Twelfth Krampus Night

by Matt Manochio

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wilhelm, accompanied by two interior gatehouse guards—including the oaf, Bernd—and trailed by his ailing brother, entered the stables’ small office and was greeted by Klaus, the marshal, who stood from behind a tiny desk.

  Wilhelm, his longbow slung over his shoulder, explained the situation to the bewildered caretaker.

  “I heard nothing, my lord. No sounds of disturbance. And nobody’s been through here to access the second floor.” Klaus motioned to a wooden stairwell in the back of the office, which led to the building’s upper guestrooms.

  “When was the last time you checked the stalls?”

  “After the messenger and the two knights left to retrieve your father.”

  “Nice to know you’ve been sitting on your ass most of the evening.”

  Klaus, a former knight in his thirties who had assumed the marshal’s job after a battlefield leg injury left him with a bad limp, blushed, then said, “I was about to feed the horses before you arrived.”

  “Then let’s go feed them.” Wilhelm, familiar with the layout, didn’t wait for Klaus and passed through the office’s small doorway that led to the stalls. Klaus hurried to light the four glass-covered lanterns hanging an equal distance from each other down the aisle.

  Wilhelm’s black courser, stabled in the stall immediately to his left, nuzzled the lord with his nose.

  “Not now, Horst.” Wilhelm leaned over Horst’s stall door and saw empty space save for scattered hay and manure. “His water trough is dry, Klaus. Correct that.”

  “Aye, my lord. He’ll get his oats too, as will your brother’s horse.”

  “Karl’s horse will likely grow obese this winter, as he probably won’t be riding it until his penis heals.”

  “What?”

  Karl stumbled in from the office. “For God’s sake, Wilhelm, not everyone has to know.”

  Klaus, confused, turned to Karl. “My lord, is there something wrong with your horse’s penis?”

  “No, you moron!” Wilhelm scolded Klaus. “It’s Karl’s penis! Now feed the damn horses!”

  Klaus scrambled for a sack of oats and avoided eye contact with Karl. Wilhelm took charge.

  “Bernd, go to the second floor. Check the rooms just in case.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Wilhelm turned to the other guard, Anton. “You take the stalls to your left. Karl and I will check the ones on this side.”

  Anton nodded and got to work on the stall next to Wilhelm’s horse. Karl took the opposite stall that was strewn with haystacks and a three-tined hayfork propped against the wall—an apparent makeshift storage area. He unsheathed a long dagger, slowly opened the swing door, and repeatedly stuck and slashed the hay. He rested after a few swings, his pain obvious. “No one’s there.”

  Wilhelm observed and spoke to Klaus, who was pouring oats into the courser’s food trough. “Is there hay like that in all the stalls?”

  “No, my lord. Just the one your brother checked and the one farthest back on the left.”

  “Anton, I’ll handle it,” Wilhelm told the guard and then stalked to the stall in question. It too was piled with hay reaching his waist. Wilhelm drew his own knife, opened the door and kicked and slashed the straw. “Damn it.”

  He turned and saw in the opposite stall Uli’s backside. Uli greeted the lord by raising its tail and defecating apple-sized blobs.

  Wilhelm wrinkled his nose at the pungent smell and peeked over the stall door: nothing but fresh shit and a few hay strands.

  “He had a blade,” Wilhelm blurted. Out of curiosity the lord extended his dagger and tapped the horse’s saddlebags to see if the weapon might be stowed in one.

  “I gave the porter the boy’s knife, my lord.” It was Mumfred, who had caught up to the hunting party and wore around his forehead a large white bandage, highlighted by a gooey red blotch in the middle. “They’re not armed.”

  “As far as we can tell.” Wilhelm watched Klaus pour oats into Karl’s horse’s trough. The brown animal was stabled two stalls down from Wilhelm’s courser and eagerly began chomping its dinner. “No saddle.” Wilhelm checked his courser, saw it wore no saddle, and examined two other stalled, unsaddled horses.

  “Klaus, you unsaddle the horses, correct?”

