The man spilled onto the ground.
Little bodies followed, jumping on him, spearing him with their steely swords. As Maxton drew closer, he could see that the warrior on the ground was none other than Achilles de Dere, one of his closest and dearest friends. Achilles was an accomplished knight, powerful and talented, but he was apparently no match for three little girls who were outfighting him. He was on his back, trying to flip over so he could at least get to his feet, but the girls were pounding on him so much that all he could do was hold his sword up to keep their blades deflected off his face.
Achilles was in a bad way.
“He’s just a… child!” Achilles grunted when Danae landed a heavy blow. “Why should you want to hurt him?”
It was Melisandra who finally kicked his hand, forcing him to release his grip. As the sword fell away, she leapt onto his chest and put her blade against his throat.
“Tell me where he is,” she demanded.”
Achilles had his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “Mercy, my lady,” he begged softly in a tone Maxton had never heard from him before. “Please show mercy. I shall submit to whatever you wish, but…”
Melisandra cut him off by leaning forward, her face in his, as she pressed her blade into his neck. “Begging is for the weak,” she snarled. “Tell me where the child is and tell me now. I will not ask again.”
Maxton had been standing there, horrified by what he was seeing, but his daughter’s seething demand forced him into action.
“Melly,” he said, dropping to his knees at Achilles’ head. “Melisandra, please. This is your Uncle Achilles. Why are you doing this? Who are you looking for?”
She didn’t look at him. She didn’t respond. She was focused on Achilles, who still had his hands up. As Maxton waved a hand in front of her face with no reaction on her part, Boone’s words were ringing in Maxton’s head.
Do you really want your girls involved in death and destruction as you have been?
Of course he didn’t. Not like this; never like this. But he was trapped in some kind of damnable nightmare where everything was topsy-turvy. His children weren’t listening to him and his friends were dying at their hand.
He couldn’t stand it.
Reaching out, he tried to grab the sword Melisandra had against Achilles’ neck, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on it. His fingers would connect, but he couldn’t get a grip. He’d touch it and his fingers would slide away, as if the blade was coated with oil. He tried with both hands and he still couldn’t get a grip. Then he tried hitting it, but his hand bounced off. He rubbed at his hand, thinking to kick it out of his daughter’s hand, but she didn’t give him a chance.
She sliced through Achilles’ neck and the man disappeared through the floor.
The girls were on their feet, running for the stairwell again.
Grieved, Maxton followed. He stayed close to them this time, forced to face the fact that Boone was right – they couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t even stop them. They were moving much faster than he was up those slippery, ill-formed stairs, reaching the next level before he did.
But they met with something on that level that sent them tumbling.
A big sword was flashing.
Maxton stepped onto the next level only to see a blade flying at his head. He ducked out of the way, realizing he was watching Achilles’ wife, Susanna, fend off his daughters.
Things was about to get interesting.
Susanna de Tiegh de Dere wasn’t just any woman – she was a female warrior, trained from an early age and finishing her training at the most elite knight’s training guild in England, Blackchurch. Everyone knew Blackchurch knights were the best of the best and Susanna was one of the rare female graduates. She’d learned from the best warriors the world had to offer and she was the only warrior, so far, who had given his daughters pause.
As Maxton watched in terror, Susanna and Danae had a sword fight to end all sword fights. Maxton had never seen its equal. Susanna was using all of her Blackchurch techniques and Danae was matching her blow for blow. When Ceri got too close, Susanna lashed out a booted foot and shoved the little girl aside.
Danae backed away while Ceri got to her feet.
For a moment, the fight paused.
“You are good, Susannah,” Danae said in a voice that sounded far too mature for her years. “I remember being told that you were an excellent warrior.”
Susanna didn’t lower her guard. “I am the best you will face,” she said. “You shall not pass, Danae. I will not let you.”
Danae had her mother’s tall, elegant build, even at her young age, but as Maxton watched, she seemed to grow taller. She was becoming a young woman right before his eyes, maturing into what eventually looked like his wife. As he stared in shock, he realized that he was looking at Andressa. His tall, beautiful wife was facing off against a Blackchurch-trained knight.
Oh, God… she’ll never survive!
“Tell me where the baby is,” Andressa said.
Susanna stood firm. “I will not.”
Andressa didn’t look like herself. Certainly, it was her, but she seemed like a darker version of her usual radiant self. Her eyes were black and sunken, and her skin was gray in pallor. She was looking at Susanna was soulless eyes.
“You cannot save him,” she said. “Remember that I am a killer of nuns, Susanna. One more dead woman will not matter to me.”
Susanna held her sword in a defensive position. “This is not your fight,” she said. “Go away, Andressa. I will deal with your daughters alone.”
Andressa shook her head. “Maxton trained them well,” she said. “All of those years of his tales of glory. They learned from them. This is a fight you cannot win.”
“I can try.”
Andressa turned her back on Susanna but when she turned around again, she was Danae. It occurred to Maxton that his daughter was shape-shifting right before his eyes. The horror he was feeling at this entire situation was intensifying.
