance was a step that would save a child from the fate his children met.
And yet… he could not remember the faces of his children. Worse, he could not remember when he’d forgotten them, so lost in the peace of distraction and blood that his mind had emptied of everything else.
That his soul had emptied.
For all his small greatnesses, his had become a soul of lacking.
But as long as the Candy Goose existed, he did not know how to fill it.
And this was perhaps the greatest twist in his soul. For he had hunted countless seasons, crafted enough weapons and armor to fill a nation’s armory, harvested enough magical monster gems to make an Elder Dragon jealous—and yet he’d never figured out how to kill the goose dead. Every season, it came back.
And so, every season, he hunted again, slipping further into that peace without meaning.
Now he flew through the skies over the Monstrous Continent, armored in his finest gear atop his companion Red-Nosed Paindeer. His current kit was the cumulation of centuries worth of hunting a singular monster: plate armor and a hooked greatsword forged from Bogspine metal merged with the Bogspine’s own bones. Metal grew naturally in that creature’s scales; the content of its bones combined with that metal to produce the single best steel for weapons of this nature. And the High Elves who lived in that isolated area of the jungle had wielded their arts to craft him equipment that surpassed even the metal’s natural strength, a reward for saving their children. Moreover, they’d imbued some of their magic into the steel so it would glow red in the presence of the Candy Goose. They’d imbued the same magic into the carefully-selected leather pieces he’d chosen to aid his mobility.
The Candy Goose was a thing of speed and ferocity and required armor that allowed for both movement and solid protection. The best strategy with a monster as ruthless as the goose was to simply not get hit, but its own armor was so great that most portable ranged weapons were insufficient to pierce it. In all his hunts, he’d found that only a properly spec’d out greatsword dealt the kind of damage he needed, and greatswords required getting close.
So he oiled and tended to his blade as the Paindeer soared through the sky. It was Elf-made, but it still required care like any other weapon, and a weapon that was taken care of would in turn take care of the wielder.
As he did, he waited to see the glow of his equipment.
He’d come upon the tell-tale trail of shining dust some nights ago.
And he was glad when the low embers began to emanate from his kit, and he saw the flickering lights in the distance and heard the honk.
Skull Harbor’s Hallowmas revelries did not halt.
But they did transform.
The hunters were accustomed to hearing weird shrieks and acting on them at a moment’s notice. At that moment, the hunters crashed their flagons onto their tables, scrambled to snatch their weapons from nearby racks, and were as geared up as they could be when the flash in the sky came closer.
“Killian!” Jaz shouted as she gestured for her weapon. “You’re the oldest! Get the others to safety.”
“Gotcha!” Killian replied with a mischievous grin that suggested he would interpret the order as creatively as possible.
Jaz saw it. “Don’t be a dingus,” she said. “Stay with them. If you don’t and the goose eats you, I’m just going to watch.”
“Jaz!” Pix reprimanded as she ran up with their weapons, but the kids were already running.
She held Jaz’s weapon of choice out to her—a Stellaric Monsterbone Greatsword inlaid with a variety of magical gems, some for lightening the heavy weapon and making it easier to wield, some for strengthening the integrity of the blade, but especially the centerpiece of the whole display: a shining Stellaric Opal the size of Jaz’s hand, capable of dealing any sort of elemental damage. It was a massively powerful sword for someone of her experience level, but well, it was a stroke of sheer dumb luck that led Jaz to find it in the first place, and hunters here benefited so much from dumb luck that they weren’t about to deny one of their own its benefits.
Pix’s weapon wasn’t as impressive as that, but it was still remarkable for her relative level. She and Jaz had taken down a Xession some months ago—a ferocious monster made of teeth, muscle, and thick, leathery skin. She’d crafted those materials into her present leather armor, and a brand-new capacitor blade shone with ferocity equal to the monster that had formed it. Its three-foot-long translucent blade split down the middle to reveal a black spellglass rod, which ran up the entire length of the sword to meet the revolving cylinder near the weapon’s hilt. Pix could store any variety of magical cartridges in that cylinder. When she pulled one of the triggers on the hilt, it would channel a blast of the equipped magic through the spellglass rod and into whatever monster she’d targeted.
