Yuletide Knights 3

by Johnny Miles

  The many odd-shaped rooms in the castle were as imperfect as the outside of the castle itself. Neither round nor square, they might have been chiseled over time by a deranged artisan or carved out by the wind blowing for millennia through fissures in the stone. Ancient symbols might have indicated the rooms’ use or who might have lived, worked, and slept there, but they were not runes. And even if they were, Krampus had never learned how to read the sacred symbols.

  The bottom six floors of the castle were the most mind-boggling of all. The first three of the bottom six consisted of caverns that had reminded Krampus of an abandoned beehive he’d once dissected. Now, the almost hexagonal caverns had been turned into prison cells. The fourth floor of the castle was a dungeon filled with antique torture devices that still worked, with even more dead bodies and skeletons than there had been in the cells.

  The last two floors had caved in on themselves. Krampus had never been able to get through, but he’d heard plenty of wailing and sighing, as if the place were haunted.

  When Krampus first came to the castle, he’d sensed nothing but sadness from within the stone walls. Sadness, horror, and anger. As he’d walked through the rooms, he had come across thousands of weatherworn skeletons…full-grown adults, babies, animals. Some exploded into dust as he’d drawn near; others remained as though in defiance, locked in unholy embraces as if they’d seen and known what was coming and chose to face it head-on, whatever it was. Others seemed to have run away, while still more were frozen in place, arms up, like that alone would ward off whatever had come to destroy their society.

  So many lives, human and animal, cut short. Who had they been? Where had they come from? Why live in such desolation? Had they had a choice? Even more curiously, what had destroyed them? What had turned their home into a mass burial ground?

  Strangely comfortable within the stone walls, Krampus had immediately made it his home. Now, centuries after coming across the castle, after sweeping away the remains of most of the dead, pushing them all down into the dungeon, Krampus filled the rooms on the upper floors with broken-down furniture that might have once belonged to kings and queens. They still served a purpose, even if they weren’t whole: mirrors, tables, chairs, beds. Some of it had already been there when Krampus came across the castle, but a great deal more had fallen through cracks of time, discarded on a whim. Other items had been found in caves and caverns, during his frequent explorations of the cliffs and mountains behind where the castle stood.

  Krampus twitched, fidgeting in bed as he tried to awaken from a recurring nightmare where he was a child again, running. But he wasn’t just running. He ran for his life. Chased through a dense forest, by people he knew, by the dogs he’d fed from his own rations, the dogs he’d petted when no one else would touch them. As he ran, a dull throbbing echoed in his brain like distant tribal drums that kept time.

  The people chasing him seethed, possessed by their anger. They yelled and hollered, crying out for his flesh as they devolved into something less than human. They wanted an excuse, someone upon whom to pin their, and thus the village’s, misfortunes.

  It was all his fault, of course. The flood that washed away their homes. The mutilated livestock. The low-yielding crops.

  And now the drought.

  The riverbanks were dry and far below normal. The flow of water had trickled down to little more than a stream.

  Then came the disappearance of nearly a dozen children.

  All because of him, a scared little boy who’d done nothing except be born with special powers and a nub of excess skin at his tailbone. Never mind that it would eventually become an actual tail. And never mind that his powers would eventually work against him.

  As he ran away from the angry crowd and barking dogs, fire consumed the villagers’ homes. Didn’t they realize lightning had sparked the fire? Didn’t they see they stood a chance at saving the village if only they tried to put out the flames instead of chasing him? The fools! The adult in real life relished their misfortune, and laughter escaped him while the child in the dream tried to understand why they hated him so much they would put their own village at risk.

  Both child and adult, one locked in a dream, the other banished to a nightmare, felt a shift in energy as a different presence joined in the chase. In real life, Krampus moaned and uttered something indiscernible. In the dream, Temmen looked over his shoulder and screamed at the frightening display of horror that rode the wind.

  It wasn’t just the crowd chasing after him. Something else was coming. With it, the throbbing grew stronger. It now seemed a part of him, underlying his every thought, every move.

  The Wild Hunt!

