From Chapter 7: 101 Sheepguana Diseases
with Many Detailed Illustrations that are Invaluable for the Guardian
but May Not be suited for the Casual Reader of a Delicate Disposition
As the educated reader may know, there is a set of particularly vile diseases in various animals in which a parasitic fungus or other microscopic villain will not merely attack the victim’s body but also affects its mind, often driving it to some sort of unnatural behaviour that benefits the parasite while amounting to suicide for the unlucky host.
One example of such behaviour is the host climbing to a high perch where the parasite will then consume its body to produce spores to be spread by the wind to complete the repellent cycle of its life. Another type of miniscule blackguard will spend its youth cadging in the body of a herbivore but can only reproduce in the nutrient-rich environment of a carnivore’s guts; so upon reaching maturity, it will attempt to steer its hapless host to be killed and devoured by a predator.
Beyond causing much suffering to animals and inflicting serious hardship on those whose livestock they infest, the argument has sometimes been made that these diseases may be a cause in the emergence of doom cults such as the Murmuration of Fragh Dhal, either by addling the minds of otherwise blameless birds, or by serving as evidence that the gods are capricious and cruel.
T. fentonii belongs the the second type described above and is in fact a particularly sophisticated specimen of its vile kin for it does not merely slow the host’s reflexes or dampen its natural fear response, but instead it somehow entices the host to actively seek out and confront its natural enemies.
Being part of its heritage from its sheep ancestors, T. fentonii has haunted the sheepguana as long as it existed. However, until recently, it was considered more of a nuisance than a threat as it was rare and largely unsuccessful at spreading through this new species. The reason for this failure is that, while an infected sheepguana will indeed amble off to present itself to the nearest wolf or bear, the sheepguana’s strong social instincts mean that it will usually be accompanied by several of its scaly, fire-breathing kin; an encounter that will as often as not end poorly for the carnivore, thus depriving the parasite of its goal.
In the last few years, however, reports have surfaced from rural areas indicating that T. fentonii has changed tactics: Rather than attempting to offer themselves as a meal for predators, affected sheepguana will attack, kill, and devour other animals, allowing the parasite to complete its life cycle without changing hosts.
It is, of course, impossible to know how this grisly innovation ultimately came about, but one may speculate that some poor sheepguana, while under the thrall of T. fentonii, was saved by the violent intervention of its flock and stood over the bloody, singed remains of the predator until, in the turmoil of confusion and the parasite’s alien commands, it began eating the carcass. The famously robust digestive tract of the sheepguana is ill suited to drawing much nutrition from meat, making it an even better breeding ground for the unwanted guest.
The spores in the original carrier’s dung would have spread the new plague quickly to the other animals in its flock and onwards from there as the sheepguana were driven to winter pastures or markets.
Diagnosis of the infection can be difficult, for it is dormant most of the time. Indeed, this new type seems to have evolved into an almost symbiotic relationship with its hosts, protecting them from other infections and the various infirmities detailed in this chapter. If anything, infected sheepguana thus look unusually healthy and can only be identified by a slight reddish tint in their eyes, their eerily synchronized movements while grazing, and the peculiar sliding backwards gait they sometimes use for short periods.
They will seem for all intents and purposes to be perfectly normal sheepguana until, of course, the parasite is ready to reproduce. To gain strength in numbers by exploiting their herd instinct, it has latched on to the sheepguana’s natural hormonal cycles. So as the days get shorter and the nights get colder, the animals will get sluggish and drowsy in what seems to be the normal manner of their kind. But while their healthy brethren conserve their energy to grow fat and woolly, these sheepguana undergo a very different metamorphosis. Finally, as the leaves turn the colour of blood, one night they arise under the moonlight, bodies haggard and bony under shaggy fleece, eyes wide and feverish in gaunt faces and the serrated fangs of their draconic blood bared in a snarl as they begin to hunt.
For seven nights they haunt the countryside in bloodthirsty packs, killing bird or beast, gorging on the steaming flesh to sate their perverse hunger. If prey is plentiful, they are said to show a preference for the soft, rich tissues of the head, cracking skulls open to feast on eyes and brains and leaving the rest of the carcass for whatever scavengers escape the carnage. For seven nights, all cower behind locked doors, noblehen or pheasant if they value their life. Yet on the morning of the eighth day, the dawn will find the wayward flocks back in their pens, placidly basking in the morning sun’s warming rays to drive off the nightly torpor, innocently wrinkling their noses at the patches of drying blood as if wondering what might have caused them.
Now the reader might find themselves justified in asking why, then, the people in the affected areas continue to care for their flocks rather than make what might seem the sensible choice of slaughtering the animals and being rid of the threat once and for all. Unfortunately, the sensible choice is not always the most practical one. Life must go on and for obvious reasons, the sheepguana are the only livestock these people have left. A determined duke went into great debt to kill and burn all his flocks and import new animals to be kept behind hastily erected walls, but the corruption has seeped into the soil and before their first winter, they had turned. As lending aid promised neither glory nor sport, the royal courts proved indifferent and so those who could afford it have moved away while the poor do as they always do, trying to make a living between the annual visitations of the sheepguana’s bloodlust and the king’s tax collector.
When rumours indicated that the affliction may be spreading, several Quailadins were finally dispatched to asses the situation and, if need be, cleanse the area with their holy fury. They returned after some weeks of investigation and, although both mounts and riders exhibited signs of slight disorientation and what looked like freshly healed bite wounds, they assured their order and the king that the situation was well contained and had been severely exaggerated by travelling bards. “W… They pose no threat to you. Us.” the group’s leader summarized his report after stabling his Khaw sheepguana with the local monastery’s flock. “We should all be merry and enjoy the upcoming harvest festival. There will be no salvation in fear.”
Sheepguana facts 