It was the most powerful weapon she’d ever wielded, but she had no idea how it would fare against what was coming.
The shining flash in the sky winged around the light of the three moons—and then it came at them like a shooting star.
It trailed a tail of shimmering multicolored sparkles as it plunged, circling Skull Harbor like a hawk targeting prey. The sparkles drifted down like winter snow, and even amidst an impending attack, Pix saw Jaz lean up to catch a dusting on her tongue.
“Candy,” she observed darkly, then grinned. “Good candy.”
“What do you want me to do, Miss Pix?” came a sudden, small voice. Both Pix and Jaz looked down to see Nova standing between them, her eyes watery with fear, but her Paralily wand clutched in her paws all the same.
“Nova! You were supposed to go with the other kids!” Jaz shouted.
“I’m Miss Pix’s partner! I didn’t think you meant me!”
“The Candy Goose eats hunters like you!” Pix cried.
As if to prove her point, a second, more savage honk split the night air, and the sparkling comet dove straight for Pix and Jaz—and Nova.
Between the moonlight and the inconsistent flickering of the bonfires, the approaching monster’s shape was disconcertingly indistinct. It came at them in a blurred rush of wings, shining sugar armor, and a trailing burst of sparkles, like a falling star gone rogue.
“I don’t know where to paralyze it, Miss Pix!” Nova cried, her Paralily trembling in her paws.
“You won’t need to! Just hide!” Pix commanded—right as the sparkle spread a pair of great wings and reached its talons out to snatch.
Nova screeched and pressed herself flat against the ground. A second lustrous blur of gems and bone slashed where her head had been. Nova’s Paralily was most effective when it hit vulnerable places like open flesh, and while Jaz’s greatsword certainly worked better on softer surfaces, it generally had no such limitations. It was six feet of titanic monster jaw enhanced by badass magical gems, and its greatest strength was that it required little strategy. At certain ranges, she didn’t even have to aim, and at those ranges, whatever it hit felt that hit.
This was one of those ranges.
Her blade slammed into the scaly skin of the Candy Goose’s lower leg. It slashed through the outermost layer of thick flesh with a satisfying squish, and the momentum of the monster’s attack slammed it the rest of the way through. At the same time, a blast of blue sparkles plumed out where Jaz’s sword had struck—not the goose’s sparkles, but a magical reaction from Jaz’s greatsword.
Pix didn’t like how the monster squawked at the blow—like it was merely surprised—but it reacted by fanning its wings out more, slowing its strike. Pix responded by pointing her capacitor blade at its back, cycling her cylinder to the appropriate cartridge, and pulling the second trigger on her blade’s hilt to blast a beam of the same blue at the monster’s unprotected spinal feathers.
Jaz’s attack had told her the beast was weak to water element—her partner’s opal could access any elemental magic it deemed appropriate to the situation once it broke the flesh of its target. The water beam from Pix’s weapon splashed a ragged line across the Candy Goose’s back.
But not enough to stop it. In fact, not enough to even affect it.
She saw the magic sparkles of her own beam patter off the beast’s feathers like water off a duck’s… well, a goose’s back. So the feathers were armored enough to deflect a surface-level blast. As long as the feathers were coated with whatever protected them against magic, piercing was necessary.
The monster flapped its enormous wings and shot back into the sky like a bird of prey going for a second strike. It didn’t come down immediately. It circled high above them as if building up velocity for its next move. Pix kept her eye on the beast while Jaz used the lull to pick up its now-disembodied foot.
They called the ends talons for a reason. Standard geese had three webbed digits and a back-facing hallux, each ending in little curved claws that were fearsome but, after all, little. The Candy Goose’s claws were so conspicuous they’d been able to see them even through the starry sparkle of its presence. They curved from its digits like sickles, inches long and designed for slashing and grasping. These were the claws of a genuine predator.
Jaz raised the foot to her mouth and licked the feathers at its end—“Ooh, more candy!”—then licked a talon. “Eew. That’s not candy. That’s loot,” she said. “Could make some decent daggers.”