  “Always, my lord. We place them next to the stall doors for easy access.”

  Wilhelm confirmed this by scanning the ground, and then pointed to Heinrich’s horse.

  “Then why is this one wearing a saddle—”

  Two bodies dropped from the beamed ceiling, landing on Uli—Heinrich square in the saddle, and Beate hugging him. “Go, Uli!” Heinrich slapped the horse’s rear.

  Uli nudged the unlatched exterior door, which crept open, and then slid out, building speed and galloping across the courtyard.

  “Bastard!” Wilhelm frantically tugged his bow off his shoulder and in his clumsy haste swung it, knocking a lantern off its hook and into the stall behind him. He knew there’d be trouble when he heard the glass break.

  Flames immediately clawed skyward as fire consumed hay.

  “Move!” Klaus, holding a bucket, wobbled past the lord and threw water into the stall, but the fire spread too rapidly, triggering the horses to scream.

  “Get out of here, everyone!” Klaus ran to first free the lords’ stallions. Anton took care to release the other stabled horses. Bernd stuck his head into the stables.

  “Nobody was upstairs—uh-oh.”

  Wilhelm stomped through Uli’s open stall, and the fresh manure, to freedom, and drew an arrow from his quiver. Two mares ran by him and he lowered his bow. He ran back into the stables, the fire licking the ceiling beams, to see Klaus had freed Karl’s horse and was in the process of slapping the courser to run. “Wait!”

  Wilhelm shouldered his bow, grabbed the saddle from the floor and said as he walked by Klaus, “Bring Horst away from stables. Now.”

  Wilhelm saddled and mounted Horst as the fire spread to the second floor. He looked through the flames to the other side of the stables, through which the couple had escaped, and breathed easier when he saw Karl and the others were safe.

  He slapped Horst to run counterclockwise around the inner curtain wall. The horse thundered into the front courtyard, and for the first time Wilhelm noticed almost every castle guard had taken positions on the wall walks. He spotted Heinrich and Beate, still atop their horse, pleading with the front gatehouse guard to raise the portcullis and drop the bridge. Wilhelm grabbed his bow, drew and aimed at Beate’s back, hoping the arrow would skewer her and Heinrich where they sat.

  First came a massive boom. Then the bastion built to the left of the front gatehouse shook. The noise and vibration rattled Wilhelm. He fired and cursed because he knew he was off, the arrow whizzing by Heinrich, snapping against a stone wall.

  A deafening crunch; more stones shaking; sentries posted within the battlements, frantic to get out; guards on both sides of the bastion firing arrows; some of the guards dropping where they stood.

  Otto, from atop the wall walk, saw Wilhelm and screamed.

  “Get to the bergfried! The castle’s under siege!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Otto looked from atop the wall walk to see flames rising within the stables. He could have sworn he saw Beate and Heinrich run and jump into the stables moments earlier.

  “I hope that wasn’t Lord Wilhelm who just ran in there.” Franco, the burgmann, stood next to Otto near the castle corner to the gatehouse’s left.

  “Me too, but it’s the creature that concerns me more.” Otto, arms folded across his chest, ignored the mounting flames in favor of what hid in darkness beyond the bastion. The cloud cover suffocated any hope of moonlight.

  “Whatever it is seems to be exerting a lot of energy.” Franco, his longbow shouldered, a full quiver of arrows on his back
, fitted a visorless barbute over his head.

  Otto could only describe it as crushing—some brute force malleting earth. It happened every ten seconds: a determined yelp followed by an earthshaking pound. This repeated near twenty times until one of the thumps produced a quick crack. Then the pounding intensified, leading to what sounded like stone crumbling.

  Guards, thirty of them by Otto’s count, pressed against each other to view blackness through the crenels. Cold wind blew by the torches, whirling the flames, highlighting the men’s grave faces.

  A pained, straining roar startled the guards, and the lingering lament rose to what sounded like a satisfied “Ahhhhhhh!” followed by something incredibly heavy smacking the ground.

