Kendo Katamuro appeared to float over mud and all else as he cut through the black clan, turning grey puddles a shade bloody. Wild yet still in control, Kat decapitated one young man, and then cut a horse at the shins to throw the rider onto his neck. No enemy caught him with a graze, my north star was all consuming, a force even more destructive than the cyclone.
Wisely then, most of the opposition avoided Kat to settle their swords on more feasible opponents; but not the black samurai, not him. He stopped his own murderous rampage to spy Kat through the falling bodies and drizzle. Kat sensed the burn of his enemy's eye, and faced him down with the blood of other men soaking his beard through. These killers had a past, a great rivalry that intensified with every passing year. Both clans pondered a possible fight and argued repeatedly over the victor, but they could only speculate, for the interests of these two men never came into direct conflict, their paths never once crossed — until now.
Kat armed the smaller wakizashi in his free hand, and the black samurai duplicated the action. Then the two warriors, leaders of men defending their Lords, charged through the fury of fighters to smash their blades together. Four swords blurred in a spray of energy and water. Steel appeared to glow after each impact and in their hearts; both knew they had met their match this day.
The pace stunned samurai onlookers, who called a temporary truce to watch the duel. For all their awe-inspiring skill however, these Gods of the sword were still human, and the end, one of them weakened first.
Kat spewed out hot blood as his opponent's wakizashi pierced through his stomach. The shocked audience gasped, but an exhale later, the black samurai took Kat's katana deep into the ribcage. Blood streamed down their mouths and noses, and Kat howled in agony as his opponent turned the steel around in his guts.
Refusing to go alone into darkness, a grimacing Kat stabbed his short sword several times into his foe's neck, lavishing his own face in spurting blood. Together, these two dinosaurs then clunked to their knees, and light fading from the eyes, they slunk their foreheads to touch, then toppled to a splash…
***
All tightly sprung, we drifted through a red shroud, catching sight of what appeared to be an upturned whale floating dead over the water. The ferryman kept his distance from the object, which with closer observation revealed, not a whale, but a U-boat with still propellers, beached and rotting here on the shallow tar. Submariners waited at the prominent periscope, frantically waving their caps and coats at us.
"I cannot hear what they're saying?" said Eddinray.
"I don't want to know,” replied Harmony, as our ferry sailed on.
***
Floating trouble free for at least an hour, an abrupt thud made all but our navigator stumble forward. The raft bobbled against greasy boulders and beyond that was a horizon of flat, blindingly orange sand.
"This is not the stop," said Kat, with a bad taste in his mouth. He snatched the ferryman's cloak and yanked the bony man at him. "You have led us astray! This is not the way!"
"You wanted to cross the lake,” the skeleton replied. "Hell changes with the seasonsss. No sssoul can map thisss land — not even the Kat'sss."
Our samurai glared daggers into that face, but seeing only ambiguous bone, Kat relinquished the ferryman's robe then moved cautiously off the raft. We followed, and once free of us, the ferryman pushed his oar off boulders and hissed on his way backwards. "The Kat,” he said, vanishing little by little into a scarlet dream. "I eagerly await newsss of your downfall. I await…good newsss."
Kat flipped him the middle finger as the morbid ferryman disappeared, off to spread the word.
"Can't see a thing,” I said, feeling my feet on daunting new ground. "Kat? You think we're okay?"
Already crouched to one knee, the samurai collected a handful of sand. I expected to be waiting at this makeshift shore for some time, but was pleasantly surprised by Kat's decisiveness. "Follow me,” he said, discarding the handful and taking charge over a desolate and Martian terrain.
***
The desert was flat, dry and tough, and the many cracks over it soon ground our progress. They first appeared like scars on the landscape, but all were gaping trenches, some spanning thousands of feet wide, others a foot apart. Our path over this shattered quagmire was sporadic and speculative, and with a pulverising set of seven suns above us, there was no shade to recover.
Kat's preferred course between the cavities was a path of earth so threadbare that we had no choice but to keep in single file throughout. Obscurity waited at each side of us, blanketed by a sinister churning of red clouds and orange sand. Occasional geysers blew skyward from these depths, and we four were minuscule in their supernatural scale.
