by Rachel Ford
Jack shivered at the sight. Something told him he saw a touch of Jordan’s handiwork here. She had mastered a curious blend of whimsy and darkness – sparkly and twisted, as he’d once called her. It made her equally able to produce chilling surroundings like these ones, and absurdly, sugary sweet ones like the Vale.
He stood in the darkened entrance of the room, staring with wary eyes at the pillars and the pockets of shadow they cast. Every hair on the back of his neck seemed to stand on end. Krampus was here. He knew it. He could feel it.
“Perhaps we should wait for the Ladies Winter,” Migli suggested.
“Don’t be a coward,” Jack snapped.
“I’m only thinking of decorum, Sir Jack. It would not do for us to claim the victory all for ourselves. Not after all they have done. Better to wait until they join us, so that we may share in the glory together.”
“I fear we may be walking into a trap,” Er’c said.
“Exactly. Or are you going to call him a coward now, too?”
“It probably is a trap,” Jack acknowledged, ignoring Migli altogether. “But we can’t sit here doing nothing.”
“We could,” the dwarf argued.
“No,” Er’c agreed, “we can’t. But we must take care. We should have a plan before we go any further.”
“I have a plan: wait for the army, instead of blundering in like a pack of suicidal fools.”
“Find Krampus and kill him. And don’t die,” Jack said. “That’s my plan.”
“Inspired. I’m sure it will make a fine epithet on our headstones.”
Er’c frowned at the pair of them. “I’ve no desire to fall into another pit, Jack.”
“Nor I. But I don’t know what kind of plan you’re looking for. We don’t know the layout. We don’t know where the son of a biscuit is hiding. We only know the little we can see, and even with that we don’t know how many traps are hiding in there. So what can we do, except get in there and kill him, and try not to die in the process?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
In the end, they decided to stick to the shadows. They would try to get far enough into the room that they could scope it out, hopefully without attracting Krampus’s attention. “One at a time,” Jack said. “Just in case one of us ends up in another trap or pit. No sense us all dying.”
He went first, and then Er’c followed, and finally Migli took up the rear. They ran from the mouth of the room to the long shadow of the first pillar, and then the second pillar, and finally a third.
Now, Jack could see more of the chamber. It was a huge, long rectangle, with rows of seats on either side and a dais at the far end. A great, grisly throne of skulls sat in the center of the dais. And before the throne stretched the long hall.
This, he guessed, was where supplicants would come to plead their cases before the dark lord of the north, and where spectators would sit to watch him mete out judgements.
Now, the seats sat empty, and so did the throne of skulls. Absolute silence filled the hall – absolute silence, except for the eerie ambient music that wafted through the air.
“Where is he?” Er’c whispered.
“I don’t know. But he’s here. I know it.”
“We should go back before it’s too late.”
“Come on,” Jack said, ignoring the dwarf. “Let’s move out.”
He started to take a running step toward the next pillar, but then he froze. He heard a sound – a voice. A man’s voice. He was sure of it. He touched his finger to his lips and urged his companions back into the shadows.
They waited for a long moment, hearing nothing but the low hum of music. Then a sharp, quick sound reached them: a footfall.
“Krampus,” Er’c said.
“Quick,” Migli hissed, “let’s go before it’s too late.”
“Stay where you are,” Jack ordered.
But the dwarf paid him no heed. He darted out of the shadow – not toward the dais, where Jack had been heading, but toward the door.
He took two steps before the blur of a passing projectile arrested him. Migli froze to the spot, yelping. The thing – whatever it was – missed him, but only by a hair; and it passed so quickly that Jack couldn’t make it out. But it was followed up by a fireball, and this time the dwarf’s luck ran out. The fireball engulfed him in a mantle of flames.
At the same time, two figures darted out of the shadows. One carried a bow, and the other a blade.
Jack blinked. These were no minions of Krampus, and no strangers. “Ceinwen? What are you doing here? And Arath – how are you even alive?”