“Jaz, stop licking the monster parts!” Pix snapped. “It’s still attacking!”
“Right,” Jaz replied, then looked down to Nova, still cowering on the ground. “Defend this. And go hide.”
Nova accepted the foot. “Yes, Miss Jaz.”
Pix and Jaz nodded, and Nova began to skitter off.
The Candy Goose must have seen its prey escaping, for it honked again and began another dive. Before it could land, Nova vanished into a Khat-sized hole in a nearby rock formation, where a creature as large as the Candy Goose couldn’t follow.
It blasted its wings out again, stalling its descent, but now lacking a child to attack, it apparently lost its sense of immediate purpose. Instead of striking or returning to the sky, it thumped to a furious stop against the sand, plunging its talons—talons plural—into the snowy white grains, then snapping forward to unleash the most ferocious, long-winded honk they’d heard yet.
“It can grow back its limbs,” Pix muttered, tightening her grip on her capacitor blade.
Jaz readjusted her grip on her blade. “That just means we can farm it for more loot.”
That was perhaps a bit over-optimistic, Pix reflected—monsters that could regenerate limbs mid-battle were no joke—but she decided to use the prolonged honk to get a look at what kind of loot this monster might produce.
The Candy Goose stood three times as tall as the two of them, one-third of that size being its neck, but not the slender, snappable-looking neck of an average goose. Instead, its neck was thick with muscle, covered in scales of hard sugar candy that curved into horns at the top of its head and a collar of crystalline spikes at the base of its neck. Similar scales lined the bony supports of its wings. The joints of those bones also ended in crystalline spikes, as did the joints of its legs.
Under normal circumstances, she’d have expected Jaz’s sword to cut straight through sugar armor—but she’d heard the tales Jaz spun of how deftly the Candy Goose had fended off its legendary hunter. So she wasn’t about to underestimate this beast.
Its feathers might have shone with an ethereal light, but the eyes beneath those candy horns were red with bloodlust, and its otherwise normal goose beak was studded with rows of tiny, needle-like teeth.
This was a monster made for killing—and had been thwarting Santa for centuries.
The thought made Pix shiver.
For if Santa Claus hadn’t defeated it, what possible chance did two noobs have?
“Gonna go for its neck spines,” Jaz declared, apparently unconcerned with the question. “That’s the most armored part, so what makes it killable is probably hidden there.”
Pix nodded, despite her fears.
The goose finished its enraged honk, then flashed into the air.
Pix didn’t even see it come down.
What she did see was a pair of bloodthirsty red eyes looming right over her head, and rows upon rows of ragged teeth so close she could see the blood in them.
And then they were gone.
A strangled honk burst from the goose, and it took to the air again—but this time, without purpose. This time, it cartwheeled through the Skies over Skull Harbor, its neck bent backward in a C as if caught by an assailant, and that assailant was riding its back.
Pix saw something happening in that space between the goose’s wings—something like grapplers being thrown, trying to restrict the freedom of its flight. The goose toppled ungracefully through the air, trying to throw whoever it was off. It finally managed—though it, too, began to fall with its rider.
So deftly had the hunter restricted the goose that Pix thought it had been one of the experienced locals—but the creature that came to catch the falling hunter was not a Skull Harbor wyvern.
It was a massive, muscular deer with wicked, pointed red antlers and a snout that shone equally red even in the low firelight.
A Red-Nosed Paindeer.
It caught the hunter as if such stunts were a thing of mere habit, and where the Candy Goose landed with an awkward thump, the Paindeer landed with deadly grace.
The hunter atop it dismounted with equally deadly precision.
No one could deny who he was in the ground-level light of the Hallowmas bonfires.
His shoulders were broad and his middle thick with muscle borne of practical work. His entire form was covered by armor that looked worn with use and exposure to the elements and yet glowed with an angry, ethereal red light. It was composed of plate metal in the most vulnerable places, thick leather in others, and yet unexpected flourishes of coarse, white fur lined his boots and gloves. Those same boots and gloves bore outer compartments for small daggers. Still, the prime weapon was the greatsword on his back: an enormous thing even taller than Jaz’s. The greatsword was made of an unnamable metal streaked in alternating patterns of red and white and hooked on its end as if intended specifically to catch giant goosenecks in its grasp.
