Twelfth Krampus Night (7 page)

Chapter Eleven

The wall walk archers lit extra torches lining the castle's front curtain wall and poked their heads between the battlement crenels to scour the moat.

“Lots of good the torches do us up here,” Franco, the castle's burgmann and best bowman, said before spitting a gob of tobacco in the moat. “We can see shit up here but none of the shit down
there
.”

“Maybe the moonlight will help.” Otto, his neck and cheek wounds salved with a mix of yarrow and myrrh and bandaged in linen, gazed at a white moon illuminating the castle in a silver glow—only to be dimmed by hulking black clouds drifting across the sky.

“Let's get on with it then,” Franco said. “Archers, draw!”

Twenty-four archers stretched across the wall walk, two to a crenel, aimed at all parts of the moat. “Lower the bridge!” Franco yelled.

The wooden door yawned to a stop and out scurried four cottars, the lowest-ranking castle employees—each with a torch in one shaky hand, a pike in the other. They spread out, lowering the torches to the moat to look for a floating body.

“Three men up here witnessed that thing whipping the hag into the moat,” Franco told Otto. “They've not taken their eyes off the spot where she splashed down. She went under and did not come out.”

Vettelberg Castle was specifically built atop a massive rock surrounded by an O-shaped ditch that made for a natural moat. A mix of water and waste filled half of the twenty-feet-deep ditch, whose edges stood ten feet above the murk's surface, making it near impossible for attackers to pull themselves up and out. Even if they managed to escape on the castle's side of the moat, they had only ten feet of rocky space to maneuver, nowhere near enough room to queue forces.

The cottars, whose duties included removing waste from the moat when the stench became too powerful, now dipped their heads uncomfortably close to the watery filth, hoping, praying they could somehow see a body that could be pulled out with pikes.

“Could she have swum around, maybe snuck out on another side of the castle?” Otto said.

“We've been watching all sides of the castle—we'd have seen her,” Franco said.

“Then she's down there.”

One cottar, dressed in a ragged tunic not warm enough for the cold, handed his torch to a fellow flunky, who dropped his pike to hold two torches. The first cottar stuck his long pike into the moat, poking around, jabbing for the hag.

“Work your way right to circle the castle,” Franco called to them. “We'll keep watch on the areas you've covered.”

They wordlessly acquiesced and continued their dirty work.

“If your men saw the hag fall into the moat, then they certainly saw what sent her there,” Otto said.

Franco, watching the cottars while addressing Otto, knew not to be flippant with the giant knight for fear that doing so would mean joining the hag at the moat's bottom.

“This devil-man with the chain, yes—he turned tail and retreated for the forest. We've not seen him since.”

“Do you believe me? Do your men believe what they saw?”

“My men witnessed something that was somehow bigger than you whip that witch into that mire. I can't say
what
exactly they saw because I wasn't present. I don't doubt that you saw a man covered with furs.”

“Then why the antlers, the horns?” Otto said.

“I've got something!” one of the cottars yelled, sparing Franco from having to answer.

“What is it?” the burgmann said.

“A body, it must be!” answered Fritz, the cottar whose pike touched on something soft and lumpy. While his long weapon had a spear tip, it also featured a sharp hook curved toward the wielder. Fritz fidgeted the hook to snag clothing or a rib or a sturdy body part.

The young cottar gulped when the mass jiggled the prodding pike tip. The three remaining cottars joined Fritz. Two held torches while the third man used his pike to help Fritz hook and haul.

The hook caught hold of something.

“Got it,” Fritz said.
Maybe I looped the hook under the armpit?
he thought. He tightened his grip and stepped backward, straining to lift the mass to surface.

Fritz inhaled, his jaw trembling. Whatever he'd snagged squeezed the pike's shaft and jerked it into the moat. The other men saw him lurch forward.

“Don't be such a bed wetter!” Fritz heard the jibe from above. “It's an old woman! Lift her, damn it!”

“Maybe it's a snake,” Fritz said. The cottars noticed a quiver in his voice. “Yes, a snake has slithered around the pole, upset that I'm taking away its dinner.”