It was indeed the elf and the ranger, and they blanched at the sight of Jack stepping out of the shadows. At least, Ceinwen did. “Oh blast. Migli, are you alright?”
For his part, the ranger laughed. “Oops. Sorry about that, old boy.”
The dwarf seemed not much the worse for wear. He must, Jack figured, have been programmed not to take damage from friendly fire. The majority of the flames had burned out.
Still, he was patting out little smoking bits of his beard and scowling deeply. “A fine welcome from a pair of fools.”
“How were we to know?”
“We saw you jumping out of the shadow,” Ceinwen explained.
“Do you not look before you shoot?”
Arath shrugged. “You were sneaking around in the shadows. You moved, I shot. Nine times out of ten, it works. It’s a good system.”
“Not for the tenth guy.”
“Krampus,” Er’c hissed, prodding Jack’s arm.
“He’s right,” Jack said, swatting the boy’s hand away with annoyance. He understood the seriousness of the situation. He didn’t need to be jabbed for emphasis. “Everyone, be quiet. We need to find him.”
“Found him,” Er’c said, pointing toward the center of the room.
All four sets of eyes followed the direction of his finger, and four separate gasps rose from the group. “Sugar,” Jack said.
There, not a dozen yards away and smiling as wickedly as ever, stood the Christmas monster. This time, he carried a sack in one hand and a scourge in the other. “I will feast on your flesh and pick my teeth with your bones.”
“That’s going to have to be a pass for me,” Jack said, trying to sound less nervous than he felt.
Ceinwen took up a wide stance, like she was ready for a fight; but she kept her hands at her sides, hanging easily. “It’s over, Krampus. Your armies are dead or defected. Mother Winter and her legions are at your door. It’s only a matter of time before they break down the doors and pour into this place.”
“Then I’d better enjoy my last meal, hadn’t I? But your concern is misplaced, my dear morsel. Let the old crone come. Let her bruise her knuckles against these doors. I will be halfway across the island.
“Do you think I have no way out? No. They may drive me from my mountain, but I will gather my armies in the Vale. If they take my home, I shall take theirs.
“But that is not your concern. Not anymore. Come now, be good morsels, all of you, and get in the bag.”
“Also a pass,” Jack said.
“You may as well,” Krampus said, raising the scourge menacingly. “For I shall throw you all in there, even if I have to flay the flesh from your bones first. And I should hate to waste good meat.”
“Remember the plan, guys?” Jack asked. “Well, we’re through the ‘find him’ part.”
Er’c nodded, and seemingly out of nowhere a blast of fire leaped from his fingers toward the demon. Krampus jumped aside, agile as a mountain goat, and let loose a loud burst of merriment – one that sounded more like baaing than laughter to Jack. “Is that your best? This will be easier than I thought.”
“I wouldn’t count on it, goat boy,” Jack said, trading his sword for his bow and arrows. Arath had already started shooting, and so had Ceinwen. Jack joined the fray, and Er’c sent a barrage of magical attacks Krampus’s way.
The demon ducked and dodged and wove his way masterfully through the de
luge. But not even he could completely avoid everything they were pouring into him. One of Jack’s arrows hit, and then one of Er’c’s fireballs. Ceinwen put a flaming bolt into his shoulder, and Arath planted a broadhead in the plate between his eyes.
And to Jack’s mortification, a health meter popped up. It displayed Krampus’s hit points and the damage they’d done. Which wasn’t the mortifying part; that was actually pretty useful.
The mortifying bit was that even after all their hits, he’d lost twenty of his two thousand hit points. Four fairly good strikes had lopped off a measly one one-hundredth of his overall health.
Like salt in a wound, Krampus laughed. “Come, children: you must do better than that if you mean to escape your fate. Even your pony fought more valiantly; and he’s already in the sack.”
Which, Jack figured, solved the mystery of where Shimmerfax had gone. Ceinwen reached the same conclusion, because she hissed, “Release him, monster.”