Yet, for all this incredible body armor, his head armor was astonishingly plain—a simple metal thing that covered his skull but left his face obvious and exposed. A snow-white beard spilled down his front and a cascade of equally white hair down his back, around a hard, cold face that had seen worse than war—had seen every atrocity this monster committed and wanted the goose to see who was coming for it, and who would end it.
They stood face to face with Santa Claus, and a cool vengeance raged in his eyes.
Pix didn’t even see him take his greatsword in hand.
One moment, he dismounted. The next, he leapt over the goose, sword raised over his head for a killing blow.
But though Santa had incapacitated the goose’s wings, he hadn’t had time to take the feet before both had fallen, and the goose figured this out just as the sword came down. It righted itself, shot one talon up to sever the ropes restricting its wings, and then launched out of the path of the hunter’s blow and hissed.
The hunter took an easy, measured step back as if he was accustomed to such moves from the goose, and he lunged forward with an expression as casual as that of any experienced hunter taking down a simple Pirazhka.
The Candy Goose didn’t attack. Instead, it flapped its great wings and shot into the air. As if privy to its master’s thoughts, the Paindeer leapt to the hunter’s side. He re-mounted with all the fluidity of his earlier movements, all of his great bulk refined into an absurd, paradoxical grace almost resembling a dance. When he and the Paindeer shot into the sky to meet the goose, it was not as if they were on the hunt. It was as if they were putting on an aerial performance.
And really, Pix reflected, after centuries of hunting the same beast, how could it be anything else? He must have memorized all its habits by now, its attacks, its quirks. This was nothing like the hunts she and Jaz undertook. Pix could plan and prepare all she wanted—Jaz relied on big weapons and luck—but at their mere year or so of experience, they had yet to develop anything like those artful moves. Skies, most of the hunters here had yet to develop such skill. It was likely why they were all hanging back, waiting for a moment to join that wouldn’t ruin this long-cultivated dance.
Santa repeated his earlier strategy with the same grace. The Candy Goose was wise to it, but it made no difference, for his skill was beyond even his enemy’s awareness.
This time, he did capture the goose’s talons. The monster crashed onto the beach with a heavy thud—but it did not lay defeated. It thrashed against the sand with all its brutal might, trying to wrench its bound limbs loose—and Santa, Pix, Jaz, and all the hunters saw their chance. They all sprinted to descend on the Candy Goose, eager to end its reign of terror.
Jaz bolted out before the rest of the hunters, her feet driven by the thrill of the hunt and probably no small amount of Hallowmas candy, not to mention the furious desire to taste the ultimate Hallowmas treat—the hard candy flesh of the Candy Goose.
The smooth surface of her Stellaric Opal glinted in the firelight as she raised it for an overhead blow.
Even in its fury, the Candy Goose must have recognized it.
For something began to happen.
The monster’s eyes began to glow as red as an exploding star, and a great, angry honk ripped from its lungs as its body began to change. Its every muscle expanded as if pumped with an inadvisable amount of steroids; its talons shot out, growing instant inches; the teeth in its beak grew to vicious, curved fangs; and the beak itself split to accommodate them, widening into a long, spiny mouth that stretched halfway down its neck.
One great flex of its muscles burst all its restraints, and it twisted like a gross, eldritch horror to snap straight for Jaz’s opal.
It caught Santa instead.
The legendary hunter bolted to smash Jaz out of the way, and as he did, the goose’s bizarre jaws snapped around his forearm and bit in a horrific red spray.
But Santa was prepared even for that. With his arm in its mouth, the Candy Goose was as physically close as it would ever be. With his remaining arm, he drew his greatsword from his back and brought its sharp edge straight down on the goose’s neck.
The goose fell. Its horrific head—and Santa’s arm—fell separately.
And yet, it was still not done.
