The village was quiet, dead quiet. On the far end of the town, Magruder heard a deep thrumming, the sound of a thousand machines purring away. He shivered. He'd heard too many stories about what happened in those workshops.
The squad crept forward, inching through the tiny cobbled streets. This far north, there was no fear of bombing raids. The town was lit up, gas lamps flickering and a million tiny bulbs shining in every color of the rainbow. It was beautiful on the surface, but the men knew what evil made all this pageantry possible. It was all Magruder could do not to start smashing in the brilliant globes that hung from every tree and porch, kicking over the candy canes that lined the street. From the faces of his men, he knew he wasn't alone.
A musical tinkling echoed through the streets of the empty village, and the clomping of wooden treads. The men ducked behind an ice sculpture of some frolicking reindeer. Magruder poked his head around. An armored truck patrolling the street, its gaily-painted turret swivelling back and forth. A capped head popped out of the top, kaleidoscope binoculars scanning the street. Magruder ducked behind the sculpture, his heart pounding. Maybe he didn't see me, he thought.
He was wrong. A basso "POP" rolled over the street, and the reindeer shattered into a million pieces. Boiling hot taffy slopped over the glittering wreck, searing the back of Magruder's neck. He shouted, rolling over and over in the snow to cool it down. His men scattered for better cover, firing as they ran. Dull thuds, as the slugs hit the thick oak of the truck. The elves were yowling again, that high-pitched scream crawling through Magruder's brain as the truck roared at them. He pulled a grenade off his belt and tossed it.
The explosion crumpled the truck's left tread into a hail of splinters, and the truck went wild, careening into a hut. Snow and icing poured down over the wreckage. Three elves clambered out, their slingshots already out. A lead ball smashed through a window, and a sugary fragment pierced Magruder's shoulder. He growled and brought up his M-1. A few shots. It was over. Magruder scrambled to his feet, running with the carbine still smoking at his hip. His men followed him.
One of the elves was still alive, coughing blood and clutching his chest. Magruder jammed the carbine in his face.
"Where's the rest of you?" he hissed. "What's going on?"
The elf laughed, the tinkling bubbling behind the blood in his mouth. "You're too late," he whispered. "Everyone's at the workshop, celebrating. The packages are finished." He coughed, wincing at the pain. "Now it's just a matter of delivery."
Magruder cocked his M-1. "The hell we're too late. How many of you? What are you planning?"
The elf grinned, the red blood in his mouth a gruesome contrast to his green tunic. "You'll find out soon enough. You've been very naughty." He hummed a little tune. "Merry-"
Magruder fired the carbine, spattering the street with the elf's head. "Season's greetings, you b*****d," he muttered.
Prufrock, one of the forum regulars on the the Paradox wargames forum, wrote this work of art:
Sergeant Abraham "Tex" Magruder crept down the trench, clutching his M-1 carbine. It was cold up here, cold enough that he could feel the cold creeping into his boots despite the three pairs of socks he was wearing. His platoon was bone-weary, worn down by the cold, the howling wind, the unrelenting darkness this time of year. Soon enough, this would be over- one way or the other.
Ahead, Marzetti whipped up his hand and gestured. The platoon dropped. Corporal Schwartzbaum crept ahead and then back.
"Three ahead," he whispered. "In that pillbox."
Magruder pulled a periscope out of his pack, rubbing frost off the lens. He peered over the icy landscape. Behind a silvery web of razor wire, a gingerbread pillbox jutted out of the Arctic waste. A wooden barrel swiveled back and forth, and Magruder could hear it now, a tinkling laugh that sent chills down his spine. He gritted his teeth.
He gestured to his men and crept forward. Schwartzbaum and Marzetti snuck off to the left. Perez and Reilly followed Magruder to the right.
Magruder waited a minute, his hands suddenly sweating on the grip of his carbine. Deep breath, Abe, he told himself. Cakewalk, just like Tunis or Anzio or any of the dozen other places you walked out of alive. Cakewalk.
He popped over the lip of the trench and fired two quick shots into the pillbox. One shot ricocheted, flashing as the bullet bounced off a red sprinkle. The other left a neat hole in the gingerbread, and the tinkling laughter turned to shrill inhuman yowling. The wooden barrel swung around, and crystal balls screamed in a silver arc overhead, shattering into glassy shrapnel behind him. Magruder waited. On the left, Schwartzbaum and Marzetti popped up with the bazooka. A quick arc, a muffled explosion. It was over. Magruder popped his head up.
The pillbox was a smoldering mess, charred and black. He wrinkled his nose as the brown sugar melted into glass in the snow, as he smelled the burning flesh. He whistled and the men scrambled forward. Reilly crept towards the pillbox. He turned and snorted in disgust.
"No orders, no maps. This little intel raid is a bust, Sarge."
Magruder rubbed his stubble and thought hard. He hadn't come this far just to turn around. He gripped his carbine and pointed.
"Bust, hell. We're going this way."
"What way?"
Magruder pointed at a single star high in the sky. "Same way we been going. Same way this whole war's always gone. Follow that star. We're going north, boys."