The torchlight illuminating where the pole breached the murk showed only slight ripples as Fritz tried easing up his catch. Then the pole spasmed.

“It's alive!”

The archers—a few of the nervous ones, anyway—released arrows into the moat.

“Hold your fire!” Franco said, and then to the second pike-wielding cottar, “Help him!”

The second man dropped his weapon and grabbed part of Fritz's pike. Now the two men played tug–of–war with the unseen. But both felt the bending and crunching of wood, and then they fell backward, bringing with them a broken pike, the spear and hook snapped from the shaft.

She exploded from the moat and corkscrewed to send filth in every direction, to repulse whoever it hit. She eyed the cottars at her apex and threw the pike's blade into Fritz's diaphragm. He collapsed, grotesquely gasping, while the other three cottars retreated across drawbridge for the castle's protection. Perchta landed opposite the castle, next to Fritz's writhing body. She glowered at the bewildered archers aiming at her. Brown sludge oozed its way down her face's wrinkles, filling them like water down dry river arteries.

“Fire!”

Arrows flitted toward her throat and stomach, but she was too quick and bolted toward the forest.

“Your castle will fall!” she shrieked. And was gone.

The archers looked at where their arrows had accidentally finished off Fritz and couldn't comprehend how quickly the old woman had moved.

“Raise the drawbridge!” Franco ordered.

Every guard, regardless of their stations along the wall walks or in the castle proper, turned toward the commotion.

The monster had counted on that. He hid in a grove near the castle's side, where the darkest shadow had been cast, and ran the moment the guards glanced toward the sounds of a screaming woman bent on destroying Vettelberg.

Chapter Twelve

“Try not to touch me.”

“Trust me, my lord, I'm trying not to.” Beate used an ell rod to approximate the lengths required to size Lord Wilhelm's outfit for his brother's wedding.

“Your friend already measured my breeches and surcoat, so I imagine the tunic will not be much different.”

“It should not, my lord.” Beate recorded the measurements on parchment, trying not to feel Wilhelm staring at her the entire time they were in his bedchamber. His personal servants had layered his bed with an array of lace, silks, velvets and furs.

“Can you stitch the baron's coat of arms onto the surcoat? In gold lace?”

“I've done similar work with less expensive material.” As much as Beate abhorred being so close to Wilhelm, she appreciated the warmth of his chambers, alight with candles on tabletops and hanging lanterns. The castle's hallways provided no sanctuary from the cold, and she imagined Lord Karl's chambers offered similar comfort.

She wrote down a few more measurements and said, relieved, “I have everything I need, my lord.”

“You have my mother's preferences regarding materials, some of which you see in this room. Do not get ideas about swiping any of it, as we have accounted for everything and will compare it with the amount of material you use and the remaining scraps. Your friend did such a splendid job with the baron's wardrobe that he gave her a fox-fur coat. So generous, the baron.”

That explains that,
Beate thought. “If it is all right with you, my lord, may I begin the actual sewing tomorrow after fitting your brother?”

“That's fine. You may take up in the deceased seamstress's shack. We've cleared out everything. You might be able to sleep in an actual bed this evening and for the foreseeable future. Gisela was destined for that until her mishap.”

Beate stood, her contempt unveiled. “She was murdered, my lord—births of certain people are mishaps.”

Wilhelm backhanded her, and before she could recover, he pushed her against the stone wall and moved his ungloved hand up her dress, caressing her bare thigh. He whispered into Beate's ear, “It's my understanding Gisela didn't object to this treatment. Now leave.”

He backed away and pointed to the door. Flushed, she hastily packed her sewing kit, grabbed the ell rod, and unlatched and pulled open the heavy wooden door. Karl stood in his chamber's open doorway and took notice of a distraught Beate stumbling out.

“Please, come in.”

She rushed past him, tucked her sewing kit and ell rod under her arm, and covered her face with her hands to cry. He shut the door.