It flopped around the sand like a—well, like a goose with its head cut off—but it never slowed, as if having its head removed was a mere inconvenience.
And that terrible indifference shot a new urgency into the legs of the converging hunters. For no monster that chill about losing its head was a beast that could be allowed to live. The entire harbor descended on the goose—but it was determined not to be killed. It leapt over the hunters and bumbled its sightless way around the beach until it finally found the high wall separating the settlement from the jungle and bounded over it.
Pix could hear it crashing through the trees even over the din of the excited hunters. Most were rushing the jungle gate until a great bold voice boomed,
“STOP.”
It was a voice that carried a gravity most hunters here couldn’t fathom.
All eyes turned back to the source—Santa Claus. The greatsword in the hunter’s hand had been replaced by a device Pix didn’t recognize, though she did recognize the red Ignifex Gem that glowed at its center. She cringed as she realized its purpose. Santa pressed it to his stump, and the smell of burning flesh blasted from it.
“The Goose is in its Rampage state,” he continued as if he hadn’t just cauterized his wound as simply as putting on a bandage. “It will fight at all costs to stay alive and spend many lives in the process.
“But it’s missing its head!” Jaz shouted. “How dangerous could it possibly be?”
“Any monster backed into a corner is dangerous. Especially one that can fight with a missing head, and especially the Candy Goose,” Santa continued. “But the Rampage state expends a lot of energy and, to a certain extent, damages the beast. However, it will still come back—and it will do so tonight, for it’s a ravenous beast—but it will wait until it has healed.”
“It’ll grow back its head in less than a night?” Jaz exclaimed.
Santa nodded again. “This creature regenerates even from death. A head is nothing compared to its life. That is precisely why I have been hunting it for centuries; I kill it every year, and every year it comes back.”
“Is there even a way to kill it permanently?” Pix asked.
“I have yet to discover one. However.” He looked meaningfully at Jaz. “I think we may have a new possibility here.”
Then he looked at the stump of his severed arm.
“It seems, however, that I will need some help.”
Soon Santa was reclining in a beach chair by a bonfire with a ring of hunters surrounding him in awed commotion. Some gawked at him; most gawked at the stump of his arm, which he still disregarded as if it was a mere flesh wound.
“Sorry about your arm,” Jaz said as she offered him a flagon of cider, for once embarrassed. She might be a force of mischief, but she didn’t like it when people lost limbs because of her.
“It’ll grow back eventually,” Santa shrugged, gesturing to the points of his ears. “Not quickly enough to be useful tonight, though.”
Pix unhooked a bottle of green bitterale from her armor’s bandolier and offered it to him. He flicked a curious eye at the design on her sweater, and suddenly her face went red with more than the heat of the fire. Here she was, meeting one of the greatest legends under the Dazzling Skies, and she in a “Happy HallowmASS” sweater.
He didn’t comment on it, though, and accepted the healing drink with a grateful light in his eye. He chugged it, handed the empty bottle back to her, and then returned his gaze to Jaz.
“How much experience do you have?” he asked. “An experienced hunter wouldn’t have faced a monster like the Candy Goose so casually. And you seem far too young to have earned that Opal.”
“That’s ‘cause I didn’t,” Jaz replied. “I literally found it on a dead titan a few months ago, and I wasn’t going to let it go to waste.”
“We’ve been hunting a little over a year,” Pix offered. “And we wouldn’t have tried if Nova hadn’t been in danger.”
“Nova?” Santa asked.
“My Khatoyant,” Pix replied, gesturing to the little kitten who had since crept out of her hiding place and now sat next to Pix with a flagon of comforting warm milk.
“Thank you, Mr. Santa,” she said through a tiny milk mustache. “For saving Miss Pix. Oh, and me.”
Something changed in Santa’s countenance then. Pix wasn’t sure if it was Nova’s eyes, her thanks, or something else, but something like a twinkle began to rise back into his eyes.
Finally, Santa nodded and said, “I fully understand the noble recklessness that happens when one is defending children.” His eyes returned to Jaz. “I have fought the Candy Goose for centuries and honed an art finely tuned to killing it. But I have never fought with a Stellaric Opal.”
