Twelfth Krampus Night by Matt Manochio Read Free Book Online

Follow me, no straying.” Mumfred led the way to the outer courtyard and the main entrance, where the gate began rising.
    Knights rushed the wall walks from above and pointed through the battlements to two horses galloping toward the lowered drawbridge. The animals, pushed to their limits by their masters, practically ripped wood from the bridge as they crossed into the castle.
    Everyone dismounted. Wilhelm and Karl stood next to each other underneath the spiked gate and drew their bows, waiting for whatever had ruthlessly attacked three knights and two horses to appear. Archers atop the castle walls likewise aimed long and crossbows.
    The commotion stirred Heinrich, Beate, Mumfred, the squires and numerous other castle denizens to linger behind the lords, soon filling the archway with gawkers.
    Unknown to everyone, two sets of eyes bored through the dense woods. An old woman stayed in the forest to the right of the path leading to the castle, and a monster hid within the fauna to the road’s left.
    Otto took control. “My lords, lower your bows, get inside the castle, now.” He then stood on the drawbridge’s hinges, making sure everyone inside the castle could see him. “Now step back!”
    Nobody argued with the giant knight. They backtracked as Otto menacingly marched forward to hammer home the point. Once he was safely out of range of the spikes: “Lower the gate, raise the drawbridge!”
    Everyone milling behind the descending gate heard from within the woods what sounded like a man and a woman arguing—loudly—followed by metal clashing against metal, then two distinct beings howling and screeching at each other.
    Beate hugged Heinrich, who watched the closed gate and drawbridge as if there was still something to see outside.
    â€œLove.” She waited for him to meet her eyes. “I think we’re staying here tonight.”

Chapter Six
    â€œWhoever you are—or what ever you are—you’re severely hindering my efforts to rid the world of one its most deviant miscreants.” The old woman lurched out of the forest, this time without her pail and sack. She slashed the air with her two knives, preparing herself. “I suggest you step out where I can see you. That’s my prize in the castle, and I’ll be damned if some, some, I don’t know, werewolf is going to claim him.”
    â€œWerewolf?” Deep laughter came from the other side of the forest, and what the old lady had first mistaken for twisted tree branches—long, jagged animal horns—rose from a bramble patch, followed by the eight-foot-tall hairy beast from which they jutted.
    â€œDo you see a full moon? I don’t,” the thing said. “And since when do werewolves run around on hooves?” The creature, holding its chain and club, lifted one of its hooves to show the woman.
    â€œAh, I’ve indeed heard of you,” the woman said. “At least I think you’re Saint Nicholas’s errand boy.”
    â€œNice to meet you, Frau Perchta.” The beast exaggeratedly bowed. “The master knows this is your territory and your time of year.”
    The thing dropped its chain, but not its club, to let its massive barrel slip off its back. It used one hoof to push the barrel off the road while simultaneously stooping to retrieve the long chain. The hag and the beast assessed each other as they began circling clockwise, twenty feet separating them.
    â€œThen what on earth are you doing here now ?” Perchta said. “You and the saint had your day last month. I’m on my twelfth and final one, and this particular brat is proving a lot more troublesome than I’d anticipated.”
    â€œYou cannot seriously believe that I can snatch everybody that my master assigns me in one day? Especially when the mark is out of town. Even I need to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. And the occasional deer snack. And I’m not immune to when nature