  Demons, hounds, and spectral visages. Humans, horses, and dogs, as well as other beasts, all long since dead, some garish and horrible, many unrecognizable. Three feet off the ground, they bore down, trailed by the mighty storm clouds they pulled in tow. In the lead was a tall and slender man with a powerful presence in a chariot-like thing pulled by large magnificent beasts with horns and thick coats of fur.

  Frightened but in awe, the child stopped.

  Krampus cried, his head now pounding painfully as if from the stampede of hooves. He struggled to climb from the cloying black spider webs of his heart and mind, for he knew what came next. He cringed in anticipation as something whooshed through the air and struck. Adult Krampus, locked in a tiny space of time where nightmares were real and reality a nightmare, screamed to warn Temmen the child, but he could already see the sharp tip of the arrow headed for the boy, as though he were watching someone else. Watching Temmen, Krampus felt something sharp strike the hollow beneath his cranium and cried out louder, finally able to free himself from the nightmare.

  Krampus sat up in bed with a start only to find the stabbing pain had followed. With it, the infernal whine like from an incessant whistle but at a pitch only he could hear.

  But there was something else. A presence. Someone familiar.

  “Impossible,” Krampus said aloud. But was it, really? He tried to tell himself he was being paranoid, that the dream had simply felt so real it had left behind a sense of foreboding. Nothing more.

  As Krampus tried to convince himself, he darted his gaze here and there, taking in the many things he’d accumulated, now dusty with mold and falling apart from neglect: the chair, the round table, the brocade drapes, the glass chandelier with its missing teardrops, even the shredded paintings he’d Magicked together. Krampus could see he was indeed home, alone in his chambers.

  But something was coming.

  The Wild Hunt, he thought.

  The fire, small but still lit in the hearth, cast the room with dancing shadows and ghosts from Krampus’s past. Despite the pain in his head and with some effort, he inhaled sharply, then exhaled to stoke the fire. It roared back to its former glory, large and bright as the chandelier tinkled from his breath.

  Krampus howled in pain.

  The high crackling flames might have pushed the remnants of the dream away, but the sudden light hurt his eyes. Krampus shielded his vision and cursed the splitting headaches, the migraines that made him buckle from their pain, reducing him to a shadow of himself as he was forced to lie still, in darkness. A temporary solution at best but at times the only option.

  Soon, he told himself. Soon it will stop. My son will be home, returned with a Magical, and I will once again know quiet.

  But not for long, a tiny voice mocked.

  “As long as it stops,” Krampus mumbled. “Even if it is only for a time.”

  The bedroom door—not quite flush within the frame—creaked open. Krampus wanted to die. It felt as though someone had pierced his brain with the thinnest of swords. Even the shuffling footsteps felt as though someone were rubbing his nerves raw with grainy sand.

  Krampus looked up to see Toya, a motherly troll, enter his room. She blew out the torch in hand and lumbered across the creaky wooden floor. At the dresser to the right of Krampus’s bed, Toya laid down the torch and picked up a
pitcher. She poured mead into a battered pewter goblet. Krampus took it and drank greedily. He emptied the goblet and gave it back, indicating for more, but she shook her head. There was no more. A tiny flicker of rage rose within him. At least what little he’d drunk quieted the throbbing in his head to a dull roar. Resigned, he propped himself against dingy pillows, against the headboard of the scratched and gouged sleigh bed.

  “My son?” Krampus asked, though he already knew the answer. If his son had returned, Krampus wouldn’t still be in such pain.

  Gently, Toya sat at the edge of the bed. Carefully, making as little noise as possible, she dipped a rag in the murky water within the large chipped porcelain bowl and wrung it out.

  Krampus sighed as Toya applied the cool compress to his forehead. He closed his eyes, enjoying the brief reprieve of pain. When he opened them again, he drank in the sight of Toya’s rocklike face, potato body, and limbs like clubs. She had misaligned muddy-brown eyes that were too far apart and small stubby ears that perpetually oozed with wax. The hair on her head was sparse and bristly, and the grayish-brown tone of her flesh had skin growths that resembled eyes on a potato. Her teeth were graveyard tombstones that had been knocked over, and her breath was only slightly better than the putrid, gassy bogs Krampus remembered as a child.