“Why would that matter?” Pix said. “If it’s just going to regenerate anyway, why would it matter what element hits it?”
“Because there’s more to Stellaric magic than mere elements,” Santa said. “That’s only Stellaric magic in its simplest form. A true and fully powered Stellaric blast—that’s made of the same stuff as stars. Nothing is escaping that without very specific, very powerful armor, and if there’s nothing to regenerate, then a beast can’t regenerate.”
“And you haven’t tried one before?” Jaz asked.
“I didn’t have one before,” Santa replied. “What you have there is one of the rarest treasures under the Dazzling Skies. I searched for the better part of two centuries before I gave up on ever finding one in the wild, and no one who owns one is willing to sell it.”
“You want to borrow mine?” Jaz offered instantly.
Santa’s brow furrowed at the abruptness of the offer. Pix understood why. It was absurd to search for such an item for centuries only to be offered so easily. But it was also Jaz.
“You would give this to me?” Santa asked, still astonished.
“I’d let you borrow it,” Jaz specified with a snort as if even Santa was not legendary enough to keep her precious shiny thing. “Besides, I figure if you can’t hurt the goose with a Stellaric Opal, then we’re all doomed anyway. I mean, my natural magic’s nothing to sneeze at, but when you attune your magic to the gem”—she gestured between her ears and Santa’s considerably longer, sharper ears—“you’re the most likely person to blow the Candy Goose to stardust. Besides, if you use my gem, I get to brag about it.”
“You’re pure of intention, I see.”
“Depending on your definition of ‘pure,’ sure,” Jaz shrugged. “Anyway, depending on how you use the opal, you may have limited shots. My greatsword spends its magic a little bit at a time, so I don’t have to worry about recharging, but if we’re talking about obliterating the goose, you’ll probably want to channel its magic into a beam like The Madmiral does.”
“The Madmiral?” Santa exclaimed. “You know someone else with a Stellaric Opal?”
“Yeah, but she’s on vacation,” Jaz stated. “Says she’s too old for the Hallowmas season over here.”
“Ah. And how does she wield it?”
“Well, hers is implanted into her chest, but I think it’s only contact that’s essential. I imagine as long as it’s touching your skin, you’ll be able to fire the beam, and you’re dragon enough that you definitely won’t explode when you use it.”
“Is that actually a risk of using the opal?” Pix exclaimed.
“Yeah. The Madmiral told me about it when I first found this one.”
“And you still use it?”
“I didn’t die the first time I used it, so why not?” Jaz dismissed, then turned back to Santa. “All this to say, you’ll have limited shots, so we need to immobilize the goose before you fire it.”
Santa nodded slowly, still trying to shake his bewilderment at all that was Jaz. “And it’ll be best if we’ve broken through its armor before we blast it,” he finally replied. “There’s a Stellaric quality to its outer armor. It’s one of the reasons why it’s so hard to defeat. Its insides are weak to water element, but its feathers and spines are weak to no element.”
“Wait,” Jaz stated.
Pix looked over to see an absurdly serious look on Jaz’s face—well, absurdly serious for Jaz. For anyone else, it was normal, but it was such a rare expression on Jaz that it struck Pix to her core and made her suspect that whatever was about to come out of her mouth was either very smart—or very stupid.
“Have you tried splashing it with soda?” Jaz asked.
Santa blinked. “Assuming I carried enough carbonated drinks to cover a monster as large as the goose, why would I splash it with soda?”
“Because when I licked its leg feathers, they reminded me of pop candies.”
“Pop candies?”
“They’re made with little gas pockets so they explode when they encounter certain liquids. Most are meant to pop in contact with water—well, saliva—but acidic liquids like vinegar work, too, and I crafted one for a class project that isn’t a pop candy in and of itself but was made from ingredients meant to take advantage of the gases in sodas. So you put one in a friend’s drink, and it explodes! It was more of a prank candy than food candy, but I did get a passing grade on the project.”
“‘The project?’” Santa asked.