Disturbingly, our route of rock became thinner and thinner until there was simply nowhere left to go. We faced a crevasse, with nothing but sandy air and fall before us. "We cannot venture back!" exclaimed Harmony, resting hands on her knees.
Kat ordered us quiet while he surveyed the smoking plunge at his toes. "No going back,” he uttered.
Then, without word or warning, he leapt a five footed trench toward another route left of us — the only option left. "Come!" he exclaimed, landing safely on the other side and making it look so typically straightforward.
Eddinray wasn't convinced. He stared with a sickly expression at the smouldering gap between himself and Kat. "I'll drop through that hole like a boulder, a boulder I say!” Perhaps," he proposed, "perhaps we should go back?"
"Back to what?" I yelled, hot and frustrated. "This is it Eddinray! This is all we got!"
Kat yelled at us again, and delaying no further, I collected my feet over the ledge, bent my knees and dived toward the samurai. Landing safely on the other side, my heels had nothing to spare behind me.
"You won't fall!" I cried, turning to hold my arms out for Eddinray. "We won't let you!"
"Lady's first, Harmony,” offered the knight, attempting to shake the butterflies from his system.
Made of tougher stuff, Harmony moved into position, and the blue steel in her eyes told me she was ready for the leap; but as she bent her legs, an explosion of gas erupting from the gap smashed her backward. Cradling one another, Harmony and Eddinray squawked for dear life as that gas went on to shroud all the suns in the sky.
I felt Kat's hardy grip on my shoulder, and he arose my attention to the rock at our feet, breaking away like wet biscuits. We backed off two steps and when the eruption and dust eventually discharged, we saw our petrified friends smeared in a wash of red clay.
I sighed, relieved upon hearing Harmony's gentle sobbing.
"This time angel," said Eddinray, standing; "I shall go first."
"Together knight,” she insisted.
"Impossible dear! My mail is simply too heavy — together we fall!"
"Then we fall!"
Her tears smudged the muck under her eyes as they took their position at the crag, and faced us opposite.
"Now!" Kat moaned, fearing another surge of gas or the surface to give way.
Thankfully, they waited no longer, and simultaneously hopped for our outstretched hands and rigid fingers. We snatched them in a lock of grips but their combined weights threatened to pull us all to our dooms. "Back Fox!" snarled Kat. "Baaack!"
Grimacing, Kat and I leaned fully backward, heaving Harmony and Eddinray with us and away from danger
***
The cavity-covered landscape had long filled in. The seven differential suns sucked all the moisture from our bodies and roasted our skin. "Mother always said pale boys look ill,” mumbled Eddinray, delirious. "I'm not ill, mother. I won't drink my tears, please do not make me!"
Severely sunstroke, I steadied his arm over my shoulder. "Almost there Eddinray! Almost there…Somewhere!"
Kat's lips resembled two stretched over raisins and his face was peeling like a paper mask. When the end of this desert finally arrived, it was one soul defeating sight too many — a cliff edge and an immense drop of a thousand
feet. I collapsed with a pitiful groan. Eddinray withered like a weed to his backside whilst Harmony slunk over his legs. Kat remained standing of course, his cemented features eyeing what lay ahead, and what lay below. To the right of our depression was a steep stairway down to another hellish test, a glowing maze of yellow light, a labyrinth seemingly covering all corners of this realm with countless straights and corners; knot after complicated knot forming no distinct pattern. Judging by Kat's blank expression, not even he knew what waited in that network of limitless passages.
I broke the silence, but my encouraging words could not disguise the heartless tone underneath them.
"We carry on. One step at a time,” And raising my hand, I pointed far, far away. "Look there, that must be the centre,” The labyrinth's centre was an intense light of stars beaming an awe-inspiring spotlight up to the sky. It was divine radiation, the sort one would expect to find in Heaven, not Hell.
What was the purpose of this light? Was it transportation to some water abundant realm? Perhaps a free ticket to the gates of the 9th Fortress? I thought only of the good, as the rest of the labyrinth would almost certainly accommodate the bad.
"It's a dare,” said Kat, bitterly. "The prize of this puzzle."