  A few of the younger guards vomited over the wall.

  That’s when they heard chain links flapping and slinging against—they couldn’t say. But they knew whatever groaned and determinedly fiddled the chains was preparing for battle.

  “What about the baron’s sons?” Franco asked Otto.

  “What of them? They should be in their chambers, protected.”

  “Should we send someone to be with them?”

  Otto surveyed the guards and noticed the chains had ceased clinking.

  “I think we’re going to need every last one of them here,” Otto said.

  Franco scanned the interior castle grounds. “You do realize the stables are on fire.”

  “Any other night, I’d be down there and so would you. The bigger threat’s out there.”

  Franco returned to the unknown near the forest. “Could be a diversion, whatever’s making the noise. The other sides of the castle are nowhere near as protected as this one.”

  Otto held his tongue, thinking it over.

  “It’s not an army—we’d have heard them massing. We have lookouts in the village who’d have charged up here if they knew someone was advancing. It’s that thing.”

  The groan was quick, followed by the chain links clinking and something being rolled, thumping end over end, a distance away from the castle.

  “Light it up!” Otto said.

  “Archers ready!” Franco called. “Fire at will!”

  The guards knew not where to shoot, so they estimated and fired at the spot generating noise. The arrows stuck dirt or stone and set nothing ablaze, but their fall gave flickering light to a massive figure twirling in place, clutching something.

  “Keep firing!” Franco followed his own command and shoved an arrow into a torch. He shot the arrow, only to see it deflect off of something it hit midair.

  More arrows rained around the figure that steadily rotated toward the castle.

  A few arrows struck the creature’s back but didn’t harm it. The dancing flames highlighted what they’d hit—a wooden barrel—and further revealed what was coming.

  “That’s it! I can see its horns!” Otto said. “But what’s it hold—”

  From Otto’s vantage point, the monster briefly vanished, but the knight knew it impossible. The creature was still there, advancing as it whirled. Something huge momentarily blotted it out in a timed fashion.

  The clouds parted, allowing the moon to bathe the ground in silver. The guards’ eyes adjusted to see a monster circling clockwise, both fists entwined in chain. Tethered to the end links was a jagged boulder orbiting its master.

  Franco saw clouds encroaching on the moon and knew time was short.

  “Shoot it! Shoot it now!” He drew an arrow as he ran to the bastion’s left side—the position allowing the clearest shot. He knew the two archers next to him as spectacular bowmen. “Aim for the neck.”

  No sooner had he said it when both guards crumpled facedown on the walk. Franco ducked below the crenel and pulled the nearest guard faceup. The man’s mouth appeared covered in mud, but Franco immediately recognized it as blood and saw it pulsing from the guard’s neck around a throwing-knife handle. The other facedown guard’s head rested in a slick blood pool of his own.

  Franco couldn’t conjure the words as two more guards, knives stuck in their throats, fell around him.

  “Get out of the bastion!” It was Otto, yelling up to the guards fruitlessly firing arrows from the tower’s windows.

  Franco took cover behind a battlement and peeked down to see the monster’s final rotation before the boulder crushed the bastion’s base. The thunderous strike triggered stones to cascade into the moat. The beast roared and whipped back the boulder and in one fluid motion swung the rock to again pummel the bastion. The second impact shifted the bastion forward, the way a swift gut punch forces forward the breathless victim.

  Otto too saw what would transpire with another direct hit. “Franco, get away from there!” The watchman stayed below the battlements and scurried from the shaky corner. Otto turned and surveyed the outer courtyard. The intense stable blaze combined with the momentarily bright moon lit the yard enough for him to see Lord Wilhelm firing an arrow. He knew not at what, but screamed for the baron’s eldest son to get into hiding.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The boulder’s third booming hit to the bastion’s base sent spider cracks streaking up the tower, which began to shiver away its stones. The crumbling base could no longer support the tower’s heavy topside. The remaining guards took their chances and jumped from the bastion windows as the tower groaned forward, toppling across the moat.