  The poor thing looked like something that had been picked over and forgotten, left to rot. Unwanted. What else could he do but bring her into his home and have her serve him?

  She’d fallen unexpectedly into his realm, as had many of the items in his home, through a gap in time and space that opened every hundred years. He’d cut her tongue out himself, to keep from hearing the loud rumble that was her speech, but at least he hadn’t taken what minimal powers she’d possessed.

  Once, when she had left his bed battered and bruised from their brutal sex, Krampus, free from pain at the time, followed her out to the cliffs. He’d found her gazing up at the distant stars, tears in her eyes. Krampus felt her pain, overwhelmed by her anguish at being cast aside as if her life didn’t matter. It struck a chord in Krampus, and in that moment, he felt her raw emotions like they were his own, for such wounds always left indelible marks. That night, Krampus’s heart had broken even further than it had been betrayed by the people he’d loved and trusted.

  It wasn’t until she’d made her way to the edge, when she closed her eyes and spread her arms like a bird about to take flight, that Krampus realized what Toya was about to do. As she leaped into the void, he shot out an energy force to surround her. He pulled her back to safety but lost the little respite from pain he’d gained earlier that day. The migraine returned. Still, Toya was safe in his arms. Since then, docile and silent, she’d followed Krampus all over the realm, no matter where he went, like a lost and beaten but loyal dog.

  Toya gently peeled off the wet rag from Krampus’s forehead. She dipped it in the water, squeezed out the excess, and replaced it, briefly dulling if not blocking out the chronic pain.

  Krampus sighed once more and closed his eyes with relief. In the coolness of the darkening room with the cold compress on his head, lying perfectly still, he felt the migraine might at least think about leaving.

  But not quite.

  The infernal, high-pitched whine returned with a vengeance and increased in volume. It made Krampus’s vision blur, and his eyes filled with tears. He grabbed Toya’s wrist.

  “Tell me,” he managed after a particularly bad twinge made him grind his teeth so hard he could taste blood. “Tell me you hear it. Tell me you hear that maddening sound.”

  Toya listened but shook her head, her eyes filled with a sympathy he hadn’t seen in anyone else’s eyes for an eternity.

  He swallowed back his pain and wiped away his tears. Then he looked into her eyes and saw his reflection in Toya’s glassy orbs. For a moment, he saw himself as he once was: dark and handsome with thick, wavy black hair and big round brown eyes that glittered with innocence, trust, and faith. Then he morphed back into what he had eventually turned into. A monster with hideous and scaly, lizardlike skin and great curling horns. Part man, part beast, with hooves like a goat and thick, curling horns. At least he was massive, with muscles that rippled like that of a bull in the ring. But what good was all that power? What good was all his strength when he was always in the throes of such debilitating pain?

  “I don’t know how much more I can take, Toya. This pain…it’s excruciating. I’m in agony.”

  Neither of them spoke as they looked into each other’s eyes, but it was clear that Toya understood. She stood slowly and placed the bowl back on the dresser. She then turned back to Krampus, averting her gaze. Grabbing one of the pillows, Toya raised it over Krampus’s face. He closed his eyes and gave her a barely perceptible nod.

  As she lowered the pillow, a sudden gust of wind shook the house. It flowed through the chimney and put out the fire even as thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning flashed, bathing the room in a blinding white electric light.

  Toya stopped midair.

  Krampus saw the look in her eyes. Where there had once been something remotely resembling respect, there was now a livid anger as she let out her inner demons. He knew in that moment her humility and submissiveness had all been an act.

  Quickly, she thrust the pillow down onto Krampus’s face. He struggled against her as she stood, pushing down with all her weight to smother him. He kicked and flayed, and there was a part of him that wanted to stop struggling, that welcomed death.

  But company was coming. He knew who it was. He recognized their scent. Krampus found his strength in remembering, but it grew from anger. Despite the pain racking his head, despite the throbbing that threatened to crack his skull open, Krampus dug deep and tapped his energy. Using brute strength not magic, Krampus pushed Toya off. She lost her grip on the pillow, and he cast it aside as she staggered on the threadbare rug.