“Susanna,” he said hoarsely, knowing it was futile. “Please… please do not hurt my daughters, I beg of you.”
Susanna abruptly turned to him, her eyes widening at the sight. “Maxton?” she gasped. “What are you doing here? Are you to side with your children, too?”
Shocked that Susanna had heard him, Maxton stepped forward. “I will always protect my children, but I do not know what is happening,” he said, feeling desperate. “Why are they here?”
“To kill the child, of course,” Susanna said. “I am told they have orders to slice the baby.”
Maxton could hear his own words reflected back at him. He shook his head, baffled. “Nay,” he said. “They have no orders. I told them… stories. So many stories. God, is it true? Did they learn from the stories I told them?”
Susanna was starting to look different. Fearful. It wasn’t Susanna at all. “You trained them well, Maxton,” she said. “They are the most feared assassins in all of England and no one can control them. If you are not giving them orders, who is?”
Maxton’s mouth popped open in astonishment, in horror. “I do not know,” he whispered, looking at his girls as they began to converge towards Susanna. “I cannot ask them. They do not listen to me.”
Susanna could see them, too, and she began to back away. “There is no hope, Maxton,” she said. “No one suspects children as assassins. What is it that you have done?”
As Maxton watched, his girls leapt on Susanna. Swords were flying, as were fists and hair and feet. It looked like a big tangle of limbs. Oddly enough, there was no blood. Just growling, snarling. But the fight eventually died down and his girls came away with tufts of Susanna’s hair, part of her clothing, and nothing else. Susanna’s body was gone.
There was nothing left of her.
Maxton’s daughters were on the move again.
He followed, anxiety thick in his chest, wondering how he was going to stop them. The entire situation was so very odd. Susanna had seen him, as h
ad Boone, but Kress and Achilles hadn’t. As he followed his daughters to another stairwell that led to yet another floor, he could hear the faint sounds of a baby crying.
That seemed to make his daughters move faster.
They were running in front of him and he seemed to be lagging. He struggled up the slick, stone stairs until he came to the next level.
They were back in the stable again.
It was the same place they had started, only this time, there was a man and woman there, looking into a manger where a baby lay, swaddled. There were cows and sheep and an ass, and Maxton came to a halt, looking around in confusion as his children headed for the manger.
But then something strange happened.
The ass attacked Danae, kicking her into the shadows. Maxton could hear her yelp. Next, the ram charged Melisandra and they had a terrible battle before the sheep was able to toss her out of a window. As his middle daughter went flying, a bull raced at Ceri, the littlest, who wrestled fiercely with the bull before it tossed her onto its back and ran off. Maxton didn’t even see where it went, only that it had vanished.
As he stood there, open-mouthed and sick, the man who had been sitting next to the manger suddenly stood up.
Maxton found himself looking at his mirror image.
“Is this what you had in mind, Max?” the image asked.
Maxton was at a loss. He was disoriented and ill. “Nay,” he said after a moment. “This is not what I want for my girls. I only thought… I was entertaining them with stories. I was telling them things that I had done. I was trying to bring them into my world.”
The image shook his head. “They do not belong in your world,” he said. “Your world was a dark and terrible place before you met your wife. Now, you have what every man wishes he had – a beautiful family with adoring, bright children.”
Maxton was starting to tear up. “I am the most fortunate man alive, I know.”
The image smiled faintly. “You have been given the greatest gift of all, Maxton,” he said. “You are loving and generous, but you must also be wise and give them guidance. Those stories you tell them… they bring darkness into that wonderful world. You are introducing evil into something pure. If you must tell those stories, then save them for your sons, and only when they grow older.”
Maxton sniffed, wiping at his eyes. “I only have one son.”
“For now.”
Maxton looked at his imagine strangely. “How would you know?”
The image grinned. “Because I do,” he said. “I see many things. I see a man before me who needs some guidance on how his daughters should be raised. They are girl-children, delicate and sweet. Treat them as such. If you do not understand that, then what you have seen is only a taste of what will come. Is this the future you want?”
Maxton shook his head. “Nay,” he said firmly. “Not my babies. Not my daughters. It would destroy me.”
“Then remember this moment.”
As he said it, the wall to the stable suddenly collapsed and Maxton turned to see his daughters fighting off an entire army of men Maxton swore he recognized from his past. It took him a moment to realize they were men he’d been forced to eliminate at one time or another, men who had fallen to his sword in battle or another circumstance.
At least, he thought that was who they were.
They were overwhelming his children.
Maxton’s panic swamped him.
“Nay!” he roared, rushing in their direction just as one warrior leveled his sword at Ceri’s head. Maxton had never felt such fear. “God, I’m sorry! I am sorry for my sins and I swear I will try harder! I will strive to do better, but God… please, do not let my children be harmed! Ceri!”
Everything abruptly went black before he could reach her.
Part Four
And to All a Good Night
Maxton found himself sitting up in his bed.
Groggy, disoriented, he looked around and realized that he was in the bedchamber he shared with Andressa. The chamber was dark and shadowed, with a low fire burning in the hearth. Everything was recognizable and comforting. With that awareness, he put his hands over his face in relief. Next to him, Andressa sat up amidst the disarray of bed linens.
