by Rachel Ford
Once they took off, Arath started to complain about his ruler, and how poorly it stacked up to a blunderbuss. Migli thought his quill a very poor weapon indeed, by comparison. Shimmerfax seemed unfazed; then again, Shimmerfax didn’t have opposable thumbs, so a gun would be of little use to him.
For his part, and though he hated to admit it even to himself, Jack was with Arath and Migli. He resented the fact that he, the band’s leader, had received nothing at all, and Er’c, the band’s most junior member, had got the best weapon.
Still, it was done, and they had a battle before them. Dancer, Donder and Dasher sped through the early morning toward Krampus’s dark castle. The sun shone wanly today, and the whole world had a gray, washed out look to it. A thin layer of cloud cover spread across the horizon, like a curtain drawn over the world.
They flew over dark stone mountains covered in snow, half obscured beneath the clouds. And then Krampus’s lair jutted up on the horizon, its towers rising above the clouds, gray and black and terrible to behold. A huge mass of people and elves had congregated on the mountainside below the fortress.
Jack wasn’t quite sure how that worked, since the Winters and their army had still been at the ice palace when they left. He figured it was another anomaly of videogame time, space and distance.
At any rate, he lowered the sleigh to set down in the midst of the army. He figured one or two of his companions might fly with him, but the rest would probably stay on the ground. They got through the layer of cloud cover. And then, Jack understood how Winter and her armies got there ahead of them.
They’d arrived with an entire host of dragons. Some of the dragons had great personnel cabins on their backs, for mass transport. Others were fitted with saddles, to be ridden into battle.
And a second, equally welcome, sight met his eyes: there on the field stood a ragtag band of Pleasant Vale residents, with a flamboyantly attired Klaus at their head. He wore armor that shone with a blinding silver light, either through some enchantment or because it had been so thoroughly and fastidiously polished. A great, green and red sash had been drawn over the breastplate, and decorated with a host of ribbons and medals. They all seemed to be Christmas-themed in nature: a sprig of mistle toe, a gold medal depicting a Christmas tree, a miniature ornament, and so on. Jack shook his head.
But he was glad to see the other man and his little army of villagers too. It meant his mission had been a success. It meant that maybe, just maybe, they would defeat Krampus a little more quickly, and he could get on with the rest of the game – and his life afterwards.
He’d set the sleigh down between Klaus and the Ladies Winter. All three had gathered to confer. Now Jack disembarked and joined them. To his relief, he saw that Frosty had fallen asleep on one of the seats.
“Ah, Sir Jack,” Estelle greeted. “Welcome to the field. As you see, Klaus is here, and most of the people of the Vale.”
Klaus nodded. “Cristobal could not be persuaded to come. But the townsfolk agreed with you, Jack: it is time to put an end to this business, once and for all.” Here, he clasped Jack on the shoulder. “So, I welcome you a second time to the field.”
Battle seemed a strange thing to be welcomed to, but Jack nodded all the same. “Thank you. So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan, my good fellow,” Klaus said, “is to attack. Destroy anyone who will not surrender.”
“Ah, good. I love a detailed strategy,” Karag said behind them, a little dryly.
“We will have dragons in the air,” Mrs. Winter said, “and you, Jack, in the sleigh. Krampus’s walls are well defended, and he has people manning the murder holes. The sooner we can clear those, the sooner our ground troops can get through the gate.”
Jack remembered the grisly spouts he’d seen lining the way in that first time he’d started the quest, when he’d been on Team Krampus. He shivered at the thought of what they’d do to the infantry. “Good plan.”
“Yes. But it does mean they will be concentrating the majority of their forces on those of us in the air. They will know what we are up to, and they’ll mean to stop us.”
“It also means that we’re going to be sitting ducks for as long as that takes,” Klaus added. “So I encourage you to make as speedy an end of things as possible.”
It was now that the clatter of hooves sounded, and a great reindeer came speeding into view along the cobblestone road that led to Krampus’s lair. On its back sat a tall, bespectacled man, looking very harried. “I thought you said Cristobal wasn’t going to join us?” he asked – for it was the mayor, riding posthaste toward them.