“I briefly majored in Candy Science over on the Wondrous Continent. My point is, the goose’s exterior tastes exactly like something that would react explosively with soda, vinegar, or water. Soda would be best, though, ‘cause in addition to blowing off the candy armor, all the sugar will make the feathers sticky, thus impairing its ability to fly.”
Santa paused as if even his centuries of strange experiences and desperate hunting strategies had not yet encountered a tactic that absurd.
“That is an incredibly childish idea,” he stated.
But then, something about the statement seemed to strike a place deep inside him, like a match dropped on a smoldering coal.
That coal caught fire and lit his eyes in a twinkle, and he added:
“Do you have this much soda?”
Jaz’s eyes narrowed, and her mischievous smile stretched into a manic grin as if she’d been waiting her whole life to hear those words.
“I have a private collection of exotic sodas imported from the furthest reaches of the Wondrous Continent, a personal soda fountain equipped with every syrup I’ve ever concocted, and enough soda gas to keep it bubbly for decades.” She held out her fist for a bump. “I’ve got you.”
So it was that a production line started at Pix and Jaz’s condo. In a blink of an eye, the harbor switched to focused preparation, for if it was good at anything, it was preparing for a hunt, and if Jaz was good at anything, it was turning a wholly ridiculous idea into a functional plan that just might give them a chance to defeat the goose.
Jaz stood on their porch, accepting incoming bottles from a makeshift dumbwaiter, directing them to a small crew manning the soda fountain, then sending them back down a second makeshift lift, and generally coordinating the impromptu workshop with such finesse that it would make the High Elves proud.
The work was done in unbelievable time, and soon most of the hunters had withdrawn to secret, strategic places around Skull Harbor.
At this moment, the only people conspicuous on the beach were Santa, Jaz, and Pix. Santa stood bold and daring in wait for the inevitable monster. Someone had spent the earlier preparation time converting what looked like a shoulder-strapped baby carrier into a holder for Jaz’s opal. Now it hung nestled against a snug hole in Santa’s chest armor, touching his skin while still allowing protection and the unrestricted use of his remaining hand. Jaz stood at his back in her High Elf attire, greatsword already out and ready with a haphazard plug where her opal once was; and Pix stood heroically in her “Happy HallowmASS” sweater, capacitor blade out and waiting for the enemy to strike.
As they waited, a little Khatoyant ran up.
“Nova!” Pix shouted. “You’re supposed to be hiding with the other kids.”
“I know, Miss Pix,” Nova said, trembling slightly. “But Mr. Santa—I wondered.” Now she looked up at Santa with her deep, watery eyes. “Will the Candy Goose come if it doesn’t see any children? I mean—what I mean is—um—I may be young, but I’m a good hunter. Would you like me to be bait?”
When she said it, she smiled eagerly, and suddenly Pix realized she wasn’t nervous about facing the Candy Goose. She was nervous talking to the legendary Santa.
“Nova! This is a dangerous monster!”
“But, Miss Pix, I helped fight the Screecher and the Leviathan Screecher and the Xession, and you didn’t say anything then!”
“She’s got a point,” Jaz said.
Nova looked back up to Santa. “Plus, Killian and the other kids gave me some taunts to say, ‘cause they wanted to contribute, too.”
Pix glared back at her Khatoyant. “You’re the youngest. Why’d they send you?”
Nova answered by drawing her paws together in an undeniable begging gesture and opening her eyes as wide and watery as they would go. Her chin trembled. Her pupils dilated, and reflected in them were twinkles as infinite as those in the Dazzling Skies.
“Oh yeah, no way the goose’ll be able to turn down something that cute,” Jaz said.
Now she and Pix looked to Santa, and Santa gazed down at Nova. That earlier twinkle had not diminished from his eyes; now, that same twinkle seemed to scintillate with conflict, as if he wanted to please this child but also knew the danger she was asking to put herself in. Pix knew the feeling.
Finally Santa crouched to her level. Nova squeaked as if being acknowledged by her favorite celebrity, and Santa said:
“You have a great, bold heart. The heart of a hunter, and the courage of a warrior, and it will serve you well on your many hunts to come. But not toni—”
The point suddenly became moot.