"Well the prize stays put,” I said, wearily glancing at Harmony and Eddinray.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine,” they answered, simultaneously dull.
"Where's the water, Missy?" I thought aloud. "Where?"
I listened for her reply in my head, tried to remove myself from this life sucking place; but for all my concentration I came up short, my life-support was gone.
"There must be something Kat?" I yelled. "What have we missed? We'll be lost years in that labyrinth!"
Busying himself with meditation, any tranquillity Kat found was disrupted by a new and unfamiliar voice.
"Assist you?" he asked us.
Rapidly, we turned to meet a blurry vision, the ghostly mirage of a man no more than forty years old with a handsome face, blonde hair curling to his shoulders and a turquoise gown draping over his slender body.
"Assist you?" he repeated, his smile kind and voice soft.
"Does everyone else see this?" I stuttered, gobsmacked. Thankfully all their heads nodded, and a careful Harmony was first to approached the glowing stranger. "Who are you?” she asked, her voice painfully dry. What… do you want here?"
"I am the poet,” he replied, an Italian flavour to his accent. "I assist souls in the under-realm. Virgil, here on behalf of an individual most anxious to see you arrive safely, and promptly at your destination."
"Individual?" I said, bewildered. "Who? And what do you know of our destination?"
"Your destination is the 9thFortress," he answered, "and the individual I represent prefers to remain anonymous. It is his wish."
"His?" pressed Kat, drawing the dusty katana from his belt. "Talk!"
Unconcerned, Virgil parted his arms to reveal two defenceless palms. "I am here to help you samurai Kat. Take it or leave it." He then drifted like the ghost he was through Eddinray, giving the knight a ticklish chill.
"How can you help?" I inquired. "What are you offering?"
"I offer water and advice to reach the 9th Fortress. That is all. For now."
Reluctant to accept, Harmony interrogated. "This is Hell, Virgil, is it not? What ploy is this? The assistance you offer sorely comes free here. What price for your water and advice?"
"The price," he returned, with a grin, "is your trust."
Having given that away cheaply before, I darted a vigilant eye to Kat. "You ever experienced this?"
He shook his cruel face, and his inexperience did nothing for my nerves.
"I am an honorable man,” said the vaporous Virgil, now presenting a heavy barrel of clear water with a single wave of his arm. Too weary to be impressed, the barrel was the length and width of a man, and our lips ached for the sweet, wetness of it.
"Fill,” he added, presenting four flasks underneath the barrel. "Fill till you can carry no more in your bellies or flasks."
"Poisoned?" pried a suspicious Eddinray. “You dare poison a knight of the realm!”
"It is untarnished," Virgil replied, "a token of gratitude to Harmony Valour."
"Me?" she asked, surprised. "A token from whom? I do not understand."
"The man responsible for this gift expressed great concern for your welfare. He would not see you perish under these suns."
Harmony scratched at her elbow and appeared nonplussed, but her eyes portrayed a different story: a secret.
"Who could it be?" I asked her. "Any ideas?"
She shrugged. Then all of a sudden, her cautious attitude toward the ghost took a swift change of course.
"If this man," she said, "whoever he is is so concerned about me, then I shan't disappoint him!"
She sampled the barrel's water, then raised a satisfied face and dripping wet lips a moment later. "It's good. So good."
Kat remained steadfast in his thirst while we went to clench ours. "Fools!" he barked. "Fools!"
"It is a fool who willingly dies of thirst!" argued Harmony, soaking her ropey hair. "It is perfectly safe."
"The ferryman set you at an inhospitable port,” said Virgil, moving to Kat.
"You must have upset the skeleton a great deal."
"That maggot!" Kat exclaimed, bitterly punching thin air.
Boldly, I devoured the water at the barrel, moistening every parched part. Virgil gestured the obstinate Kat toward it, and reluctantly the warrior approached, sipping a cupful from his palm. Not as much as he wanted, certainly not as much as he needed. "This…individual you represent?" I asked Virgil, better for the drink. "Can you tell us how he's connected to Harmony?"
Virgil moved like the breeze to show me a clear view of his fine face. Harmony listened, her body looking stiff at the barrel.