“Indeed,” Klaus replied. “That was my understanding – in very stark terms, I can tell you.”
“Well, perhaps he’s seen the error of his ways,” Lady Winter said.
“Or perhaps he is more afraid to be seen as a coward than he is to face the armies of Krampus,” Estelle ventured.
“No matter,” Klaus said. “He has joined us, and that is what counts.”
Jack wasn’t sure he agreed, but he waited patiently for the other man. At length, he reached them, and jumped off the back of his reindeer panting with cold and exertion. “There you are,” he said.
“Have you come to join the fight?” Mrs. Winter asked.
“The fight? Oh goodness. Well, actually, I, um…”
“We’re not going back,” Klaus said firmly.
“No. I know that. Your insubordination was on full display. Believe me, I have not forgotten it. But I came to warn you: you will not be alone today.”
“What do you mean?”
“Eben, and Mother Gryla and her sons, and old Mr. Pecksniff, and all the other…well, questionable residents of the Vale: they all went off in a great, dark sleigh this morning, drawn by terrible serpents.”
“Krampus’s sleigh,” Jack said.
“Indeed, I do fear so.”
Klaus clapped his boss – or, former boss; Jack wasn’t sure which – on the back. “Thank you, Cristobal. You have done well to warn us.”
The mayor brushed an invisible speck of dust from his jacket and readjusted his spectacles. “Yes, well, I’m sure you didn’t leave me any choice. You’ve put the entire Vale in danger.”
“The danger was already there,” Mrs. Winter said. “It has long been there.”
“Right, well, shall we get this party started?” Jack interjected. He didn’t want to get into this argument all over again. He knew very well where everyone stood, and he knew the inevitable end would still be a battle. Better, then, to get on with it.
But before anyone could answer, a loud, booming voice sounded from high above the assemblage. “Welcome to the last minutes of your lives, my fine rats.”
Jack’s eyes shot up toward the castle. There, on one of the battlements, stood Krampus, his eyes glowing with a murderous glee.
“I had meant to come to you, but you have been so good as to bring yourselves to me instead. And with such presumptions.” He laughed, and the laugh rolled down the mountainside like a dark, fell thunder. “You mean to defeat me, in my own home? Well then, have at it. Bring your worst.
“For I promise you, I shall bring mine.” And with that, the very earth around them began to shake and tremble. The skies turned gray, and thunder boomed overhead. Lightning split the heavens, blinding them all with its wicked brightness.
“We may need to rethink that strategy,” Jack yelled as the wind picked up around them. He couldn’t imagine being in the air in such conditions – not even on the back of a dragon.
Mayor Cristobal, meanwhile, searched around for his reindeer. But the beast had fled. “Oh dear. I hadn’t planned…well, this does change matters. I suppose there’s nothing for it, but to fight alongside you.”
Again, Klaus clapped him on the back, and again Cristobal brushed the enthusiasm away with annoyance.
Old Lady Winter, meanwhile, was issuing orders to her troops to amass. “The stronger dragons will still venture into the air. But I do not trust the sl
eigh, Jack. You will need to stay on the ground, at least until we stop this storm.”
He nodded. He had no immediate death wish and heading into the air in such a weather seemed a one-way ticket to Deadville.
Klaus raised his voice, until it – somehow – could be heard over the wind and thunder. “Slaves of the castle, minions of Krampus: for hundreds of years, you have been bound to his will. But you do not need to suffer the fate of your master. Join us, and we will grant you your freedom.”
“We will?” Cristobal repeated, astonished.
“We will welcome you as residents of the Vale.”
“We won’t,” the mayor declared, his tone taking on a horrified accent. But his voice did not carry above the wind. It barely carried to Jack.
Then another voice joined the fray. It was an old woman’s, marked with age and menace. “Will you, now? Not if we have anything to say about it.”