“Don’t worry: you will join him soon enough.” Now, Krampus advanced on them. So far, he’d been ducking and dodging and soaking up blows.
But with these words, that changed. Now, he put all his agility, all his strength, and all his cunning into the attack. He leapt and feinted, chased and struck. The four companions did their best to avoid him and his wicked scourge; but he came at them with an indefatigable fury.
Jack took only a glancing blow – a few strands of the scourge – and it still dropped a quarter of his health. In combination with the damage he’d already taken, that put him precipitously low. So he ducked behind a pillar and drained a healing potion.
Then, his health meter restored, he rejoined the fray. Krampus had taken up chasing Migli, who in characteristic fashion fled. Now, Er’c, Arath and Ceinwen had started firing on the demon. Jack did the same, going through his entire quiver of arrows.
Migli kept running, which in its own way proved a boon: the coward occupied Krampus’s attention, and they could pour their fury into defeating him.
Still, for all their efforts, they only knocked a hundred hit points off his meter before Jack ran out of arrows. They were a twentieth of the way there. Which, admittedly, was better than a hundredth of the way. Five percent of the way still beat one percent, of course. But it was hard to get too psyched up about a task that still had nineteen twentieths to go.
Ceinwen handed him a few more. “Here. Use them wisely.”
He nodded and nocked one. Then, he paused. He remembered all the potions he’d brewed long ago, before they’d ever reached the island or Pleasant Vale. He pulled out a handful of poisons and doused the arrows. Then, he took aim and fired.
This proved more effective, and Krampus’s health dropped a little more rapidly. “Nicely done,” Er’c said.
“Got any more of those?” the ranger asked.
Jack nodded, handing out potions to both of the other archers. Er’c shook his head when he offered. “If you’ve got a magicka potion, though, I’ll take it.” Again, Jack complied. He didn’t have a lot of healing or magicka potions, but Er’c was a mage. His spells would burn through magicka, and without a potion to restore it, he’d be out of the fight for minutes at a time. And right now, they needed all the help they could get.
Jack went back to firing until he ran out of arrows. Then he switched to fireballs too. Krampus’s health meter dropped a hundred points more, and then another hundred, and another, until he hit the three-quarters mark.
That, at last, was a milestone Jack could feel a little enthusiasm about. They were twenty-five percent of the way done. He avoided thinking about it in terms of sheer numbers. It was the same thing to say they were twenty-five percent of the way to killing Krampus as it was to say he had fifteen hundred hit points left. But the percentage sounded doable, and the numbers sounded daunting.
Not least of all because, as soon as Krampus’s health hit that mark, the room rumbled and the pillars shook. Then dozens of hideous monsters broke free of the topmost tier, leaping down with horrible roars and snarls. Marble wolves set upon Jack, chewing away his health. His blade proved almost useless against them the same way it had been ineffective against the stone gargoyles. Meanwhile, screeching, horned, child-sized imps and stone rats chased his companions.
And Krampus, laughing all the while, turned his horrible scourge upon them, beating them this way and that around the room. Twice, Jack had to use healing spells or potions; and twice, the monsters drained his health before he made any real headway in cutting through them. Finally, with the aid of fire spells and a lot of creative footwork, he managed to dispatch the wolves before they made a meal of him. But not before he’d gone through quite a few more poisons for his blade.
But worse than the damage he’d taken or the supplies he’d used was the realization that that had only been round one. The top tier of demons – the smallest ones – had broken free of the pillars. But there were two more layers left to go, each successively bigger and meaner than the previous.
“We’re not going to make it,” he panted. “Not like this. We need another plan.”
At first, he didn’t know if anyone even heard him. But then Er’c said, “If only we could figure out a way to free Shimmerfax.”
Jack eyed the sack slung over Krampus’s shoulder. He couldn’t see how it would fit a single battlecorn, much less all of them. But, then, he supposed there was magic involved. “We need to cut the sack open,” he decided.