“Max?” she said sleepily. “What is the matter?”
He pulled his hands away from his face, blinking his eyes. “Matter?” he muttered. “I could not protect her.”
“Who?”
He was still half-asleep, half-buried in that dream. But he blinked his eyes again, increasingly aware of where he was. “No one,” he said, avoiding her question. “I am well. Why do you ask?”
Andressa peered closely at him. “Because you shouted,” she said. “Were you dreaming?”
He sat there a moment, still entrenched in the most horrible nightmare he’d ever had. Terror ripped through him again at the thought of his little girls in such danger and before he could stop and think about what he was doing, he tossed back the coverlet and bolted out of bed.
“Max?” Andressa watched him with concern. “What is wrong? Where are you going?”
He was nude, for he always slept in the nude, and he grabbed at a pair of breeches tossed at the end of the bed where he’d left them.
“The girls,” he said, hastily pulling on his clothing. “I must see my girls.”
Puzzled, and concerned, Andressa climbed out of bed, grabbing at her heavy robe. She yanked it on as Maxton threw open the door and rushed from the chamber. Andressa was on his heels as they went to the chamber directly across from theirs, an enormous chamber that the three little girls shared.
Maxton threw open the door, charging into the chamber and straight to the beds that had been pulled closer to the hearth for warmth against the icy winter nights. What he saw eased him so drastically that he was weak with it – Danae was peacefully asleep, alone, in her bed, whilst Ceri and Melisandra were sleeping in a pile in the other bed. They were safe, whole, and content.
Maxton wiped a hand over his face in relief.
“Max?” Andressa whispered. “What in the world is wrong with you?”
Now that his daughters were safe, Maxton could face anything. He put a finger to his lips, shushing his wife, as he ushered her from the chamber. Closing the door quietly, he paused a moment to lean against the wall, coming to grips with the fact that everything was all right.
It had all been a terrible nightmare.
“I had a dream,” he muttered. “The girls… they were in danger.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife the truth, that his dream centered around those stories he always told them. It was not only humbling, it was embarrassing. Oblivious to his inner turmoil, Andressa went to him, putting her arms around him to comfort him.
“It must have been terrible, indeed,” she said. “I have never seen you like this.”
He put one arm around her as he scratched his head with his free hand. “It was horrible,” he admitted. “Kress and Achilles and Susanna were in it. They were… well, they were all in danger, too, and I could not help them. It is fading from my memory now, but I still feel the fear in my chest. It is very real. I was afraid for everyone.”
Andressa gave him a squeeze because he truly seemed distraught. “I’ve had dreams like that,” she said softly. “But I awaken and you are beside me, and I know nothing can ever harm me. It’s the same way with our children – you are always here to protect them. You needn’t worry about them. They will always be safe with you around.”
He looked at her, unable to admit what the dream was really about. He understood, as he lived and breathed, that it had been a warning for him. A very special warning. It wasn’t something he was going to forget or discount, but something he was going to take very seriously. If Boone Pendleton had come back from the dead to give him one final lesson, he was going to learn from it.
But he wasn’t going to tell his wife that.
“That is true,” he said. “Andy, you know… you know that I h
ave always tried to be a good father to them.”
“You have been the best father to them that they could hope for.”
“And… and any mistakes I have made along the way have not been deliberate.”
“I cannot recall you ever making any mistakes.”
He snorted softly. “You are being generous,” he said. “I have never been around children my entire life until now. I feel as if I am still learning how to be their father. I am learning, Andy. I promise I will never stop learning to do what is right for them.”
She looked at him as if not quite sure what he meant, but she patted his chest sweetly. “You are a dedicated, wonderful father,” she said. “Your children adore you. In their eyes, you can do no wrong.”
Maxton knew she was trying to reassure him and he appreciated that. But the terrible nightmare still had him shaken. At the moment, he could only thank God that it had only been a dream. He pulled his wife against him, kissing her sweetly.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I am the most fortunate man in the world, Andy. I know that. I do not ever want to betray that good fortune.”
She still wasn’t sure where the self-doubt was coming from, but she didn’t pursue it. Kissing him one last time, she pulled him off the wall. “Come along,” she said gently. “Let us return to bed. It was only a dream, Max. You will have forgotten it by morning.”
Maxton nodded, but he wasn’t so sure.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever forget.
And perhaps it was meant to be that way.
As morning dawned the next day, Andressa awoke to an empty bed. Bright, white light streamed in the gaps in the cloth-covered windows and she rose, collecting her robe and pulling it tightly around her as she peered from the window into the brilliantly white landscape beyond. It had snowed through the night, leaving a winter wonderland for this glorious Christmas day.
Pulling on her slippers, she went to the chamber across the landing only to see that her daughters’ beds were empty. They were already awake. Suspecting they were with their father, she went into the baby’s chamber to see that he was wide awake and simply looking around, chewing on his fingers. Her appearance was met with a big, toothless grin.
O Night Divine: A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales Page 3