Now, the storm parted to reveal a band of humans. Jack recognized them all. They were the very people he’d left coal for: the murderous old miser, Eben; the wicked witch from her candy house; Gryla, who had been speaking just now, and her horrible sons and their malevolent feline; and so on. Behind the people was a huge horde of monsters: skeleton men, and goat demons, and tiny, goblin-like creatures.
Krampus laughed again from the battlements. “I shall bring to the Vale a bloodbath like none before it. Neighbor against neighbor, crimson will paint the snow. Flesh shall rend, bonds shall break. The cries of the damned shall be nothing to the wails of suffering here today.”
Jack shook his head. “You are seriously messed up, dude.”
“We are not afraid of you,” Klaus said, though he seemed to be addressing Gryla rather than Krampus.
“That’s your mistake, lad,” she said, advancing a step. Her murderous band followed her.
Klaus and the armies of Winter took a step forward in turn, and a tiny white snowball of a creature strolled out into the lead of the pack. “We will do now what we should have done long ago.”
“Abomination,” Headmaster Brocklehurst hissed.
“That,” the snowman said, “is what my friends call me. You can call me Mister Abominable.”
“Destroy them all,” Gryla called. “I’ll make a pie for every man jack of you who gets a kill, you hear?”
The villains loosed a shout of affirmation, but Cristobal raised his hands. “Hold, hold, I pray you.” He strode forward, ignoring Jack and Klaus, and everyone who warned him to stay put. “Gentlemen and gentlewomen, residents of the Vale, can we not come to some understanding?”
He walked forward, and both sides stood their ground – Gryla and her people by the doors of the castle, and Winter and hers outside it. Jack watched him walk straight up to the walls, until he stood under one of the gargoyle spouts. He called out again, warning the other man of his danger.
But again, Cristobal ignored him. He stood between the two opposing forces, and beseeched both sides, “We are neighbors, and have been friends. Can we not lay down our weapons, and discuss this like neighbors? Even you, Mr. Krampus – we in the Vale have no part of your quarrel with the North Pole. We do not take a side in affairs that are not our own. Can not you and I, as reasonable men –”
But he didn’t get to finish his query. A stream of something thick and dark poured out of one of the spouts, covering Cristobal from head to toe. For a terrible second, Jack feared that it was boiling oil.
But then Krampus laughed again, in a high, maniacal way. “And for my first trick, I give you a candy-coated mayor. Come one, come all: meet your fate.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cristobal had indeed been frozen fast in a layer of chocolate candy coating. Whether he was yet alive, Jack couldn’t say. But certainly, the candy held him against any escape.
And it seemed that Krampus’s attack on the misguided man of peace galvanized both sides at once. The evil residents of the Vale whooped with laughter and charged. Klaus’s forces cried out with rage and charged too.
The abominable snowman ran as fast as anyone, and then faster. Before long, he’d outpaced everyone on his side. Across from him, the Yule Cat raced ahead of its mistress and little masters.
The two monsters met ahead of the rest of their parties, each in their normal sizes. The cat chirped questioningly, and reached out a probing paw. The snowman swatted it away. “Please don’t do that.”
The cat arched its back, and the tribble-like monster hissed. Then, the Yule Cat sprang to its full height, until it towered over everyone on the field but Karag.
The snowman didn’t miss a beat. It stretched out to its own full height. “Two can play that game, my furry friend.”
“Kill it,” Gryla hollered. “Kill it, cat.”
“Kill,” the Yule Lads chanted out in near unison, thirteen slightly discordant voices all singing out the same word, over and over.
“Do not listen to them,” the snowman said. “You needn’t side with evil just because they have, you know. You have a mind of your own.”
“Kill him, Cat,” Gryla cried again. “Now. Or you’ll not eat for a month.”
But the cat simply shrank down to its usual size. One of the Yule Lads chucked a rock at it. “Move, you mangy varmint.”
The snowman darted forward, scooping the cat out of the way a moment before the stone hit. By now, the forces were almost upon each other, and he set the cat aside and leaped forward. He grabbed for the shortest of the Yule Lads, the one who had pitched a rock at the cat. The youngster swung a knife and fork this way and that, but his hits went wide and missed their mark; and in a minute, the snowman had swallowed him up.
