Page 55 of Scary & Bright

The first wave of arrows fell around me, and I thanked the gift of the arctic wind for knocking their arrows off-course. Soon enough, another round of arrows took to the sky, searching for their target. The canines were closing in. I could sense them cutting to the sides to flank me and surround me on all sides—an effort I knew was unnecessary as my single untied boot began to fill with snow and my movements became more and more clumsy. By some divine intervention, I was spared the arrows a second time, but they were only part of the threat.

“Krampus,” I said as loudly as I could, hoping with every shred of faith within me that he could hear me over the wind and the sound of his own suffering. At the sound of my voice, a wolf turned deftly on its paws to charge directly for me. “I’m so, so sorry. I love you.”

With one surgically accurate motion, its paws like snowshoes across the shining white surface of the ground, the wolf kicked off with his back legs in a leap of victory, his lips pulled back in a horrifying snarl. Instinctively, I ducked away from the great white wolf, slamming my eyes shut and cowering away from the impact of the canine sinking his teeth into me.

But then, nothing.

There was no force of impact when the wolf's heavy body collided with mine. There was no shooting pain of teeth meeting skin. There was no… nothing.

I had to force myself to open my eyes to make sense of what was happening. Part of me thought maybe this was dying. Perhaps in a moment of fatal damage to one’s body, your mind shut down early enough to prevent your final moments from being only miraculous pain. But as I opened my eyes, I found I was still exactly where I’d been when I closed them in the first place, only exceptionally worse off.

The rest of the wolf pack had caught up, along with the arctic foxes, all of them trying to launch themselves into me but being blocked by unseen force.

“Elves! Forward!” Santa cried, pointing directly at me with his arm extended forward.

I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, but as I looked around me, the animals looked and acted as if they were all on the other side of a glass wall. They began to circle around me, growing more and more agitated as the moments drove on.

Then, following the commands of their leader, the polar bears began to charge down the slight incline toward me, moving to either side to dodge Santa’s sleigh. The elves atop held on by the strength of their legs as their arms pulled back another round of arrows. If they closed the gap between us, the wind certainly wouldn’t be keeping me safe. They would aim true, and I would die a pin-cushion full of elvish arrows.

I wanted to run forward and use this insane opportunity of still, somehow, being alive to reach Krampus, who was now red-faced with suffocation and too exhausted to thrash any further. But the wolves still circled me, and the foxes still tried to jump on me. If there was some sort of South Pole protection magic happening around me, I was afraid surging forward would put me at risk. I would simply be throwing myself to the wolves. Literally.

The bears and their riders continued to rush toward me, their paws like thunder over the land, when another battle cry erupted from behind me.

“Chaaaarge!”

I knew that voice. I jerked myself around, pulling my gaze away from the suffering Krampus to see Starlight rocking forward with Tuff seated firmly on her back, hooting and hollering. On either side of her were all the toy soldiers I’d seen descending the stairs upon my initial escape, as well as the most hodge-podge assortment of half-destroyed toys. They moved slowly but with more heart than I ever expected from a group of toys who had spent their lives taking care of the most tender of their children’s needs.

Companionship. Love. Warmth. Loyalty.

Those same values inspired them to face the North Pole threat along with me, knowing how useless it likely was, and knowing it was beyond a losing battle. The tears that were already steadily flowing down my face evolved from tears of sadness and defeat to tears of inspiration and brotherhood. Pulling up the rear of the tiny cavalry was Mister Bear himself, rolling through the front door in a fire-engine red Radio Flyer wagon, barely able to hang on to the handle with one paw as he pointed a foam toy sword forward with the other.

And behind him came all the elf soldiers who had sacked the castle. Santa reached behind him and brought a brass trumpet to his front, blowing into it with an excited fury. It was absolutely sickening how satisfied he looked with himself. If this was his vision for peace and goodwill toward men, the holiday season could certainly do a hell of a lot better. He didn’t even have to leave the comfort of leaning against his sleigh, and he had the support of the entire North Pole in eliminating the problem in the South Pole.

As much as I hated to admit it, Krampus’s toy militia was more of an annoyance than it was an actual threat. They purposefully tangled themselves in elf feet and put themselves in the way. Larger toys threw smaller ones into the fray like snowballs, and toy soldiers shot their tiny toy shotguns, releasing the equivalent of BB gun ammunition into the elves’ ankles.

As the toys, the bear riders, and the foot soldiers all met in the middle in a chaotic tumble, the wolves and foxes stopped circling me so tightly, and I dove to the side, barely dodging the charging body of a polar bear.

And things kept getting stranger.

I was entirely prepared to have my head caved in by a lance or my body pierced by an arrow or a mouth full of teeth, but it never came. Either it was my lucky day, or something else was going on. Every few moments, an elf would go to snatch me, or a wolf bite me, or a weapon pierce me, but it was like they were all met by the same invisible barrier, bouncing off of it entirely in some cases.

I was invincible and had absolutely no time to try to decipher how or why. The adrenaline that surged through me doubled, then tripled. Through the chaos and the crowd, I could see Krampus in the snow. He had rolled onto his side, facing away from me. Getting to him was the only thing on my mind, despite having no idea what I would do when I got there.

But it was a battle. I was the football, and Santa’s army were the players on the field. Even though they couldn’t touch me, they could still get in my way, and I had to bob and weave and jump and climb through the horde, doing everything in my power to keep moving straight. It felt like I was being smothered as a wave of claustrophobia took over. There were so many bodies slamming together, I could barely tell asses from elbows, but finally, I fell forward onto clean, flat snow, finally breaking through the tangled mass of bodies, all trying to bring me down.

I scrambled to my feet and realized with a horrified jolt that I had made much more forward progress than I’d anticipated. Just a couple of feet in front of me was the man himself. Santa Claus. He was staring down at me with beady eyes and a dumbfounded expression.

“There she is!” an aggressive voice behind me shouted. I jerked my head behind me to see a few members of the North Pole military charging toward me.

“Halt!” Santa bellowed, and I watched as the charge immediately halted. A solitary tin soldier fell to the ground from where he’d been clinging to the sleeve of an elf. “There is something unusual about this one.”

Slowly, I turned around to face Santa Claus once more, my knees buckling under me. At that moment, I realized just how large he was. Height must have run in the family. Father Christmas towered over me by several feet as he closed the gap between us. His dyed burnt-red leathers were lined with white fur. A sword hung from his hip, and thick black boots were laced almost to his knee. He was a force, a powerful presence that felt as merciless as the wind and as cold as the Poles themselves. I was horrified, but as I saw Krampus’s defeated body slumped in the snow, his muscles twitching with discomfort in my peripheral vision, I knew I had to hold strong, use my words, and stand tall.

“Please release him,” I begged as I corrected my posture. “I’m here. You can take me. Kill me. Whatever you’d like. But you must let him go.”

“Oh, I’ll let him go.” Santa chuckled darkly. “When it’s time for him to take care of next year’s name. Perhaps a year of pain and suffering will remind my brother of his responsibilities.”

Then, as if it were the most casual thing in the world, Santa pulled his sword from its sheath and juggled it casually in one hand.