  Krampus climbed out of bed, reached her in two strides, and grabbed Toya by the neck.

  “You bitch!” Krampus bellowed. “You cunting, filthy bitch!”

  Toya opened her mouth to scream, her face grotesque in her fury as she fought to gain a foothold. She clawed at his muscled forearm bulging with the effort of lifting her up off her feet. He lunged, Toya in hand, and smashed her head against the stone hearth. Her skull cracked open, and she moaned feebly. Instead of blood, as Krampus expected, Toya’s life force spilled into the ether in a reddish mist. It was then he realized Toya’s soul had been slowly dying.

  Releasing her, Krampus inhaled her soul, taking possession of her magic. He absorbed her memories and emotions, feeling the mute desperation she’d felt in the handful of decades she’d been there serving him, sharing his food, his bed. He’d thought she had grown to care for him, but it had all been just one more horrible lie in a long list of betrayals and lies.

  “Like anyone could have ever loved you with that hideous face and body.” Krampus groaned with disgust.

  Still, her energy was his balm, and Krampus stood tall after taking it all in. His spine cracked as he stretched to his full height of nearly nine feet, forgetting his horns would scrape the ceiling. Dust and grit showered his head and shoulders. He brushed it off, far too alive with the sudden surge of energy to get upset about a little spilled stone.

  His mind clear and alert, Krampus looked down at Toya’s limp, broken body. He noticed the blood pooling around her head and dropped to his knees. He lapped at the oozing liquid and relished the added power from the thick, coppery-tasting fluid. Then, his face buried in Toya’s open skull, Krampus sucked out the last of her soul, feeding on her brains. He swallowed it down with the last of her blood as the sky rumbled again, this time more loudly. The house reverberated from the force, and the chandelier clinked, quaking from the vibration. Lighting filled the room, and the fire relit, bursting to life.

  “Father,” a voice called to him. “I’ve brought you what you asked for.”

  Krampus looked up from Toya’s brain to see his son standing be
fore him. Big, strong, and handsome as Krampus had once been. In his son’s arms was a Magical, naked and limp as though dead. The young man was slender but toned, his hair in spikes.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes. Only passed out,” Black Pete replied. “But you should know I was followed. Others are coming.”

  At that moment, the ground shook. Black Pete staggered from the quake and the strain of holding the body in his arms.

  Krampus didn’t wait for the tremor to recede. He stood, head lowered to avoid his horns scraping the ceiling once more. A mirror across the room fell and smashed. Paintings shook and rattled against the walls. The chandelier clinked. Sand and rock particles rained from above.

  “The Wild Hunt.” Krampus hadn’t felt this alive since he’d stripped Gavin, the last Santa Claus, of all his power. Oh, what joy…what bliss Krampus had felt then! And the pain had stayed away for such a long time.

  When the ground stopped shaking, Black Pete offered the body in his arms to his father. “What would you have me do with him?”

  Krampus looked down at the face of the beautiful boy and stepped back, nostrils flaring.

  “You damn fool! I asked you to bring me a Magical, not an Elemental. You had to bring me this one?” It hadn’t been that long ago that Krampus’s son had dallied with and even killed his wife for the boy now draped in Black Pete’s arms.

  “What’s wrong with Jackson?”

  “Nothing, except he’s the son of the man who accompanied me here and left me to die. The man who led the Wild Hunt. He must, now you’ve taken the boy. Why else would Woden be here?”

  “But how do you even know it’s Woden?”

  “You fool. The Wild Hunt never goes anywhere without Woden. They’re his…posse, as American humans would say.”

  “Impossible. Maybe it’s someone else. Woden can’t know. He never saw me. Nobody did. Except for that other Magical. The one I tried to kill in jail.”

  “Woden may be old, but he’s not blind. There’s little that escapes him. He’s got eyes everywhere.” Krampus glared at his son, then locked eyes with him and searched his soul. The eyebrow Krampus arched seemed to have a life of its own, as did the grin that spread across his face.