“And who is going to be mad enough to venture that close to Krampus?” the ranger scoffed.
Which, in fairness, was a good point. Jack certainly didn’t feel like volunteering, and none of his companions jumped up to do it. “Alright. Well, it’s made of some kind of fabric. Fabric is flammable, right? Let’s burn it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As it happened, not all fabric is flammable. Some fabrics are flame retardant, which Jack quickly ascertained when his fireballs did absolutely nothing.
Nothing to the sack, anyway. They did manage to attract Krampus’s attention, though; and now it was Jack who fled through the room shrieking and dodging, weaving between pillars and ducking under blows. His companions – all save Migli, who took the opportunity to disappear – poured everything they had into Krampus. Now and then, when he’d gained a little distance, Jack would turn and take a swing at him too.
But it was slow, dangerous work, and he lost a lot of health. Finally, after one particularly fierce hit, he came to a decision. He’d run thinking it would spare his hit points. But running hadn’t saved him. Running had only meant he bled out slowly.
So Jack turned, readying his blade and setting his eyes on the sack. He ran straight for the demon, who raised the scourge overhead. Jack got closer and closer. Krampus struck, and the wicked strands of the whip bore down on him.
He didn’t duck this time. On the contrary, he jumped – high over the scourge, as high as the game would permit him to go. Krampus saw the move and twisted his face and body away from the blade.
But Jack hadn’t been aiming for Krampus. Jack was going for the sack; and Krampus’s pivot put it directly in his path. The blade cut through the bag, tearing a great gash in it. Jack landed and ran. He could hear the monster bearing down on him, and he raced for the nearest pillar.
He made it just in time, diving behind the stone a moment before the scourge struck. It wrapped harmlessly around the pillar. Jack turned for half a second to see the state of the sack. Shimmerfax’s horn jutted out. Or rather, the knitting needle strapped to it did. In and out it went, piercing holes in the already damaged fabric.
Jack turned his focus back to the task at hand: his own escape. He’d done what he could to aid the battlecorn’s. Now he needed to make sure he’d survive to reap the benefits of his work.
He did. A few moments, and a few dodged blows, later, he heard a heavy clattering sound, and then hooves on stone. Krampus roared in anger, and Ceinwen cheered.
“Not bad,” Arath allowed. “Now how about you stop ru
nning and start fighting?”
The idea wasn’t quite the suicide mission it sounded. Shimmerfax devoted himself wholeheartedly to the assault, and as the battlecorn had no ranged weapons, his attacks were up close and personal. Which meant Krampus’s attention was again drawn away from the rest of the party.
Jack and Ceinwen, who had also run out of arrows at this point, joined Shimmerfax. They each wielded swords, and each cut into the demon with everything they had. Er’c kept raining down fire and frost on the monster, and Arath filled him with so many arrows he started to look like a pincushion.
Krampus’s health meter dropped to fifty-five percent, and then fifty.
The room shook a second time, and Jack groaned. Here it comes. Sure enough, the second tier of monsters broke away from the pillars. Hordes of marble demons swarmed the room, and Krampus retreated.
Now, they were distracted, and he was free to prey on them. And he did, with a vengeance. Before he even knew what was going on, Jack had taken a full hit from the scourge and sustained heavy damage as a result.
He limped away, popping the top of a healing potion as he went. But he didn’t get very far. He’d taken about two steps when a human-sized pig-man tackled him.
The healing potion flew from his hands, its precious contents spilling all over the floor. Jack landed hard and heavily on the stone. He was at fifteen hit points, so he cast a healing spell and rolled over to face the tusked monster. It gorged him once, and then again. Jack raised his blade, catching one of the tusks; and twisted hard to the left, spinning the creature’s head. It roared and struggled, and he took the momentary opportunity that afforded to get back on his feet.
Krampus, by now, had been distracted by his other companions. He was thrashing Migli at the moment, so on that front at least he was safe.