  Beate and Heinrich ignored Wilhelm, for they knew everyone within eyesight was focused on the tower’s fall. More inexplicable was the horned hulk that leaped atop the base’s rubble.

  A dagger tip pricked unsuspecting Heinrich’s throat, and he and Beate, still mounted on Uli, looked to see Karl wielding the blade. A few feet away from the lord stood what they knew to be Karl’s horse. Karl rode here in his condition? Beate thought. He must really be angry at—

  “Get down or I kill him.” Karl, one of his eyes twitching, edged the blade forward to draw blood. “You first, Beate. I insist.”

  “My lord.” Beate’s eyes glanced back and forth from the bizarre beast to the fledgling rapist. “Mad as you are at me right now, I think you should look at what’s behind you.”

  “Get off the horse. Now!”

  Heinrich felt the blade trembling against his throat. “Do it, Beate. We’ll be all right.”

  Beate nimbly slid down Uli’s side.

  “Behind the horse.” Karl motioned with his head.

  She acquiesced.

  “Beate, if you run, I slaughter Heinrich.”

  “She won’t.” Wilhelm, his bow shouldered, had caught up and, from atop Horst, snatched Beate’s arm.

  “Your turn, Heinrich,” Karl said.

  Heinrich slipped off Uli and stood next to Beate. Wilhelm had dismounted Horst and now clutched Beate from behind, holding his dagger to her throat.

  “Wilhelm, should we kill them here or in the keep?” A star-rattling roar shook Karl enough to look at what every other soul in the castle was watching. The monster stalked down the stones, eyeing the hostage party the entire time.

  “So, sticking something where you shouldn’t!” it yelled toward Beate.

  Her eyes widened. “Wait! You’re mad at me?”

  Both of the lords’ horses took one look at the beast and shrieked as they ran from their masters.

  Karl ignored the groin pain and slung himself atop Uli. “Wilhelm, come!”

  The elder lord ditched the peasants and scrambled onto the horse. “Go!”

  The lords rode Uli toward the second gatehouse, still open.

  “Beate!” Heinrich dragged her into a run and they chased the lords.

  “Are you insane?” she gasped, looking behind her as the thing glowered at them.

  The remaining castle workers in the court swarmed the gatehouse like ants on sugar.

  “I think we’ll be safer in there than out here!” Heinri
ch said.

  Karl and Wilhelm blew past the open gate. Beate and Heinrich saw Otto emerge with his broadsword from the pack of panicked people. He was joined by Franco and a dozen other chain-mail-armored, sword- and pike-wielding guards.

  “Surround him!” Otto commanded the guards.

  Krampus chortled. He still carried the thick chain and whipped it forward. Otto and Franco ducked as the boulder hurtled from the rubble and over their heads. Beate and Heinrich breached the interior gatehouse just as the rock wedged itself into the opening, preventing the portcullis from closing, leaving near the base a gap large enough for even the biggest knight to enter.

  The monster dropped the chain and reached into its barrel for the ruten. Franco rose, his longbow ready, and fired. Krampus swatted the arrow with the switch and lurched toward the gatehouse.

  “Attack!” Otto and the guards war-cried as they ran. The monster ducked and charged the two closest like a bull, skewering one on each horn, and stood so the twitching bodies could complete their bloody descent. It flicked its head, ridding itself of the corpses, and twirled with its outstretched ruten, smacking away swords and pikes, and crushing two guards in their faces. Otto barreled into the thing’s chest, sending it on its back. Franco fired another arrow as the monster sat up, but the beast was too quick and seized the sizzling arrow before the tip could split its eye.

  Two guards, their pikes pointed at the sitting creature’s back, charged. Their battle helmets muffled a piercing shriek. The old lady arched over their heads, flipping in a circle midair, and landed in front of them. The guards continued charging, the beast’s spine within sight, and as they passed the woman, they felt their stomachs burning.

  They began stumbling and slowed enough for the monster to hear them. It stood, whirled and was about to strike with its ruten when the pair collapsed, a line of intestines trailing underneath them.