“I think I know what happened.” Karl stood on his bare feet, his chain mail removed, wearing a sleeveless gray linen tunic.

“Your brother.”

“Yes, it's been known to happen. And I wish it hadn't.” He stood behind her and gently laid his hand on her bouncing shoulder.

“My lord, I'll lose memory of it if I work—at least I'll try. May we please?” She faced him, her red cheeks slicked with tears.

Karl placed his other hand on her, as if holding her steady. “No.”

“I'm sorry?”

He squeezed her shoulders and pushed her backward, forcing her toward his bed. She turned to see it layered with nothing but blankets—no fabrics. Karl lifted and plopped her on the bed, her sewing kit bouncing next to her. He slithered atop her, forcing her legs to splay with his knees.

“I'd have preferred Wilhelm to have behaved, but urges get the better of us more times than not.” He kissed up and down her neck, forced his hand up her dress and cupped her breast. He covered her mouth with his other hand to stifle the expected scream.

In between kisses and licks: “I'm surprised Wilhelm made advances. You're not really his type. Gisela, though, so innocent the first time—I regret being away for as long as I was, unable to enjoy her one last time. But you, my dear, will suffice. Tell Heinrich of this and you
will
die, as will he—in the end you're peasants, disposable and easily replaced.”

Beate's thoughts varied from knowing why Karl had donned a simple tunic—she could feel his throbbing manhood brush against her as he grew aroused—to realizing one of these two cads likely was the father to Gisela's dead child. She also knew she would not be raped.

Although his weight effectively pinned her, she felt around with her right hand and skimmed the leather top of Gisela's sewing kit. She thanked God she hadn't tied it shut, and snuck her fingers between its folds. She flipped it open as Karl licked her lips. Her fingers danced over what they desired: a long bone needle. She slid it out and clenched it and boosted herself up with her elbows to return Karl's kiss, surprising him.

He momentarily eased off her, freeing her arms, and smiled. “See? What did I say about urges? You came around quicker than I thought.”

“You won't like this urge.” She grabbed his erect penis and drove the needle sideways, making a bloody cross.

Karl howled and sprang off the bed. Beate rose and realized her right leg was perfectly aligned. She booted his testicles and dropped him. Karl squealed as Beate yanked open the door and fled. She retraced her steps as best she could, aware that Karl's anguish likely could be heard in France.

She ran with enough speed to extinguish candles lighting the halls, and looked for a winding stairwell that led from the solar to the adjoining great hall. Spying it, she circled her way down the stairwell and burst into the great hall, where servants were lowering by chain the wooden chandelier to blow out its candles. Mumfred sat one table across from Heinrich, who drank deeply from a beer tankard. The castle steward tapped his foot, eager for the blacksmith to finish so he could be escorted to the former blacksmith's apartment, not far from the seamstress's small quarters.

Beate spotted Heinrich, who smiled and raised his mug.

“Lord Karl said we could have anything we wanted—you should try this.”

She lowered his hand to set the mug on the table and spoke softly. “Get up, we must leave. Now.” She grabbed both of his wrists and pulled him to stand, at which point Mumfred rose.

“Something the matter?” He circled from his table to the young couple.

Heinrich's beer intake hadn't prevented him from noticing genuine fear in Beate's eyes.

She kissed his cheek and whispered, “We're in danger. They will kill us.”

He nodded and they made to leave the hall.

“I find it strange that neither Karl nor Wilhelm escorted you back, young lady.” Mumfred obstructed their path. He looked at her hands clasping Heinrich's and noticed red stains. “What have you done?”

Wilhelm ran full speed into the hall and stumbled to stop. Out of breath, he pointed and glared at Beate.

“I think not.” Mumfred's gangly appearance belied his strength, and he seized Beate's forearm. “Too bad your girl doesn't know her place.”

Wilhelm regained enough composure to join Mumfred and grabbed Beate's shoulder from behind, only to be spooked by a deep roar of pain and hate that rattled the castle walls.