With a great, shining whoosh, the star trail of the Candy Goose’s wings and candy dust shot over the defensive wall and plunged toward Nova, its beak open in a furious honk.
The wear on the beast was gone. Its head had fully regenerated; its armor shone as strong as it had ever been; and it even retained the ferocious inches-long talons and spines from its Rampage state, though it lacked the berserker fury. It did not need the berserker fury, though, for the height of its present fury was obvious in that honk, directed straight at Nova.
But it soon found that honk interrupted by a parallel series of whoops and whooshes—not of goose wings, but wyvern wings.
Hundreds of wyverns burst into flight from random, hidden corners of Skull Harbor, each mounted by a hunter and each hunter armed with bottles fizzing like bombs.
The Candy Goose had no idea what happened. One moment it was diving. The next, its senses were assaulted by bubbly splashes of every color and flavor imaginable.
And, suddenly, it exploded.
The hunters watched as little bits of sugar and feathers blasted off the Candy Goose’s form, hissing through the air on the force of thousands of little pockets of released gas. Not all of the candy exploded, though. Some rose up into fountains of gooey, muddy, multicolored foam, overtook the goose’s body, seeped into its now-more-porous feathers, and flopped it heavily onto the sand, right in front of Santa, Pix, Jaz, and Nova.
It scrambled to return to its feet, but its eyes were blinded by sugary foam, its sense of direction confused, and soon it found itself restricted under nets cast by another waiting rush of hunters.
Pix saw its eyes flame in fury beneath the nets and foam, much as they had before it entered its Rampage mode—but it had no power left for such a mode. It was trapped, and Santa stepped forward, his eyes once again cold.
Pix saw an odd hesitance there, the feeling that this was somehow a trick. That hundreds of years of single-minded hunting could not end so easily.
But he was also a man of purpose and fury.
The stone at his chest glowed brilliant white. His eyes glowed with it, and when he opened his mouth in a wrathful roar, all the fury of his centuries blasted out in a searing beam of celestial color. He stopped for breath, then roared, again and again, burying the goose’s agonized honks with his own years of raging anguish.
Until the honks died to nothing.
Until the red glow of his equipment died with them.
He blasted the spot again for good measure until nothing was left but a hole in the sand, which even now began to fill under the gentle beach wind.
The Candy Goose was dead. Santa Claus’ hunt had ended.
He looked down at the diminishing hole. “Well. That was significantly less climactic than I’d expected.”
Nova ran up beside him and cried, “Nooo! I didn’t get to shout my taunts!”
The feeling was a strange one.
The hunter had been living out of time so long that he’d forgotten what the passage of time felt like, but. Still, as he sat on his beach chair, eating a plate of proffered cookies and milk, and watching the wild ebullience of these seasonal proceedings, he began to wonder if this was what the passage of time felt like.
He watched the young Khatoyant girl relay the story of the battle to the other children, even though it had only just ended, even though it wasn’t much of a battle. At the same time, the hunter, who seemed the designated storyteller, played off her story’s beats, and her companion rolled her eyes in a sweater the hunter himself had yet to figure out.
“They’re all like children,” he observed to himself. “Even the older ones. And their survival strategies are… interesting.” He looked again to the storyteller, whose simple pop candy idea had brought him closer to the end of his quest than he’d ever been before. It would be next year before he learned the solid truth of it, in the season when the Candy Goose usually came back, but for the moment, he felt a different sort of peace than he felt in the dance with his enemy.
The peace of watching generations he’d saved, knowing they would grow and propel themselves forward on ideas as strange and clever as the storyteller. For that was one thing he realized he remembered about children—their lively sense of wonder, their enthusiasm for the strange. Life eventually harrowed that wonder out of a person—had certainly harrowed it out of him. But looking at these “children,” he felt a genuine twinkle return to his eye and a rosy smile to his cheeks, and time became a thing to him again.
He saw the same light in their eyes that he’d seen in those of his own children each time he offered them a monster-craft toy.
Perhaps, he thought, it was time to craft toys again.