“No,” Gryla cried out. “Not poor Stúfur.”
“More pie for us,” cried one of her sons.
Another said, “But we shall avenge him, Mother.”
They turned for the snowman, and he dove into their midst. They stuck their forks into him and stabbed at him with their dinner knives; and Gryla came for him with her great cleaver. But all at once the Yule Cat, at his full height, sprang for the great pile of inhumanity. It knocked them all aside, freeing the snowman.
The Lads set on the cat, their tongues waggling and the cutlery flashing. “I always said we should have put you in a pie,” said one.
“I won’t even bother roasting you first,” said another.
“Ripe meat off the bone,” cooed a third.
Gryla, meanwhile, was swinging her cleaver at the snowman’s head. But at the sound of this, she called, “Never. You always cook your food. I raised you better than that.”
By now, though, the two parties had merged, and Jack could hear nothing more above the sounds of clashing steel and angry voices. Eben charged him, the old miser swinging a heavy walking cane at his head like a club. Part of Jack recoiled at the idea of harming an old man. The more sensible part, the one that prioritized not getting his brains bashed out, urged him to fight.
Jack drew his sword and deflected the first blow. Eben struck again, and again, and again; and each time, he warded the attacks off. But, though he had ample opportunity to do so, Jack didn’t strike back. He couldn’t quite bring himself to cut down an old man, no matter how wicked.
Karag, though, was bound by no such ethical quandaries. He was a few steps away from Jack, cutting through a trio of conjured gingerbread men set upon him by the old witch. But once he’d dispatched the cookie monsters, he lumbered over and swatted the old man. Eben flew through the air and landed with a sickening crunch; and that was the end of the old miser.
By now, a second wave of Krampus’s minions had poured out of the castle to reinforce the first. These were all demons – more of the skeleton men who guarded the place, and the half goat creatures who served Krampus, and so on.
Some of them at once surrendered or flocked to Klaus’s side. Others prosecuted a vicious attack, cutting through anyone they could reach. Krampus raged from the battlements, promising the darkest fates to anyone who dared betray him. Klaus shout
ed orders. Now and then, the Yule Cat would leap high over the chaos to pounce on someone, or the abominable snowman would loose a roar so terrible it carried above the clamor. But everywhere Jack looked, all he could see was chaos.
He launched himself into a cluster of goat monsters, cutting through anyone who came within range of his blade. One or two got a glancing blow in, but the little monsters lacked the reach needed to get close. So Jack picked them off quickly.
The skeleton men proved more of a challenge. They seemed to have been built out of human bones, and they had all the reach of an actual person. Still, Jack ducked and dodged and wove his way between the monsters, dispatching them one at a time.
Indeed, he was so fixed on killing the seemingly endless supply of baddies that he didn’t notice that the wind receded. He didn’t even notice the slow, tense drumbeat that replaced it. Not until Mother Winter’s voice called, “Jack, to your sleigh. Clear the walls.”
At the same time, the game alerted him:
Objective added: clear the walls
He was sorry, of course, to leave his business of butchery. He’d been doing quite well at it, and scavenging piles of gold from the fallen when he could. But he hadn’t got a chance to use the cannon yet. And, grinning with anticipation, he beat a hasty retreat to the vehicle.
He’d nearly reached it when Er’c’s voice accosted him. “Sir Jack, I will come with you. I can use Karag’s blunderbuss.”
Jack nodded. A second shot would help speed the work up. “Right. Come on, then.”
They leaped into the sleigh, avoiding the napping baby dragon. He slapped the reins. Donder snorted, but all three of the reindeer did as they were bid. In a moment, they were in the air, sailing over the courtyard.
“Krampus’s magic seems to diminish as he loses his troops,” Er’c observed.
Jack glanced at the demon, who was still perched on the battlements, arms outstretched. But the wind had stopped responding with the same vigor. That was obvious by the way their sleigh handled. A while earlier, and it would have been suicide to get in the air at all. And now?