Chapter Thirteen

The guard, Kristoff, posted on the outer curtain wall walk lining the castle's left side, concealed a crossbow under a heavy bear-fur cloak. He strode by torches placed within holders on every other battlement. He couldn't see the woman from his perch halfway along the walk, but he'd heard her.

He also heard faint sounds of clip-clops, the kind made by shoed horses striding along stone. He poked his head over a crenel and saw darkness below. Had there been daylight, he'd have seen a small stone perimeter lining the castle. Such little space made it difficult for invaders to scale the wall.

Otto and Franco considered Kristoff a good, mindful guard who followed the correct hunches. And now he had a hunch something was wrong.

The clip-clopping returned and he watched the blackness, imagining where the sounds had originated.

Then he heard shuffling and faint clanks of a chain, followed by a soft thump. Kristoff grabbed the nearest torch from its iron holder and dropped it over the crenel. The little fireball whipped through the wind and hit the stone perimeter, but stayed alight, enough to illuminate what appeared to be a giant barrel propped against the castle wall.

Kristoff stepped back to unveil the cocked crossbow from underneath his cloak. He again loomed over the side to see fading torchlight suddenly flicker as an immense dark shape swooped by it. The clip-clops grew in speed and intensity. It was running.

Kristoff followed the sound, picking up his pace, not realizing he was running, tailing some unseen thing. Otto, from his position atop the wall walk spanning the gatehouse, saw Kristoff and abandoned his post to join him.

Kristoff noticed a deep grunting sound, made simultaneously with the clip-clops ceasing. He overran the point where the noises changed, unable to slow his momentum.

Two giant hands, their hairy brown fingers the size of sausages tipped with yellowed talons, latched on to a crenel ledge.

It jumped. No man can leap that high,
Kristoff thought, unable to process the sight of talons boring through stone to tighten the grip of the thing dangling below.

He'd heard Otto speak of a hairy, cloven-hoofed, chain-wielding devil. Then the stories his parents had told him as a child came roaring back: how Saint Nicholas's dark other half pursued young deviants from one end of Europe to the other; how he'd swipe and stow them in his barrel to devour them alive in his cave, or tie them in an enormous weighted sack and toss them in the Rhine. The monster, the Krampus, would beat them into repentance with his ruten, and if he felt benevolent enough, allow them to live—Saint Nicholas gave Krampus considerable leeway, according to Kristoff's parents. No matter where the brats cowered, Krampus would find them.

Strained grunting, and then two twisted horns crested the crenel edge, followed by beady black eyes reflecting hatred in the torchlight. The beast opened its mouth and disgorged a red forked tongue, flicking it in and out to scare the guards who now lingered in disbelief around Kristoff.

One muscular tree trunk of an arm reached over the crenel to hasten the creature's crawl over the wall.

Kristoff's ears hadn't failed him all night—he'd been in enough battles to know the sound of a thrown knife splitting air, and the moment he saw a handle jutting from the thing's triceps, he braced himself for the roar.

The monster howled and lurched over the crenel.

More flitting—and two successive sounds of splitting skin.

Two throwing knives poked from its back, and for the first time Kristoff saw weakness and acted. He booted the monster in the face, sending it back over the ledge, but it still kept its grip and pulled itself up to glare at Kristoff, who fired a crossbow arrow into the monster's forehead. More roars. Then Otto, holding a torch, stood next to Kristoff.

“I'll die before you breach this castle.” Otto jammed the torch into its face, sending aloft ember plumes. It released the crenel and roared the entire length of its fall.

Otto leaned over the edge and didn't see it, but heard a gloppy splashdown. He spit over the side. He stood and handed the dead torch to Kristoff, who remembered the sounds of chain links clinking, and seeing the barrel. He doubled back to the spot on the wall where he had earlier removed the torch to drop it over the side.

The fire hadn't died. Kristoff grabbed a second torch, aimed for the faint red spot, and released. The flames smacked down, and what Kristoff saw sickened him. He collapsed and sat against the wall. Otto ran to him and got on his knees.

“What was it? What'd you see?”

Kristoff, dazed, “The barrel's gone. It's alive.”