"I only have my instructions,” he said. "Below is the labyrinth. Many have gone mad in its maze or perished pursuing its treasure…Pray stay left of that labyrinth — left at all times will ensure your escape."
"And after?" I asked him, the others also intrigued. "What then for us?"
"At the labyrinth's end you will come across five doors. The second will lead you the quickest and safest route to the 9thFortress…That is my message. Farewell."
And he was gone in a shower of sprites, leaving us to share puzzled expressions. A disturbing gargle then interrupted the interweaving thoughts. "Pull him out!" cried Harmony, noticing Eddinray's head bubbling deep in the barrel. Kat heaved back the knight's shoulders and the Englishman's drip happy face emerged, his armor filling up.
"Lovely!” he rejoiced. “Anyone fancy joining me in a bath?"
Harmony gave a disapproving flick of her hair, and then set to filling the four flasks left by Virgil. I meanwhile moved Kat aside for a surreptitious word in his ear.
"Harmony…" I whispered; "she's not telling us everything."
"Do you tell her everything Fox?"
"No, but I've got a feeling. Someone down here has an eye on her, and I think she knows who…"
"What to do men?" she interrupted us, passing me an overflowing flask.
I mustered a smirk back, as Kat went to wash his face. "Stop here tonight," he said. "Tomorrow…we enter the labyrinth."
23. Kindred Spirits
The evening sky was ablaze — clouds on fire — and all of us rested near or next to each other to take it all in. Eddinray slouched with Harmony beside him. Kat looked suitably itchy against the barrel whilst I paced, pressing the bloodied cloth against my eye-socket and going over that monumental brainteaser below.
"Are you well, Daniel?" Harmony asked. "The eye?"
"It hurts,” I said, sorely. “That fucking wizard.”
"It is in the past,” Kat groaned. "The future promises worse."
I cursed him under my breath, sat myself on the cliff edge and dangled my feet to those yellow labyrinth lines a thousand feet south of me. Wonder
ing what made it glow so hypnotically, Eddinray startled me by appearing at my right side, and then Harmony to my left.
"Do not feel grim,” she said, putting her arm around me. "If you hadn't come to that stockade then I'd still be caged today. I thank you for that, Daniel."
"Exactly!" beamed Eddinray. "And I insist that you cheer up, for I already have one grumpy guts in my gang,” He glanced back to our surly sentinel against the barrel.
"Your gang?" Harmony chuckled. "What hogwash you speak, Englishman!"
Their warmth inspired a grin from me, then a smile at their resulting squabble.
"Kat is leader in name only,” Eddinray argued. "His title is superficial and totally inappropriate considering the credentials of others here."
"You mean you?" she said, before planting a soft, and unwarranted kiss on my cheek.
"Where's my kiss?" the knight unashamedly asked. "Are my continued heroics not enough to deserve one?”
"It is not a question of deserve Godwin, but of formality. I would not dare kiss the leader! What would his subjects think? Not to mention the nobility who frown at favourites!"
"Fine!" he huffed back. "Danny boy, will give me a kiss, won't you Danny?"
"No!" I answered, through a snicker.
"Kiss the Kat," added Harmony; "it may cheer him up!"
Again, Eddinray peered back to the samurai warrior, only to meet a pair of black eyes wishing him a slow and excruciating death. With that then, and in much better spirits, we rested ourselves for the labyrinth
***
Kat's forehead slunk until chin touched his chest, and as his heavy eyelids closed to sleep, a spattering of water roused him. Irritable, he peered up at the barrel, and there saw a thirsty man taking his fill. When that new arrival removed his sopping face from the water, he experienced the sharp tip of a katana pressing against his swallowing Adam's apple.
Dark skinned and ripened by age and sun, the man's exposed torso was chiselled and decorated with elaborate tattoos. A red bandanna held a mop of straw hair at bay, and his dusty pants blew tassels down each leg. This barefooted Indian was armed with a useful looking longbow, and the quiver over his shoulder contained a dozen or more arrows. "Savage!" spat Kat. "Back away! Or I make a ghost of you!"
The 9th Fortress Page 22